Mayor Dave Bronson will be holding a town hall event to hear the public’s thoughts and concerns regarding the Anchorage Assembly’s proposed plan to purchase and turn the Arctic Recreation Center into a homeless shelter.
The Anchorage Assembly, after foiling the mayor’s plans to create a navigation center where people who are living on the streets can get the help they need to destabilize their lives, plans to start its own homeless shelter by purchasing the center for nearly $13 million with the intent of turning it into a year-round homeless shelter for those who are not eligible, due to their behaviors, to stay at other shelters. The Assembly is lobbyists the Legislature for assistance with the project.
The plan is to turn the property over to former Assemblyman John Weddleton, who has started a nonprofit to get into the homeless business, which is where all the money is in government these days. Weddleton lost his seat on the Assembly to Randy Sulte in 2022.
The town hall will be held on Friday, March 24, from 6:30-8 pm inside the gym at the Arctic Recreation Center, located at 4855 Arctic Blvd, Anchorage, AK 99503.
I will put it on my calendar.
I sure hope that people experiencing laziness dont foul this nice area of town.
This sure looks like a run at millions of dollars which some amount will wind up in the lefts coffers against the Anchorage taxpayer. Something is fishy with this.
The plan is to have the rest of us Alaskans help pay for it. Do you need any bonds retired while we’re at it?
I don’t want one more dime going to support the homeless industrial complex.
Hey Assembly members — The Municipality cannot continue to spend MOST of our property tax revenue and ALL of the alcohol tax revenue on your wild and reckless real property shopping sprees. When you purchase more and more properties you TERMINATE THE PROPERTY TAX OBLIGATIONS FOR THOSE PROPERTIES and immediately reduce the MOA’s ability to pay for constitutionally required services. Way too much is being spent on more and more low-barrier shelters for the homeless (who have needs beyond a bed at night) and not enough is being spent on the actual majority tax payers’ needs and requirements: APD is underfunded, road construction is underfunded, road maintenance is underfunded, improved AWWU services are needed, improved internet services are needed, and the list goes on.
STOP BUYING REAL ESTATE AND WASTING OUR MONEY!
Obviously if your municipality can’t provide services, you’re being under taxed. If you want all these things you have to pay for it. Life’s not free. I’m not a proponent of taxes but I am and where enough to know that money doesn’t grow on trees and if you want your roads plowed, and the homeless housed as in out of sight out of mind, then you have to either tax the citizens and or start writing speeding tickets and tickets for people who run red lights or stop past the stop bar at intersections. That right there alone will get you plenty of money to do all that you wish.
We’re not being under taxed.. They’re exhausting all our tax money on the people who don’t care to improve their life.. They need to be housed in medical/physiological places and get “dried” out before housing them. Anchorage or should I say the Ass-embly are wasting our money, that should be paying for our roads, streets and improving etc. Our taxes should be spent on where they were MEANT to be spent… Speeding tickets would help as mentioned above..
Greg, what an absolutely asinine statement.
First of all “the homeless” are not some homogeneous group of 5 year olds incapable of making decisions. They are individual adults, whose choices, actions and circumstances put them where they are. If we continue this trajectory of “free everything no obligation required” we are not helping, but simply enabling continued misery. Furthermore out of curiosity does the city you live in give you free housing and free meals? NO? Why not, since you seem to think that’s what a city owes its residents.
I read an article about the homeless in Portland. One lady was quoted: “Being homeless in Portland was a piece of cake. They give you three meals a day and you don’t have to do sh*t just stay in your tent and party”, but in the end, when her siblings showed up, she gladly went home with them and is now in detox. There is no dignity in being kept in poverty.
Second, Anchorage’s tax revenue is more than adequate, but misappropriated. When the assembly focuses solely on a very small group of residents and spends upward of $161 million on that small group alone, roads and other items suffer. It’s like your budget, if you spent 65% of it on trips to Disney, you then do not have enough money for rent, food, gasoline or clothing….
So what we really need is a structured program that requires commitment from each individual and the enforcement of city ordinances, making it clear to trouble makers that their lawless behavior is not tolerated. Warehousing people is not a solution, instead let’s have expectations that each individual contributes. There is dignity in that.
The point being, if you take in less that you spend, you need to spend less or make more. It works. Try it
DUHH!
Go talk to the assembly about “spending less” and good luck! Oh and while you are at it, swing by the school board that presides over the worst test scores in history, and tell then too. Let me know how that goes…and quit insulting the property owners of this town, who bear the majority of the tax burden.
Absolutely! This looks like another opportunity for the enrichment of another former assembly member at our expense, while destroying the tax base for the city. This is a HUGE tract of land that could be sold to a hotel or built out as commercial property to contribute to Anchorage tax base, instead of moving from one tax free owner into muni ownership to further TAX the private property owners in Anchorage.
The $$$$ are better spent than a tent in the woods.
The muni needs to put the homeless in city hall and the union workers could work from tents or their cars. Down town is a perfect place for the homeless.
