After delaying a decision for months, the Soldotna City Council, on a vote of 4-2, decided last week to not to ban lewd and lascivious performances for children at the city’s public parks.
Changes to city ordinances had been offered by concerned parents to prevent another incident like the one last summer in a park, where Anchorage-based drag queen performers pranced, twerked, and gyrated in front of children in what many considered a highly sexualized event.
The public expressed outrage that the group had been able to get a city permit for the show at Soldotna Creek Park. It was part of a Pride Day event that included other participatory activities “to advance the central Kenai Peninsula’s Queer Community.”
Last Wednesday, with a room packed with Soldotna residents, the council decided it’s not its role to say what is acceptable to do in front of children in a public park. There are already laws on the books that prohibit sex or sexual simulation, but the City Council was not willing to take the next step and ban burlesque dancing or strip teasing in front of children or in areas where children are expected to be, such as in parks.
Voting no were Councilmembers Jordan Chilson, Linda Farnsworth-Hutchings, Dan Nelson, and Chera Wackler. Councilmembers Lisa Parker and Dave Carey voted in favor. They appeared to worry about the message that a restriction on lewd behavior would send to the LGBTQ community, and perhaps make LGBTQ people feel unwelcome in the city.
Farnsworth-Hutchings was joined by Chilson, Dan Nelson and Chera Wackler in voting no; Lisa Parker and Dave Carey voted in favor.
For now, drag performances of nearly any level of debauchery targeting children are legal and protected in Soldotna, as is just about any form of “lewdness or lascivious behavior.”
In Tennessee, a state law has passed prohibiting these “adult cabaret performances” targeting minors. The ban includes topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers and sexualized performances by male or female impersonators.
Alaska is alive with the sound of spring, and we are absolutely bursting with anticipation! Can you even fathom that since 2019, we’ve been actively making things happen?
So many milestones have been achieved, and we’re eagerly awaiting what’s next on the horizon. We want to extend a huge shoutout to all the amazing supporters who have generously backed us throughout the years, particularly those who’ve pledged to contribute monthly. You are the backbone of our organization, and we require your assistance now more than ever!
We implore you to seize the moment and continue donating to Eaglexit. This week alone, we’ve received numerous contributions from first-time donors. Your support will cover the legal expenses that we cannot handle alone. We have to compensate our lawyers for the next stage of legal analysis, which includes reviewing the petition, charter, and legal brief, and your donations are crucial at this critical juncture.
So, what have we been up to? Well, as an all-volunteer group, we are fully committed to seeing this through. Here’s a list of our achievements so far:
Expanding our outreach and educating our fellow citizens about the detachment of Chugiak-Eagle River from the MOA and the incorporation of the Chugach Regional Borough.
We’ve been busy building a social media plan, writing articles, calling in to talk shows, and providing our Eaglexit members with a monthly newsletter, Eaglexit Insights, to keep them updated on the latest developments and ask for donations.
We’ve also been working hard to keep our website up to date and to establish an independent non-profit identity and business identity in our community.
We’re proud to say that as of January 2022, Eaglexit became its own 501c3!
We presented our petition and charter to our legal team for review in June 2022, and in October of the same year, we received a legal presentation on The Chugach Regional Borough: Detachment and incorporation.
In January 2023, we obtained a business license and a state gaming permit for fundraising purposes.
We’ve also conducted additional research and data to support our efforts, and we’re preparing to send our completed legal reviewed documents to the Alaska Local Boundary Commission staff for review.
Once they’ve completed their review and affirmed its compliance with state constitution, statutes, and regulations, we’ll bring the petition to our community for signatures.
Educating the public on detachment and incorporation through your generous donations. We’ve commissioned an independent study written by Northern Economics on Assembly District 2’s Revenues and Expenditures, and we’ve attended and paid for the Bear Paw Booth for the last three years and the upcoming year.
We’ve also sent out several mailers over the last two years, designed a new logo and website in 2020, and developed a new and improved website with the adoption of our own 501c3 in 2022.
We conducted a survey in the early stages of Eaglexit in 2019, and asked if studies confirm that Assembly District 2 is able to thrive financially as an independent municipality, would you support separating from Anchorage?
We received 1,411 responses, and the majority of answers were yes. Today, we believe that the majority of yeses will exceed 59.18%.
