The Chair of the Anchorage Assembly has appointed a new Municipal Clerk. Barbara Jones who is currently the municipal Ombudsman will fill the position, beginning July 1.
She has years of experience working within the Municipality and Anchorage Assembly Chair Ernie Hall says that ‘s the reason he appointed Barbara Jones as the new Clerk. Hall made the announcement Wednesday.
“The thing that made Barbara Jones particularly attractive to the Assembly is the fact that she’s been within municipal government for more than 13 years, she knows the players and she knows how municipal government works,” Hall said.
Jones currently works as the Municipal Ombudsman and previously worked for 12 years as the Executive Director and Staff Attorney for the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission. She will replace Barbara Gruenstein who has served as Clerk since 2003. Gruenstein resigned last week after several weeks of scrutiny following the flawed April election. More than half of precincts ran out of ballots and some voters said they were denied the right to vote The Anchorage Assembly has appointed a retired judge to pinpoint what went wrong during the election. His report, due out by June 28, will be used as a guide to improve future elections. Jones will make $105,000 a year.
Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.
Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.
Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.
