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Who is running for Anchorage mayor?

Suzanne Downing
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The Anchorage municipal race ends on April 3, the date when all the mail-in ballots have to be postmarked. There will not be regular polling locations for the first time in Anchorage history, due to a transition to the mail-in ballot.

The mayor’s race in particular will be closely watched due to a deterioration in the city’s quality of life in recent years, with murders, homelessness, rampant crime, and general lawlessness now becoming a concern.

Berkowitz filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission in August to retain his three-year post.

But headwinds have formed for the mayor. He clumsily managed his responses to the serial killings that took place in Anchorage after he became mayor, and he has been cavalier about Anchorage turning into “Little Chicago” under his watch, with record-setting violent deaths. Recently, he said he wasn’t worried about North Korea, but more about moose and bears. He forgot to mention any concern he felt about violent crime.

Property taxes rose 5.7 percent this year, city employees received $7 million in raises, the budget is the highest in history, and Berkowitz is on record saying that due to budget shortfall, citizens would have to choose between public safety and snow plowing. Meanwhile, municipal employees received hefty raises.

Must Read Alaska spoke to politicos about who might run for mayor and here’s the current list of possible candidates:

Bill Evans, former assemblyman, an undeclared voter who left the Republican Party this year, Evans is also a former police officer and has his own legal practice in Anchorage. He is a centrist, but with his history on the Assembly regarding his proposed law relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, he may be a tough sell for the social conservatives.

Rebecca Logan, the president of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, is a conservative activist and strong proponent of the business community. A Republican, she ran for the Chugach Electric board and won, and served as chair for two terms, and filed briefly for a legislative run in 2016.

Nick Begich III, the nephew of Mark Begich, is a Republican conservative who must have the most awkward Thanksgiving dinners with his uncles Tom and Mark, both firebrands of the Democratic Party. Nick is a business entrepreneur and a venture capitalist with commercial interests all over the world.

Dan Sullivan, the former mayor of Anchorage, has been heard telling people that with the liberal mix on the Assembly (9 liberal, 2 conservative), he doesn’t know if he can get anything done as mayor, so although he considered running again, he might not after all.

Lance Pruitt, the state representative for District 27, has been working on local issues lately, raising the question about whether he intends to file for mayor. The Berkowitz Administration is trying to relocate the Anchorage School District bus barn into a residential neighborhood in his district, which Pruitt has been advocating against. He might see this as a reason to take on the mayor in April.

The Protect Our Privacy “bathroom bill” on the municipal ballot, along with the launch of vote-by-mail-only balloting, promises to make the 2018 municipal election a lively season of debate. The American Civil Liberties Union is gearing up for a fight with the Protect Our Privacy advocates over whether men may use women’s public bathrooms and locker rooms on a regular basis, if they so choose, and vice versa.

Governor hires climate adviser

Suzanne Downing
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Nikoosh Carlo is the newest member of Gov. Bill Walker’s executive team, now advising the governor on climate change. She fills a just-created position of “senior climate adviser. The report on her hire was first made by Alaska Public Media.

Carlo is listed in the state directory under the name Cayenne Carlo. She is an exempt employee who is stationed in Juneau. Carlo is likely to make between $80,000 and $100,000, but the Administration can get salary overrides to increase her compensation.

The Governor’s Office has yet to make a formal announcement, but Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott soft-rolled the information to the media through a speech to an oceans conference this week.

Carlo is the former executive director of the Alaska Arctic Policy Commission, and has held posts that include being “expert advisor” to Division of Polar Programs at the National Science Foundation where she led the development of the health and social science components of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee’s five-year research plan.

She has her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego and her B.S. in psychology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Gov. Walker has called a special session for late October after the Alaska Federation of Natives convention, to ask legislators for approval to levy new taxes on Alaskans and businesses. He also added some criminal justice tweaks to the SB 91 reforms that have created a crime wave across many communities.

Last year Walker said government had been cut to the bone and he announced a hiring freeze for all positions except life and safety. He cut Alaskans’ Permanent Fund dividends by half.

