While former North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta was quoting Native leader Jacob ‘Jake’ Adams to encourage members of the Alaska Native Village CEO Association to establish businesses that would take advantage of the huge amounts of money the oil industry spends in the state, his successor, Mayor Charlotte Brower, had just appointed Adams as her chief of staff.
“Mayor Charlotte,” as her office staff refers to her, took office on the afternoon of Nov. 15. The next morning Adams, long-time president and CEO of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., and currently chairman of the board, reported for work as her chief of staff.
“Tremendous amounts of money are out there,” Itta was reported as saying in a Nov. 21 Alaska Dispatch article about his presentation.
“‘If we don’t do it, you can bet somebody else will,’” he said, quoting the charismatic Adams, who has been a strong supporter of Alaska’s oil and gas industry as long as Native subsistence rights and the environment were protected — and Natives received a share of the oil wealth.
It was under Adams’ guidance that ASRC, a company representing the business interests of 11,000 Iñupiaq Eskimos, became a major oilfield service provider and refinery owner and signed a mentoring agreement with BP to help it become an independent North Slope oil and gas producer.
Adams, a former North Slope Borough mayor and assembly member and a current member of the Barrow Whaling Captains Association, has also been a strong supporter of opening of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas exploration.
Although no official announcement has been made by her administration, Mayor Charlotte has reportedly asked for resignations from all department and division directors, including the borough attorney, some of whom will be retiring at the end of the year and some leaving immediately.
Gordon Brower, director of the borough’s Planning and Community Services Department, has been replaced by Rhoda Ahmaogak.
Brower has been moved to the position of deputy director of the department, putting him in charge of the Land Management Regulation Division, where he will oversee permitting and inspecting oil and gas projects, including monitoring compliance with Title 19 land management regulations and zoning under Title 18.
His assistant, Ben Greene, who had been filling in for Brower from mid-August to mid-October, was terminated with one-hour notice by Ahmaogak shortly after Mayor Charlotte took office.
Greene was with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program in Anchorage until he accepted an offer from the borough, moving to Barrow in May 2008.
