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Bethel City Council Candidate: Norman Ayagalria

Katie Basile
/
KYUK

Six candidates from Bethel are running for three Bethel City Council seats. KYUK is profiling these candidates in the coming days before the Oct. 4 election. Our fourth profile in the series is Norman Ayagalria. Ayagalria has worked as a grant writer for YKHC, lived in Bethel for 15 years, and wants to bring Bethel City Council into the 21st century by collecting consumer data. 

To listen to the full interview go to the bottom of the page. 

Ayagalria: My name is Norman Ayagalria, I live in Bethel. I've been living in Bethel for the last 15 years. I'm running for City Council because I feel that I can make a difference in terms of my leadership and my experience. 

KYUK: What are three areas as a council member that you'd like to make change in?

Ayagalria: One of the things I had in mind was to increase metrics. Basically, what that means is to start coming up with several different programs so we can start collecting data and get a lot of baselines. In my previous experience as a grant writer we developed many different programs so we could increase satisfaction. At the hospital we collected data of different kinds, and after we collected the data we made sure that we made the right choices based on the baselines of what we had intended to do as a corporation. In the last 15 years that I've been in Bethel I have not seen any form of consumer satisfaction surveys provided to the voters in the this community. During my tenure on City Council I'd like to see the City Council have a more proactive role in collecting data so we can make good decisions. 

KYUK: Where do you work now and how else are you involved in the community?

Ayagalria: I currently work at Gladys Jung Elementary. I specifically teach third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade Yup'ik, and I also have a sixth grade math classroom. I've volunteered,  mainly with the Moravian Church. I've worked with youth in Canada. I brought my family to Canada last summer for the entire month and we volunteered our time to work with the youth in Canada. We have not done that in Bethel, but I've been trying to make some time to do that in the future here, mainly with the youth because I'm a teacher here and I enjoy working with the younger generation and the younger population. It gives them something to do away from drugs and alcohol and risky behavior. 

One thing for sure that the city can do is to provide job seekers at the job center with some bus passes. That was one observation that I saw while I was in Canada. The government in one of the places provided bus passes for their workers, for job seekers. Also for certain members of community were provided with simple services to enhance and provide better services for their voters. The other thing that I would like to see is providing bus passes for our city workers because we do need the workers in this community provided with enough incentive that they would be retained as workers and hopefully at the end of the day our workers will be happy workers. 

KYUK; Why should people vote for you?

Ayagalria: For one thing I have a lot of experience with city administration. Or maybe I shouldn't say administration. I've worked as a grant writer at YKHC and I've had a lot of experiences working with cities and municipalities all across the Delta. Not only have I worked with cities and municipalities, I've also worked with tribal governments as well as a grant writer. And we had to enhance our partnerships with the corporation to provide the people with the quality health services that they needed out in the village. During this tenure is when I decided I would run for Bethel City Council so I can take some of my experiences into the city of Bethel. 

KYUK: is there anything else that you'd like for people to know about you?

Ayagalria: I'm very committed to living here in Bethel. A lot of the things that I do in the community a lot of people might call me a cheapskate because it's so expensive to live here in Bethel, but I choose to live here in Bethel because I love it. I love to go fishing, I enjoy being with my family. I also enjoy berry picking and hunting as well, just like any other community member in Bethel. I don't plan to move away from Bethel within the next ten years. I've established a life here in Bethel along with my wife and two kids. 

KYUK; Norman, thank you. 

Ayagalria: Thank you very much.