Anti-Israel protesters showed up in midtown Anchorage on Saturday to support Palestinians.
The event was sponsored by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which describes itself as “a working-class party of leaders and activists from many different struggles, founded to promote the movement for revolutionary change.” It is calling for an end to “current hostiles and crimes being committed against Palestinians. We demand the end to Israeli apartheid and US end to Israeli.”
By MARK HAMILTON
(Editor’s note: This is the sixth in a series by Mark Hamilton about the history of the Pebble Project in Alaska.)
On May 11, 2017, EPA agreed to a settlement agreement with the Pebble Limited Partnership to resolve litigation from 2014 relating to EPA’s pre-emptive veto of a permit application.
The favorable settlement in the suit against EPA for having issued a pre-emptive veto was not a great victory, except that it added to Alaska’s track record of successfully challenging a huge federal overreach.
Pebble was allowed to enter the NEPA process, joining tens of thousands of projects since 1970 that did not have to face the veto prior to applying.
The other piece of the settlement is instructive: The EPA was instructed “in 90 days” to begin the process of removing the veto (preliminary determination in legal terms).
That was in May of 2017. EPA did nothing but promise as the time moved on, and finally, as America was about to change the presidency, EPA rejected the requirement and tossed it over to the Trump Administration.
The delay and postponement was despicable but ultimately effective, since, 27 months after the settlement requirement (most under President Trump), EPA withdrew the veto.
This was quickly jumped on as “Trump removed the veto.” That is not so; the settlement was under the Obama Administration; Trump ultimately carried out the provisions of the settlement that Obama’s EPA refused to complete.
Understand how discussions about environmental impact are stacked against the developer.
When a project is envisioned after preliminary geological findings indicate there’s a worthwhile deposit, the developer will begin to secure leases for the area. At least at this time, if not earlier, it will be public knowledge that there is the possibility of a mine.
The narrative of fear can begin immediately. Sheer size can be utilized to instill apprehension. Describing the removal of billions of tons of rock, then storing the huge percentage of the crushed rock after minerals have been removed (tailings) yields numbers that are truly beyond the imagination of the average citizen. Assigning danger to those numbers is pure speculation, but they set the stage for the introduction of environmental degradation. Today virtually everyone, to include developers, is attuned to the need to be environmentally aware.
The preservationists begin their campaign buoyed by the sheer size of mining projects. This plays well into what otherwise might be seen as hysterical claims: “Unimaginable spoilage,” “enormous degradation” are more believable when you are already size shocked.
Adding to your worry and consternation about spoilage and degradation, you will hear the area chosen for the mine site is one of the deity’s grandest creations. Look for the buzz word “pristine.”
Every road, every airport, every port, every railroad was built on a once-pristine area, and the same holds true for every house and every school.
Further you will be warned that this pristine area will be defiled in “perpetuity.” You see “forever” just doesn’t have the ring of careful consideration that “perpetuity” suggests.
Don’t be pebbled.
The “Pebbled” series at Must Read Alaska is authored by Mark Hamilton. After 31 years of service to this nation, Hamilton retired as a Major General with the U. S. Army in July of 1998. He served for 12 years as President of University of Alaska, and is now President Emeritus. He worked for the Pebble Partnership for three years before retiring. The series continues next week.
Pebbled 1: Virtue signaling won out over science in project of the century
Pebbled 2: Environmental industry has fear-mongering down to an art
Pebbled 3: The secret history of ANWR and the hand that shaped it
Pebbled 4: When government dictates an advance prohibition
Pebbled 5: EPA ‘just didn’t have time’ to actually go to Bristol Bay
U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka was the keynote speaker at the Interior Republicans luncheon Friday, expanding on her theme that incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski has not done enough to defend Alaska and has become “more like the D.C. insiders than us.”
In a break with its liberal tradition, the Fairbanks News-Miner reported on the speech in fair terms and ran its story across the top of the front page, shown above. The newspaper rarely, if ever, reports on speakers of the Republican luncheon unless it’s the governor.
Sixty-six people attended the luncheon at the Westmark Hotel’s Gold Room, including a dozen who had not attended the luncheon before.
In the audience was an Alaska Native woman who said Democrats recruit Native communities but don’t actually represent them. She was a supporter of all that Tshibaka was speaking about and was going to reach out to her Native friends and associates. The Filipino community was also represented. Two borough assembly members attended the luncheon, which is the same as the old Denny’s luncheon group, but in a new location.
Tshibaka met with over 200 people in Fairbanks, speaking with the Interior Patriots, the Association of Mature American Citizens Fairbanks chapter, and four smaller meet-and-greets hosted by supporters. On Saturday morning, she met with faith leaders at the Cookie Jar restaurant. On Saturday evening, she will be at the Friends of the NRA banquet.