Without the additional funding needed for hiring an independent survey, we believe that the best survey to demonstrate this will be the actual petition signature drive itself.
Our goal is to give the citizens of AD2 a choice for independence or to stay with the Municipality of Anchorage.
We all know everyone is busy during these times, but we need you to help us and volunteer to be a member on one of the following committees.
Fundraising Committee
Petition Development and Signature Gathering Committee
Assets and Liabilities Committee
The members on these committees will have a hands-on approach to the next step of our detachment from the Municipality of Anchorage and the incorporation of the Chugach Regional Borough. Please join us. Call me, Sean Murphy, at 907.632.5307 and let me know you’re ready to take this incredible step towards the education and the development of our community.
We encourage you to get involved, too! Feel free to call us anytime, and don’t hesitate to come to our weekly Tuesday evening meetings at the Cozy Carpet Warehouse behind the store at 7 pm.
Thank you for joining us in this effort!
Sean Murphy, Chair
Sean Murphy came to Alaska in the Army. Met his wife and moved to Eagle River in 1999 with his family. He is a retired Anchorage School District educator and administrator. He is active with his community council and is the new chair of Eaglexit. He can be reached at [email protected] or 907-632-5307.
With the Alaska State Officers Compensation Commission generating a lot of drama between the Governor’s Office, the Senate, and House this legislative session, the House Majority found some improvements that could be made to the process so that the game of hot-potato isn’t repeated in the future.
House Bill 140is a policy bill offered by the Rules Committee to improve the journey that compensation changes take as they are occasionally calculated for the Legislature, commissioners, governor and lieutenant governor. The bill is set for its first hearing in House State Affairs on Thursday at 3 pm.
The tweaks are intended to bring more transparency and less drama to the compensation commission process. One change would be that the commission would meet only once every two years. Any changes recommended would not take effect until the next Legislature is seated. And some of the timing and deadlines for the commission’s meetings and reports are changed. The commission’s salary review, for example, would need to start by Nov. 1, rather than Nov. 15, so the legislature would have more time to review and respond.
Current statute says the commission can’t start prior to Nov. 15 on any year and has to have the recommendations within the first 10 days of session. The Legislature must take any action within 60 days of receipt of the report. HB 140, as introduced, says the commission has 30 days to submit a report and the Legislature has 90 days to act.
Earlier this month, the state salary commission recommended a 67% pay raise for legislators, and a 20% pay raises for the governor, along with raises for the cabinet, whose members are often paid less than the people who report to them. It all happened quickly after the governor had replace five members of the compensation commission. The commission that had been seated earlier had recommended no pay increases.
Legislators have not had a pay increase since 2010, and are making just $50,400 per year. The governor makes less actual dollars than Gov. Mike Stepovich made in 1960. Stepovich made $25,000 a year. Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s salary is $145,000, nearly $100,000 less than what it would be if the original governor’s salary set at statehood kept up with inflation.
A 28-year-old, who was a female but started identifying as a transgender male several months ago, shot and killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tenn. on Monday.
Audrey Elizabeth Hale was formerly enrolled at Covenant School, a Presbyterian campus. A team of five officers entered the campus at 10:13 a.m. and 14 minute later had taken down Hale, according to police. She had fired at police.
“Two MNPD officers who entered the building and went to the sounds of gunfire engaged the shooter on the second floor and fatally shot her,” police reported.
This is in stark contrast to the police response last year in Uvalde, Texas, when 376 officers descended on a school during an active shooting in late May, but didn’t go inside and confront the shooter, who killed 19, while police waited outside.
Nashville Chief John Drake said that detectives think Hale identified as trans, “but we’re still in the initial investigation into all of that and if it actually played a role into this incident.”
ABC News and other news organizations inaccurately that Hale was “assigned” female at birth:
“A police spokesperson told ABC News that Hale was assigned female at birth, and pointed to a social media account linked to Hale that included use of the pronouns he/him.”
Scientifically, there is no such thing as an “assigned” sex at birth, but the mainstream media has begun to report this as a biological fact.
To that point, USA Today accused the Nashville police of having “misgendered” the shooter.
The shooter was said to be a graphic designer and illustrator. Among the three children that she shot dead, one was the daughter of the church pastor. Of the adults, one was the head of the school and another was a 61-year-old custodian at the school.