Meanwhile, the Trooper post at Girdwood has been closed by the Walker Administration. Girdwood was a key location for responding to wrecks on the Seward Highway, the most dangerous highway in Alaska.

Haines, which is a busy hub of transportation and outdoor recreation, is also now without a Trooper.

It would seem that having a “climate adviser” is a higher priority for the Walker Administration than these life and safety positions.

Larry Burton in line for new role

Suzanne Downing
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Larry Burton in line for new role

Larry Burton was most recently the chief operating officer at the American Council of Life Insurers in Washington, D.C. Word is, he has a new job in the works. It’s also in D.C. and it’s back in government. But what?

Raised in Alaska and a graduate of Dimond High School, Burton began his career as a congressional staffer working for Congressman Don Young and for Sen. Ted Stevens.

Burton also held a number of senior leadership roles at BP, was the executive director of the Business Roundtable, and was senior vice president of government affairs at CVS Caremark. He’s on the board of the Ted Stevens Foundation.

His new job hasn’t been announced yet, but Must Read Alaska hears that the staff he’ll be working with is enthusiastic. And we’ll be talking to him soon to get the whole scoop.

Alaska DHSS hired firm and ‘gamed the system’ on food stamps

Suzanne Downing
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Talk about food stamp fraud.

The Alaska Department of Health and Human Services is being told to pay back $2.5 million to the federal government, after an investigation uncovered that the state, with the help of an out-of-state consultant, was playing fast and loose with the food stamp reporting requirements in order to get bonus payments.

Alaska was found to be using deceptive practices to lower its error rates for how it administers SNAP benefits.

The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee held a hearing on the scandal last week.

“We have no idea how much taxpayer money was wasted,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas.

Sen. Roberts, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, said the investigation showed states had been “gaming the system.”

If so, they had help. Enter Julie Osnes.

Julie Osnes LLC, the South Dakota-based consultant hired by DHSS, helped Alaska make false claims in reports about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), according to the Justice Department.

In 2016, Alaska administered $187.8 million in federal benefits to 129,649 residents. The $2.5 million fine represents over 1 percent of that total payout.

Other states that used the consultant also face fines. For example, Virginia and Wisconsin face $7 million apiece in fines for wrongly bringing in millions in federal bonuses. Virginia has 922,150 SNAP recipients, and Wisconsin has 818,000 recipients.

“Investigations by the Food and Nutrition Service, the department’s Office of Inspector General, and the Department of Justice, have revealed that states have purposely used ‘whatever means necessary’ to mislead the federal government to obtain bonuses or avoid financial penalties,” said Sen. Roberts at the beginning of the hearing. “The level of erroneous payments states have made when administering the program is completely unknown.”

This is the third settlement with a state agency that used Osnes and submitted inaccurate quality control findings, and then took bonuses they didn’t earn, the Justice Department wrote.

“Through these settlements, the United States will recover over $16.5 million. On April 7, the Virginia Department of Social Services agreed to pay over $7 million to resolve its liability associated with the use of Julie Osnes Consulting to improperly reduce its reported error rate. On April 12, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services agreed to pay nearly $7 million to resolve its liability associated with its use of Julie Osnes Consulting for quality control,” the Justice Department wrote.

The federal government pays for the SNAP program’s benefits, which are administered and passed through by the states. The states that report low error rates get bonuses from the federal government.

Osnes’ contract was to help lower the error rate, but it appears she did so by changing the meaning of “error.”

Investigators told the committee that the incentive itself is leading to fraudulent practices and that the Justice Department is now investigating a “significant number” of states for doing the same thing, according to Anne Coffey, the USDA’s assistant inspector general for investigations.

The USDA has in the past published its error rate at 3.66 percent, but it has not published the rate since 2014, when it lost confidence in reporting.