Dave Bronson accepted his victory on Friday night, telling Anchorage it is time to pull together and get to work:
“Tonight’s numbers solidify our lead in this race. I am extremely humbled by the people of Anchorage and their decision to elect me as Mayor. This was a hard fought battle, and I know that there are some in Anchorage who did not vote for me. As Mayor I will work to bring this city back together so we can make Anchorage more vibrant than ever. I want to thank my supporters. From the beginning, this campaign was a voice for the people. We had hundreds of volunteers who wanted to see this city go in a new direction, and now I can confidently tell them we are headed that way!” he wrote.
Bronson thanked his staff and also thanked his primary opponent Forrest Dunbar for having “important conversations throughout the campaign.”
Read: Dunbar concedes, takes swipes at Bronson
“Thank you to my staff and family who helped me through this whole process. Also, thank you to Forrest and his campaign. We had a lot of important conversations throughout this election, and I look forward to continuing to have them. Thank you Anchorage; now let’s get to work,” Bronson wrote.
Bronson worked with Axiom Strategies and Art Hackney Communications as his paid team, but he had hundreds of volunteers who worked tirelessly on his campaign since he announced last Aug. 24, 2020.
Read: Bronson announces for mayor to ‘turn city around’
With 90,587 votes counted, Bronson leads with 45,899 to Dunbar’s 44,698. The Anchorage Assembly reviews and certifies the election on Tuesday, and Bronson will be sworn in on July 1. He has already started working on the transition to his administration,.
THROWS A FIT OVER VOLUNTEERS TRYING TO SEE BETTER
Another day, another drama at the Anchorage Election Office. Two volunteer observers for the ballot-watching process at Anchorage’s Election Office were kept so far from the ballot-counting process that they ended up bringing in binoculars so they could see what was going on this week.
That sent Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones over the edge: She sent note to both the Bronson campaign and the Dunbar campaign complaining about the observer, who was there on behalf of winning candidate Dave Bronson. The note was, obviously, pointed at the Bronson campaign:
“To all: I am astonished that I have to say this, but an observer was seen today using BINOCULARS to view computers in the Election Center. I am so shocked that the observer admittedly used binoculars without asking first if she could get closer to the computers. We have accommodated this observer and others all day today and yesterday — bringing chairs for two people from each campaign to review every single questioned ballot envelope and every single special needs ballot envelope … yet this overly intense and unnecessary scrutiny, without asking for information, does little to show a willingness to understand the process nor demonstrate the respect we have requested from the campaigns and observers for election official. I have informed this observer if she uses binoculars again the the Election Center, she will be removed permanently. Barbara”
There are no references in municipal code that prevent an observer from using a magnifying glass or binoculars to help them see. Jones has maintained physical distancing that makes it difficult for observers to be sure of what they are seeing.
Today, losing candidate Forrest Dunbar also swiped at the Bronson volunteers, calling them bizarre:
…”we have witnessed aggressive, confrontational, and frankly bizarre behavior from Bronson supporters and staff toward Election Center workers. Their actions have caused the Election Center to revoke observer access to members of the general public, ban at least one Bronson campaign observer from entering the Center, and needlessly consumed Election Center staff time responding to baseless challenges. Coupled with their allies on the Assembly and in the far-right media, the Bronson campaign is strangely casting doubt on the election that they themselves are winning,” Dunbar wrote, evidently not a fan of the Bronson campaign’s election vigilance.
Read: Dunbar concedes, takes swipes at Bronson
The election counting was to finish today, with final results certified by the Assembly on Tuesday. As of the most recent number released by the clerk, it’s 45,889 votes for Bronson, and 44,698 votes for Dunbar, or 50.66 percent to 49.34 percent.
In the Anchorage mayoral election, Forrest Dunbar has conceded to Dave Bronson, but he went out swinging in a classic Friday night news dump.
In a Facebook Post on May 21, Dunbar said that with the most recent results, and the official canvass nearly complete, it is “clear that Dave Bronson will be Anchorage’s next Mayor.”
He thanked his team of supporters and was pleased to know that more than 49 percent of the votes cast went for him.
“In any other year, this would have been enough votes to win; however, this year the Municipal Election saw record turnout, driven largely by intense feelings about the COVID-19 pandemic. For the last two weeks we have had observers down at the Election Center and have been reaching out to a number of voters who need to “cure” their ballots,” Dunbar wrote.
Then, rather than accept that the Bronson campaign had been effective and that in the competition of ideas, Bronson had prevailed, he criticized the Bronson volunteers for being too aggressive.