Although the motive of the killing is not clear, police believe that some sort of resentment stemming from Hale’s attendance at the school is likely. Police said it was a targeted attack.
It’s not been revealed if Hale had been on hormones or had had surgery to become more masculine in her quest to live as a trans man.
Covenant School, founded in 2001, has an enrollment of about 200 students, from pre-k through sixth grade. The student-teacher ratio is 8-to-1, according to the school’s website.
In Colorado Springs, Colo. in November, a man who identifies as “non-binary” is the suspect in a mass shooting at a nightclub for LGBTQ customers. After that shooting, the mainstream media reported, “Clear spike in anti-trans rhetoric sets stage for violence like Colorado Springs shooting, experts say. Club Q hosts the kind of all-ages drag shows that have been targeted by anti-LGBTQ protesters, spurred on by conservative media claiming kids are being ‘groomed'”. But, in fact, the shooter had an alternate gender identity, as did the victims.
In 2018, transgender Snochia Moseley, 26, shot three people and then killed herself at the Enterprise Business Park in Aberdeen, Maryland.
Later this week, a “Transgender Day of Vengeance” is planned across the country.
The Pentagon is increasingly struggling to fill the weapons and equipment requests for the war in Ukraine. At the same time, taxpayer funds are going to pay for ongoing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts in the military, most recently one controversial Pentagon official pushing anti-police and pro-critical race theory books at schools for the children of military families.
The New York Times recently highlighted the Pentagon’s manufacturing problem with a story headlined: “From Rockets to Ball Bearings: Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine.”
The Pentagon would reportedly struggle to manufacture enough precision missiles if conflict with China broke out after sending over a decades worth of Stinger missiles to Ukraine as soon as the war broke out, one of multiple concerning manufacturing issues that have been exposed by the demands of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I’ve been sounding an alarm for months about shortcomings [and] shrinkages in our defense production capacity,” U.S> Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in response to the story. “Mergers [and] supply chain issues are only part of the problem. America is neglecting our biggest resource – people. And our key challenge – workforce training.”
Those difficulties come as the Pentagon increasingly focuses its attention, and funds, on equity initiatives.
Critics say the Pentagon has become distracted. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, commissioned a report that laid out a series of examples of racial and gender ideology permeating military training, policies and leadership, all at taxpayer expense, as The Center Square previously reported.
In one of those examples, the report points to official training materials in which West Point cadets are lectured on white privilege. The report points to another case where a slide presentation for the Air Force Academy is titled, “Diversity & Inclusion: What it is, why we care, & what we can do,” which warns cadets to avoid gendered language, such as terms like “mom” and “dad.”
The recent Department of Defense’s comptroller’s budget report points to millions of dollars in equity funding as well.
“Ensuring accountable leadership by adding nearly $500 million in FY 2023 to implement the recommendations of the Independent Review Commission (IRC) on Sexual Assault in the Military, enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs, and addressing extremism in the ranks,” the comptroller report said.
“The Department will lead with our values – building diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything we do,” the report added.
The report points to $86.5 million for “dedicated diversity and inclusion activities.”
“Additionally, to facilitate, inform, and advance agency progress on issues relating to DEIA, DoD established the DoD Equity Team (DET) in 2021,” the report said. “The DET addressed a broad range of DEIA issues, including the need for increased diversity within the talent pipeline; challenges pertaining to DEIA data collection, analysis, and management; and integration of D&I curriculum into leadership development training.”
Major Charlie Dietz, a DOD spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, pushed back against the GOP report after its release.
“Diversity, inclusion, and equality at its core is about leveraging the strengths of all our people, advancing opportunity, addressing potential barriers or discrepancies, and – fundamentally – ensuring people are treated with dignity and respect,” he told The Center Square at the time of the report’s release. “We always talk about weapons systems, yet every one of us will agree that our greatest weapons system are our people. So that’s why our policies to better leverage our people and increase unit cohesion are important here.”
The Pentagon’s Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has come under increased scrutiny after one of its employees was caught tweeting anti-white comments online.
Open the Books, a government spending accountability group, helped uncover Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) chief, Kelisa Wing, who published a string of racist tweets and has a history of promoting her own critical race theory-themed books.
