The Alaska Department of Transportation released video footage of the avalanche that buried Thane Road on Jan. 2, 2022, cutting off road and power to residents south of Juneau.
DOT was able to clear enough of the road by Monday to get power crews through to begin restoring electricity to the neighborhood, which hugs the side of Gastineau Channel.
Avalanches are regular features of Thane Road, but usually the DOT blasts the avalanche chute to clear the hazard, and then removes the snow from the roadway. Sometimes the avalanches reach the Gastineau Channel, as it did on Sunday.
The wind that has pinned the Mat-Su Borough down for the past three days has resulted in extensive damage to homes, businesses, roads, power, and planes. The borough has declared an emergency disaster.
Mike Brown, borough manager, announced the the disaster declaration at a press conference midday and requested the governor declare a disaster emergency and release resources to respond.
Schools are closed and the borough has advised residents to shelter in place for the duration of the storm. Brown described broken pipes and sustained loss of power to hones across the borough.
Two shelters are open — in Wasilla at the Menard Sports Complex and in Palmer at the MatSu Senior Services Center. Both are staffed by the Red Cross.
Stephan Hinman photo
Dr. Randy Traini, superintendent of the MatSu Borough School District said that while all facilities are in relatively good shape with regard to water, heat, and structure, getting students safely to the schools is an issue. The parking lots are not safe and students can’t be left to wait at bus stops. He will make an announcement on Tuesday as to whether school will be in session on Wednesday.
Trooper asked the public to travel only if necessary across the Mat-Su Valley, making a special warning about high-profile vehicles and trailers. “Please only travel if absolutely necessary,” Troopers wrote. DOT said it is working to remove drifting snow across state highways and trees from roads and are bringing in extra electricians to assist on signals, but that they can’t use bucket trucks until wind speed lowers.
The National Weather Service described the wind event as a Bora, when cold temperatures in arctic areas roar down the valleys toward warmer temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska. This cold front came down from the Yukon and has brought wind chills to -35. Gusts have been clocked at 88 mph at the Palmer Airport.
Minor injuries have been reported, Brown said, including injuries from shattered glass at a restaurant.
This is the fourth longest Bora wind event in Palmer-Wasilla, at 48 hours, comparable to 1979, when sustained winds continued for 51 hours and gusts were clocked at 79 mph at the Palmer Airport.
Posted on the Palmer Alaska Buzz Facebook page, this preserved copy of the front page of the Frontiersman on Feb. 14, 1979.
On Saturday 10,000 were out of power, a number that grew to 22,000 at times on Sunday. Right now, about 16,000 are without power, MEA said, and the power line crews are in a game of whack-a-mole — as they fix one area, another area goes down. Lineman have been working 16 hours straight, said Jennifer Castro of MEA. Crews are coming in from Anchorage and Fairbanks and other areas to assist.
Some people may be without power for the week, MEA advises.
On Jan. 7 the Supreme Court will hear challenges to two vaccine mandates ordered by the Biden administration. It looks as though the court is at last ready to intervene on behalf of basic American liberty. This is a decision that is long overdue, but it will be welcomed by American patriots.
If these mandates are overturned, it will be because there is a new “Thomas Majority” on the court. It includes Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. These five conservatives, acting together, can get the court back to what it was meant to be, and was for the first 150 years of its existence.
Hopefully, the vaccine mandate cases are a harbinger of things to come. Constitutional conservatives across the country eagerly look forward to a series of decisions in 2022, and many more in the years ahead. In June the Court is poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade (1973). Affirmative Action is before the court in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard. In New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the right to concealed carry will be addressed. AHA v. Becerra should give us a review of “Chevron deference,” which was adopted in 1984, and has led to the explosive growth and power of the administrative state.