“During that time, we have witnessed aggressive, confrontational, and frankly bizarre behavior from Bronson supporters and staff toward Election Center workers. Their actions have caused the Election Center to revoke observer access to members of the general public, ban at least one Bronson campaign observer from entering the Center, and needlessly consumed Election Center staff time responding to baseless challenges. Coupled with their allies on the Assembly and in the far-right media, the Bronson campaign is strangely casting doubt on the election that they themselves are winning,” he wrote, driving a wedge between the differing accounts of what occurred at the Election Office.
He then went on to predict that activists would use the various mistakes in the election to launch “a concerted attempt to repeal the Anchorage Vote By Mail system, despite the demonstrable success of that same system as seen in this year’s record turnout.”
Dunbar went further. He called Bronson a liar.
“During the campaign, Mr. Bronson did not tell the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic, did not tell the truth regarding the Municipal response to that pandemic, and did not tell the truth about my record,” Dunbar said.
“Nevertheless, in the coming months and years he will have the opportunity to govern in a different fashion from how he campaigned. He has an Assembly that is deeply committed to the public good of Anchorage. If he does indeed govern from the ‘center right,’ as he has claimed he would, and avoid extremism, he will likely find many issues on which he can ‘count to six’ on the Assembly.
“He will also have the benefit of a huge amount of Federal aid flowing into our community, much of which is now dedicated to programs to help small businesses, critical non-profit partners, efforts to retrain and provide new opportunities to our workforce, and more,” he wrote of Bronson.
Must Read Alaska declared Bronson the victor on Wednesday, May 19.
Read: MRAK declares Bronson winner
In his Facebook concession on Friday, Dunbar challenged Bronson on various issues where he feels Bronson has shortcomings:
“Mr. Bronson will have several early tests: will he retain a number of the professional, nonpartisan heads of Departments that deliver core services to the people of Anchorage? Or will he appoint ideologically extreme political allies in their place? Will he tackle our looming homelessness challenge at the Sullivan Arena as our FEMA funds come to an end, or will he pursue the approach he espoused on the campaign trail, which we know to be unconstitutional? Will he compromise and work with the Assembly to pass ordinances and budget measures? Or will he continue to refer to those elected officials as ‘idiots’ and ‘trash,’ and perpetuate the divisions in Anchorage that he and his allies stoked so eagerly this past year? We shall see,” Dunbar wrote, refraining from engaging in any effort to bridge the divide, and not offering to work with Bronson to move the city forward.
His words echoed the editorial written by the Anchorage Daily News, which also said Bronson would have to bend to the will of the liberal assembly.
Read: ADN tells Bronson to go along, get along with leftist Assembly
“One thing is certain: for the next year I will continue to serve on the Anchorage Assembly, alongside my dedicated and experienced colleagues. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. My colleagues and I will not stop doing the detailed, nonpartisan, community-centric work that constitutes the bulk of what we do at the Municipality. We will seek always to deliver core public services to the people of Anchorage, with an eye towards quality of life, public safety, and the future of Anchorage. So too will the Municipality’s many hardworking, service-oriented employees within the departments, utilities, and enterprises. Mr. Bronson now has a unique opportunity to join in that work, entrusted with one of the most important positions in all of Alaska. Most of Anchorage will be hoping that unity can be found, extremism can be rejected, and facts and truth will guide our decision making,” Dunbar wrote, once again labeling Bronson’s voters as extremists.
The Municipality of Anchorage, under former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, took a hard pass on having a Memorial Day ceremony in 2020. Last year, the citizens took over the tradition and conducted their own at the Delaney Park Strip Veterans Memorial.
Led by activist Bernadette Wilson, the ceremony in 2020 had all the features of a normal Memorial Day service, but with a decidedly populist flair. Berkowitz did not attend.
This year, Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson has restored the tradition, set for 9:30-10:30 am on Monday, May 31. The Veterans Memorial is located near West 9th Avenue and I Street.
The “Anchorage Remembers” ceremony includes patriotic music, spiritual words, speakers and laying of wreaths to honor the fallen. Keynote speakers include Quinn-Davidson and Major Gen. Peter Andrysiak, commanding general of the U.S. Army Alaska and deputy commander of the U.S. Alaskan Command.
During the ceremony, the Municipality’s Military and Veterans Affairs Commission will pay special tribute to a longtime community advocate for Alaska’s veterans and military.
During a Friday Zoom teleconference briefing on homelessness, Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson took to task the supporters of Mayor-elect Dave Bronson. She believes their words about the homelessness and vagrancy situation in Anchorage are “divisive.”
“Homelessness is challenging issue. As it can be a polarizing issue. But we also know it is a solvable issue,” Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson said. “During the mayoral campaign we heard a lot of divisive words around homelessness and people experiencing it.”