Open The Books said discovered Wing pushed “radical ideologies premised on Marxist and Critical Race Theory frames; questionable ethics; substantial conflicts of interest; and even side businesses.”
In her tweets, Wing said she was “exhausted by white folx” and blasted “caudacity,” a slang term for boldness among white people.
“[T]his lady actually had the CAUdacity to say that black people can be racist too…” she tweeted. “I had to stop the session and give Karen the BUSINESS… [W]e are not the majority, we don’t have power.”
Lawmakers raised questions about Wing during a hearing last week. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., peppered Gilbert Cisneros, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, with questions during the hearing, but he had few answers.
“Have you read Kelisa Wing’s books, titled ‘What is White Privilege?,’ ‘What Does it Mean to Defund the Police?,’ and ‘What is the Black Lives Matter Movement?’” Stefanik asked. “Are you aware that these books are in DoDEA’s K-12 schools throughout the country?”
Cisneros said no to both questions. He did say the DOD does not condone Wing’s tweet.
Wing has been removed from her involvement with military schools but was not fired.
“I will take it as a result that we delivered,” Stefanik said. “She should have been fired completely, but she was at least moved somewhere else, not dealing with our kids’ educational systems.”
Critics said Wing’s scandal and removal is just the beginning. For now, it highlights an ongoing battle over the role of federal funding for controversial equity initiatives, especially when federal agencies are struggling with their primary responsibilities.
It took multiple investigations from us and multiple hearings from Congress to finally get some answers and some action from the Department of Defense,” Adam Andrzejewski, Open The Books CEO, said. “Unfortunately, there are still outstanding questions for the Pentagon, including whether they plan to eliminate the role or find a replacement for Wing. The DoD also should account for how much public money is being spent on DEI material and trainings all across the Defense Department.”
Casey Harperis a Senior Reporter for the Washington, D.C. Bureau. He previously worked for The Daily Caller, The Hill, and Sinclair Broadcast Group. A graduate of Hillsdale College, Casey’s work has also appeared in Fox News, Fox Business, and USA Today.
I’ve heard it said that Alaska’s Constitution provides for the strongest governor of any state in the nation. While I don’t know if this is true or not, I will say Article III, Section 23, does give the governor an opportunity to shape the organization of state government. From Alaska’s first governor to its most recent, executive orders play a significant role in the shaping of Alaska’s public policy.
The first sentence of Article III, Section 23 reads: “The governor may make changes in the organization of the executive branch or in the assignment of functions among its units which he considers necessary for efficient administration.”
The governor has two constitutionally promulgated powers. First, the governor may alter the way the executive branch of government is structured. Second, the governor may change the way its various units are assigned functions or responsibilities.
The caveat to these two powers is that the governor considers these changes to be “necessary for efficient administration”.
The purpose of these changes would be to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the administration of the government. Essentially, the governor has the authority to reorganize the executive branch in a way that he believes will better serve the needs of the state.
The second sentence reads: “Where these changes require the force of law, they shall be set forth in executive orders.”
An executive order is an order issued under the authority of Article III, Sec. 23, Constitution of the State of Alaska.
Our state history of executive orders started with Gov. Bill Egan’s EO on Aug. 5, 1959, when the governor assigned the functions relating to public health, which prior to May 1, 1959, were performed by the then-Department of Agriculture, to the Department of Natural Resources effective Sept. 1, 1959.
A more recent EO occurred in 2022 when Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Executive Order 121 divided the State’s largest department in two. The reorganization of the Department of Health and Social Services created two separate departments, the Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services.
These are two examples of many in which the governor amended state statutes under the non-objection of the Alaska State Legislature.
Another example, Executive Order No. 104, was under the Murkowski administration. Here, the governor found that amending Alaska Statutes 39, Public Officers and Employees, to transfer the function of administering the equal employment opportunity program from the Office of the Governor to the division of personnel in the Department of Administration would be in the best interests of efficient administration.
Lastly, another recent example: Executive Order No. 120, under the Dunleavy Administration, repealed and replaced an Alaska statute.
The history of executive orders in Alaska demonstrates that Alaska law may be amended, replaced and repealed when the governor considers it is “necessary for efficient administration”.
