The Alaska Bar Association has canceled its annual meeting, solving a problem it was having with its chosen keynote speaker, celebrity political lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Alaska’s celebrity political lawyer Scott Kendall had complained about Dershowitz because he has represented a great number of disreputable clients.
The annual convention was being held in Anchorage Oct. 28-30 at the Dena’ina Convention Center.
Alaska Republican Party Chairman Glenn Clary has named Miranda Strong of Lane Powell as the attorney for the party, upon the resignation of Stacey Stone Semmler, who has served as party attorney for the past four years.
Semmler had announced during the last State Central Committee that her workload at her day job at Weddle Barcott & Holmes was getting busier due to all the businesses she is helping due to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 virus.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank outgoing counsel Stacey Stone Semmler of Holmes Weddle & Barcott. She has worked hard to assist the Alaska Republican Party for the past four years. I have enjoyed working with her and expect to watch her continued success in future years,” Clary said.
“Many of you will remember that Lane Powell represented “StandTall With Mike.” Miranda has practiced in the area of administrative and regulatory law, with a focus on compliance,” said Clary.
Strong has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy with emphasis in legal studies and an master’s degree in public administration. She earned a JD from the University of Washington School of Law in 2012. She has served as an assistant Attorney General and special assistant to the Attorney General in the Alaska Department of Law – Opinions, Appeals, and Ethics Section.
The House race for District 24 is shaping up to be quite a contest in the primary, which is the deciding election in this conservative district.
A fundraiser tonight at the Petroleum Club in Anchorage is key for candidate Tom McKay, who is challenging Rep. Chuck Kopp in the primary.
The fundraising picture shows McKay within striking distance. In the 30-day report at the Alaska Public Offices Commission, it appears that after McKay started his campaign on June 1, he raised $23,000 and has $10,000 in the bank to help his campaign reach voters during the final stretch toward the Aug. 18 election.
Kopp, on the other hand, raised $28,000 and had $27,000 in the bank, but he had spent $35,000, meaning he is $9,000 ahead of McKay. That’s a lot of money for the final push.
But there’s a twist. The day after the 30-day reports were due is tonight’s fundraiser for McKay, and it’s clear he’ll come even with Kopp for that final stretch: The co-hosts are filled with determined heavy-hitters such as Scott Jepson, Kevin Durling, Larry Baker, Joe Mathis, Mayor Dan Sullivan, and former Rep. Ralph Samuels, Bob and Jeannie Penney, and Portia Babcock. There’s even Chuck Heath and John Hendrix on the list of co-hosts. The event starts at 5:30 pm on the deck of the Petroleum Club on C Street.
Adding to the tension in this race is the news that Alaska Family Action is not giving its primary endorsement to Kopp this year, after the board could not decide whether it could still stay with him after he organized with the Democrats and put hardline abortion advocate Ivy Spohnholz and Matt Claman in charge of key committees: Health and Social Service and Judiciary committees.
Board member Fred Dyson issued his own endorsement of Kopp, but others on the board have been reluctant because, Must Read Alaska has learned, Kopp is seen as perpetuating one of the biggest problems in Alaska when he defended the soft-on-crime bill SB 91, and because he has allowed the House to be run by Democrats.
By JAMIE ALLARD
Our homeless problem has exploded in the last five years.
In 2018, The Anchorage Assembly Committee on Homelessness and the Mayor planned $2 million in municipal dollars for cleaning up the homeless Camps in 2020.
Jump forward to 2020 and this same mayor and Anchorage Assembly plot to use CARES Act Funds, funds they termed “a gift from heaven,” and intend to throw approximately $94.5 million at this issue.
$54.5 million of that is taxpayer money, made up of:
Then there’s another $43 million coming from nonprofits such as Rasmuson Foundation, which comes to a grand total of $94.5 million.
With the current number of homeless in the Municipality of Anchorage, this is comparable to giving around $100,000 to each homeless person. This is a budgetary increase by a factor of 50.
Why such a dramatic increase for a problem they could have solved with $2 million?
The purpose of CARES Act is for the benefit of all citizens and small businesses affected by COVID-19, yet this plan benefits less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the population.
Five years ago, when Mayor Ethan Berkowitz was elected, Anchorage was a completely different city. The mayor and his Assembly have spent the last five years “working” on this problem; their proposed solutions/policies have done nothing but increase crime, homeless numbers, and taxpayer costs.
In the current fiscal environment, the taxpayers cannot afford these expenditures.
The Assembly plans on spending CARES Act funds towards homeless initiatives; rather than its intended purpose to give relief to laid off workers and small businesses affected by COVID-19.