Roe v. Wade is one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court, right up there with Plessy v. Ferguson (1894), which authorized legally sanctioned racial discrimination. It wasn’t as bad as Dred Scott, which led to the Civil War, but it has denied the people of this country their right to decide abortion policy. On that subject, the court writes all the rules, and the people have nothing to say about it.
There is no right to an abortion in the U.S. Constitution. They just made it up. This has been a constitutional travesty from the day it was decided. It took the court 58 years to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. So much for the “sacred principle” of stare decisis. When Roe is overturned in June, it will be 49 years old.
Affirmative action may be well intended, but it’s still racial discrimination. In Harvard’s case Asian-Americans are the principle victims. I fully expect Justice Thomas to write the opinion declaring such discrimination unconstitutional. As a proud, highly intelligent black man, Thomas is viscerally opposed to being treated as if he is incapable of making it on his own. This is an opinion that will be a joy to read.
Practically speaking, you can’t get a concealed carry permit in New York. Does this violate the 2nd Amendment’s guarantee of ” . . . the right of the people to keep and bear Arms . . .”? Emphasis on bear. That’s the question before the court in NYR&PA v. Bruen. There is an excellent chance that the Thomas Majority will rule that there is a right to “bear”, or carry, arms. After all, it’s specifically guaranteed in the language of the Bill of Rights. If so, this case will be the most important advance in 2nd Amendment law since District of Columbia v. Heller (2008).
This country and this economy are practically strangling in over-regulation. The administrative state is a constitutional abomination. Overturning Chevron deference will be the first step in reining in this bureaucratic monster. AHA v. Becerra is the perfect case to start rolling back burdensome regulations.
Justice Kavanaugh’s vote will be critical in all of these cases, in some of them the deciding one. But he wouldn’t be on the court if it was up to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. She never really made clear why she opposed him. In the end, she mumbled something about judicial temperament, but that was just a weak excuse.
In fact, Murkowski expects Kavanaugh to be the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Murkowski is a pro-abortion extremist. She doesn’t believe in any restrictions, of any kind, on a woman’s right to end the life of an unborn child she carries. This is her most sacred principle. If she had her way, Brett Kavanaugh wouldn’t be on the court because of it.
Because Alaska now has a jungle primary, and ranked choice voting, Murkowski doesn’t think she’ll pay a political price for her opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination. She will make it on the ballot in November, and expects to achieve a majority as the second choice of Democratic voters. Her conservative opponent, Kelly Tshibaka, has chosen to run as proud Trump Republican, so Alaska Democrats will never support her.
In large part, expect Murkowski to try to turn her reelection into a referendum on Trump. His behavior on and after Jan. 6 will be fully exposed in the upcoming public hearings of the House Select Committee. If voting for Murkowski is a way to repudiate Trump, she’ll wind up getting votes from more than just Democrats.
The irony of ironies will be that if Alaskans have to endure six more years of Murkowski, we’ll have Trump to thank for it.
Fritz Pettyjohn was admitted to the Alaska Bar Association in 1974, and has been looking forward to the overturn of Roe v .Wade ever since.
Dan Fagan, a popular conservative talk show host, returns to the airwaves on Tuesday, Jan. 4, after more than two weeks of sick leave.
Fagan has been released from then hospital and said he is feeling well again. His heart started failing shortly after he had his second Covid vaccine on Aug. 12, he said, but he ignored the symptoms until two weeks ago, when he couldn’t breathe well enough to do the show. He called for an ambulance. After tests, doctors determined that his heart and other organs are healthy, but there was a buildup of fluid on the outside of the tissue around his lungs.
Fagan said that at one point he was close to death. He doesn’t know if the condition he suffered is a result of the vaccine but said it’s a “huge coincidence” that it started a week after the second Covid shot. However, he acknowledged that he had not been taking good care of his health, was overweight, and needed to exercise more. He said with better health habits, his heart should be able to repair the damage; there was no evidence of a heart attack, but his heart was not pumping properly.
Since then, he has lost weight, been exercising regularly and is eating healthy, he said, adding that he expects to live for many years.
