Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor has joined a coalition of state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to lift a nationwide restraining order preventing the immediate deportation of Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members.
This legal brief joining the side of President Donald Trump, amplifies the strong Republican support for Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expel the murderous Venezuelan gang members from US soil.
Taylor, along with attorneys general from 25 other states—including Virginia, South Carolina, Texas, and Florida—argues that the restraining order issued by US. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg is jeopardizing public safety and national security. The top legal minds from the 26 states say Trump’s executive order is rooted in “clear constitutional and statutory authority” and that blocking the deportations puts American lives at risk.
As a response to Boasberg’s actions, Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas has introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Trump, on TruthSocial, called Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic.”
In a retort, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a public statement, saying that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Boasberg started the fight when he issued a temporary restraining order on Saturday to stop the removal of the violent gang members covered by Trump’s directive. But the jets carrying the TdA gang members had already left for El Salvador, which has agreed to take the gang members as prisoners for a fee. The planes had already left US airspace when the judge ordered them to turn around. They did not, but instead proceeded to El Salvador. Trump argued that the judge had no jurisdiction over international air space.
Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).
Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador responded to the judge. On X/Twitter, he wrote, “Oopsie. Too late.” Later he warned that the “U.S. is facing a judicial coup.”
That may be close to the truth.
Upon taking office, Trump had designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization, alongside seven other Latin American cartels. The Trump Administration has prioritized removing these violent gangs from the country. Attorney General Jason Miyares of Virginia, who leads the coalition along with South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, emphasized the importance of the president’s directive in safeguarding the public, which they said is the first duty of government.
US. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is unhappy about the deportations and told a joint session of the Alaska Legislature that Trump’s actions were illegal and that the illegal immigrant criminal gang members were denied due process.
In Murkowski’s mind, all 20 million illegal immigrants are entitled to lengthy trials before they can be deported, and no president may deport those considered enemy combatants, like the Venezuelan gang is.
The Mayor of Anchorage has accepted bids for a new city hall or renovations to the existing one.
A request for proposal was issued by the Municipality of Anchorage on Feb. 11, 2025, seeking proposals to provide office space for an alternative or renewed City Hall, as the current lease for the existing City Hall at 632 West 6th Ave. is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2026. Proposals were due by March 12.
The purpose of the RFP is threefold: to identify potential locations and facility concepts for a new or renewed City Hall, assess the concept feasibility, advantages, and disadvantages; to estimate development costs and propose terms for conceptual agreements; and to evaluate proposers’ credentials and experience.
The current Anchorage City Hall, built in 1962 and leased from Anchorage Public Private Partnership LLC, has 145,416 square feet of gross building area, with 132,674 square feet of rentable office space, housing approximately 375 employees across departments such as the Mayor’s office, Finance, IT, and Human Resources. The lease includes an option to purchase at 97% of fair market value.
Proposers were invited to offer flexible solutions, such as purchasing or leasing an existing or new building, renewing the current City Hall lease, or redeveloping it. Additional options mentioned in the RFP include integrating telework, co-locating the Anchorage Health Department (currently at 825 L Street with 71,691 square feet and 126 employees), or using vacant space at the Planning and Permitting Center.
The proposed facility must provide around 150,000 square feet of rentable space, be within Anchorage (and the RFP specifies it should be preferably in the downtown), ensure public transit and parking access, and support seamless operations for all listed departments by Jan. 1, 2027.
Proposals were to have included a development team with key roles for financial lead, architect, property manager, a management plan, site concepts, cost estimates (covering design, construction, and relocation), and potential public financing needs.
Submissions were limited to 20 pages and must address specific criteria: team qualifications (10 points), experience (10 points), project narrative (20 points), site plan/renderings (20 points), financial capacity (20 points), and benefits to the Municipality (20 points), totaling 100 points.
According to the RFP, an evaluation committee will score proposals, potentially followed by interviews with up to three shortlisted proposers, leading to contract negotiations with the highest-ranked proposer.
The award is anticipated to be announced within 30 days.
It’s becoming more clear that President Donald Trump is not really in charge of the Executive Branch. It’s federal judges who are in charge, even of the military.
In the latest decision, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes wrote that the Pentagon cannot enforce Trump’s order banning transgender people from serving in the military, saying it discriminates on the basis of sex.
After Trump signed the Jan. 27 executive order, six service members and two transgenders seeking to enlist in the military sued, saying it was a violation of their constitutional rights.
Trump’s order said that transgenders do not “satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service” because they threaten the lethality of the armed forces and undermine unit cohesion, an argument long used to keep marginalized communities from serving.
