By ALEX GIMARC
As reported by Must Read Alaska, the Anchorage Municipal election is approaching its last full weekend of voting, and the turnout so far has been underwhelming.
While some may argue that this is in line with previous elections, it is still concerning for those who believe that our town can do better with a more engaged and active electorate. It’s important to note that anyone can track their ballot through the Municipal Clerk’s office.
Rather than seeing this low turnout as a problem, we should view it as an opportunity. This opportunity was created by Assemblyman Chris Constant and his Clown Car colleagues, who redistricted the Assembly last year in response to the creation of a second Assembly seat for downtown Anchorage. Unfortunately, Constant made the two downtown seats virtually bulletproof in terms of electing leftist candidates, by taking liberal precincts from surrounding districts and replacing them with more conservative ones. As a result, East Anchorage, West Anchorage, and Midtown have all become more conservative.
However, instead of seeing this as a negative development, we can view it as a gift from the current administration. By recognizing the imbalance in the current Assembly, we have the chance to use our votes to help restore balance and representation to our community. It’s time to take advantage of this opportunity and make our voices heard by casting our ballots in the upcoming election.
Although there are only two Anchorage School Board seats up this time around, recent foolishness from the School Board including the ongoing controversy on Critical Race Theory, equity, sexual grooming of children, and awful testing results give us an opening to replace at least one of Margo Belamy’s merry band of culture warriors — Andy Holleman, who is campaigning against parental rights advocates, calling them noise from a small group of right wingers.
When they hired a new superintendent from a Houston school district that the State of Texas just took over for incompetence, they also presented an opening.
When that unqualified Superintendent arrived, his first act was to ensure the school bus system was broken for the first months of the 2022 – 2023 school year. He then pivoted smartly and attacked one of the few schools in the entire district performing well, the Family Partnership Charter School, much to the distress of parents whose kids go there and are doing well. But at least candidate, incumbent Andy Holleman, got his woke-equity hire bingo card completed.
Funny how when you ignore incompetence and qualifications, you end up with unqualified incompetence. Who knew?
We also have the Trojan Horse that is Prop 14 on the ballot, which is a promise to dedicate marijuana taxes to child care and early education. The carrot here is a decrease in the tax rate from 12 – 10%.
The stick is the dedicated spending, as additional revenue will be needed to cover whatever marijuana tax revenue is being spent on today. Yes, that all but guarantees yet another property tax increase.
Finally, we have the yearly Anchorage School District attempt to pass a school bond for building maintenance. Given the performance of ASD over the year since voters rejected the last school bond, I would suggest they haven’t earned an additional penny, as their priorities have changed from public education to the entire wokester / racialist agenda. There are only so many brain cells and hours of the day available, when you prioritize foolishness, there is not a lot of time or resources left over to teach our kids and grandkids how read, write, and do math, Andy Holleman’s protests notwithstanding.
We have a great opportunity in front of us. All we have to do is get off the dime and turn out to vote. With seven of 12 Assembly seats, two of seven School Board seats, 15 bond and other propositions on the ballot, we have the ability to get the attention of elected politicians who have pointedly chosen not to listen to the public.
This will be fun. Let’s get to work.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