Fagan, a conservative icon in Alaska who pioneered a now-retired conservative news blog, The Alaska Standard, and now broadcasts his morning show from New Orleans, can be heard on 650 KENI between 5:30 and 8 am weekdays; his is the highest-rated morning drive time radio show in Alaska.
The New Year is coming in like a lion. Hurricane-force wind howling through the Mat-Su Valley has flipped planes at the Palmer Municipal Airport, toppled trees, and taken the roofs off of buildings as the new year begins. Schools are closed in the Mat-Su Valley due to the wind and damage. City of Wasilla offices are closed, including the Wasilla Police Department’s administrative office.
Winds at the Palmer Airport clocked 81 mph at one point, with blowing snow and debris.
Wasilla Police have asked people to shelter in place. On Facebook, the department pleaded for help from the public to stay off roads and stay home “unless absolutely necessary.” Heavy winds are expected to last until Monday evening.
Wind damage at the KFC-A&W building in Wasilla.
The KFC-A&W building on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway was heavily damaged by wind starting at about 7 pm Sunday, and debris is blowing throughout the valley, hitting and damaging vehicles and buildings. Many homes and businesses are without power, as the temperature is in the single digits. On Facebook, Wasilla Police warned:
“AVOID THE AREA OF KFC MEANS AVOID THE AREA.”
“Stop trying to get close to take pictures. Our officers vehicles are being hit with debris trying to keep people out of the way. Seriously. GO home and stay there. AVOID KFC AND FRED MEYER KFC/A&W has suffered a catastrophic collapse. Please avoid the area due to flying debris and emergency vehicles. There have been multiple reports of debris (not just from KFC) hitting and damaging vehicles. STAY HOME. The borough has advised a shelter in place. The NWS has extended the wind warning to 6pm tomorrow. All City of Wasilla administrative offices are closed tomorrow (including the WPD admin office). Seriously folks, stay home unless absolutely necessary.”
The power is out for thousands who are staying home. In Wasilla, 44 percent of the city is out of power, and in Palmer proper, 52 percent lack power. Palmer Fishhook and Sutton homes are about 99.5 percent out of power. The MEA power outage map is here.
Meanwhile, in Juneau, Thane Road is closed due to a major avalanche after an epic snowstorm brought as much as 16 inches of snow at sea level over the weekend, combined with “Taku winds” of 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 70 mph. Power is out in Thane, a neighborhood south of the town center. AEL&P said that line workers can’t access the lines by road, due to the avalanche that went all the way into Gastineau Channel and will attempt to fly in a crew in the morning on Monday, but advised that “Customers affected should be prepared for an extended outage.”
Sugar Fegley posted a photo on Facebook of the avalanche covering the road on Sunday.
Thane Road covered by avalanche as seen from Douglas Island. Credit: Sugar Fegley, Facebook.
The darkest time of the day is before the sunrise. America is the sunrise for the Russian Old Believers in Alaska.
Within a few decades of the schism, many Old Believers escaped Russia to densely wooded areas of Belorussia and northern Ukraine, southward to the Don and Kuban Rivers, northward toward the Baltic Sea and Arctic shores and, beyond the boundaries of the state—to neighboring Romania, Turkey, and Poland. Others settled in southern Siberia (Altay Mountains), the Far East and Central Asia.
Through the centuries, these remote groups, not necessarily in contact with each other, and, in spite of minimal levels of modernization, acculturation, and adaptation to new climates, not only survived but also preserved and maintained their religious form of worship and their cultural ways.
All of the Old Believer groups that settled east of Lake Baykal in the 17th and 18th centuries, maintained contact with the Buryats, Evenks, and other neighboring ethnic groups who were engaged in hunting, reindeer breeding, fishing, and raising sled dogs.
