By SUZANNE DOWNING
March 18, 2026 – On Monday night, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Parks and Recreation Commission did what’s becoming all too common: it playacted at listening to the public, and then ignored them.
By a 7-1 vote, the commission approved a recommendation to rename Pioneer Park back to “Alaskaland” and spend $50,000 in taxpayer money on new signage, websites, and marketing. The justification was the need to be “more inclusive.” That sounds nice, but it didn’t match what actually happened in the room.
Public testimony was overwhelmingly against the rename. Speaker after speaker defended the name Pioneer Park, its history, and what it represents to Fairbanks. Only three people spoke in favor: the two Assembly members sponsoring the ordinance, Liz Reeves and Scott Crass, and one call-in participant.
Everyone else opposed it, many forcefully. And yet the commission pushed it through anyway.
They were not listening. This was all about checking a required box.
The commission leaned heavily on a 2021 Pioneer Park Master Plan written during the Covid era by Anchorage-based consultants at Bettisworth North. That plan labels the name “Pioneer Park” as “controversial” and “alienating,” using the familiar language of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion campaigns.
So a consultant report outweighed live public testimony, the legislative record, and decades of community understanding. Even more telling, earlier reports had recommended keeping the Pioneer Park name. Those reports were ignored.
The ordinance itself gets the history wrong — completely wrong. It claims the park “was originally established as the grounds for the Alaska ’67 Centennial Exposition.” That’s false.
The legislative record is clear. In 1961, the Alaska Legislature passed House Concurrent Resolution 20, authorizing the state to lease the land to the Pioneers of Alaska specifically for a historical park. The language is unmistakable: the land was to be used “for the development and maintenance of this land as a historical park” preserving Alaska’s history. In 1965, the Legislature created “Pioneer Memorial Park, Inc.” and required the site be used as a “pioneer park” for the preservation and display of historical items.
Here’s what you won’t find anywhere in those documents: the word “Alaskaland.” Not once. The park’s foundation was not a theme park concept but rather about honoring Alaska’s pioneers and preserving history.
And the contradictions don’t stop there. While officials talk about “inclusivity” and DEI-driven name changes, the borough has allowed actual Alaska Native cultural features inside Pioneer Park to fall into disrepair. The Native Village exhibit has been neglected, with parts deteriorating and even facing potential removal in past plans. The riverboat Nenana, which holds irreplaceable dioramas of Alaska Native village life, has been repeatedly closed, cutting off access to that history.
If inclusivity were truly the goal, those assets would be maintained and highlighted. Instead, they’ve been sidelined while officials focus on rebranding.
It’s also worth noting that Fairbanks already has a major facility dedicated to Alaska Native culture: the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center, funded by bed tax revenue and widely recognized. No one is questioning inclusivity there.
The commission ignored the clear voice of the public, ignored the legislative history, and ignored the park’s origins, even though those origins were shaped in part by the family of one of the ordinance sponsors. Instead, they deferred to a Covid-era consultant plan rooted in DEI language.
Now the full Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly will take this up with a 7-1 recommendation in hand.
Before they vote, they should do something simple: watch the hearing and read the actual laws from 1961 and 1965. Then ask themselves whether they are representing the public and the historical record, or advancing a narrative that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Pioneer Park earned its name through legislative action and the vision of the Pioneers of Alaska. That history is real. It shouldn’t be rewritten to satisfy a trend.
Suzanne Downing is the founder and editor of The Alaska Story, a longtime Alaskan, and former member (long lapsed) of Pioneers of Alaska.
8 thoughts on “Fairbanks commission ignores testimony, rewrites history”
Fairbanks has become Anchorage, or is it the other way around?
Fairbanks has a direct sewer line from the Lower 48 to the UAF. All of the sludge in the form of LGBTQ, wokeism, progressivism, teacher’s unions and climate activism ends up at the little state campus on the hill. From there, the strange incubation process takes place through radical left-wing professors and left-over turds from the 60’s who end up over-consuming pot and drink. They marry, raise little orphaned tattooed, nose-ringed, idiots. Then, they run for school board, the borough Assembly, and the city council, where they take their brainwashed little minds and attempt to divide the community with hate, contempt, and dissatisfaction. The public tries to throw them out of office but never quite does because the public is too busy working for a living to pay the exorbitant local taxes imposed on them. So, the community gets whammied by radical Marxism which prevails in an otherwise conservative
population. The process repeats itself until the sludge in the sewer line gets so full, they have to build another line. And the cycle repeats itself again. This is Fairbanks.
Complaining is not going to help you guys in Fairbanks. You guys got to work toward controlling the councils with your people on it.
Yep!
How do you control white radical leftists who hate America and everything it stands for? These miserable white people divide the community by employing race-baiting as the preferred tool to create division. Hence, you get councils and assemblies of lunatics leading the charge for land acknowledgements, Native preferences and appeasements, and tearing down established legacy institutions which are replaced with DEI clown shows.
No you are right, the meter has moved past the center line on the left side and Fairbanks Democrats are not wasting any time in cementing control has Anchorage is under Democrats control.
If Wasilla-Palmer-Kensi-Soldotna-Sterling areas were smarter they’d see they got five years to reprioritize, focus; unite, before they are fighting 50/50 that Fairbanks R’s and D’s fought neck n neck in 2020. Yes it five years ago they were fifty fifty split.
I said it five years ago Fairbanks Republicans need to control their councils but they were still protesting against the Democrats instead of working where their efforts matter most not who can make the most noise and hope for the best they intimidate the other side by screaming the loudest.
It’s not about the name it’s about control. Fairbanks Democrats are Staking territory markers like a conqueror planting their flag. Democrats change landmarks and street names.
Because Fairbanks Republicans, Christians, Conservatives aren’t united nor know how to work together if they even have work ethics.
Fairbanks Democrats aren’t fighting at 50/50 control against the Right. Thanks to Anchorage runaways and other parts of Alaska and USA. Democrats are controlling at 60/40 percent over the centerline.
Just like Anchorage your Fairbanks Republicans need to control your councils but changes in direction dont happen just because you control the council, change in direction happens when you are committed and diligently hard at something to change the trajectory.
How very Soviet of them