Anchorage homeowners pay a heavy price for living in Alaska’s largest city. Proposition 14, currently on the April 4 ballot, will hurt property owner’s bottom line even more.
The current average price of a single-family home in Anchorage is $456,000, a new high. The pricey cost of housing makes it virtually prohibitive for a young couple to settle in Anchorage and start a family.
Proposition 14, dubbed the “Care for Kids” initiative, will raise taxes on property owners another $6 million a year. That’s an extra $6 million transferred out of the anemic private sector and into an ever-ballooning city budget.
Prop 14 will move money collected from the marijuana tax, which passed by ballot initiative in 2016, out from under the tax cap, meaning the city will be able to tax property owners $6 million more before bumping up against the tax cap.
The Assembly just passed the largest city budget in history. Now they’ll have even more money to play with.
The language in the Prop 14 ballot conveniently — and deceptively — does not mention moving the marijuana tax out from under the tax cap. Voters will have no idea they are supporting millions in new taxes if they vote yes on Prop 14.
A widely distributed flyer promoting Prop 14 reads: “Proposition dedicates the existing marijuana tax revenue to fund child care and early education, and build a strong economy.”
The impression is voting yes on Prop 14 only redistributes funds. But it sweeps this tax out from under the tax cap and therefore allows the Assembly to raise taxes.
Anchorage property taxes are already high. Compare them to property taxes in all U.S. counties, and Anchorage homeowners pay more than people living in 3,040 others.
Anchorage property owners are so overburdened, the city’s property tax rate ranks 103rd highest among all 3,143 counties.
You won’t read that in the Anchorage Daily News.
Compare Anchorage property tax rates with similarly populated cities like Boise, Idaho, Aurora, Colorado, and Mesa, Arizona, and the over taxation becomes even more glaring. Anchorage homeowners’ yearly property tax bills are double of those living in those cities.
Anchorage property tax rates for a medium-priced home is higher than 42 of America’s largest cities. Only homeowners in the Democrat-run cities of Seattle, Chicago, Hartford, Austin, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, and New York pay more in city property taxes than those living in Anchorage.
You won’t see that reported on KTUU.
Proposition 14 will not only soak homeowners, but it also means more bureaucracy, as the initiative creates an “Accountability Board of Child Care and Early Education.”
Many would argue now is not the time to transfer millions more out of the private sector into government, especially in Alaska’s largest city, a city that often drives the state’s economy.
Anchorage city leaders are always coming up with new ways to get around the tax cap.
Former Mayors Mark Begich and Ethan Berkowitz, both Democrats, successfully found end runs around the tax cap.
Now the insatiable government-centric types are using a ballot initiative to raise taxes in Anchorage with the pitch of doing it “all for children. “
They’re disguising the tax hike as a redistributing of funds. They do so with the cooperation and blessing of the liberal media.
Dan Fagan is a reporter for Must Read Alaska. Email [email protected].
Anchorage Assemblyman Felix Rivera, speaking to a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, has raised the topic of gay porn for kids as a campaign issue. As he runs for a third term on the Assembly, he said on the record that a porn-pushing book for teens, which has raised a firestorm of parental pushback across the country, should not be removed from the teen section of the library by the Anchorage Library Board, which sent the illustration-rich book to the City Attorney for legal review.
Felix Rivera
The book, “Let’s Talk About It,” has instructions on how to have gay sex, random sex, how kids can and should send pictures of themselves as sexual content through their smart phone, and the finer points of anal sex, to name a few topics.
The book’s forward dedicates the material: “To whoever needs it, whatever your age,” but the book is targeted for teens, especially those reading-deficient teens with a need for graphic depictions rather than written words, and has been in the stacks of the Teen Underground section of the Loussac Library, which is restricted to 12- to 18-year-olds.
Rivera, who is on the April 4 ballot for reelection for a seat representing Midtown, said that removing the book for review is worrisome because “It makes me concerned, frankly, about the judgment of the members of the library advisory board and their motivations.”
Rivera said Anchorage has “officially joined in a much broader way, the culture wars that have ingrained the rest of the country,” when it comes to access for these types of books for children.
In addition to “Spicy Gato” (Rivera’s social media name), another openly gay member of the Assembly, Chris Constant of downtown, has also expressed his concerns about the book being subjected to adult review, and said he isn’t sure the vote to remove the book was proper because although it passed 3-2, there were two members not present at the meeting. Neither Rivera nor Constant have children; both are up for reelection in their districts.
