By BILL EVANS

Night after night they came and testified. Men and women, young and old.  Diverse backgrounds and experiences — workers, employers, business owners, laborers, professionals, former homeless – night after night they waited patiently for hours to be granted six minutes before their leaders.  

They testified about their concern about home values. They testified about their concerns about personal safety, they testified about their concerns that the millions of dollars spent would be ineffective in reducing the problem of homelessness.  

They testified that the money was intended to help businesses and workers impacted by the pandemic and, therefore, could not, and should not, be used to buy permanent properties for homeless services. 

Night after night they testified.  

In the end their hours of testimony did not matter. Their elected leaders, confident in their superior understanding of the problem and their legal right to spend the money as they desired proceeded with stubborn insistence to authorize the purchase of the properties. Those providing testimony in opposition were dismissed as NIMBY’s and racists.  

The hell-for-leather manner in which municipal leadership has proceeded with these purchases is not only indicative of a misguided approach to the homelessness problem; but more importantly, it is emblematic of the overall mistaken direction being taken by municipal leadership.  

At a time when their focus should be on economic development, the government operates as if it is a social service agency.  

The leadership’s approach to homelessness has been to focus 100% of their efforts and spending on addressing the personal needs of 0.006% of the population while doing next-to-nothing for the remaining 99% who are forced to deal with the all too public aspects of the homelessness problem.

Content to clean up already abandoned homeless camps, the municipality provides, in essence, a publicly subsidized outdoor maid service while abandoning large swaths of Midtown and other neighborhoods to an unhealthy and degrading spectacle of public begging and communal drinking. 

While the vast majority of Anchorage residents strongly support a humane safety net for the homeless; they are, nonetheless, tired of being ignored in their legitimate desire to take back their street corners, trails and parks.

For too long, residents of Anchorage have seen increased municipal spending and focus on “homelessness” while simultaneously observing inexorable growth in the problem. They are frustrated that hard-working small business owners are dragged into court while a seemingly “hands-off” approach is afforded to criminality involving illegal campers and street corner beggars.  

The recent report from the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation paints a bleak picture of Anchorage’s economic future.  When was the last time a company moved its operations to Anchorage?  When was the last time a significant expansion of an existing Anchorage business was announced?  When was the last time municipal leadership took tangible steps to improve the climate for private sector growth and development?   

Private sector economic development is the secret sauce. Without private sector growth and development all other priorities eventually founder.  Accordingly, the concerted focus of Anchorage must be on ensuring the development of an economic culture attractive to business investment and the production of good sustainable jobs.  

Unless we, as a community, flourish economically, we will always find ourselves behind the curve in trying to solve the social ills that are a concomitant aspect of a declining economy.  

Focusing on developing the private sector economy is not an abandonment of the fight to combat social ills.  It is, in fact, the all-important prerequisite for such action.  

We can address the public’s frustration and anger caused by the growing problem of homelessness.  

We can also address the underlying root causes that result in homelessness.  But in order to do either successfully we must first focus on ensuring Anchorage has a growing and sustainable private sector economy.   

This is the direction towards which Anchorage must focus.     

Bill Evans is a candidate for Anchorage mayor. The election is April 6.   

By DAN FAGAN

These are serious times. So serious, we’re at war. It’s a civil war. 155-years have passed since our last one. Our second civil war is well underway. 

We’re divided as a nation between freedom-loving Americans and those willing to trade liberty for safety. Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz described perfectly what those of us who cherish freedom are up against. 

“We can’t be free unless we are safe, “Berkowitz said recently in justifying his rigid, unflinching, and unforgiving lockdown of Anchorage businesses using COVID-19 as an excuse. 

This battle we’re in with the likes of Berkowitz is similar to the Civil War of the 1860s. In the 1860s, Leftist Democrats were so anti-freedom they were willing to die on the battlefield for the cause of slavery. They dehumanized Africans just as they currently dehumanize babies whose only sin is living comfortably and peacefully in their mother’s womb. 

Leftist Democrats like Berkowitz and most members of the Anchorage Assembly wholeheartedly endorse and support Planned Parenthood, a vile organization responsible for the slaughter of more babies than any other in America. Margret Sanger, the founder, openly talked about her desire to rid the nation of black babies. She even began what she described as “The Negro Project” designed to target black babies for abortion in poor neighborhoods.

Planned Parenthood clinics are today disproportionately placed in black neighborhoods. More black babies are killed in their mother’s womb than are born in New York City. Mission accomplished for Sanger and her Leftist Democrat enablers.  

There’s no greater freedom than the right to live. If Berkowitz and the radical Leftists on the Assembly are willing to deny so many the freedom to exist, why would we be surprised at all the other freedoms they so callously take away? What won’t they do if they support the genocide of 50-million American babies? Denying a business owner the ability to make a living and feed their family is the least of their sins.  

We also shouldn’t’ be shocked some Assembly members want to ban pastors and clergy the freedom to help teenagers desiring counseling for unwanted same-sex desires.  Or deny the freedom of the public to testify in person at Assembly meetings where they shove down our throats the most radical agenda in the history of Anchorage. 

History has gone out of her way to grab us and shake us and get right in our face and scream: Can’t you see what Leftist Democrats like Berkowitz and some assembly members are all about by now? They are rabidly anti-freedom! The only example of anything a typical Leftist promotes and stands for that promotes freedom is an abortionist’s right to slaughter an innocent, defenseless, vulnerable child while they’re living in their mother’s womb. That’s it. On every other issue they want to centralize power and limit personal liberty.  

But it’s not just history providing overwhelming evidence the Left will bring pain, destruction, tyranny, and death when given power. Look at present-day America and the disaster that is Democrat-run American cities. 

Streets infested and overrun with drug addicts and drunk vagrants. Democrat-run cities are lawless, have high property taxes, bloated government, and an explosion of crime. Anchorage hasn’t quite yet deteriorated to the point of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, or Chicago. But under Berkowitz, were catching up quickly. 

Most of the Democrat-run cities that are disasters have been under the rule of Leftists for generations. Berkowitz and the current hard-left Assembly has only been in charge for five and a half years. And look at the damage they’ve done in such a short period of time! Can you imagine what Anchorage would be like if this crowd ran things for another ten years? 

Anchorage has had Democrat mayors before. More recently Mark Begich. But Berkowitz and the crazies currently on the Assembly make Begich look like Mike Pence. Anchorage has never had such radical leadership as it does now. And the price for it has come with a heavy cost. The longer Berkowitz and his rubber stamp Assembly keep their boots on the neck of business owners, the greater the number that will remain closed forever.

Even if Anchorage wakes up and rejects Leftist ideologue candidates in the Spring of 2021, the damage has been done. It could take years before the economic carnage Berkowitz and the Assembly left behind can be repaired. Hopefully, the voters of Anchorage have learned their lesson.  

Dan Fagan hosts a radio show weekday mornings from 5:30 to 8 am on Newsradio 650 KENI.