Alaskan Kaleb Froehlich of Juneau is the new chief of staff to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the senator’s office said today. Sen. Murkowski also promoted Garrett Boyle, her legislative director, to Deputy chief of staff and chief counsel.
Froehlich picks up as Alaskan Mike Pawlowski departs as chief of staff to return to Alaska, where he is in partnership with former State Sen. Jerry Mackie in a new venture called Strategy North Group.
Froehlich, an attorney who has been working on for Holland & Hart in Washington, D.C. worked for Murkowski as senior counsel to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for several years.
Boyle was raised in small towns throughout Alaska, including Ouzinkie, Unalakleet, and Seward. Prior to joining Senator Murkowski’s staff, he ran his own business dealing with oil and gas and patent law issues, and served as an extern in the Eastern District of Louisiana while in law school.
Shopkeepers, cafes, and other businesses are banding together to open on Saturday, Dec. 19, in defiance of the Anchorage acting mayor’s lockdown order, EO16, which has kept restaurants closed, and others crippled with 25 percent capacity orders.
The group is calling itself Anchorage Business Coalition and is supporting all businesses. The group is preparing a mass civil disobedience of the shutdown orders that as many as 100 businesses have agreed to join.
The group has been meeting for several weeks to find a way to salvage the Anchorage economy and Christmas in Alaska’s largest city. Many shoppers are either purchasing only online or are traveling to the Mat-Su Valley for their annual gift pursuits, since Anchorage has only allowed the big box stores to remain fully functional.
The small businesses that have decided to fully open on Saturday are not ready to be named because the owners fear being arrested or punished, according to a Must Read Alaska source involved with the effort. But a group organizer says businesses are fully prepared to offer goods, services, just like the big box stores do in Anchorage without harassment from the mayor’s code enforcers.
Numerous stores and restaurants have folded this year after several seesawing shutdowns mandated by the Municipality of Anchorage. Those that remain open are hoping to hang on long enough for the economy to return, which may be several months or years away.
Plans are also under way for Saturday for yet another rolling rally that will be supporting all businesses in Anchorage. Several people from Kenai and the Mat-Su are committed to coming to Anchorage to shop in the stores that day and eat at the restaurants, according to the organizers.
ANCHORAGE ASSEMBLYMAN CONTINUES SOCIAL MEDIA STUMBLES
Anchorage Assembly has a name for those who support President Donald Trump: Chumps.
On Facebook, he noted that the people waving Trump flags along Seward Highway are part of the “Chump train.”
The dictionary definition of a “chump” is someone who is easily tricked : a stupid or foolish person, a sucker.
It’s impossible to know Constant’s true meaning of what he says. Last week, he accused the publisher of this publication of “literally trying to get us killed,” referring to the Assembly.
The dictionary definition of “literally” is when something that is actually true, or exactly what you are saying. An example of literally is when you say you actually received 67 comments in response to an article, as the story below did last week:
In an act of civil disobedience, some Kenai parents are removing their students from the Kenai Peninsula Schools until the school district opens for in-person learning.
A petition at Change.org has 138 signatures so far, after the Dec. 7 Kenai School Board meeting in which parents gave overwhelming testimony in favor of a return to normalcy in schools.
The schools remain locked and the president of the Kenai Peninsula Educators Association, David Brighton, has refused to have his union members go back to school until it is deemed 100 percent safe from COVID-19.
David Brighton, Kenai Peninsula Educators Association, right, with Mark Begich, in Brighton’s LinkedIn profile photo.
“The delay to return to in person education is harming children and families, some beyond repair. The School District’s long term closure is the result of weak, fearful actions and lack of leadership of the Superintendent and the School Board,” the petitions states.
The school board has left the opening of the schools to the superintendent’s discretion, but John O’Brien has declined to act and has given parents no comfort that their children will be served anytime soon.
A Kenai group called “We’re done with distance” started on Facebook and now has over 350 members in just two days. The group is planning on picketing, protesting, and removing their students from the district if the schools are not back in session by Jan. 4.
“Continued isolation is the worst thing that can placed upon children. The unfounded fear, not facts, being used in the decision making, is punishing our students. Forced isolation without proper instruction has caused more harm to our children than a virus with a 98% recovery rate ever will cause,” the group wrote. “Parents on the Kenai Peninsula want schools open for all grades, now. The job of KPBSD is to facilitate educating children, not push an agenda forcing our community into a false sense of safety.”