Last month, the chair of the Anchorage School Board prevented Anchorage parent and activist Jay McDonald from reading aloud a passage from this same book during the public testimony portion of the meeting.
Some of the issues that parents have raised with the book include:
The book downplays sexually transmitted diseases, referring to them as “No big deal.” Many sexually transmitted infections can have life-long impacts on people, such as AIDS, HPV infection complications can include cancer and passing along the disease to an unborn child. A chlamydia infection can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, a painful infection that can destroy the female reproductive system.
Sexting. The audience for the book is not even at the age of consent, and there can be serious long-term consequences to sending photos of yourself in compromising sexual situations through the internet, as many adults have learned the hard way. The internet is forever, and your children, grandchildren, and parents may see these photos someday. They are often used for blackmail.
Kink. “If you think you might have a kink, look on the internet” is the advice the book is giving to 12-year-olds. The book wants children to learn more about kinky sex, some of which is dangerous and abusive. Exposing children to “kink” on the internet is an invitation them to end up abused or trafficked.
Porn. “Pay for your porn” is the exact wording the book gives to 12-year-olds, and these children could get lured into signing up for porn subscriptions they don’t realize they’ve agreed to. There are also laws in states about exposing porn to children, and this book does not validate those concerns or laws. Porn addiction is a well-documented problem in America. Recovery Village reports that one out of every 100 U.S. adults admit to having an internet porn addiction. Most people who have a porn addiction say that porn hurts their personal relationships, the nonprofit says.
Pregnancy. The book talks about sex as though it is risk free. It does not talk about the risk of becoming pregnant, nor does it talk about the female experience in puberty, including periods, and painful menstruation. One of the most profound and often difficult experiences for teen girls is their menstrual cycle, and the book completely ignores that experience.
The library has an extensive list of sex books for kids in the Teen Underground, and has a section for gay romance as well, which can be found at this link.
A committee hearing last week revealed how angry the public still is with the health care system’s patient isolation policies during the Covid pandemic, and how the health care system itself would probably do it all over again, if needed.
The House Health and Social Services Committee heard from Alaskans from across the state last week about the horrors of people dying alone during the Covid-19 pandemic, without a loved one to hold their hand. People told their stories of having been prohibited from being with their husbands, grandparents, and children as they died or were on the brink of death in hospitals during the pandemic, when hospitals enacted strict “no-visitor” rules.
Rita Trometter from North Pole describe how, several years ago, her adult-age son came down with a terminal medical condition.
“As parents, we promised him that he would never be alone,” she said. She, her husband, and friends would take turns being with him in the hospital.
“He was with persons he trusted and felt comfortable with 24-7,” Trometter told the committee. “Yes, I slept in his room, even when medical staff made it less than desirable. This is what we do for our family and especially our children.” Having her son not feel alone made all the surgeries, medical procedures, paperwork, and doctor interactions less stressful.
“No matter the age, your child is always your child,” she continued. “During the ‘plandemic,’ those options of making your child or loved ones and oneself feel secure disappeared. The result is that any future government control upon our lives for medical care will diminish the small amount of trust that is left in the field of medicine.”
Kristin Hills of Big Lake described how her grandmother in 2020 was diagnosed with a brain tumor and entered hospice care, “where she was held as a prisoner for five months. She would call home depressed and angry and scared and alone, and she wanted her family there with her … She had no one.” The family had always promised her she would not die alone, but their hands were tied.
The idea that isolating her grandmother would prevent her from getting Covid didn’t work, Hills said, because the staff brought the virus in and she was infected with it anyway.
“Family couldn’t kill her, but staff could kill her. My grandmother died with no one being able to go and sit with her … She ended up saying goodbye to her family on a Zoom call. She died in the night and we now live with pain knowing we could not give grandma her last wish — not dying alone.”
Hills also described how a family member who is mentally disabled, with the intellectual ability of a five-year-old, was diagnosed with Covid and ended up so dehydrated that he needed to be hospitalized. He was in MatSu Regional Hospital for six days without his family being able to be with him.
“I am appalled that we are even discussing in a free society whether or not we can sit with our loved ones when they are sick or when they are dying,” Hills said. “This is the exact same thing that happened in Nazi Germany and yet here we are allowing the same thing to happen in our country.”
Others called into the committee with similar stories of their loved ones dying alone in the hospital — and not necessarily dying from Covid but being kept in isolation from family due to the contagious disease that had caused hospitals to enact their strictest policies.