Gov. Walker fights newest Obamacare rollbacks and reforms

Suzanne Downing
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Gov. Walker fights newest Obamacare rollbacks and reforms

Gov. Bill Walker was one of 10 governors who wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer today, asking that the current Republican effort to reform Obamacare be tossed out in favor of the bipartisan approach advocated by Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

The repeal and replacement of Obamacare failed with the aid of Murkowski’s vote this summer. She said the process was flawed and she wanted it to go through her Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee.

A new amendment offered by Republicans hopes to make progress on the devastating Obamacare system that has wreaked havoc on the health care system and dominated political discourse since it was passed without a single Republican vote in 2009.

While the U.S. Supreme Court eventually decided that Obamacare was legal because it was equivalent to a tax, the Medicaid expansion mandate was not legal.  Thirty-one states adopted Medicaid expansion. Gov. Bill Walker expanded Alaska’s Medicaid in 2015, the last state to do so.

All of the signators from the letter asking for forbearance were from Medicaid expansion states.

McConnell, however, appears to be backing the proposal from Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dean Heller of Nevada.

“I’m still looking for more data on how this bill would impact Alaska, but the plan to give power back to the states—the laboratories of democracy—is very compelling. As we have seen with Obamacare, just as we have with so many decrees that come from D.C., a top-down, one-size-fits-all model doesn’t work for our state. I look forward to a committee hearing as soon as next week.” – Sen. Dan Sullivan

Graham said today he will get enough votes on the  bill to repeal Obamacare, and he told reporters the House leadership has pledged its support. “You pass it, we pass it,” is how he described House Speaker Paul Ryan’s pledge. The White House, too, supports the bill.

But Gov. Walker said in a statement, “Alaskans pay more for health care than do most Americans. Before any changes to existing law are made, Alaska must have a clear understanding of how the proposed changes impact Alaskans. Right now, more than 36,000 Alaskans have access to affordable health care thanks to Medicaid expansion. And, due to my team’s out-of-the-box thinking and the legislature’s concurrence, some Alaskans’ health insurance premiums are expected to drop 20 percent. That coverage must be protected-which is why I joined a bipartisan group of governors in a continued push for Congress to follow a thorough process. Health care should not be a partisan issue. Building a Stronger Alaska begins with healthy Alaskans.”

Alaskans who buy health insurance on the open market are paying at least 200 percent more for insurance than they did before Obamacare. A recently announced schedule shows those Alaskans will get a 20 percent break in the coming cycle, but that still means hundreds of dollars a month for individuals.

The letter was signed by four Republicans and five Democrats; Walker is not currently with any party and identifies as an undeclared.

“As you continue to consider changes to the American health care system, we ask you not to consider the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson amendment and renew support for bipartisan efforts to make health care more available and affordable for all Americans. Only open, bipartisan approaches can achieve true, lasting reforms,” the 10 governors wrote.

“Chairman Lamar Alexander and Ranking Member Patty Murray have held bipartisan hearings in the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and have negotiated in good faith to stabilize the individual market. At the committee’s recent hearing with Governors, there was broad bipartisan agreement about many of the initial steps that need to be taken to make individual health insurance more stable and affordable. We are hopeful that the HELP committee, through an open process, can develop bipartisan legislation and we believe their efforts deserve support.”

“We ask you to support bipartisan efforts to bring stability and affordability to our insurance markets. Legislation should receive consideration under regular order, including hearings in health committees and input from the appropriate health-related parties. Improvements to our health insurance markets should control costs, stabilize the market, and positively impact coverage and care of millions of Americans, including many who are dealing with mental illness, chronic health problems, and drug addiction.”

The Graham-Cassidy bill would have to pass by a simple majority vote by the end of the month.  By using the budget reconciliation approach, it will dodge a Democrat filibuster.  But the clock is ticking on this last-ditch effort.

Do shoplifters need counseling?

Suzanne Downing
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6
Do shoplifters need counseling?

In Juneau, shoplifting and petty theft in the downtown core has become so rampant that shop owners say even their rubberized commercial doormats disappear overnight.

In one downtown mall, the commercial locks on the bathroom stall doors were removed by thieves. When building management replaced them the next day, the hinges were next to go.

