Historic Preservation Plan draft to be revised
The Nome Planning Commission will take another look at its Historic Preservation Plan document after public concerns with the draft recently surfaced when the document was sent to the Nome Common Council for adoption.
“Nome has got a rich history,” explained Commissioner Gregory Smith. “We have an opportunity here and somebody who has come forward… and the City Council kicked it back to us to include his input.”
The draft, dated June 28, 2021, was prepared for the Planning Commission for financial grants and heard during the July 26 Common Council meeting, where Nomeites expressed concerns with the plan. Rather than vote to approve the document, councilmembers opted to send the plan back to the Planning Commission for review.
Chief among the concerns presented was the erasure of indigenous history from the document.
Nome resident Austin Ahmasuk delivered written remarks to commissioners during the planning commission meeting on Tuesday, September 7.
“We the Inupiaq people of this town know that choices have been made by city officials that have forged a path of destruction and we know that must be reconciled with a transformation of how history in Nome is documented,” he wrote in his remarks. “The historic preservation plan … does not provide the context for the Alaska Native history that we as Native people know. The plan is in fact deficient in many respects because it does not depict the history of Nome from local perspective.”
Ahmasuk provided several specific instances of inaccuracy and omission throughout the report. “There is NO mention of Nome Eskimo Community,” he said. “There is no stronger point of criticism than the glaring lack of any mention of the tribe of Nome and their historic contributions to the community.”
He also took concern with the accuracy of the language used to characterize Inupiaq and Yupik cultures present in the region, pointing to specific terms and phrases like “nomadic.”
“The term nomadic and seasonal is problematic because there are clearly habitations that portray and may prove habitual existence in specific locations all through the Nome flats,” he said. “I am not convinced that nomadism was and/or is a facet of the Alaska Native way of life and I am convinced declaring seasonal settlements within the plan is not truthful.”
He also questioned the decision to limit the historic plan to structures only.
“When we say the NHPA is limited to structures we are using authority to ignore Alaska Native history,” he explained. “The plan as drafted has steered conveniently away from Alaska Native history and put in place non-Native history.”
He also pointed out that the Historic Preservation Plan included significant details of the Port of Nome, which does not meet the standards of a historic structure as detailed by the plan.
“Where it mentions the port is strategically positions for national, state, regional and local needs and is supposed to play an increasingly important role to changing sea access to the Arctic,” Ahmasuk said. “That’s a very peculiar statement to make because, on page four of the Nome Historic Preservation Plan, a historic resource is defined as something that is 50 years old or more. The present form of the port is not even 15 years old, and its future is certainly not a historic resource.”
The Planning Commission has reviewed several phases of historic preservation documents, including the specific report Ahmasuk had concerns with, which was phase II.
“I got the gist of what you’re stating, and quite frankly, I couldn’t agree more,” Planning Commission chair Ken Hughes told Ahmasuk during the meeting. “All this [document] was, from my perspective, was closing out the grant. That’s the only reason why I voted to accept this historic preservation plan as it was. … But clearly, for all the reasons you mentioned and more, I had the very same problems with it so there is more work to be done.”
Commissioners considered Ahmasuk’s concerns but say there is a lot more work to be done to develop a living document that accurately represents the history of the region, and the existing document will work for grant applications.
One of the problems commissioners are facing, Hughes said, is a lack of public input.
“The biggest problem that we have while trying to do this work is not having enough public input from local citizens,” he said. “We welcome your commentary, as we do with any citizen who would comment, and it is valuable because of the scarcity. We really invite you to stay in touch with the process, participate in the process as much as you care to, and you’re more than welcome to participate.”
After half an hour of discussion, commissioners made a motion that said the existing document is just phase two of the project, and they plan to address Ahmasuk’s concerns during phase three.
Commissioners agreed that a more in-depth report would be nec
essary during the next phase of the plan.
“What is our goal?” Hughes asked. “Are we just trying to preserve our history, or from my perspective, what I’m trying to get this into, is a mechanism for us to share our history with the world in a framework that they can understand and to create a message that comes from the entire community, or at least shows the different perspectives of the various communities.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners also discussed sidewalk and road repaving, zoning map amendments for the comprehensive plan and supporting a new project detailing one Nomeite’s historic fight for civil rights in the 1940s. Alberta Schenck, a Nome-born indigenous high school student in 1944, had a part-time job ushering at the Alaska Dream Theatre in Nome, where part of her job was to segregate patrons by race. After attending the theater with a white date and refusing to move from the “whites only” section, Schenck was arrested, rallying the Inupiat community. Her actions were cited as a cause for the Governor’s reintroduction of the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945.
The Planning Commission was consulted during the session to determine if they want to “pursue a storyboard describing Ms. Schenck’s bravery and the historical context regarding the civil rights movement in America,” according to a memo from Nome City Planner Eileen Bechtol.
Commissioners voted unanimously on a resolution to approve the project.
Commissioner Colleen Deighton is excited about the project. “I think the Dream Theater Storyboard is a great jumping off point for what we’re doing to help educate the region and tourists about who we are and what we stand for,” she said.
The next planning commission meeting will take place on October 12 at 7 p.m.