Petitioners working to remove the North Slope Borough mayor from office failed to gather enough signatures to hold a recall vote, according to the borough clerk.
A group of residents have been working to recall Mayor Josiah Aullaqsruaq Patkotak since winter. They said Patkotak acted unethically when he received compensation for his family to travel with him — sometimes flying first class and staying in luxury accommodations — before the borough assembly voted to allow the practice.
The clerk, Sheila Burke, issued a recall petition for Patkotak in March and said authors had until the end of May to gather 371 signatures. Burke said in an email last week that the petitioners had collected 153 verified signatures, fewer than a half of the required number.
Beverly Aqak Hugo, a former Inupiaq teacher, is one of the petition’s authors. She said recall efforts were hampered when the borough was slow to respond to the petition and then issued it with changes.
“We had four main complaints for Josiah, and they still stand, but she watered them down,” Hugo said. “That's when we had a fallout with some of our people.”
The group submitted their first recall petition back in February, but the borough denied it, saying it didn’t meet grounds for recall. The group submitted a revised petition in March. Burke, the clerk, said she made more changes to the second version so it would only include recallable matters.
The final document did not include the group’s assertions that the mayor approved using the borough medevac plane for non-medical errands, approved too many nepotism waivers and misused public funds to open an office in Anchorage.
Hugo said the changes made it harder to gather signatures because some people involved in the recall effort did not feel that the final petition reflected all of their complaints.
The group also filed a court complaint back in March after the borough didn’t respond to their recall application for several weeks. That case is ongoing in the Utqiagvik court.
Patkotak said in a statement Thursday that he invites residents who signed the petition to share constructive criticism with him.
“If there’s a problem, let’s work to find a sustainable solution,” he said.
The group filed a separate recall petition for Assembly President Crawford Patkotak, who is the mayor’s father. Authors said that when Crawford Patkotak voted to allow compensation for officials’ family travel, he did not disclose his personal interest in protecting his son.
The clerk said that the recall petition missed the filing deadline, which was 180 days before Crawford Patkotak’s term ends this fall. Petitioners said they missed that deadline because of the slow response from the borough.
This story has been updated with comment from Josiah Aullaqsruaq Patkotak.