“The Court knows that this opinion will lead to heated public debate and appeals,” Reyes wrote. “In a healthy democracy, both are positive outcomes.”
“The cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives — to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,” Reyes wrote.
As of early March 2025, at least 15 to 24 judicial blocks had been imposed on Trump’s executive actions. This number is includes everything from injunctions on policies like birthright citizenship (blocked by four judges), federal funding pauses (blocked by two judges), and transgender healthcare restrictions (blocked by judges). However, some orders were upheld, others overturned, and most are under appeal and will land in the Supreme Court eventually.
Transgender individuals require ongoing medical attention to help them retain their cross-sex appearance and functionality. Some military experts say that makes them unsuitable for deployment into battle zones.
US Sen. Lisa Murkowski harped on President Donald Trump for deporting violent criminal Venezuelan gang members, arguing that he was violating the rule of law by continuing deportations despite a judicial order to halt them.
She stated that Congress needs to push back against what she called Trump’s illegal deportations, emphasizing that all individuals, including those here illegally and are killing Americans, are entitled to due process.
Speaking to a joint session of the Alaska Legislature, Murkowski also criticized Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for its role in reducing the size of government.
She expressed concern over what is in fact a minuscule number of job losses among the more than 15,000 federal employees in Alaska during Trump’s initial weeks in office. She described the impact as significant.
Previously, Murkowski has estimated that up to 100 federal jobs had been eliminated in Alaska, including approximately 30 positions in the US Forest Service.
This would account for less than 0.7% of the state’s federal workforce.
During the Biden administration, Murkowski did not publicly address the loss of thousands of private-sector jobs that resulted from the cancellation of oil leases on Alaska’s North Slope.
However, she made federal employment a focal point of her speech today, noting that Alaska has one of the highest per capita rates of federal workers in the country.
She acknowledged concerns about the $36 trillion national debt but did not directly link it to government spending.
Murkowski’s speech began with a list of her accomplishments, criticisms of the Trump administration, and calls for increased federal funding.
Some of the achievements she cited are more accurately attributed to Sen. Dan Sullivan, who serves on key committees such as Commerce (overseeing the FAA and fishing regulations) and Veterans Affairs (responsible for veterans’ cemeteries). Murkowski did not play a direct role in those initiatives.
Applause during her speech largely came from Democrats, while the Republican members of the Legislature remained silent.
Murkowski expressed strong support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, criticizing the Trump administration for cutting such initiatives. She cited the cleanup of toxic Native lands in Alaska, funded through the “Environmental Justice Program,” as a positive example of DEI-related work.
Murkowski also defended Medicaid expansion, making no mention of addressing fraud within the program. She noted that 38% of Alaskans are currently enrolled in Medicaid, a figure influenced by her vote to preserve the Affordable Care Act. Her support of Medicaid brought applause from the Democrats in the room.
She briefly mentioned Sen. Dan Sullivan but did not acknowledge Rep. Nick Begich, the newest member of Alaska’s congressional delegation. By contrast, in her speech to the Legislature in 2024, she effusively praised then-Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat.
Overall, Murkowski’s speech followed a familiar structure, closely mirroring her address from 2024. This time, however, she placed less emphasis on topics such as climate change and missing and murdered Indigenous women. And this time, she spent much of her time criticizing the Trump Administration.
Today, our primary and secondary schools, and society at large, should be discussing essential social concepts that provide a background, foundation, and historic context of the cultural and traditional landscape in our country, instead of advocating for divisive “Critical Race Theory,” “systemic racism,” “DEI,” and “gender identity” nonsense.
In this essay, I would like to address three imperative concepts as a guideline for common-sense educators: appreciation of history; interpretation of truth and fact; and understanding of the criterion of beauty and its social application.
APPRECIATION OF HISTORY
Many students of history ask an essential question: “What is a practical application of history?” Unfortunately, there is no simple answer because history is not just a recording of facts and events; nor is it merely a logical classification of data in chronological order. History is the development and evolution of mankind from the past through present and to future. History forms a picture of what has happened to mankind from its origins to the present moment.
History is functional in as much as it allows us to understand our relationship with the past and to other societies and cultures. History reveals a pattern of a nation’s emergence and growth. It gives us facts and allows us to search for underlying causes of historic events. It is also poetic, in the sense that we all have an inborn curiosity and sense of wonder about the past.
But what do the politics of the past matter to modern men and women in the 21st century? What relevance has Tsar Nicholas II, Woodrow Wilson, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Winston Churchill to modern concerns? Nowadays it is fashionable in many circles to deny that there is any intrinsic value in historical study. Yet, whenever statesmen, administrators, educators, politicians or journalists wish to convince the public of the rightness of their actions, they appeal to history. It is important, therefore, how history is written and who writes it. We need reliable and accurate guides to the past.
