Barbara Jones
Municipal Clerk’s Office
By Suzanna Caldwell
Barbara Jones is used to having to work across departments. If anything, it’s been one of the most consistent themes in her almost two decades of working for the Municipality of Anchorage.
Jones now serves as the Municipal Clerk, where she administers the Anchorage Assembly offices, which includes everything from overseeing records created by the city’s governing body to assisting with legislation, scheduling meetings, and — most notable of late — overseeing elections, including Alaska’s first-ever vote-by-mail election.
For Jones, who first came to the Municipality as the staff attorney for the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission (AERC) in 1999, her 19 years of work have been defined by interactions with other departments at all levels of the city.
At the Equal Rights Commission, she worked on cases involving discrimination and harassment before switching to serve as the municipal ombudsman in 2011. As ombudsman she conducted investigations that often involved multiple departments and required complex solutions.
But learning to work with different departments on complicated issues helped her transition to her current role as municipal clerk in 2013. The clerk’s office acts as the intermediary between the public, the assembly and city administration.
Jones also oversaw the Municipality’s transition to a vote-by-mail election, a process that began in 2014 and culminated with the April 2018 election. Organizing the election meant working with numerous city departments including Reprographics, Information Technology, Facility Maintenance and the Police Department, among others. The teamwork paid off. With over 79,000 ballots counted, it marks the highest voter turnout for the city ever.
For Jones, her favorite part of working as the Clerk is doing something new every day — whether that’s putting together a tow ordinance or dealing with an election matter. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, spending time with her family and riding her bike along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.
“I love Anchorage, I love working for the city,” Jones said. “I’m trying to do the best I can to make Anchorage a better place.”