She brought campaigning into her introduction about the plan she has for solving homelessness in Anchorage.
“We heard a wide range of ideas and proposed proposals for tackling it, some more feasible than others,” she said. “Like with many things, campaigning about homelessness and solving homelessness are two different things,” she said, another shot at the Mayor-elect Bronson. “The good news, is that we know what the solutions are and we are here to talk about a path forward.”
Quinn-Davidson will be acting mayor for 40 more days. But meanwhile, she said the city is on the cusp of “significantly reducing homelessness.” She said her administration has created a plan to hand over to the next administration.
Many supporters of Mayor-elect Bronson have made the distinction between those who fall into homelessness and those who are criminal street elements, sometimes called vagrants, who live the hobo lifestyle. They voted for Bronson because they want their streets and neighborhoods safe again and they lack faith in the current administration’s ability to take the correct actions.
Bronson has a plan to address the homelessness situation in Anchorage, details of which have yet to be released. It’s not clear, nor likely, that he will simply adopt the outgoing acting mayor’s plan.
By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY
There are decisive episodes, dreams, words, scenes, facial expressions, meetings, smells and other physical and spiritual phenomenon that are deeply recorded in our memory. These meaningful moments could be turning points in our life or reminders of the past that eventually influenced future directions and choices in our life, shaped our personality, and formed our ideological believes and moral values.
One of my memorable moment took place on February 8, 1978, the eighth day after my arrival to the United States from Europe as a political refugee. On that day, I received my first job offer—to shovel snow by hand off the roof of a four-story apartment complex in northeast Philadelphia. The pay for the job was $25.00.
Although, I was a college-educated professional, with teaching experience in the secondary schools of the Soviet Union, at that moment of my life I needed a job to pay for my living expenses, and I was pleased to have it. I was not shamed or humiliated. Immigration is a challenge for survival, and I volunteered for it.
My employer for this job was Martin Dubner, an immigrant from Romania, who, as a hard-working and skillful plumber, managed to invest wisely in real state. He owned several residential houses and two mid-size apartment complexes in Philadelphia. His wife was a petit Jewish woman with a distinct East European accent; she helped him to run the business. Their son, an undergraduate student at Temple University, was a first generation American, born in the United States. This was a modest immigrant family (I assume with a substantial savings in the bank), residing in a middle-class neighborhood around Roosevelt Boulevard in northeast Philadelphia.
After I finished shoveling snow, the manager of the apartment complex invited me to his home office, offered me a seat at the table in the living room and a cup of coffee. He was a tall, stocky and strong-looking American man in his fifties. I could tell by his assertive body language that he was curious about me, perhaps the first and only Soviet political refugee he ever met in his life up to now.
“It must be cold in Russia?” he asked. “Yes, winters are cold,” I answered. “Do you know what a refrigerator is?” he asked again with a serious expression on his face. I was puzzled by this blatant question and his obvious lack of knowledge of my former country. “Yes, I know,” I answered.
And I questioned myself, “Do Americans really believe that Russia is so cold all year around that it is perfectly safe to keep food out of the window or in outdoor food storages instead of the refrigerator?”
“Is that true that tanks are riding on the streets in Russia?” he continued asking his blizzard questions after a short pause. I stared at him, speechless at his shallowness and unfamiliarity with life in the Soviet Union. “No…., only on military parades during certain holidays—Victory Day on May 9th, ” I answered. A breeze of the Cold War was obvious in this little office. I was quite and alert.
Then, the manager sat at the table and offered me a lesson of English language. “I will teach you English now,” he said. He moved an ashtray on the table toward me and commanded, “Say ashtray, ashtray.” I sheepishly repeated, “…ashtray, ashtray.” With affiliative smile, he appeared pleased with himself and his teaching accomplishment.
Moments later, he handed me $25.00 cash and offered a ride to my home on Fox Street in northeast Philadelphia. It was a smooth ride in a Lincoln Town Car—my first riding experience in a luxury American car. All I really remember was how much room the car had inside, how long it was, and the premium sound system. The car was so comfy that I almost fell asleep on the way home.
This was my first job, my first so-called English lesson and my first ride in a luxury vehicle in America. And all I could think that day was, “America, what a unique country with all its imperfections, challenges, colors, freedoms and opportunities; and how lucky I am to be here—in America!”
Today, I would like to encourage our youth to open their minds to various opinions, views and ideologies, and, the most important, to appreciate our multicultural country—the United States of America.
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 1977; 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.
Read: Old believers preserving faith in the New World
Read: Duke Ellington and the effects of Cold War in Soviet Union on intellectual curiosity