The past could be viewed as a foreign country or different culture. The attitudes and behavior of historical figures are often alien to the present generation. On the other hand, we should remember that the past was also populated with foreigners—in the sense that most people lived in closely-knit national, regional or even tribal communities—with access to much less information about events and conditions elsewhere in the globe than we have today. To these people, the world outside their communities often looked exotic and strange.
At one level, this distance from foreigners could give a romantic zeal for exploration; at another, it could encourage xenophobic resentment and murderous hatred.
The 20th century saw the occupants of the planet Earth come to know more about each other than ever before. But it also witnessed genocide, holocaust and mass destructions. It is important, therefore, that we understand how these two contradictory developments came about in the historic context.
The crucial distinction is not the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and truth. Fact can exist without human intelligence or interference (e.g., gravity, speed of light, or other natural laws of physics), but truth cannot; truth is a man-made narrative.
I don’t think truth exists in any significant or objective way. Reality is not about truth, but about the relationship of facts to one another. Indeed, modern journalists should rely and base their observations and reporting on facts, not on an abstract and often fabricated “truth” and manipulation of data, as it is extensively evident in the far-left and fake journalism in our country today—i.e., CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS broadcasting systems and our own progressive and convoluted Juneau Empire newspaper in Alaska under leadership of Mark Sabbatini.
The concept and criterion of beauty is subjective to every individual—for some, blue is beautiful, for others green. I enjoy classical music; heavy metal gives me a headache. This is why in America we exercise a freedom of individual choice and individual appreciation of beauty. Indeed, beauty is not a group phenomenon. Thus, for example, no government policy can make me prefer green to blue.
The world may be beautiful, or it may be dismal to us. It depends on the view we take or the way we look at things. We may see beauty in everything. We may see beauty in a truckload of wood that is just being unloaded at our door. Others may just see a dirty load of logs—lacking in beauty. But on the other side, it makes our house warm and cozy, and we appreciate this source of beauty, even in the truckload of wood.
In short, the appreciation of beauty is the ability to see the good and beautiful in the objects which on the surface may not appear attractive. It is important, therefore, that we cultivate this ability to see in other people qualities buried beneath the surface of what we may think is an “unattractive individual.” Beauty is present in every color, race, physical shape, and nationality.
Indeed, the most common purpose of education is to gain knowledge and skills that will prepare individuals to lead productive and fulfilling lives; and, certainly, not to indoctrinate and brainwash our youth in the far-left ideology intended to support corrupt politicians who enrich themselves secretly outside the rule of law through kickbacks, bribes, and special favors from lobbyists and corporations; or they simply direct public funds to themselves and their associates—as it has been recently revealed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, and Clipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.
Republican US Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska is cosponsoring a bipartisan bill to curb investment in communist China. The Foreign Investment Guardrails to Help Thwart China Act or (FIGHT) would require Americans to notify the Treasury Department when they make certain investments in key Chinese tech industries like artificial intelligence.
The concern is that technology developed in the United States and transferred to China is being used to harm Americans. For example, a Chinese company installed intelligence gathering equipment on cranes used at seaports across the US that could allow Beijing to spy on Americans and cripple key infrastructure,according to a 2024 congressional report. Much of that technology used for spying originated in the US.
“Our country’s investments in innovative technology give us an enormous advantage over the Chinese Communist Party,” said Sullivan. “But this advantage is threatened when American financial institutions invest in CCP-controlled companies that develop technology—like advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and hypersonics—that could ultimately be used to kill Americans at home and Marines in the Taiwan Strait.”
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is the primary sponsor of the bill. Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will serve as the minority Democratic lead sponsor. Cornyn’s dozen other allies in the effort include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and both parties’ leaders on the Banking Committee: Chair Tim Scott, R-SC, and ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
The FIGHT China Act would cover the following investments:
Acquisitions, including of limited partners, equity interest, property, or other assets; loans and debt financing; Joint ventures; And equity interest or debt conversions.
The new Senate proposal would also empower the Treasury secretary to block a longer list of related investments and to sanction some Chinese firms that partner with the government in Beijing. That provision would effectively leave further curbs or sanctions up to the White House, a shift that comes after business leaders quietly raised concerns with Congress’ initially more binding language.
The bill has some history in Alaska’s experience with China. In 2017, when Gov. Bill Walker was in office, he began deep negotiations with the Chinese to finance and build the Alaska LNG pipeline. The MOU he signed included loans from the Bank of China, construction management from Sinopec, and investment from the China Investment Corporation, all connected to the communist government, with no guardrails to protect the infrastructure from later being sabotaged by China. It’s one example of how technology transfer to China could be weaponized against Americans.