HB 52 is sponsored by Rep. Sarah Vance of Homer with cosponsors Rep. Kevin McCabe of Big Lake and Rep. Ben Carpenter of Nikiski. Vance brought a similar measure to the House in 2021, when she introduced it as an amendment into a telehealth bill during a special session. Her amendment was supported by the majority of the members. But then it got tangled in politics and the bill was tabled a the request of the hospital association.
Bernadette Wilson, state director of Americans for Prosperity Alaska, reminded the committee of Marvin Abbott, who spent a month camped on the lawn at Providence Alaska Medical Center, while his medically fragile daughter was alone in side in critical care for asthma. Several others from Anchorage joined the Kodiak man in his protest on the lawn of the no-visitor policy during the Covid pandemic.
But Rep. Zack Fields, a Democrat from Anchorage who appears to favor the hospital no-visitor policy, challenged Wilson by asking her why Americans for Prosperity was advocating for more regulations on hospitals. Wilson responded that AFP has always been pro-freedom and pro-family, and that she would be happy to sit down with him and go over the group’s priorities and how the group’s support for HB 52 fits within the concept of personal freedom.
Rep. Dan Saddler asked Jared Kosin, who runs the Alaska Hospital and Health Care Association trade group, if the hospitals intended to apologize to people who were torn from their families because of the no-visitor policies.
“You said there was no change in visitation policies, but there was implementation of existing policies that had rarely been implemented. In other words, this was not new policy, this was just extremities, which resulted in the denials of visitation,” said Rep. Saddler.
“Visitation had never been restricted to this degree, never, that we know of, in our lifetimes,” Kosin said over the phone to the committee. “And so pre-Covid and through covid, the written policies around visitation did not change. The policies and the way they were written were used accordingly, based on the situation.”
The policies contemplated clinical situations where visitation would need to be restricted, Kosin said. “It’s got to be reasonable judgment, it’s up to the clinical team, basically. What I’m saying is, those policies never changed during covid, those medical teams exercised those policies as written.”
Rep. Saddler was not quite satisfied.
“Mr. Kosin, I did hear a bit of a mea culpa in your comments. You said, you did acknowledge the horrific situations that came about, and I think I also hear you saying that should there be another pandemic of a high-infectious disease in the future, that the same policies that allowed the visitation limitations in the past would be applied in the future. So I’m going to offer you this opportunity. Is there any way that you think the health care industry might implement those policies differently should we have another pandemic?” Saddler asked Kosin.
“The problem is we’re all trying to predict what a future pandemic may be,” Kosin responded. “We have no idea what it will be. We have no idea if it’s something that’s going to target adolescents, we have no idea if it’s going to be something that goes back to The Plague in Medieval times.” The policy allows hospitals to deal with circumstances that are, as of now, unknown. There are situations that call for clinical judgment where visitor limitations “may be necessary,” he said.
Later in the hearing, Saddler tried again with Kosin, “Without exposing your association or any health care practitioner to liability, we seem to have a conflict here between humanity and epidemiology. Is there any way the health care industry might express an apology to the families of people whose loved ones died alone?
Kosin disagreed: “I’d be the first person to say we’re all sorry for anyone who has to experience a situation where you can’t have loved ones come and visit … But we’re all human beings, and we all went through something, and saw things in very different ways, and I guess I would have you pose your question to nurses, doctors, support staff who were at the hospital, who had friends die, who saw trauma … and ask them for the same apology.”
Kosin ended up dominating the hearing, and several Alaskans were not able to be heard.
Jennifer Kadake of Kake testified on behalf of people living in rural Southeast Alaska and had a non-Covid story that illustrated the problem from a different angle — that of informed consent and the need for patients to have their own advocates with them. She described how she was involved in a vehicle accident in which, while her wounds were severe, her vital signs were stable and she was coherent.
“If I had had the ability to have with me a support person of my choice during my medical treatment, a very painful experience that continues to actually give me nightmares, would have been absolutely avoided,” she said. “If I had the right to have a support person of my choice with me, my support person would have informed the medical providers that they were treating someone with a background in the medical field, trained to perform emergency medical intervention, like an intraosseous infusion, also known as an ‘I.O.'”
During her emergency treatment at her home village health center, the medical provider could not get intravenous access, resulting in the choice to proceed with the excruciating I.O. She said that because she had no support person with her, she was forcefully restrained by the local volunteer emergency care team and given the painful procedure, which involves gouging a needle into the bone until it reaches the marrow.