During the 2019 contract negotiations, the community overwhelmingly supported KPBSD teachers and support staff, according to the petition.” The message used was ‘it’s about the kids.'”
“Now, our children are in a dire crisis. They are not represented by an organized union, they are isolated, and they are suffering while falling further away from a proper education.”
One of the petition sponsors is James Baisden, chief of staff to Kenai Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce. Baisden is also the parent of school-age children in the Kenai School District.
Kenai district schools let out for the Christmas holidays starting on Friday, so the matter of the strike may not have as much effect as intended. State funding for the district is based on October enrollments, and would likely not be impacted by the strike.
Alaskans for Open Meetings will likely ratchet up their complaint to the Alaska Supreme Court, now that Superior Court Judge Una Gandbhir has told the group to take a hike.
Alaskans for Open Meetings had sought to stop Anchorage from implementing a number of measures the Anchorage Assembly had passed during the month when they had locked the public out of their meetings. Their lockout began after former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz had banned group gatherings greater than 15 in Anchorage
Among those controversial decisions were the purchase of several buildings to be used for a geographically spread network of services and shelters for vagrants, homeless, and drug addicts in Anchorage. Other controversial measures included a ban on so-called “conversion therapy,” which Wikipedia calls “pseudoscientific practice of trying to change an individual’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual.”
Gandbhir said that a preliminary injunction was an “extraordinary remedy,” she didn’t think was necessary.
Tune into the Must Read Alaska Show podcast on Monday afternoon for a discussion with Frank McQueary, chairman of Alaskans for Open Meetings, where you can learn more about the group and what its next steps are. You can listen at one of the sites listed here.
The Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 is expected to arrive in all 50 states on Monday, according to Gen. Gus Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed.
Alaska is expected to get 35,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Monday. Another 17,900 doses of the Moderna vaccine is expected soon thereafter. The first vaccination in Alaska could be as early as Monday, if all goes as planned.
“They will begin moving vaccine from the Pfizer manufacturing facility to the UPS and FedEx hubs, and then it will go out to the 636 locations nationwide, which were identified by the states and territories,” Perna told a news conference Saturday. “We expect 145 sites across all the states to receive vaccine on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday, and the final 66 sites on Wednesday, which will complete the initial delivery of the Pfizer orders for vaccine,” he said at a Saturday news conference.
While most states are receiving their doses in batches, Alaska will get all 35,000 doses at once. That’s because the federal government is recognizing the logistical challenges of Alaska; moving the vaccine is difficult because it must be kept at -95F until thawed, after which is is viable for only five days in a refrigerator.
Also, the vaccine is said to not be stable to a great deal of vibration, which makes it difficult to move to remote villages on the usual planes that fly there, such as Cessnas. Hub communities such as Bethel and Kotzebue will at the top of the list, as places where larger aircraft can land.
These first vaccine doses will be distributed statewide among public, private and Tribal health systems. Must Read Alaska has learned that the vaccine will be flown, along with someone to administer it, to specific airports, where the first eligible people — medical professionals and those working in long-term care facilities — will meet the plane and get their vaccines. Then the plane will head to the next location.
Alaska is receiving its state allocation and additional vaccine through the Indian Health Service, according to the Department of Health and Social Services. The federal government has allocated 11,700 doses of the initial Pfizer shipment for the Alaska Tribal Health System. Distribution is left to the discretion of the Alaska Tribal Health Caucus.
Alaska’s distribution process does not include military service members, who will be vaccinated separately through a federal allocation.
A draft letter by Ketchikan Borough mayor seeks to assure the public that their civil rights will be respected, and that any use of the COVID-19 vaccine in Ketchikan will be purely voluntary.
Mayor Rodney Dial says citizens should never be required to disclose personal health information, such as whether they have been vaccinated, in order to access goods and services from either private entities or the government.
Dial will introduce a resolution to be heard at the Dec. 21 meeting of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly meeting.
Dial said his resolution is in response to a number of concerns he has heard from citizens that the vaccines will eventually be required for things like traveling on aircraft or ferry between islands, or health procedures such as dental work.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has also declared that vaccines are optional, but Mayor Dial is addressing the possible use of coercion, such as if a businesses requires proof of vaccination to access goods or services, or requiring tourists to show proof of vaccination before disembarking in Ketchikan. He wants an affirmative resolution in Ketchikan that reasserts constitutional protections.
