IS ‘GATHERINGS AREN’T SAFE’ MEANT TO SCARE VOTERS?

The Municipality of Anchorage is using the Nixle technology platform in a novel way, one that some say is “nanny state” activity.

According to Nixle, text messages from the Municipality and police are for matters of great urgency, such as missing persons, walk-aways from halfway houses, and active crime scenes to avoid. The platform uses email messages for non-urgent messages, according to Nixle’s own terms of use and descriptions.

Now, the Muni appears to be using Nixle to promote panic over COVID-19.

In an “Alert” sent by the Office of Emergency Management, Nixle recipients were warned in the headline, “COVID-19 has killed 210,494 Americans. Cases are surging. COVID-19 could affect you. Take action now to save lives.”

Nixle is a tool that official government agencies sign up for and community members may also sign up for. It’s a way to get emergency information out to people via text messages. But it has rules about use of text messages — they are for urgent notifications.

COVID-19 must be that bad, because hundreds of Nixle users were advised today — via text message, not email — that “GATHERINGS ARE NOT SAFE.”

COVID-19 has killed 210,494 Americans including 36 Anchorage residents. Cases are surging. COVID-19 could affect you.

But it doesn’t have to happen. Together, we must stop COVID-19 with simple steps and smart choices.
 
• Avoid social gatherings, especially indoors. GATHERINGS ARE NOT SAFE.
• Stay home except for essential trips.
• Feeling even mild symptoms? Get tested. Stay home.
• Wear a mask and stay at least 6 feet from others outside your household.

Not all Nixle users were impressed. Several contacted Must Read Alaska and asked if this means Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is readying another round of shutdowns.

“You’ve got to be joking. This is ridiculous to say the least,” wrote one respondent.

“Wow! More fear mongering! Who approved this? To scare people away from going to the polls? This is ridiculous,” wrote another.

“Berki, you are a joke. Stop the insanity,” and “Wow, politicization at its finest. I will be unsubscribing from Nixle now that it’s a part of the Berkowitz propaganda machine,” were two other comments.

The management of the Performing Arts Center has told Save Anchorage it cannot hang a banner on the side of the Alaska Performing Arts building.

The Black Lives Matter banner that hung there for weeks is now down. It had been approved for the side of the building by the Berkowitz Administration through Oct. 2.

Jamie Allard, Assembly member for the Eagle River area, said the management of the center has been hard to reach, and has not returned her calls, but that a new email she received, there was a clear “no.”

The management of the PAC said that the current banner policy is being revisited due to the kerfuffle over the Black Lives Matter banner, which had turned the building wall into a “public forum.”

But so far the policy has not yet been changed, and that means the Save Anchorage group is being treated unfairly and that the municipality has showed preference to the Black Lives Matter group, Allard said.

In an email to Allard, the PAC management carefully wrote: “As a result of the complaint filed with his office, Municipal Ombudsman Darrel W. Hess informed ACPA that banners for events not happening inside the building create a ‘public forum’ and should not be allowed. As such, the current PAC banner policy is being revised to allow only PAC events to be advertised on any banners placed on the building and no banners that create a “’public forum’ be allowed.

The PAC’s banner policy is here:

WILL THE STATE APPEAL?

Superior Court Judge Dani Crosby today ruled in favor of Arctic Village Council and the League of Women Voters, saying that absentee ballots do not need to have witness signatures on them.

Crosby said that due to the coronavirus, requiring a witness on absentee ballots is too much of a burden for voters. She said there’s no reason to believe that removing the signature witness requirement will lead to voter fraud.

The State of Alaska and the village have until Tuesday afternoon to advise the judge on how it will be enforced, since Alaskans are already voting in the Nov. 3 election.

The decision could throw the election into confusion since so many Alaskans are voting by absentee ballot this year, and may misunderstand that, for now, the signature witness rule is still in place. The Alaska Department of Law has not announced if it will appeal the ruling to the Alaska Supreme Court.

Crosby, a notoriously liberal judge, dismissed every single argument the State made to protect the integrity of the election, as though she had made her decision, and then worked back from there to rationalize it.

It’s the court giving Alaskans another example that demonstrates that Alaska’s courts are politicized, pushing causes for the Left, rather than to uphold the integrity of elections for all Alaskans.

Under Alaska’s method for choosing judges, members of the Alaska Judicial Council recommend names to the governor, and those names are nearly always of liberals, who are rated by members of the Alaska Bar Associations.

Alaskans have little say in the choice of judges, except during retention elections. Judge Crosby is up for retention this November.