The last sentence in Article II, Section 23, reads: “The legislature shall have sixty days of a regular session, or a full session if of shorter duration, to disapprove these executive orders. Unless disapproved by resolution concurred in by a majority of the members in joint session, these orders become effective at a date thereafter to be designated by the governor.”
This means if the Alaska Legislature doesn’t like the executive order, they can disapprove it with a majority vote of both houses. This is a 31 legislative member vote. It does not specifically mandate the timeframe for disapproving by resolution only that the legislature “shall have sixty days of a regular session, or a full session if of shorter duration, to disapprove”.
Constitutional convention delegate Maynard D. Londborg, saw this timeframe as the governor “sets forth an executive order but it does not become effective until it slips through the next session of the legislature without being voted out by the legislature. I suppose you could call it reverse legislation. The governor makes a new law and if the legislature does not want it done away with, well, then they can let it go through, but I think it runs in line with the strong executive we have where he can set forth his changes and the legislature by being silent on it, in that way they approve of the order.”
In 2016, then-Gov. Bill Walker vetoed the full Permanent Fund dividend payment to eligible Alaskans. This was the first time in the history of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend program anything like this had been done. Up until then, Alaskans always had faith in the original process of payments.
The PFD had never before been politically weaponized.
Then shortly after that, in 2018, the Alaska State Legislature adopted AS 37.13.140, which established the method of determining the amount of the dividend through a term called “the percentage of market value.” To many Alaskans, this conflicted with the established law which operated how the dividend was distributed to the eligible Alaskans.
Since that time the failure to pay the dividend according to the original statute has created political chaos. This made the Permanent Fund dividend the political football of every legislature since. Both Republicans and Democrats ran with every opportunity to throw, hand off and run this ball down field with never a score.
Every legislative session since Walker has seen political fighting over the PFD. As many have noted, without a fix to the dividend fight, Alaska cannot adopt a sensible fiscal plan.
The time to act on the dividend formula is immediate. Alaska deserves better. We are now going into almost a decade where not one legislative session has corrected the situation.
We have seen many legislators work to resolve the issue, but the political will is just not there. It seems the legislature as a body enjoys the confusion and the chaos it creates.
Yet, like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, there has always been a solution.
Our governor has the power to fix this. It is time for an executive order which repeals the POMV and re-establishes the state’s tried and true methodology for determining and distributing the PFD.
Regardless of the hyperbole, we as the public continue to see every legislative session stymied by this crisis. The Alaska governor has the power under Article II, Section 23, to make the changes necessary by executive order. The Walker, Giessel, and Edgmon debacle of our PFD program has permeated chaos and will continue until an adult steps into the room.
It is now time for the change as “necessary for efficient administration.”
Michael Tavoliero is a realtor in Eagle River, is active in the Alaska Republican Party and chaired Eaglexit.
Neither word means much itself, but the phrase “helter skelter” means “chaos” and has been in the English lexicon since the 1500s. In our time, it is best known as the title of a Beatles’ song from their cocktail-party-revolutionary phase in the late 1960s. Those with a more political bent will recognize it as a phrase from leftist politics to describe a state of a breakdown of governmental control or even a race war which could be used as a predicate to bring on their fervently desired revolution.
The goal of the Manson Family killings, Aug. 8–10, 1969, was to provoke “helter skelter.” In Manson’s febrile imagination the killings would provoke a race war in which the blacks and whites would neutralize each other and an inspirational leader such as Charlie Manson would take charge. Suffice it to say that leftist thinking in the United States about bringing on a revolution has been delusional for the last 50 years or so.
Communist philosophers in Europe, notably Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, posited that the proletarian revolution stemming from the working class could not be organized in the West because of Western affluence and opportunity. That has proven to be true in the United States, where black Americans have not been reliable allies for the left. The connected black politician in Atlanta isn’t really interested in becoming the politburo member; he wants to live in a nice house on West Paces Ferry Road in Buckhead, with a Bentley out front.
Now the Left is stuck with the pink-haired and pussy-hatted crowd and the soy boys who wear black t-shirts and live in mom’s basement. Those aren’t really a good revolutionary guard, however. The Left is trying to stiffen the ranks by importing a new population of illegal immigrants. The Romans thought they could control the Goths, too. We’ll see.