After SB 91 passed, the punishment for theft under $250 was nothing until the thief was caught the third time. Then, he or she might get five days suspended jail time. Those with flexible moral standards were quick to catch on, knowing that there were no consequences. Police had other crimes to chase — ones where there was a chance of justice being served.

Juneau is taking its “Year of Kindness” approach for 2017 to the next level.

Because SB 91 won’t let prosecutors send shoplifters to jail, the city was searching for some other way to help turn their lives around. They came up with counseling. Shoplifters are going to get some personalized guidance. Parenting, if you must. And it’s because the city has no better options.

“It’s not going to be one thing,” said Amy Mead, the City and Borough of Juneau attorney, describing the problem the city faces with crime. It’s not just addressing drug or alcohol abuse, or other criminal behaviors. And since it’s a pilot, she doesn’t know it it can succeed.

“I have no idea if this program is going to work,” she said. “But it’s either going to be successful or some component of it is going to be successful and we can share that with the rest of the state. Or the whole thing will be a complete failure and at least we’ll have some evidence on that.”

Juneau has up to 50 people who might enroll in the new program, which will last a year.

“It’s entirely voluntary. We’re offering deferred prosecution agreements to third-time offenders who are willing to enroll in the program,” Mead said.

HOW IT WORKS — IN THEORY

With a grant from the U.S. Justice Department, caseworkers will do some cajoling and handholding with the thieves, as they try to instill what mom and dad apparently didn’t  — morals, personal responsibility, a sense of right and wrong, and respect for the property of others.

Caseworkers will have their clients develop a small but measurable goal through a technique called “motivational interviewing.” That small goal might be signing up for public services and benefits, or taking steps to get a job.

“Motivational interviewing” is a counseling technique that, in a nonjudgmental way, gets the clients to talk by asking them questions such as “How might you like things to be different?” or “How does getting arrested for shoplifting interfere with your life?”

According to a description in Wikipedia, the counseling method is characterized by:

  1. Motivation to change is elicited from the client, and is not imposed from outside forces.
  2. It is the client’s task, not the counselor’s, to articulate and resolve the client’s ambivalence.
  3. Direct persuasion is not an effective method for resolving ambivalence.
  4. The counseling style is generally quiet and elicits information from the client.
  5. The counselor is directive, in that they help the client to examine and resolve ambivalence.
  6. Readiness to change is not a trait of the client, but a fluctuating result of interpersonal interaction.
  7. The therapeutic relationship resembles a partnership or companionship.

The Juneau Law Department says that with SB 91, the city needed to come up with other ways to deal with offenders. SB 91 has said they can’t simply be sent to jail.

“As criminal reform has gotten underway in Alaska, we as prosecutors have had to rethink how we approach certain cases, especially misdemeanor property crimes,” Mead said in a city press release. “There is very little data on how to best address this population of offenders in a way that reduces the risk of recidivism, but preliminary findings suggest that motivational interviewing and moral recognition therapy may be beneficial. We are hopeful that this pilot project will serve as a model for other communities struggling with the same issues.”

The one-year program – Juneau Avert Chronic Shoplifting Pilot Project – is a collaboration between City and Borough of Juneau’s Law Department, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribe of Alaska’s Second Chance Reentry Program and Juneau Alliance for Mental Health, Inc. Second Chance is a program to help people coming out of prison reintegrate into society.

“It’s not a softer appproach,” Mead said, adding that it has nothing to do with the city’s “Year of Kindness” instituted by the Juneau Police Department.

“The only options we have now are imposing fines or community work service, but no business will agree to that. Or we can do nothing. Or we can do this.”

In additional to the motivational interviewing, participants will have to attend an 8-hour shoplifting treatment therapy program through the Juneau Alliance for Mental Health.

The Juneau Avert Chronic Shoplifting Pilot Project will cost around $67,000, with funding from the U.S. Department of Justice. The program hopes to begin taking participants in October.