The Anchorage Assembly is not acting as a good steward of the funds allocated. This is your money, and the Anchorage Assembly plans on misappropriating it.
We had a homeless crisis prior to COVID-19. The pandemic provided the homeless with better shelters, better food, laundry services and free rein to walk the community and commit crime. Yet nothing has been fixed; your hard-earned dollars continue going toward a repeat of failed municipal policies.
This is the same Assembly Committee on Homelessness who proposed this Resolution in 2018:
“Whereas, the current Administration has made strides in planning for and developing scattered site placements throughout the Anchorage Bowl for housing vulnerable persons and providing other core services, a trend that must be continued; now, therefore, the Anchorage Assembly resolves and declares it a public policy of the Municipality to, when it has the opportunity to do so, locate or recommend sites dispersed throughout all areas of the Anchorage Bowl….” Submitted by: Chair Felix Rivera, Assemblywoman LaFrance.
I have listened to the public, and heard from all walks of life. What’s our plan? It’s time to enforce our laws and hold people accountable. We need to decide as a community how to best to address the homeless issue.
After listening to testimony, and asking questions, I have a grasp on what the public desires: Communication, representation, transparency, and engagement in their ideas.
Jamie Allard is the Anchorage Assembly member representing Chugiak-Eagle River.
Early Monday morning, the campaign office of Congressman Don Young was broken into by unknown individuals.
The alarm system inside the building notified Campaign Manager Truman Reed, and police were notified. By the time Reed arrived, three Anchorage Police vehicles were on site and officers were sweeping the building, taking fingerprints and searching for clues.
The side door had been pried open at about 3:30 am, and the motion light above the door had been smashed.
“At this time, we have no idea who the perpetrators were or what they were looking for. We can’t say with any certainty if it was a random act of burglary, or a planned, malicious attack on the Congressman’s campaign,” Reed said.
There’s no money or merchandise in campaign headquarters of Alaskans for Don Young, which is on Fairbanks Street in midtown. The congressman’s office has been located there for over a decade.
The Kenai River Sportfishing Association says the 28th annual Ted Stevens Kenai River Classic will have to wait until 2021.
The decision came after much deliberation and consideration by the board, which weighed the concerns over COVID-19 with the need to protect salmon on the legendary Kenai River. The premier fishing event has occurred for the past 27 years uninterrupted by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or forest fires. But the super virus is a menace of another magnitude.
The Kenai River Classic is a three-day, invitational fishing event held every year in August and it raises funds and educates policymakers and business leaders about the organization’s habitat-restoration and access projects, fisheries education, research and management. The event is always attended by Alaska’s congressional delegation and state lawmakers. It combines fishing for cohos on the Kenai, banquets and fund-raising auctions.
The Classic has raised more than $18 million over the years for fisheries conservation. Most of the revenues are invested in advocating for public access that protects fish habitat, fishery-conservation and sportfishing in what is for many Alaskans their summer playground — the Kenai Peninsula. The organization does not ask for or accept donations from public officials.
The wrong fuel was pumped into a Division of Forestry plane that crashed near the village of Aniak on May 28, according to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation.
The plane was a state-owned Aero Commander 500 Shrike, which has a piston engine and does not run on typical kerosene jet fuel. Pilots speculated to Must Read Alaska that the wrong fuel had been used. Now the NTSB agrees.
“According to the pilot, after arriving in Aniak, he had the local fuel vendor’s ground service personnel refuel the airplane. He then signed the fuel receipt, and he returned to the airplane’s cockpit to complete some paperwork before departure. Once the paperwork was complete, he then loaded his passengers, started the airplane’s engines, and taxied to Runway 29 for departure,” the NTSB reports.
“The pilot said that shortly after takeoff, and during initial climb, he initially noticed what he thought was mechanical turbulence followed by a reduction in climb performance, and the airplane’s engines began to lose power. Unable to maintain altitude and while descending about 400 ft per minute, he selected an area of shallow water covered terrain as an off-airport landing site. The last thing the pilot remembered of the accident flight was guiding the airplane to the off-airport landing site.
“According to the fuel vendors fuel truck driver, he was unfamiliar with the airplane, so he queried the pilot as to where he should attach the grounding strap and the location of the fuel filler port. Before starting to refuel the airplane, he asked the pilot “do you want Prist with your Jet” to which the pilot responded that he did not. After completing the refueling process, he returned to his truck, wrote “Jet A” in the meter readings section of the prepared receipt, and presented it to the pilot for his signature. The pilot signed the receipt and was provided a copy. The fueler stated that he later added “no Prist” to his copy of the receipt.
“The airplane was equipped with two, Lycoming IO-540 series engines.