“If I had had the right to have a support person of my choice with me, my begging and screaming refusing the I.O. procedure would not have been ignored,” she said. The medical provider missed the first attempt and the painful procedure was reattempted. “That was about the time I passed out from pain.”
Kadake said that informed consent is not being practiced, and that patients need an advocate with them, if possible. She pointed out that for small communities like hers, patients are not told of their rights to a support person of their choice at rural emergency medical facilities, “much less information given to the patient of their patient rights at all.” She said the people in Alaska seeking medical treatment in any capacity have the right for support.
Others who testified in favor of HB 52 included Barbara Tyndall of North Pole, former Rep. Chris Tuck of Anchorage, Larisa Fonov of Wasilla, Kelli Toth of Chugiak, Alison Libby of Anchorage, Connie Graff of Anchorage, Peggy Rotan of Anchorage, and Evelyn Dutton of Anchorage.
Those kids who are feeling they might be gay but who want be heterosexual instead will have nowhere to turn to for help in Alaska, under a statute proposed by House Bill 43. The bill would ban a practice known by some as “conversion therapy,” in which therapists try to help people with gay proclivities pick a different direction for their lives.
Some forms of conversion therapy have appeared to be cruel and degrading, according to those who have undergone the therapy. It was described as generally unsuccessful by one man who sobbed as he testified by phone from New York City.
Rep. Sara Hannan of Juneau is the sponsor of HB 43; she presented it to the House Health and Social Services Committee last week.
Anchorage Assembly passed a similar “Don’t Say Straight” law, prohibiting licensed mental health practitioners and others from subjecting LGBTQ minors to what LGBTQ advocates say are harmful conversion “therapy” practices.
HB 43 specifically excludes therapies for those who want to change their gender outward appearance and take chemical hormones to grow attributes of the opposite gender, such as female breast tissue or male body hair.
“This subsection does not apply to counseling that provides support and assistance to an individual undergoing gender transition or counseling that provides acceptance, support, and understanding of an individual or facilitates an individual’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual orientation-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices, or counseling that does not seek to change sexual orientation or gender identity,” the bill reads.
Further, it describes gender identity as an individual’s actual or perceived gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other gender-related characteristics without regard to the person’s designated sex at birth.”
HB 43 would prohibit physicians, physician assistants, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychological associates, and other “practitioners of the healing arts” licensed by the state from treating a person under the age of 18 or a vulnerable adult with a therapy or regimen that seeks to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
From the description, this would have to include hormone therapy that is being given to children to block puberty, so they can have a “sex change” operation when they are of age, which is a variable standard across the country. But it does not include gender transition in the ban. It only bans therapy that is not entirely supportive of gay behaviors.
What would the difference between gender transition counseling and conversion therapy be?” asked Rep. Jesse Sumner of Rep. Hannan, whose aide, Hunter Meachum, answered the question:
“So the bill details what conversion therapy is and it also states what therapies are going to be acceptable … Conversion therapy is defined as a therapy or regimen that seeks to change the individuals’ sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behavior or gender expression, or reduce or eliminated sexual or romantic attraction or feelings towards a person of the same gender. This subsection does not apply to counseling that provides support and assistance to an individual undergoing gender transition or counseling that provides acceptance, support and understanding of an individual, or facilitates an individual’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development.”
In other words, it’s only ok to counsel someone to undergo gender transition, not to counsel them against it.
Rep. Jesse Sumner then raised a sticky question of Hannan: “So if you’re not to have counseling that is supposed to affect somebody’s attraction or feelings towards a person of the same gender, but then in the second section you say you can change their gender, you’d have to also change the gender they’re attracted to, because they wouldn’t, your gender…you’re transitioned and you’re a new gender, right? And so you would no longer be attracted to somebody of the same gender if you were before? I mean, I guess I’m a little confused.”
He continued, “Is it the intent of the patient or…because I could also see issues with that because a child might be convinced to go along with a conversion therapy….I mean maybe I need to read this a few more times.”
Hannan answered as carefully as she could: The ban would be on attempting to say ‘you’re not,’….the vernacular of conversion therapy has been traditionally used primarily around kids coming out as gay versus kids transitioning….trans kids. This is not a bill, nor an attempt to restrict therapists who are supporting trans kids in, [stammer] who are supportive of trans kids. It’s only if it’s attempting to convert someone …yeah.”
The bottom line, it appears, is that only gender transitioning therapy is good for kids, while counseling them to not act on certain sexual impulses will be against the law if HB 43 passes.
A federal court in Florida recently ruled that a similar ordinance in Tampa is illegal because it is an abridgment of the First Amendment.
