To her credit, Skagway Borough Assemblyperson Alexandra Weddell is standing her ground when it comes to the borough’s preservation of public comments during public meetings.
Weddell, who has openly campaigned for the inclusion of community members’ comments into the preserved minutes of Assembly meetings, cast the lone vote against approving the Assembly’s minutes from two prior meetings on April 16. By failing to add the public comments to the “preserved historical record,” she said the borough was robbing the community of a vital piece of its history.
“I would like to express my dissatisfaction with the table’s decison to remove commenary from the minutes, transitioning from action minutes to summary minutes,” said Weddell as the Assembly was asked to approve the minutes from the January 22 and April 2 meetings. “I think we are doing ourselves a disservice in not preserving the historical record for future generations.”
Weddell, in previous meetings, has asked the Assembly to instruct the borough clerk’s office to include the names and comments of community members who appeared at meetings to be included in the minutes. By doing that, she said, valuable information could be retained for future generations, just as the comments and actions of old meetings are available to residents now.
The Assembly wrestled with the exact meeing of “historical record” at its April 2 meeting. Should it be a written copy of the complete minutes and transcripts of meetings or does an audio recording suffice?
For her part, Weddell said a printed version of the Assembly minutes, complete with the transcript of all citizens speaking at the meeting was needed. Future generations, she mused, may not have access to current technology in 100 years, but a printed copy would be a permanent form that could be readily accessible.
Weddell said she wanted the clerk’s office to include a printed copy of the public transcript with the minutes from previous meetings so that they could be approved.
The Assembly had approved including a copy at the previous meeting, with the stipulation that it not create a burden on the clerk’s existing workload. Skagway Borough Clerk Steve Burnham complied, posting a copy of the meeting’s transcript on the borough’s website. The transcipt was not, however, included in the Assembly’s packet for approval because, Burnham noted, Artificial Intelligence programs were used to generate the 41-page transcript of the March 19 meeting. Submitting AI-generated minutes could be problematic, he added.
By not uncluding the public comments in the official borough packet, Weddell said it was not being recorded as part of the official record.
“We can go back as far as we can,” she said to Assembly members on April 2. “I mean they have minute journals – for some reason, the 1920s are gone – but back to like the 1800s. Books of minutes where you can go read them, and that’s a preserved historical record that has code and regulation surrounding it. It has an infrastructure of how the preservation occurs. So what we do each week when we approve the minutes is we approve what that historical record will be.”
“So, if you’re a hundred years from now, and you wanna go back in time, you’re probably not gonna have audio podcasts on Spotify, because that might not even be a thing anymore. But what you will have is an approved, preserved version of what occurred at each meeting called the minutes. And that’s what we’re approving. So what I am asking is that the transcript be included as part of that historical record so that people in the future, when they go back in time, can see what was discussed in detail.”
In that meeting, Assembly members debated what the “preserved historical record” was, noting audio and video recordings could be deemed accurate and historical, and that they could be included via a link to the borough website.
While acknowledging the other methods were available, Weddell maintained a printed version, complete with public commentary, was important.
“We have a very clearly defined historical record that has rules and guidelines about the preservation of it. None of those rules and guidelines exist for things that are on the website, like transcripts and podcasts with ‘ums’ and things like that. So those things, while they are available to us now, they are not preserved historical record, which is what minutes are.”
Despite her refusal to vote for the approval of the minutes, Weddell praised her fellow Assembly members for the willingness to listen.
“I would like to thank my fellow assembly members for the robust debate that we’re able to hold at this table,” she said. “I think while we all have strong opinions, we’re all representing our community as we see best, and that’s important. And while topics can get heated, I appreciate that everyone can remember to still smile and be friendly with one another as best we can at the end of every meeting.”
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