This will be a spectacle of Bronson supporters and detractors from the far reaches of Anchorage crowding out the local residents who will be the moist impacted. Town halls should be held at venues with more parking and access. Just another chapter in a one term Mayor’s cultural wars
Frank, what you clearly are dismissing from this discussion it the desire for Anchorage residents to not be overtaxed for unsustainable pet projects. And how convenient that one of the original leftist 9 would be the shepherd of this new project. The optics are not good for the assembly. They want to fund both Zalatel and Weddleton projects. All ideas being promoted are short term, never ending projects that perpetuate the real problem. Tell us if you would, how many recipients of the Sullivan arena housing have transitioned to self care? This has been going on for years now, there should be some tangible results. Or, how many vagrants are living by the repeat philosophy because that is what they want to do? Bronson’s transition center is designed to assist these vagrants to regain their place in society, not just a warm bed and meal, repeat, repeat, repeat…. We should all be on board as this would address the vagrancy problem and do so further away from sensitive population centers, which the taxpaying citizens want.
How are you going to fix it? Be specific.
Please refer to Mayor Bronson’s written plan. Need I be more specific?
Well, to the voting residents of the MOA, get out and vote these communist out, get out there and remind your neighbors to vote. Does Weddleton still own Boscoes comics? You will only change things if you vote them out. You voted a great Major in, now do the same with the Assembly!
I think we need a mental institution before we spend any money on brick and mortar. Sick people should be treated as such and this sounds like its going to be a place for the worst of the worst. How about a new prison for all these people who are stealing cars, shoplifting, breaking into homes and murdering. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is being done by homeless. Get a grip Anchorage. Bronson had a plan for some temporary housing that could be installed on city owned land and you legislators didn’t go for that. Homeless should be considered a temporary problem. Get the tents, temporary showers, temporary dining rooms and get them into services that will help them. Make them a part of the solution. I don’t want to see any more defacating or fornicating on the lawns of A Street in front of Walmart this summer. Clean Up.
So you’re in for a penny but not for a pound. What you propose is admirable but only a Band-Aid. If you’re going to fix something fix it.
Let’s try jail for those who break the laws. While there, let’s try working with therapists to help the vagrants through their problems.
Oh, wait, we are already in for a pound but this is not good enough for you, Greg.
Your not addressing the issue. Rather, you are fighting it. You want an asylum? Money. You want jail time? Mega money.
How about a ticket back to their previous location.
Stop the practice of transferring taxpayer money into 501s and you solve the homeless problem.
The Assembly, minus a few have, absolutely no clue or no intention of solving the homeless problem in Anchorage. Furthermore, I don’t believe they want to solve it. If their main concern is buying up property to house the homeless the only thing I can see what they are doing is lining a few people’s pockets with Taxpayer money. I am sympathetic to the homeless and there are many who would welcome job training,etc, however, many more need treatment in other ways.So far all I see is a few rich people making more money on the purchase of properties that did not work out? How much was wasted on the Alaska club on Tudor 444.000
and millions more on other deals that fell through. The Assembly plays the blame game with the Mayor, but I don’t see them solving anything.
OK lets take $13,000,000 and build a psych hospital and anytime someone does something on the street that is caused by their mental condition they go there until they can function again on their own.
Lets also build a VA living center where the occupants participate in the running of it in exchange for housing; and they get proper treatment.
Lets work with the village elders to come up with a solution for the disorderly, drunk and psych people and prevent them from just putting them on an airplane and sending them to Anchorage.
I’ll bet this guy doesn’t own anything so doesn’t pay property taxes. He probably votes yes on all the bonds too.
I am not aware of this plan: ‘The plan is to turn the property over to former Assemblyman John Weddleton, who has started a nonprofit to get into the homeless business, which is where all the money is in government these days.’ It seems important that I would know about this so please let me know whose plan this is.
Have you started a non-profit Assemblyman?
Is it or isn’t it true that you’re the director of “ANCHORAGE AFFORDABLE HOUSING & LAND TRUST”, a non-profit corporation established in October, 2022 for the purpose of sprinkling bums among Anchorage’s productive taxpaying homeowners and businesses and if so, how much are you hoping to earn off it all, Johnny, or are we to believe that you’re doing it strictly because you’re some kind of altruistic, selfless soul who might just accidentally end up lining is own pockets along the way?
Explain yourself, Johnny.
Someone on the Assembly or related to the Assembly will have their hands in this cookie jar. Isn’t this stopped the COVID funds shenanigans you guys were involved with? Took the US Department of Treasury to put that nonsense to a stop.
John, I am sure that any of your former brethren in the municipal ass-embly’s Marxist Ten majority could answer that question for you.
.
I will, however, give you credit for at least having been the (marginally) least objectionable of the ass-embly’s then Marxist Nine.
Are you saying you did not start a non profit?
Or just that no one has discussed this project with you? Hmmmm
What a coincidence it will be if it happens.
Set up.a Homeless Camp on the edge of the Anchorage Landfill and Dump, and let them fend for themselves. It will Shelter them, feed them, entertain them, and bury them when they OD. They will no longer be in our face exposing themselves, begging, passed out in a puddle of urine, or crapping in or around our streets. They will be in their world right down to the last sip in a bottle of can. Old Timers use to say, ” Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish “.We should take them up on that.
Arctic between international to fireweed is the biggest drug-trafficked highway.
The assembly don’t care about the homeless.
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