Anchorage Assembly waste of the day: Decorating the dump and pallet homes for druggies

The Anchorage Assembly will tackle several “only-in-Anchorage” topics at its regular Tuesday meeting, including asking the public to tax themselves to build fancy outdoor potties around the city, and the Assembly will vote on spending $500,000 to decorate the Central Solid Waste Transfer Station with art installations.

The Assembly will consider “1% for the arts” grants. One is a $300,000 award to artist John Coyne to create sculptures depicting the “progression of chaos to order,” with a large bronze raven overseeing the process, to be installed at the Solid Waste Central Transfer Station in midtown.

Another $200,000 will be voted on to be awarded to Artist Rachel Juzeler for a mixed-media artistic installation, also at the Solid Waste Central Transfer Station. The art will be comprised of hanging mobiles and mosaics depicting a variety of things, using single-use plastic bags as part of the exhibit, along with flying herring made from glass, jellyfish made from plastic, and birds made from plastic and feathers.

The waste transfer station is where commercial haulers bring their large loads and where people with garbage-loaded pickup trucks back up to unload into containers, which haul the waste to the dump. Very few members of the public actually go inside the transfer station itself. The old transfer station has been converted to homeless housing.

Continued hearings will be held on spending taxpayer dollars on outdoor potties:

Ordinance No. AO 2023-114, an ordinance providing for the submission to the qualified voters of the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, the question of the issuance of Not To Exceed Twelve Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($12,500,000) of General Obligation Bonds of the Municipality of Anchorage to pay the costs of an Areawide Public Restroom Project at the election to be held in the Municipality on April 2, 2024 and approving and adding a project to the Areawide 2024 CIB to include the Public Restroom Project. Assembly Chair Constant, Assembly Vice-Chair Zaletel and Assembly Member Brawley. 

New hearings:

The Anchorage Assembly, under its current liberal leadership, is obsessed with not allowing the public to have transparency into the local elections, which they oversee, due to their role in supervising the Anchorage Municipal Clerk’s office. The ordinance will make it harder for citizens to monitor the mail-in elections and to lodge complaints.

Ordinance No. AO 2023-125, an ordinance of the Anchorage Assembly amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 8.30, Offenses Against Public Order, to expand the scope of criminal activity punishable as an election violation and to insert a new section 8.30.190 codifying the offense of tampering with a public record in the third degree, Assembly Chair Constant and Assembly Vice-Chair Zaletel. 

The Assembly will also consider spending $1.5 million for more homeless services, and $500,000 for operating the “Pallet Shelter Pilot Program.” Pallet shelters are tiny homes made of pallets. The money would be appropriated to Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel’s nonprofit, Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness. That item, added as an agenda addendum, is detailed at this link:

Resolution No. AR 2023-421, a resolution of the Anchorage Assembly appropriating One Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($1,500,000) from the Alcoholic Beverages Retail Sales Tax Fund (206000) Fund Balance to the Real Estate Department 2024 Operating Budget and Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($500,000) from the Alcoholic Beverages Retail Sales Tax Fund (20600) to the Anchorage Health Department 2024 Operating Budget, all within the Alcoholic Beverages Retail Sales Tax Fund (206000), and authorizing Grant Agreements with the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness for the Anchored Home Next Step Pilot program ($1,500,000) and to restorative and reentry services for operations costs of its Pallet Shelter Pilot Program ($500,000),  Assembly Members Rivera, Volland and Bronga.  (Addendum)

The Assembly will consider an award to Agnew::Beck, the former employer of Assemblywoman Anna Brawley for professional services for the Alcoholic Beverages Retail Sales Tax Outreach Program. That company started with a $50,000 award for 2022 and another $50,000 for 2023, but has since been awarded additional monies, not to exceed $78,200, and now not to exceed $80,400 for work that is supposed to be done by the end of the year. Information at this link.

The agenda packet is at this link. The meeting starts at 5 pm with formalities.