Somebody in today’s Left has revisited Gramsci’s idea that you brought about the revolution in the West through the institutions. The Left made the long march through media and communications and the universities by the 1950s. Leftists pretty much conquered K-12 education by the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Now the Left’s new front is the government itself and, specifically, law enforcement.
First we had the “defund the police” attacks on frontline law enforcement. Then we had the George Soros and other communists funding candidates for attorneys general, district attorneys, and secretaries of state. These are the administrators of law enforcement. Now, in the big, Blue places of the country, the Left gives the orders to law enforcement, and fundamentally, they have ordered them not to enforce the law.
In the Soros-governed cities, it’s open season on the rest of society by the criminal class, which can rob, assault, rape, and even kill with little fear of consequence. This is the new route to helter skelter.
Right now, the reaction of the sane people in the blue places is simply to first isolate themselves. Then they move. That has been the dynamic of “white flight” since the 1950s. Back then, Detroit was the richest city in the World, one of the richest the world had ever known; look what 20 years of communist, excuse me, Democrat control did to it.
I’m a refugee from Atlanta, the City Too Busy to Hate in the 1960s and 1970s. I ran a business in Atlanta’s downtown entertainment district back then. I’d rather have made the two-block walk from my business to my bank without pants than without a .38 in my belt and a Colt .25 at my ankle.
I did what most income- and job-producing people have done; I packed up and left Atlanta. The downtown district that I knew in the early 1970s doesn’t exist any more. In the 1990s, the Atlanta Braves won 10 or 11 successive division championships and went to a couple of World Series. The Atlanta fans were derided because the old Atlanta Stadium and even in the later years the new Turner Field were never sold out even for World Series games. It wasn’t that the Atlanta fans were blasé; they just didn’t think it was worth dying to go to a Braves game.
Funny thing: the Braves abandoned the nearly new Turner Field and moved out to Marietta in the northwest suburbs. The games are sold out, and they won the World Series last year.
So, what do we do with these cities that Soros has conquered, and how do we keep him from conquering others. And, if you haven’t noticed, Anchorage is teetering on the brink of conquest. It’s not quite being governed by the communists, but they have made it essentially ungovernable. I’m not packing boxes, but I’m thinking.
In car-crazy America of the 1950s and early-1960s, people knew of Woodward Avenue in Detroit before they knew of the car culture of The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean in Southern California. Detroit was a very affluent, fashionable city and Woodward Ave. was the heart of its cruising and street-racing scene. If your dad was an executive at one of the Big Three automakers, you could cruise Woodward with the cream of US auto production.
The people who lived in Detroit personified mid-century modern. It was a world of landscaped lots and tri-level homes with two car garages, one bay for Mom’s station wagon and the other for Dad’s company sedan. The mansions built by those who built Detroit a generation before are still there and still well-maintained, but the “For Rent” and “For Sale” signs were beginning to be apparent by the late 1950s as the working population began to drift toward the suburbs and racial tensions simmered and sometimes boiled over.
In the “pay any price, bear any burden” days of The New Frontier and The Great Society, money poured into solidly Democrat Detroit. As has been the case ever since, federal ideas, federal programs, federal administrators, and federal money just made it worse and Detroit became a powderkeg that exploded in July of 1967. The city was essentially destroyed. By the mid-1970s, three-quarters of the white students had left Detroit schools. Those once lovely manicured suburbs were wastelands and the house and lot, or what was left of it couldn’t be sold for even a dollar.
So where did the people who left go? Most initially went to the subdivisions built around the new plants built by the automakers in the late 1940s and early 1950s. That move 25 or 30 miles from central Detroit was a transitory thing, as by the 1970s those plants were closing or moving again.
A dad who had risen from a foreman or some sort of assistant to an executive office and who had built the first suburban house and made the move to the outer suburbs with the new plant, is now retired or maybe gone. Mom isn’t willing or able to take care of that house anymore so she’s headed for “The Villages” in Florida. The kids may still have decent jobs in the local area, but are just as likely to have moved to one coast or the other. The house is unlikely to sell for a good price and is likely to be scooped up by an investor who will turn it into a rental; there goes the neighborhood.
