A North Slope Borough (NSB) document obtained by Landmine shows that NSB Mayor Josiah Patkotak and his family have made multiple trips to the Lower 48, Peru, around the state, and the NSB since he took office in October 2023.
The trips include:
- A five day trip to Seattle in October 2023 with his wife for a bond sale.
- A nine day trip to Anchorage in December 2023 with his wife and three kids for the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC).
- A four day trip to Fairbanks in July 2024 with his wife and three kids for the AEWC.
- A ten day trip to Lima, Peru in September 2024 with his wife and one kid for the International Whaling Commission.
- A six day trip to New York in October 2024 with his wife and one kid for a bond sale.
- Multiple trips around the North Slope Borough with his wife and children.
The Landmine has submitted a records request to the NSB asking for all of the costs associated with this travel including airfare, lodging, meals, and per diem.
The document says that Patkotak has spent 31% of his time as mayor traveling. That does not include the time he is away for whaling.
On Tuesday, the North Slope Borough Assembly passed a change to their code that allows the spouse and legal dependents of the mayor, and the spouses of Assembly members, to travel on the Borough dime for official business. The vote was 8-3.
Wow. The North Slope Borough Assembly passed a change to their law yesterday that allows the spouse and legal dependents of the mayor to travel at the expense of the borough, as well as the spouses of Assembly members.
For some context, Mayor Josiah Patkotak makes almost… pic.twitter.com/V2RFl7Zuop
— The Alaska Landmine (@alaskalandmine) December 4, 2024
But the document shows that NSB has been already been paying for the travel for Patkotak’s family since he took office more than a year ago.
Patkotak’s father, Crawford Patkotak, is the chair of the NSB Assembly. He introduced the ordinance that changed the code to allow the NSB to pay for the travel of family members.
The meeting included multiple residents who testified against the change. Some expressed anger and frustration that the NSB would pay for the travel of the mayor’s family.
In response, Patkotak said, “I don’t believe that I am abusing the system,” and added, “At least in my eyes, when you elect a mayor you are electing the family unit that he or she represents. That’s my opinion.”
Patkotak earns a salary $281,000 – a 3% increase from the previous year’s salary of $273,000.
How does this compare to policies of other cities? It may be consistent with other locations.
Looks like the City of Mound (MN) has fairly typical language that was easily google-able. I would be curious for a more thorough review by a journalist, but this is what I found: “9. The City will not reimburse for alcoholic beverages, personal telephone calls, costs associated with the attendance of a family member, rental of luxury vehicles, meal expenses included in the cost of registration, or recreational expenses such as golf or tennis.” (emphasis added) https://www.cityofmound.com/city-code-and-official-policies/files/fin-007staffoutofstatetravelpolicy City of Anchorage seems to limit travel to only essential persons, so if the Mayor’s family lacked an official role representing the people… Read more »
Except traveling with immediate family is part of our culture.
The “our culture” you are referencing (you’re mostly white but deny it) meant everyone walking, with a crushingly heavy pack or all family members paddling a boat for hours or days non-stop. You can have the “old” ways and the old definitions or you can have the new ways with their new definitions but you can’t have both
uh, what? Where is it codified that an indigenous person cannot take advantage of modern conveniences while still working to keep their culture and associated activities alive? What a garbage, racist take.
Not explosive. It’s astonishing how this publication continues to struggle with the simple reality that Alaska Native people can, and do, hold executive roles that require them to travel and be compensated accordingly. Clearly, the outdated, narrow-minded belief that Natives should remain confined to a life of poverty is still too deeply ingrained here. The cognitive dissonance must be overwhelming for those who cling to the misguided notion that Natives should only be seen in the context of hardship and deprivation. Worse, this publication’s bias against Natives is glaringly obvious. Its tendency to sensationalize trivial non-stories and churn out irrelevant… Read more »
So all the Native people at the Assembly meeting who vehemently testified against NSB funding family travel were wrong?
You don’t speak for them. Enough with your obsessive fixation on Native politics and gossip. It’s a tired, predictable narrative here in Alaska—desperate, wannabe journalists eager to seize any opportunity to tear down Natives with sensationalist stories. It’s the same old, recycled rhetoric, and it’s beyond time to stop. You are a smart enough guy to use your brains for a better cause.
Not necessarily wrong, just necessarily racist against Indigenous people, obviously.
You bigot 😛
I’m here in ANC can we have coffee
/ tea ..
Lmao. A work of art, good job.
Don’t let em tear you down Jeff. From the South East , Bethel, Nome, etc you have a class in this group who will do anything to hold power and keep the rest of us out on all levels of Government while orgs like the State, DOI, BIA, FEDS do nothing under the guise of SOVEREIGNTY keeping the majority poor, fighting for scraps, no matter the crime. Call it out and you will be ostracized by your own while still surrounded. Keep exposing this because like everywhere else it’s getting old and tiring. The only thing I would have excluded… Read more »
If his last name was Brower it would not have been a big deal.
The North Slope Borough budget shows a projected revenue of about $460,000,000 the Municipality of Anchorage budget shows a projected revenue of about $560,000,000. One has a population of around 11,000 the other around 290,000.
Pretty incredible story and eye opening ! Its sad that many Native folks only dream of vacations as their PFD’s get robbed from them. I am floored that his pay is nearly $300,000 a year…Incredible. So why cant he afford to pay for his family travel out of pocket ? Just curious……
Looks like Landfield just landed an un-invite to next year’s whaling festival.
Gotta kill those Whales.
As I remember, back in the 1970s, the Lower Yukon/Kuskokwim School District had “meetings” in Hawaii and Las Vegas. Those attending the one in Vegas were even given gambling money. Nothing changes, although some become more creative.
If one were to read the publicly available documentation which includes both old and new text, one might find that the old legislation states, “The Mayor and members of the Assembly may travel on Borough business with their immediate family members.” while the new text limits this to only spouse and legal dependents. Thus, the new text is *more* restrictive.
“The Mayor and members of the Assembly may travel on Borough business with their immediate family members. The transportation cost and per diem for the Mayor and Assembly members shall be paid by the Borough. When there is no scheduled service and transportation is provided by Charter, the immediate family members may travel in spare seats at the Borough’s costs.” This would appear to state that only the Mayor or Assembly members’ travel expenses would be paid by the borough, unless there would otherwise be excess capacity (like a spouse sharing a hotel room, or otherwise empty seat on a… Read more »
If the assembly voted to fix the problem that was obviously overlooked then why even talk about this? Wow.
It wasn’t overlooked by the members of the community who testified (mostly) against it… “My daddy is trying to retroactively fix my blantant misuse of public funds on personal purposes, why is ANYONE talking about it?!? Don’t they know that they are being mean? So rude! boo hoo hoo…” You sound like a Trump voter talking about his blatant attempts at election interference, or a Biden voter talking about the Hunter pardon/gaslighting the country over Biden’s mental acuity. Corruption is corruption, have yet to be introduced to the group who is immune from it. That is why daylight (/reporting on… Read more »
Well I did some objective review as I did not have an idea how this really matched up to the average city travel policy. I did use Chat GPT, AI source, to assist so I assume the information is not biased. Looks like most cities do not allow for accompanied travel unless it is necessary or the family members play a role in the event. etc. However the policies are local and if the NSB votes to allow for it then it is a non issue. If the assembly and the voters feel this is an important part of the… Read more »