Trans–Baykalian Old Believers, whose ancestors were banished to eastern Siberia from the Chernigov Province of Ukraine and Vetka of Poland in the 18th century, moved with their families and are known, therefore, as semeyskiye (of the family)—from the Russian word semya (family).
The Russian newcomers found themselves in conditions radically different from their customary life. Long winters, bitter frosts, harsh physical and social environment, and a shortage of Russian women—all these necessitated urgent acculturation in line with the centuries–old experience of the aboriginal population in economic activities and in coping with the severe natural conditions.
Although Old Believers of the Trans–Baykal fanatically followed the patriarchal traditions of the pre-reform Russian Orthodox Church, their members, including women, were better educated than their neighbors. Many of them were kuptsy(traders), kazaks (free peasants and border guards), remeslenniki (craftsmen), or farmers.
Many Trans–Baykalian Old Believer communities moved to Manchuria (China) during the construction of the East Chinese Railroad (1897–1902) and the city of Kharbin. They subsequently gave rise to the Old Believer community of Kharbinskaya; residents are called Kharbintsy.
After the eruption of the Socialist October Revolution in 1917, Russian Old Believers faced the atheistic Soviet government. During the 1920s, in desperation, many of the Siberian Old Believers escaped over the border to China, where they once again lived in isolated and remote areas of Manchuria, in the cities of Kharbin and the Sinkiang.
As a result of the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949, many of them were forced onto collective farms, provided a meager food allowance, and given mandatory work requirements. Many, eventually, were sent back to the Soviet Union. Finally, after 10 years, a minority of them—as families, groups, or single individuals—either escaped or received permission to leave for Hong Kong; then a territory under jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom, the Red Cross, and the United World Council of Churches provided them assistance in Hong Kong while arrangements were being made for emigration to other regions of the world.
Later, in 1958–59, they relocated from Hong Kong to various immigrant–seeking countries under sponsorship of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration. In Hong Kong, they were given the choice of countries they could go to, including Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay; the largest groups went to Brazil and Australia.
The majority of Old Believers arrived in Brazil between 1959–61. There, the United World Council of Churches provided 6,000 acres of land at Curitiba (about 200 miles southwest of Sao Paulo) and promised to provide them with the means and assistance necessary to get started in farming their land. Life in Brazil appears to have been difficult from the start. The soil and climatic conditions were vastly different from anything Old Believers had known in Russia and China.
After several discouraging years of attempting to adapt to a new bio–physical and socio–cultural environment, some were able to voluntarily leave for the United States and Canada, with the help of the Tolstoy Foundation in New York and the personal intervention of the U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Most Old Believers began their migration to North America between 1964–69.
Eventually, most of them settled in Oregon, where an existing community of Old Believers continues to prosper. The population has since increased to approximately 10–12,000 within a two-county area. Today, there are eleven sobors(prayer halls) in Oregon, reflecting the community’s internal social division into three principal sub–groups that migrated from their former residences—Kharbintsy from Manchuria and Sinkiangtsy from Sinkiang in China, and Turchany from Turkey.
The Turkish group left Russia about 230–240 years ago and lived in Turkey until 1963. In 1963, some of them immigrated to the United States. The three groups settled in the same area of Woodburn, Oregon in the 1960s. Although there are minor differences in dialects and customs, they share common cultural traditions, customs, and beliefs.
Within Kharbintsy, Sinkiantsy and Turchany divisions, they are further subdivided on the basis of kinship groups. Although the Oregon contingent is no longer located in a cohesive village, the Old Believers continue to congregate in prayer halls (molelnyy dom) for worship and gather at kin homesteads for marriages and other major socio–cultural events. To attend any of these activities is to re–live aspects of the historical accounts of pre–revolutionary (October 1917) peasant Russia.
The most orthodox group, recoiling under the threat of cultural erosion resulting from the compromises necessary to co–exist with the host culture, exercised the ultimate strategy of exodus to a more remote and isolated region. Eventually, in 1967, five Old Believer families (10 adults and 12 children) from Woodburn, Oregon, purchased 640 acres of land and leased an additional two and one-quarter acres of adjacent land on the Kenai Peninsula, along the Anchor River, in Alaska.