This scenario is a specter hanging over Anchorage. There is a lot of pipeline-era housing in Anchorage. Some of it is nice, some of it is a little long in the tooth. Some of it is in neighborhoods that have simply gone to hell. The ones in bad neighborhoods are already on the way to becoming rentals or worse. The federal government has a program to buy up single family houses, replace them with multi-family housing, and make them Section 8. You don’t really want to own the house next door to one of those places.
The Municipality of Anchorage and the real estate industry have kept up a brave face and seemingly have maintained the prices of Anchorage real estate somewhat stable. One crack, one chink in that armor and the price paradigm collapses.
I remember the days in the 1980s, when the standing joke in Anchorage was that the difference between an Anchorage condo and gonorrhea was that you could get rid of gonorrhea. Price collapse has happened before in Anchorage, in recent memory. It could happen again.
If your life’s work and life’s savings are a house in Anchorage, what do you do? We aren’t yet to the place where the housing commissar of the Anchorage Oblast can come to your house and tell you how many other families you’re going to share it with, but they can certainly tax you out of it or destroy its value and they can and will do that with impunity.
There is a significant portion of Alaska’s self-anointed elite who think Alaska really doesn’t need most of us anymore. You might have noticed that there are not a lot of private or locally owned businesses in Anchorage anymore. Last I was in Fairbanks, it seemed the same, and Juneau has only the most minimal private business sector outside of seasonal tourism.
I lived in Juneau for many years and if you’re “in with the in crowd” it is a nice place to live. Get a job that has travel to Anchorage and Seattle about monthly so you can shop. These days you don’t even need that because online is so much more convenient. Get an account with Alaska Marine Lines so you can use “break bulk” shipping, get the free shipping to Seattle, and only pay shipping from Seattle to Juneau. I can’t remember the last time I was in a store in Juneau other than Fred Meyer or Costco for groceries.
A lot of Anchorage residents are similarly habituated: They take a couple of their daily meals for their family from the Holiday gas station. I did a little stint at Cabela’s in Anchorage when it first opened, working with a few retirees my age and a lot of twenty-somethings. I don’t know why most of them worked other than pride or family pressure; they’d have been a whole lot better off sitting home, playing video games, and collecting welfare.
In the brave new Alaska we live off the Permanent Fund. We have a world of welfare recipients, public employees, and a ruling elite of elected and appointed officials who oversee it all. There are some restaurants and trendy stores owned by well-connected people. The corporate business lives in its own world. We don’t really need any local retail but we can sell tourist junk between May and September.
Just as in Juneau, there is some service industry to fix your car or maybe your lawnmower, but you are probably just better off buying another lawnmower. Much of the Bush economy has long been the same; if it breaks, it goes out with the ice; it isn’t worth it to fix it.
We can have an affluent elite, a pretty well-off bourgeoisie, and a proletariat that lives off government stipends. We don’t need any nasty oil wells or mines. We just check our bank statement every month. It’s a brave new world.
Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon.
The community theater group was preparing for its performance of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” at Alaska Methodist University when the Great Alaska Earthquake occurred on at 5:36 pm on March 27, 1964.
It was a mega-thrust earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2, making it the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America and the second most powerful earthquake ever recorded worldwide.
The quake lasted approximately four and a half minutes, causing widespread destruction. The epicenter located about 75 miles east of Anchorage, but it was felt as far away as California.
The tsunamis generated by the earthquake caused devastation, particularly in the coastal towns such as Valdez, Seward, and Kodiak. Waves as high as 100 feet were reported in some areas, and entire villages were destroyed.
People in Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, 480 miles from the epicenter, could feel the quake, and in Seattle, Washington, more than 1,200 miles to the southeast of the fault rupture, the Space Needle swayed. The earthquake caused rivers, lakes, and other waterways to slosh even as far as the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
Water-level recording instruments in 47 states — every state but Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island — registered the earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Land in some areas was thrust up as high as 82 feet, particularly on a line from Kodiak through Prince William Sound. Other lands sank as much as eight feet.
“It was so large that it caused the entire Earth to ring like a bell: vibrations that were among the first of their kind ever recorded by modern instruments. The Great Alaska Earthquake spawned thousands of lesser aftershocks and hundreds of damaging landslides, submarine slumps, and other ground failures,” the USGS reported.
Fire breaks out at the Whittier fuel tanks on March 27, 1964 after the Good Friday Earthquake. USGS photo.
