Jim Clark resigns from seat on Fairbanks City Council

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - On Monday, Jim Clark said goodbye to the Fairbanks City Council, having submitted his resignation to Mayor Jim Matherly.

Clark has held seat F since his election in October 2020.

His resignation comes after a change of address that has brought him outside the Fairbanks city limits.

According to Matherly, “Jim’s been great. I mean, he works with all members of the council really well. He got to know all the department heads, and the think I like about Jim is he can be brutally frank and brutally honest, and I think that’s kind of refreshing.”

Clark said serving on the council was a good opportunity to learn about how the city and the Fairbanks North Star Borough function together. “But it definitely wasn’t fun. It’s not a fun job, listening to people just talk on and talk on. It’s just, sometimes, really frustrating,” he added.

However, Clark enjoyed seeing the community engage with the council. “It was always nice to have the citizens come out and voice their opinions, especially if things were going to happen that the city was going to do and they weren’t happy about it. I always thought that was great, and the city has done a great job being able to listen and to let others participate in the meetings.”

The job of finding Clark’s replacement goes to Matherly, who said, “City code requires that I need to replace him within two meetings.”

For his pick, Matherly chose John Ringstad, a former state legislator from Fairbanks. “I wanted to find somebody with good experience, possibly political experience, who has served in the past, who knows Fairbanks really well, probably knows the state pretty well.”

Of Ringstad, Matherly said, “He and I are conservative thinkers, but yet he’s fair-minded.”

If approved by the city council, Ringstad would serve on the council until the 2023 municipal elections, where he would have to run again to remain in the seat.

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