No president in history has been prosecuted after leaving office, but Former President Donald Trump says that is about to change.
He wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform, that he will be arrested on Tuesday over claims he paid former porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged relationship between them. Six years ago, Trump’s lawyers were rumored to have paid Daniels to stay mum about the affair, and New York prosecutors considered charging him at the time. Now, he says the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office will arrest and charge him on Tuesday over these allegations.
“Now illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorneys office, which has allowed new records to be set in violent crime & whose leader is funded by George Soros, indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven, & based on an old & fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors!) fairytale, the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Protest, take our nation back!”
Trump’s campaign also released another in many fundraising pitches he has made for his campaign over the past many weeks. He is using the pending possible arrest of himself as a message to supporters to pitch in.
“With the Deep State gunning for us like never before, President Trump is counting on your sustained support to DEFEND our movement from these never-ending witch hunts. Please make a contribution of any amount to help FIGHT BACK against the radical Left’s endless attacks, vile lies, and phony witch hunts – for 1,200% impact,” his fundraising pitch said.
A spokeswoman for District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told AP that the office “will decline to confirm or comment” any queries about Trump’s legal situation. Bragg is a Democrat and the position he holds is an elected office.
“This is what they do in communist countries,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told the Washington Examiner on Saturday.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote: “No matter what the Grand Jury decides, its consideration makes it clear: no one is above the law, not even a former President of the United States. The former president’s announcement this morning is reckless: doing so to keep himself in the news & foment unrest among his supporters. He cannot hide from his violations of the law, disrespect for our elections and incitements to violence. Rightfully, our legal system will decide how to hold him accountable.”
On Twitter, Elon Musk wrote: “If this happens, Trump will be re-elected in a landslide victory.”
On Thursday, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced an updated version of its 1959 mission statement that takes away the male pronoun. The new mission statement is: “To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.”
The original mission statement was a quote from President Lincoln, as taken from his second inaugural address in 1865: “To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise ‘to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.”
The previous mission statement is posted in roughly 50% of VA’s facilities. Over the coming months, VA’s new mission statement will replace the previous version.
According to the VA’s press release, the original statement left out other groups, such as women, and LGBTQ+.
“The new mission statement is inclusive of all those who have served in our nation’s military — including women Veterans — as well as Veteran families, caregivers, and survivors. VA currently serves more than 600,000 women Veterans, the fastest growing cohort of Veterans. VA also serves more than 50,000 Veteran caregivers, more than 600,000 Veteran survivors, and millions of Veterans who did not serve in combat,” the statement says.
“In crafting the new mission statement, VA surveyed roughly 30,000 Veterans. Among Veterans surveyed, the new version of VA’s mission statement was chosen over the current version by every age group; by men and by women; by LGBTQ+ Veterans; and by white, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian and American Indian/Alaska Native Veterans,” the statement reads.
The VA conducted small focus groups with Veterans to understand what was most important to them in a VA mission statement, then incorporated that feedback into quantitative research, the agency said.
“The new mission statement reflects that VA serves all of the heroes who have served our country, regardless of their race, gender, background, sexual orientation, religion, zip code or identity, according to the agency.”
On March 18, 2022, Alaska and American history took a huge turn, when Congressman Don Young died while on a flight back to Alaska. He had served the state for 49 years in Congress, and before that as a state House and Senate member, and the mayor of Fort Yukon. When he died at age 88, he was the longest-serving Republican in the history of the U.S. Congress; he had worked with 10 different presidents, starting with President Richard Nixon and ending with Joe Biden.
Young was born on June 9, 1933 in Meridian, Calif. After earning a bachelor’s degree in teaching from Chico State University and serving in the U.S. Army, he moved to Alaska in 1959 and settled in the village of Fort Yukon, seven miles north of the Arctic Circle, where he became a school teacher, tugboat captain, miner, and trapper. From 1964 to 1967 he was the mayor of the predominantly Gwich’in Athabascan village. He married Lula Young in Fort Yukon and they had two daughters, Dawn and Joni, and later 14 grandchildren. After Lu’s death in 2009, he met and married Ann Garland Walton in 2015.
Young served as chair of the Natural Resources Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives. He was chairman of the Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs.
Known for being both irascible and able to work across the aisle with all political perspectives, among his notable achievements was working to ensure the authorization of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and important amendments and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Young authored and advocated for the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act in 1975, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976, the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 in 1997, SAFETEA-LU in 2005, Multinational Species Conservation Funds Reauthorization Act of 2007, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.
