This story is republished in part courtesy of Jeff Landfield at the Alaska Landmine news website.
In December, the Alaska Landmine published a story that detailed numerous trips that North Slope Borough (NSB) Mayor Josiah Patkotak took to various cities in Alaska, the lower 48, and Peru. He was accompanied by his wife and children on several of those trips.
The article stemmed from an early December meeting of the NSB Assembly. In the meeting, the 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 final vote was 8-3.
The Landmine later learned that the Borough had been paying for the travel of his family since he was elected mayor in 2023.
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 Landmine obtained – through a records request – the receipts and records for all of the travel.
The records show that Patkotak and his family enjoyed travel including premium business class on LATAM Airlines round trip from Los Angeles to Peru, all first-class travel on Alaska Airlines and other airlines, and multiple stays at luxury hotels in New York City and Washington D.C.
The records include more than 450 pages of receipts, emails, and authorizations. You can view the entirety of the records here. (This PDF is compressed as it includes 13 separate PDFs that have been combined into one, so some parts are blurry).
To read the complete story, visit the Alaska Landmine here.