“A postaccident examination revealed that the reciprocating engine airplane had been inadvertently serviced with Jet A fuel. A slightly degraded placard near the fuel port on the top of the wing stated, in part: “FUEL 100/100LL MINIMUM GRADE AVIATION GASOLINE ONLY CAPACITY 159.6 US GALLONS”.
Public testimony will be taken by the Juneau Assembly at its Monday meeting on two controversial ordinances: One that would require a face mask be work in public indoor settings, and another that would establish a “systemic racism review committee” that would review every ordinance before it was enacted to ensure it does not promote racism.
The mask ordinance will be discussed during the 5:30 pm special Assembly meeting.
The systemic racism review committee is on the agenda of the 7 pm Committee of the Whole meeting.
The proposed mask ordinance would mandate cloth or surgical fabric coverings over a person’s nose and mouth when in publicly accessible indoor locations or indoor communal areas outside the home. Exceptions would be made for those with disabilities and young children. The proposed emergency ordinance requires six votes to pass. Read the ordinance here.
According to the city manager’s report, it would better if citizens voluntarily wore masks, but he says they are not doing so in sufficient numbers to eliminate community transmission.
“Mitigation of this disease is critical for the well-being of our citizens, our businesses, our school system and our health care system,” according to Manager Rorie Watt.
“Numerous trusted public health officials have identified that mask wearing is one of the most important COVID19 transmission mitigation measures. These health officials include the Alaska Chief Medical Officer, the Alaska Chief Epidemiologist, and the director of the Centers for Disease Control.”
The systemic racism review committee is a proposed ordinance that will create the new 7-member committee charged with reviewing all Assembly legislation and advising on whether an action by the Assembly likely includes a systemic racism policy.
The systemic racism committee would be appointed by the Assembly and would be comprised of “the most balanced representation possible. Members shall have experience identifying unlawful discrimination— including based on race, color, or national origin—experience identifying social justice inequity, or intimate knowledge of local tribal culture and practices. The Assembly must appoint only candidates that it believes would legitimately represent the long term interests of those groups.”
Read more about the ordinance here. The Assembly will not be taking final action on Monday.
To provide public comment, call the Municipal Clerk’s public testimony request phone line at 586-0215 or send an email to [email protected] by 3 p.m. July 20 and provide your full name, email address, the phone number you’ll be calling from, and the agenda topic(s) on which you wish to testify.
You can also testify by clicking the “Raise Hand” button (online Zoom Webinar) or press *9 (telephone) when those items come up on the agenda. Testimony time will be limited based on the number of participants. Members of the public are encouraged to send their comments in advance of the meeting to [email protected].
The public can listen to the audio or watch the meeting in a few different ways: connect directly to the Zoom Webinar https://juneau.zoom.us/j/94684718036, call 1-346-248-7799 and enter Webinar ID 946 8471 8036; or watch on Facebook Live.
A YouTube video promotion for the Alaska State Troopers went viral, after it became known that the video had been banned from the YouTube ad program because it was “too political.”
To be clear, Google/YouTube allow the video to be aired, but simply will not allow it to be promoted.
Google, which owns YouTube, notified the Department of Public Safety late last week that it was all a misunderstanding. There had been a lot of public blowback over the so-called “misunderstanding.”
So the Department thought its pay-per-click recruitment ad would get accepted. Only it didn’t, even after multiple inquiries.
“The Alaska State Trooper recruitment ad featuring Gov. Dunleavy is still in rejection status by Google despite the multiple appeals the DPS filed,” the department wrote on Facebook. “The DPS would appreciate if the tech-giant could resolve the ‘misunderstanding’, as they have public stated, so we can continue our efforts in recruiting quality applicants to provide public safety services to Alaskans.”
In the recruitment ad, Governor Dunleavy appears as a cameo at the end to say, “I support law enforcement because our public safety depends upon it. If you are looking for a change, think about coming to Alaska. We’d love to have you.”
That was the statement deemed too political for Google, which owns YouTube.
“This statement is not political,” said Governor Mike Dunleavy. “It is an encouragement to law enforcement officers across the United States to consider serving Americans in Alaska that value public safety and a call for more Alaska State Troopers so we can continue to combat the high rates of domestic violence, sexual assaults and other criminal acts that threaten a peaceful way of life.”
“At a time of extreme unrest in our country, having a platform like Google make a decision that a statement of support for law enforcement should be censored is wholly unacceptable,” said Commissioner Amanda Price. “This effort from Google to hinder the efforts of the Alaska State Troopers to recruit qualified applicants to provide essential services puts Alaskans at risk.”
The video has been viewed on the Must Read Alaska YouTube channel more than 12,500 times since we first found out about the problems the Alaska State Troopers were having with Google/YouTube.
