The Anchorage Assembly approved a new voting district map for the municipality, as well as a new assembly seat to be added for District 1. That new seat will be filled through a by-mail special election in June.
“The primary changes are that it moves West High School back into the West Anchorage district. It moves East High School back into the East Anchorage district, and it did effectively split one neighborhood which didn’t want to be split, which was Airport Heights,” Constant said on Thursday. “But it didn’t split it on an unusual boundary. It split it on the census tract boundary, which is actually the natural divide of that area.
The new map expands District 1 across the north side of Anchorage. The district was previously about half the size of the city’s other districts. District 3, long referred to as Midtown, was also changed from “Central Anchorage” to “Midtown” in city code. According to the resolution, the 12th assembly seat will be known as Seat L, and the deadline to file for that office is 5 p.m. on May 10. In order to align the new seat with the assembly’s established structure of staggered terms, the first full term for Seat L will begin after the April 2025 regular election.