Mayor Dial views this as a civil rights issue, and said the resolution he proposes seeks to reassure the citizens of the First City that their liberties and privacy are important and will be protected.
He stressed that this is not his statement on the vaccine, either for or against. He wants the vaccine to be made available to all who want it, as quickly as possible. His resolution to protect the civil liberties of residents of his community is being offered to the Assembly for their approval, he said.
A “systemic racism” letter penned by and signed by the Alaska Supreme Court and posted on its State of Alaska website in early June prompted robust conversation at the commission that deals with complaints about judges in Alaska.
Now, the commissioners would like a conversation with the Supreme Court justices who signed it.
The letter made its way to the commission agenda in August, when long-time member Robert Sheldon raised a concern about the appearance of the Supreme Court justices condemning the justice system in Alaska; the discussion about the letter was tabled until Dec. 11.
During the Dec. 11 meeting, the commissioners heard more of Sheldon’s concerns. Front and center, he said that the justices had a choice: They could have acknowledged that Alaska has done more for its primary minority population than any place in history with extensive reparations. He also pointed out that the letter the justices signed was eerily similar to the one penned by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and other courts around the nation in an effort that seemed coordinated.
Ultimately, Sheldon prevailed in his motion to have the Judicial Conduct Commission write a letter to the Supreme Court justices and invite them in for a private conversation about what they meant by the letter, and how it came to be written.
The commission voted 5-3 to make the request of the justices, recognizing that they may, if they choose, simply refuse to talk to the commission.
Background: In June, shortly after the death of George Floyd, a number of courts around the nation signed confessional letters taking responsibility for racism. Alaska’s Supreme Court letter echoed the phrasing of others, indicating there was a coordinated effort, which appears to have been coordinated by the National Center for State Courts.
Few of them were as radical as Washington Supreme Court’s confessional, which states, in part,
“As judges, we must recognize the role we have played in devaluing black lives. This very court once held that a cemetery could lawfully deny grieving black parents the right to bury their infant. We cannot undo this wrong⸺but we can recognize our ability to do better in the future. We can develop a greater awareness of our own conscious and unconscious biases in order to make just decisions in individual cases, and we can administer justice and support court rules in a way that brings greater racial justice to our system as a whole.”
Alaska’s Supreme Court wrote, in part,
“We recognize that too often African-Americans, Alaska Natives, and other people of color are not treated with the same dignity and respect as white members of our communities. And we recognize that as community members, lawyers, and especially as judicial officers, we must do more to change this reality….As judges we must examine what those changes must be, what biases – both conscious and unconscious – we bring, and how we can improve our justice system so that all who enter may be its judges reflect the community that we serve.assured they will receive equal treatment. We must continue our efforts to make our court system and its judges reflect the community that we serve.”
California’s Chief Justice also wrote, in part,
..We must continue to remove barriers to access and fairness, to address conscious and unconscious bias—and yes, racism…
Massachusetts’ chief justices wrote, in part,
As judges, we must look afresh at what we are doing, or failing to do, to root out any conscious and unconscious bias in our courtrooms; to ensure that the justice provided to African-Americans is the same that is provided to white Americans; to create in our courtrooms, our corner of the world, a place where all are truly equal.
Sheldon on Friday expounded on the Alaska exceptionalism in the court system, and said the statement by the Alaska justices was in error or at least ill-advised.
Alaska has completed four reparation cycles, he said, including the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, two recapitalizations of Native corporations, and land grants for Native Vietnam veterans.
Alaska’s largest corporations are owned by Natives, he pointed out.
Every Alaskan gets a Permanent Fund dividend, which is viewed by many as a form of universal basic income, Sheldon said.
In his 13 years on the Judicial Conduct Commission, the commission has investigated or reviewed each complaint of bias, whether or not it was even jurisdictional, he said.
More of the commission’s discussion of whether to have the justices respond to them on the topic of their letter is at this YouTube link:
Alaska’s Commission on Judicial Conduct oversees the conduct of justices of the Alaska Supreme Court, judges of the state court of appeals, state superior court judges, and state district court judges.