The earthquake caused 131 deaths, mostly due to the tsunamis, and many more were injured. 115 of the deaths were Alaskans. Another 40-50 Alaskans were hospitalized for care of severe injuries. Of the 115 who died, 110 of the death certificates mentioned drowning or boating-related. Seventy-five percent of those who died were men, 25% were women.
Most of those who died were working-age, between 25 to 34 years (18.2%). There were 19 deaths among children ages 0-4 (16.5%).
67% of deaths were white individuals, while 32% were Alaska Native people. One death was of an indeterminate race. The village of Chenega lost 23 people of the 83 who lived there. Two-thirds of the deaths were in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area, and Kodiak Borough had the second-highest deaths.
The damage caused by the earthquake was estimated to be around $311 million in 1964, which is equivalent to over $2.5 billion today.
Government Hill School after the Good Friday Earthquake. USGS photo.
The Million Dollar Bridge, knocked off its pilings over the Copper River during the earthquake.
Confederate generals’ names on nine military bases were ordered to be scrubbed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last October, after a two-year study recommended the change, and Austin accepted the recommendation.
But on Thursday, Lt. Gen. Kevin Vereen, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for installations, told a House committee the renaming of the nine bases would cost $39 million, according to Army Times.
Last year, the naming commission estimated the cost to be $21 million.
Military bases were named for Confederate officers primarily because of their historical significance in the American Civil War and their contributions to the development of the U.S. military. Following the Civil War, the military established a number of forts and military installations throughout the southern United States. Some of these bases were named after Confederate military officers as a way of recognizing their service and sacrifice, and as a way of promoting national unity and reconciliation. In recent years, some have likened it to supporting white supremacy.
Then came the choking death by police of felon George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
“All this changed in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Many people protested systemic racism and pointed to Confederate statues and bases as part of that system. Congress established the commission in the National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal 2021. Then-President Donald J. Trump vetoed the legislation because of the presence of the commission, and huge bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress overrode his veto,” the Defense Department said.
In January, the Department of Defense began implementing the name changes, which will include not jus the names of bases, but posts, ships, streets and more named after Confederate soldiers.
The services and other Defense agencies have until the end of the year to complete the process.
Retired Navy Adm. Michelle Howard chaired the congressionally mandated Naming Commission. The commission’s mission was to provide removal and renaming recommendations for all DOD items “that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America,” the Defense Department wrote.
Additionally, any installations that have street names or buildings named after Confederates will be changed. The Navy will rename the cruiser USS Chancellorsville, which commemorates a Confederate victory, and the USNS Maury — named after a U.S. Navy officer who resigned his commission to fight for the Confederate Navy — will also be renamed. Battle streamers commemorating Confederate service will no longer be authorized, the Defense Department said.
The bases to be renamed are:
Fort Benning, Georgia will become Fort Moore, after Army Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Compton Moore. Hal Moore received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in the Vietnam War. Julia Moore advocated for military families and is credited for the personal notification of death procedures now practiced.
Fort Bragg, North Carolina will become Fort Liberty.
Fort Gordon, Georgia will become Fort Eisenhower, after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a five-star Army general and served as Supreme Allied Commander of forces in Europe during World War II.
Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia will be known as Fort Walker after Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the first female surgeon in the Civil War, and the only woman awarded the Medal of Honor.
Fort Hood, Texas will be Fort Cavazos, named for Army Gen. Richard E. Cavazos, who received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in the Vietnam War.
Fort Lee, Virginia will be named Fort Gregg-Adams, after Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams. Gregg was a key figure in the integration of black soldiers into the Army. Adams was the highest-ranking African-American female soldier in World War II.
Fort Pickett, Virginia will be Fort Barfoot, in honor of Army Tech Sgt. Van T. Barfoot, who received the Medal of Honor for his actions with the 45th Infantry Division during World War II in Italy in 1944. Barfoot was Choctaw.
Fort Polk, Louisiana becomes Fort Johnson, after Army Sgt. William Henry Johnson, who received the Medal of Honor posthumously for action in the Argonne Forest of France in World War I.
Fort Rucker, Alabama will be Fort Novosel, after Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael J. Novosel, an helicopter pilot who received the Medal of Honor for a medevac mission under fire in Vietnam when he saved 29 soldiers.