This is referred to as “Steal and Scale,” by those who understand how China steals technology. Steal and Scale is “Steal and Scale” is the sister of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is investing in more than 150 countries around the world and allow China to control them. Belt and Road and Steal and Scale are the centerpieces of Chairman Xi Jinping’s economic and foreign policy, which is to stretch China’s influence through economic dominance. As of August, 2022, 149 counties were listed as having signed on the dotted line for the Belt and Road Initiative.
“The need to address capital flowing from the US to bad actor nations was first realized during the first Trump administration, and I look forward to finishing what we started then by getting this vital priority over the finish line,” Cornyn said in a statement that could very well apply to the Walker sellout of the gasline to the Chinese, something that was ended by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2018.
Republican President Donald Trump, who was supportive of the Walker-China project in 2017, has made it clear he plans on getting tough with China during his second term and will likely support the Sullivan-backed legislation.
The president has already doubled tariffs on Chinese imports, sparking retaliatory restrictions in a no-holds-barred trade war that has banks, farmers, retailers, and even GOP policymakers nervous.
The Senate is moving ahead on this legislation without waiting for the House version. Some analysts believe this could signal House members may take a different approach to disclosing investments in Communist China. In the end though, it’s Trump’s desires on the issue that will probably win out.
“The threat China poses to the United States’ national and economic security continues to grow, and we have a generational opportunity to confront it with the FIGHT China Act,” said Cornyn. “By prohibiting and requiring notification of US investments in certain technologies in China, this bill would help ensure American ingenuity, innovation, and investment do not end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party to be weaponized against us. The need to address capital flowing from the U.S. to bad actor nations was first realized during the first Trump administration, and I look forward to finishing what we started then by getting this vital priority over the finish line.”
Insiders describe “The Foreign Investment Guardrails to Help Thwart China Act” a much less stringent version than the one the House working group first drafted last year — so it’s highly unlikely that multinational firms put up the same fight against it.
Dan Fagan reports and writes columns for Must Read Alaska. He’s covered Alaska politics for close to 30-years. He currently hosts a morning drive radio talk show on 1020 am 92.5 and 104.5 fm on KVNT. For news tips, email Dan at [email protected]
Margo Bellamy is once again running for the Anchorage School Board. She has served on the school board since 2019, some years as president. And she was employed by the district for 43 years.
So, what does Bellamy stand for? Let’s first look at the words she puts on her web page.
Here is her “Focus” per her web page:
Work with legislators and stakeholders to ensure consistent and predictable funding to the Base Student Allocation. (Translation: Get as much money as possible from the state and Alaskans’ PFDs).
Advocate for legislative policy changes that guarantee fair retirement benefits for educators. (Translation: Get as much money from the state even if that includes a state income tax).
Bellamy has been on the school board for six years. During that time our students have been short-changed in reading and math.
Here are the district goals for reading and math that she voted to approve:
No one should be proud of these goals. Why would a board member only want less than half of our young children to be able to read at grade level by 2028? That sure is setting the bar very, very low and our kids will suffer. But, hey, it is probably achievable.
And the math goal that Bellamy voted for is even less aspirational. She believes that only 41.5% of our 8th graders should be proficient in math by 2028. What happens to the other 58.5% of our 8th graders? What about their futures?
Ask Bellamy why the ASD cannot teach kids how to read. Ask her why more than half of our 8th graders should be innumerate. These are the important policy questions. These should be the focus of any board member.
Check out her answer to this question on her web page (Q&A): “What is the single most important issue facing the Anchorage School District?”
“I believe three interconnected issues are paramount: teacher retention, teacher recruitment, and increased public education funding.”
Notice that she doesn’t believe student achievement is the most important. If student achievement is not the number one mission of the district, then that board member does not deserve anyone’s vote. Her focus is on more, more, and more money.
Bellamy was instrumental in recruiting the new superintendent, Jharrett Bryantt from the Houston Independent School District. Bryantt did not even meet the minimum required qualifications for a superintendent. How does that happen?
One of the primary selection criteria was that the new superintendent support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Critical Race Theory was also included in the selection criteria: “Has a strong moral compass that is rooted in justice and equality” and “Is able to lead district diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.”
Bellamy was also instrumental in revoking the charter of the Family Partnership Charter School. The FPCS had the highest student population in the district — nearly 1,700 students. After she voted to revoke its charter, the school lost more than 600 students.