They began building a community near Anchor Point in the summer of 1968 when the vanguard of families arrived from Oregon. They named this community Nikolaevsk. Two smaller satellite villages in the vicinity were named Nakhodka and Klyuchevaya. In 1969, the community installed a water system in Nikolaevsk, and connected electricity from the Homer Electric Association.
The group constructed a sawmill to produce the lumber needed to construct houses, barns, sheds and boats for drift fishing. In 1971, 15 of the Old Believers formed the Russian Maritime Company, built a shop in Nikolaevsk, and by 1975 had produced sixteen 34–foot fiberglass, diesel–powered commercial fishing boats; at least 35 of the villagers became successful commercial fisherman.
In the early 1970s, other families from Oregon split off to form new settlements in northern Canada, near Edmonton, Alberta, and on the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the state of Alaska. The Alaskan communities have prospered and grown in the last 54 years from 70 residents in 1970 to a few hundred residents in 1975 and today’s population numbers about 2,000 statewide.
The Alaska settlements attract families from Oregon and other locations world–wide. Initially founded in 1968 by five families, the village Nikolaevsk has become the largest Old Believer settlement in Alaska. As of June 2015, the village had a population of nearly 400, or about 70–80 nuclear families and 100 households. The village has a public school that is managed by the state of Alaska and that is attended almost exclusively by Russian–speaking children from Nikolaevsk. The advantage of a cohesive community eased the strain of continual enforcement of traditional cultural norms, values and behavior.
In the summer of 1983, when I visited Nikolaevsk for the first time, I noticed an emerging controversy in the village between two factions of its residents—priestly (popovtsy) and priestless (bespopovtsy). Two years later, the Anchorage Daily News (January 27, 1985: A1, A9–10) reported about the confrontation among Old Believers on the Kenai Peninsula. The conflict centered on differences in religious conduct: some Old Believers, led by Kondratiy Fefelov, who had studied in a monastery in Romania, “uncorrupted,” as he stated, “by religious reforms,” favored ordaining priests.
Many of the villagers, however, refused to accept Fefelov as a priest and denounced his idea. During 1983–84, as a result of this dilemma, five priestless (bespopovtsy) nuclear families left Nikolaevsk to establish a new Old Believer settlement, Berezovka (birch tree in Russian), in a rural area of interior Alaska near the existing community of Willow.
A while later, on July 6, 1984, the prayer hall (molelnyy dom) of the bespopovtsy (priestless) in Nikolaevsk burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances. Kondratiy Fefelov and his nephew Paul were accused by several villagers in this action, but Anchor Point Fire Chief Bob Craig reported that no conclusions were reached on this matter.
A few days before the old church (praying house) burned down, a priestly grouping (popovtsy), led by priest Kondratiy Fefelov, completed construction of a new church, the Church of Saint Nikolas, according to the theological principles of the Belokrinitsky Hierarchy tradition. The new priestly church was built across the street from the original priestless prayer hall that burned down.
The “schism” (raskol) of the 1980s in Nikolaevsk has been settled. In protest, the most traditional Old Believers left the estranged community and moved to other remote regions of Alaska.
As Andron Martushev (priestless) once told me during my visit to Berezovka village in May of 1986, “I want it to be the way it was before the split in the community, I don’t want to live near evil.”
Today, although priestly and priestless groupings’ interactions are limited to occasional acknowledgements on the streets of Nikolaevsk and other Old Believers villages in the Kachemak Bay (e.g., Voznesenka), people have learned how to coexist as neighbors and live in peace.
For the Russian Old Believers in Alaska, “…the darkest time of the day is before the sunrise.” America is their sunrise!