THE REVERE APPROACH: ARREST

Justice grants of this size are common across America’s small towns. Last year, the town of Revere, Massachussetts, on the outskirts of Boston, faced an alarming increase in shoplifting.

The Revere Police department applied for and received a small grant to develop a “No Tolerance for Shoplifting” program that put more police in the retail areas where crime had been on the increase.

After just a few months of increasing arrests, police said the number of shoplifting reports started dropping. The program seemed to be working.

“Our shoplifting numbers from the last several years have been really going up sharply to a point where it has become one of our most prevalent calls for service in the city,” said Lt. Goodwin. “We had a meeting last fall with several retailers…Prior to starting this, we also interviewed a couple of professional ‘boosters’ about what was going on. Word on the street was Revere was the place to shoplift because no one gets arrested; they only get summonsed. We decided we had to reverse that. We might be contributing to the problem.”

The “Revere Reversal” was in response to a light-on-crime approach the city had. Revere had a policy of issuing summonses rather than arrests for many shoplifting incidents.

The summonses required that suspects appear before a clerk magistrate. But Lt. Goodwin said that while cases were getting sent to the court, offenders were just getting slapped on the wrist.

The shoplifting just continued to grow, and Revere noticed an influx of an unsavory element, which included human trafficking and drug trafficking. Drug addiction followed.

“We want to see if a preferred arrest response makes a difference. We hear that 99 out of 100 times the only punishment is the arrest itself.”

THE JUNEAU APPROACH: ENCOURAGE

Arrests are not even happening in a lot of instances in Alaska, because of the terms of SB 91, which has led police to not arrest people for crimes for which there will be no real punishment.

So Juneau is trying a new approach — counsel and encourage. Shoplifters just need some help re-establishing their priorities, so goes the theory, and justice caseworkers are the ones who will make that happen, starting in October.

That theory is about to be tested.

WHY DO PEOPLE SHOPLIFT?

Does drug addiction lead to shoplifting, as is the current popular theory, or is shoplifting something else?

The website Kleptomaniasanonymous.com answers the question. Shoplifting addiction is a behavioral response to:

  • Grief and loss (to fill a void)
  • Anger/Feeling Life is Unfair (to get back/make life right)
  • Depression (to get a lift)
  • Anxiety/Stress (to comfort or soothe)
  • Acceptance/Competition (to fit in)
  • Power/Control (to feel empowered or in control)
  • Boredom/Excitement (to live on the edge)
  • Shame/Low Self-esteem (to distract from feelings of worthlessness)
  • Entitlement/Reward (to compensate for overgiving or sacrifice)
  • Rebellion/Initiation (to break into one’s own identity)

The National Association for Shoplifting Prevention says:

  • There are 27 million shoplifters in the United States. Statistically, that means one in 11 people are shoplifters.
  • In the last five years, police and other loss prevention workers have caught over 10 million people shoplifting.
  • Men and women shoplift with equal frequency, and three-quarters of all shoplifters are adults.
  • Most adult shoplifters report that they initially began shoplifting as teenagers.
  • Most shoplifters do not engage in other types of crime. In fact, these individuals rarely steal personal items from friends and may even return lost money in some situations.
  • Most of the time people shoplift not out of criminal intent, financial need or greed, but as a response to social and personal pressures in their life.

IS JUNEAU’S THEFT PROBLEM PART OF DRUG ADDICTION OR SHOPLIFTING ADDICTION?

Terrence Shulman, who writes and speaks publicly about shoplifting addiction, also says that most people who shoplift do so not out of economic need or greed.

“There is something else going on besides simple greed. People try to get ahead at any cost. People feel it’s never enough. It’s beyond money. It’s beyond dollars and cents. It’s beyond sense,” he writes on his web site, where he offers shoplifting addiction services.

“The simplistic notion that shoplifting and stealing are merely legal or moral issues is wrong. There appears to be more dishonesty than ever these days; yet, tougher laws, more sophisticated security systems, and endless moralism haven’t reduced these offenses. In fact, they’re on the rise. Stealing, particularly shoplifting, can and often does become addictive.”