During her tenure, the ASD has dug itself a very deep financial hole every year. The district used one-time federal Covid funds to pay more than 400 teachers’ salaries and benefits. This is a no-no for those who practice fiduciary responsibility. Even the Department of Education and Early Development warned school districts not to use those funds for recurring expenses such as salaries.
Bellamy supports the superintendent’s “Administrative Guidelines” on transgender and gender identity issues. This leaves parents completely out of the decision-making process on gender transitioning, pronoun usage, gender identity, and bathroom usage.
Bellamy also said that these Administrative Guidelines were put into place in 2016, when she was in charge of the Equity office.
When a board member wanted to make these “guidelines” a policy, she did not agree. She wanted to keep the “Administrative Guidelines” in order to keep secrets from parents. Bellamy noted that they were guidelines only and not policy, because the board would not have to discuss the guidelines in a public forum, as it would actual policy.
When former ASD Superintendent Deena Bishop wanted to allow students to breathe freely by removing the mask mandate, Bellamy disagreed. She wanted our children to be masked for another month. Now we have students whose learning has been severely impacted as well as their emotional and social development. But Bellamy has a solution — grow the mental health function to solve the problems she helped to create.
Bellamy is a strong supporter of so-called “equity’ in every educational program. She recently penned an opinion piece where she said she supports the Academies of Anchorage model because “(it is) an important step forward in our efforts to create a more equitable education system in Anchorage.”
Bellamy also believes in bringing “restorative justice” to the district. This policy dictates that a student’s punishment should be based on race, ethnic group, or economic status due to past inequitable practices.
Thus, a low-income minority child would get a less harsh punishment than a non-minority child for the same behavior issue. Here is her statement on the preface to the 2023 budget:
Bellamy is supported by the NEA-PACE, the teachers’ union political action group. The teachers’ union has donated $1,000 to her current reelection campaign. Here is the teachers’ union donation, as shown at the Alaska Public Offices Commission:
It makes one wonder how she will vote on the teachers’ union contract, which will be voted on before the next school year.
This would appear to be a conflict of interest or even a “pay to play” ethical dilemma.
So, if you are pleased with the low student achievement in reading and math, pleased with the Transgender Guidelines and allowing boys to use girls’ bathrooms, pleased with hiding student gender transitioning from parents, pleased with the injection of DEI in the classroom, and pleased with the more than $900,000,000 the district spends, then you might want to even consider voting for the current board member.
Then you just might want to donate your PFD which she will take anyway to fund the Anchorage School District with little to no accountability for results.
David Boyle is an education writer at Must Read Alaska.
Sen. Loki Tobin, chair of the Education Committee in the Senate has an unusual politically charged mug on her desk in the Alaska State Senate chambers.
It says on it, in big letters, “THE FUTURE IS QUEER.”
While the term “queer” is historically considered a derogatory label, it’s been embraced by many in the LGBTQ+ community as a positive and inclusive term. But generally the LGBTQ+ community only accepts its use by they/them, and not by others.
Tobin has no known children but is the Senate’s point person for education policy and funding.
She has in the past been photographed wearing a hat that says “PROTECT TRANS KIDS.” And she said bathrooms reserved for girls is a form of terrorism agains trans kids.
Republicans are censured for having such propaganda in the Senate and House chambers.
An example took place in 2021, when then-Rep. Chris Kurka wore a face mask to the floor of the House Chamber, as required by Legislative Council.
But on his face mask were the printed words, “Government Mandated Muzzle.” He was ordered to remove the mask by then-Speaker Louise Stutes. Kurka ended up leaving the chambers, the government-mandated mask firmly affixed to his face.
Uniform Rules adopted by the House and Senate prohibit political messages on attire on the House floor, but evidently mugs with Democrat political messages, such as the one being displayed by Sen. Tobin, are acceptable in the Senate. At least the messages that are Democrat-approved are acceptable, since Democrats control the Senate due to the side switching of a handful of Republicans, such as Senate President Stevens, Sen. Cathy Giessel, Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, and Sen. Bert Stedman.
The Palmer City Council has hired former Anchorage deputy municipal manager Kolby Hickel Zerkel as the next city manager. Zerkel had applied for the job last year, but was passed over for Stephen Jellie, whose tenure in Palmer lasted less than two months before he and the City Council parted ways.
Zerkel will step into the role in April for a salary of $170,000.
She worked for the Municipality of Anchorage for former Mayor Dave Bronson and then for Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, leaving in January. She lists her current job as state operations director for US Sen. Dan Sullivan. Her past jobs include director of sales for Hotel Captain Cook, founded by her late grandfather, Gov. Walter J. Hickel.