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, andClipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III tested positive on Sunday for Covid-19. He requested a Covid test after exhibiting symptoms while at home on leave.
“My symptoms are mild, and I am following my physician’s directions,” he said in a statement. “In keeping with those directions, and in accordance with CDC guidelines, I will quarantine myself at home for the next five days.”
Austin is fully vaccinated for Covid. His last meeting with President Joe Biden was on Dec. 21, more than a week before he began to experience symptoms. He tested negative that day and has not been in the Pentagon since Thursday, meeting with a few members of his staff.
“Stemming the spread of this virus, safeguarding our workforce and ensuring my own speedy and safe recovery remain my priorities. To the degree possible, I plan to attend virtually this coming week those key meetings and discussions required to inform my situational awareness and decision making. I will retain all authorities. Deputy Secretary Hicks will represent me as appropriate in other matters,” he said.
“As my doctor made clear to me, my fully vaccinated status — and the booster I received in early October — have rendered the infection much more mild than it would otherwise have been. And I am grateful for that,” he said.
“The vaccines work and will remain a military medical requirement for our workforce. I continue to encourage everyone eligible for a booster shot to get one. This remains a readiness issue,” Austin said.
The Alaska Republican Party State Central Committee has set the time and place for its biennial convention this year: April 21 – 23, at the Westmark Hotel and Conference Center, 813 Noble St, Fairbanks.
The party’s State Central Committee authorized 350 delegates, and the convention fee is $275, said Ann Brown, ARP chairwoman.
Every two years, at the District level, the party elects local officers , delegates and alternates to the state convention, where it elects statewide executive committee officers, proposes changes to the state party platform and rules, and organizes for up-coming campaigns. This year, the House and Senate districts have changed, requiring a realignment of district chairs in many parts of the Railbelt.
The hotels in Fairbanks may book quickly that week due to military exercises expected at Eielson Air Force Base in April. Although the state party has not yet posted hotel booking codes on its website, that will be the place to check for special room rates.
Those who are not party officers may attend as nonvoting participants, but must be registered as Republicans and will need to register at the party’s website.
Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly Chairwoman Mindy O’Neall has called a special Assembly meeting for Jan. 6 to consider a resolution by Assemblyman David Guttenberg, who is asking the Borough to join in as a “friend of the court” in a lawsuit against the new political district boundaries in Fairbanks.
Those boundaries, as set forth by the Alaska Redistricting Board, disadvantage Guttenberg’s nephew, Democrat Rep. Grier Hopkins, whose new district trends conservative and will be difficult for him to win in 2022.
Guttenberg is complaining that a portion of the Goldstream Road area has been districted into the new District 36, which is a sprawling Interior Alaska District, a shape that is favored by Doyon Native Corporation. Guttenberg wants the borough to file an amicus brief in regard to the new lines, and so the matter is the subject of the special meeting.
But Guttenberg is only complaining about Goldstream, and mentions nothing about the Elliott Highway, much of which is also in the new D-36, and parts of the Steese Highway. He’s only concerned about the redistricted portion that impacts his nephew.
The Borough Assembly had, during the draft mapping process, asked the redistricting board to fix overpopulated districts in the region, and the board complied. The Assembly asked the board to take any the excess population and put it in a single district. The board did that, too. Now Guttenberg is worried about the result, perhaps because it impacts the Guttenberg-Hopkins political legacy.
Guttenberg is a former Fairbanks state representative, who served eight terms representing that part of Fairbanks before retiring from the State Legislature. Hopkins ran for the seat vacated by his uncle in 2018 and won it handily.
The filing deadline to oppose the new districts has already passed, but the amicus brief, something that would be drawn up by the borough’s lawyers, would support an existing lawsuit by the City of Valdez and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Oral arguments for the challenges to the redistricting map are set for January.
The agenda for the meetinghas the resolution on it and nothing more. The draft of the resolution is here:
AVOID KFC AND FRED MEYER