If opioid addiction isn’t enough for Alaska, perhaps it is also facing an epidemic of shoplifting addiction. Communities may wish to ask whether drug addiction is leading to thefts or whether a rise in general lawlessness simply allows these two types of behaviors to appear to have a cause-and-effect correlation — one that might not be accurate.

Instead, it may be that people who are prone to addiction express it in different ways — they may be addicted to drugs, or perhaps to the thrill of shoplifting.

We remodeled, redesigned, relaunched Must Read

Suzanne Downing
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Readers will notice that Must Read Alaska took on a new look over the weekend. It went from a blog to a sleek news site.

Like anything, it will take some getting used to, especially on the production side of things, but will allow this one-woman news operation to have a more rapid response to events of the day.

I’ll continue to refine the categories over the coming weeks, and while I work at it night and day, want to extend my thanks to everyone who has donated to the cause of giving an alternative view of what is presented in the mainstream media.

Feel free to join in the fun and send a donation to:

Must Read Alaska
3201 C Street Suite 308
Anchorage, Alaska 99503

or use the PayPal Portal at the right.

Thank you!

Suzanne Downing, editor
(in the wee hours)

Homer ethics complaint aired

Suzanne Downing
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An ethics complaint against three Homer City Council members, originally lodged by the constitutional group Heartbeat of Homer on July 3, will go forward into the judicial process, at least through October.

The complaint says the three council members should have declared a conflict of interest instead of voting to essentially certify the results of the June 13 recall, where all of them prevailed in the polls in a controversial special election. To opponents of the recall effort, it may seem like a picky detail set upon by a disgruntled few. But to Homer conservatives, it’s a matter of holding firm on the conduct of public officials.

The original complaint against council members Donna Aderhold, David Lewis and Catriona Reynolds became tangled because it was made public to KBBI radio, which was a violation of a Homer city code guranteeing confidentiality of ethics complaints.

Homer City Code 2.80.040 states  “a person filing a complaint of potential violation shall keep confidential the fact that the person has filed the complaint with the city, as well as the contents of the complaint of potential violation.” A complaint under this guidance would be dismissed if made public.

A second ethics complaint, essentially the same as the first, was then filed by Homer resident Larry Zuccaro and was kept confidential until the three respondents decided to allow it to be made public this week.

The three council members have hired an attorney.and a final decision from the judge is expected by mid-November. Opening briefs in the case are due Oct. 2.

The council members waived confidentiality, which allows the complaints to now speak to the media about their grievances, if they choose.

 

Norway, not so much

Suzanne Downing
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By CRAIG MEDRED
CRAIGMEDRED.NEWS

Commentary

Norway’s version of the Alaska Permanent Fund hit the $1 trillion mark last week.

That’s $1,000 billion, or about 16 times the $61.2 billion the state of Alaska is now sitting on. The Norwegians created their account in 1990. Deposits into the Alaska Permanent Fund began in 1977. 

Cue the discussion about how Alaska, which is now suffering through the worst recession since the 1980s, would be better off if it was more like Norway. This idea has popped up so many times in recent years it has almost become a cliché.

Only months ago, the Alaska Dispatch News ran a story headlined “Norwegians and Icelanders let Alaskans in on the secrets to economic prosperity.”

Beneath that story, reporter Jeannette Lea Falsey wrote that Norwegian economist Morten Brugard had a plan that “might appeal to Alaskans all along the political spectrum: Efficient government and a strong social safety net are the keys to Norway’s economic prosperity.”

Oh, if it were only so simple.

Certainly Alaska’s government could be more efficient. But it’s unlikely there’s a government of which that can’t be said. Not to mention that government efficiency is a hard thing to score.

When it is scored, Norway ranks from third to 11th in a comparison of various indices pulled together by the Institute for Government, a United Kingdom think tank. The highest U.S. ranking is seventh.

“The disparities in performance highlight a key problem with these cross-national studies: they may see the job of government differently, use different variables, and even measure the same thing differently,” the Institute notes.

[Read more at CraigMedred.news]

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