In a reversal from two weeks ago, University of Alaska Interim President Pat Pitney says that Alaska’s higher education campuses, research sites, and contractors will need to be vaccinate for Covid-19.

“Without acting on this vaccine requirement, we could lose substantial federal contracts, and with them jobs that support more than 750 employees and their families,” said Pitney. “In addition, the ripple effect of the loss of these contracts would be widely felt as UAF’s research enterprise works with local contractors and suppliers across the state.”

The decision is in response to President Biden’s executive order (EO) 14042, Ensuring Adequate COVID Safety Protocols for Federal Contractors, which requires all employees paid by or supporting new or modified federal contracts to be vaccinated by early December. The order requires not only people directly paid by federal contracts, but also anyone who works to support them or works in the same facility to get a Covid vaccine.

UAF currently has $200 million in multi-year federal contracts impacted by the executive order, and expects close to $100 million more in the coming months. UAF competes nationally for many of these contracts. While neither the University of Alaska Anchorage nor University of Alaska Southeast face federal contract modifications at this time, UA continues to evaluate the situation and may have to extend the requirement to employees in other UA locations to comply with new contract modifications or other federal funding stipulations.

The university is also monitoring several legal challenges to the executive order. The Arizona and Florida attorneys general have both challenged the order in federal court and requested temporary restraining orders to halt implementation. Late last week, Alaska joined several other states in challenging the order. Pitney said she supports the State of Alaska’s efforts to challenge the scope of the executive order.

A court injunction on vaccine requirements resulting from any of the pending legal actions will not impact this vaccination requirement. The university will be bound to those conditions until the contracts are concluded or future modifications or executive orders are enacted.

The Anchorage Assembly on Monday night unanimously agreed to a strategy that three of its members negotiated with the Bronson Administration over the past several months to address the issues surrounding chronically homeless and vagrant people in Anchorage.

The homelessness compromise was crafted over 22 meetings and more than 800 hours of negotiations between three members of the mayor’s team and three members of the Assembly, including Meg Zaletel, Chris Constant, and John Weddleton.

The resolution passed by the Assembly to agree to the policy will move along on an exit plan for returning the Sullivan Arena to its intended use. For more than a year and a half the Sullivan has been providing cots and toilets for homeless men and women, at a cost of $7,500 for each client per month, and more than a million dollars a month.

Mayor Bronson wanted to see that situation resolved before winter, but the Assembly bucked him on his plan for a temporary structure that would have sheltered 450 persons. Bronson suggested negotiations because the Assembly liberal majority was unwilling to appropriate the funds needed for his comprehensive “navigation center” that would be designed to help people break whatever cycle they are in that leads to them living dangerous lives on the streets and in the woods of Anchorage.

But it all comes too late for this winter. There is no way to build the shelter in time for the cold months.

The next step in the facilitation is to identify where the various properties are going to be for the agreed-on five-point plan: The navigation center; housing for those who are not chronically but who are acutely homeless; a facility for the medically fragile; a facility for women and children; and a facility to deal exclusively for alcohol and drug issues.

For example, about 40-50 people in the Sullivan Arena have jobs but just need housing; they could be assisted by the navigation center to find apartments and get them through the apartment rental application process.

The next step for the mayor’s team is to do a census to find out how many people fit into each of the categories. If there are 100 who need drug or alcohol rehabilitation, for example, then the Mayor’s Office wants to right-size that facility.

The key to the whole plan is to get a facility constructed or identified for the navigation center.

There are many more steps; the Assembly has just adopted the policy. The Assembly still holds the keys because the liberal majority of nine can block the appropriation for the policy if it wants to keep battling the mayor and delaying the process.

The Assembly also agreed to the mayor’s request to once again suspend the plastic bag ban, which was put in place not long after the bag ban was enacted in an effort to keep virus-ridden reusable bags from being brought into retail stores. Mayor Dave Bronson asked that the suspension of the plastic bag ban go through April, but the Assembly only agreed that it be in effect until January.