After his death, Gov. Mike Dunleavy called for a special election, as required by statute, and although Nick Begich was already a candidate for the position, having filed to challenge Young in the previous October, several dozen other Alaskans put their names in for the seat, including former Gov. Sarah Palin.
In the end, Alaska elected Democrat Mary Peltola to fill the temporary seat for the long-time Republican, and Peltola then went on to win the two-year spot in Congress, where she serves today, the first Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress since former Rep. Nick Begich Sr. died in a plane crash in 1972 en route to Juneau from Anchorage. Her tenure has been marked by extreme partisanship.
“It’s been a year now since we lost Don Young. As I reflect upon his life it seems only fitting that he passed on his way home to Alaska. The place that he loved. For Don Young was all about Alaska – truly the congressman for all Alaska. Even after 49 years in office Don was tireless, even relentless in his advocacy for legislation and initiatives that benefitted Alaska. Don did everything in his own gruff, feisty, and passionate style. He was a force of nature.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said. “He strongly supported Alaska Native peoples, led the authorization of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, improved Alaskans’ access to public lands, and so much more. He was a big help in our fight to open Willow and would have been pleased with the news this week. I think about him every day, and miss his tough and loving spirit. He was Alaskan to his core, and I’m forever grateful for all that he did for our state and its people.”
Since Young’s passing, Sen. Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan have introduced measures honoring the late congressman, including:
The Don Young Arctic Warrior Act, legislation to alleviate some of the hardships faced by service members in Alaska, most of which was signed into law in December 2022.
The Don Young Recognition Act, which designated one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands, formerly known as Mount Cerberus, as Mount Young; the federal office building in Fairbanks as the Don Young Federal Office Building; and the Job Corps Center in Palmer as the Don Young Alaska Job Corps Center. It became law in December 2022.
The Anchorage Assembly has filed an appeal with Alaska Superior Court to try to get its hands on personnel documents that relate to the short duration of the employment of former Health Department Director Joe Gerace.
Gerace was found to have falsified his resume and ended up resigning after suffering a stroke. Mayor Dave Bronson has maintained that Gerace’s personnel record is confidential, as are the records of all employees of the city.
On Feb. 14, the Assembly leaders asked for two documents from the internal Human Resources investigation into Gerace. Those were denied, again because of confidentiality laws and rules around personnel files.
The Assembly wants the court to determine if an employee’s personnel files are indeed confidential, or if they can be accessed by political adversaries of the mayor.
The Assembly’s appeal argues that Bronson’s denial order incorrectly asserts that the requested records are personnel files that cannot be disclosed under the Anchorage Municipal Code.
The Assembly says Bronson’s denial order incorrectly asserts that the requested records are exempt from disclosure by the Anchorage Municipal Code.
The Assembly is saying that any personnel record must be released to it upon its demand.
After both sides have presented their arguments, the court will render its decision.
Important procedures are changing at the Anchorage Election Office for this municipal election that may address some of the concerns raised by election observers in years past, when volunteers watching the counting of ballots found fault with protocols established by Municipal Clerk Barb Jones, who retires in June.
The election ends April 4, and in addition to candidates for Assembly and School Board, there are three pages of propositions.
Signature verification. In the past, the paid signature verifiers sat next to each other and verified voter signatures unilaterally, working individually. Now, two people will have to agree that signatures match or don’t match with what the Municipality has on file. If the two verifiers don’t agree, they discuss their different conclusions and continue until they come to a conclusion. If they agree that the signature matches, the ballot envelope can proceed to the next step, where the ballot gets separated from the envelope.
Green bins: When the voter signature is verified, the computer can then read the ballot. In the past, all the ballots went into green bins, which meant they were ready to be counted. But the election officials in past years had no idea how many ballots were in each bin, and numerous election workers had access to the locked cages where the ballot bins were kept. Now, every single green bin will have a printed sheet of paper attached to it that has the exact count of the ballots in that bin. Two human counters will count how many ballots are going into the bin, and how many envelopes have been separated from the ballots. Everyone with access to the cage must be accompanied by another employee who has similar access. This was a big issue with election observers in recent years.
Fax votes: The Municipal Election Office has never kept track of the number of faxed votes that were received. Now, it will be tracking those votes every day.
Computers don’t see red: The ballot reading machines do not see the color red. The bubbles that voters fill in are red. Observers were not able to tell where stray marks on ballots were, because the screen that observers were required to use did not show the red bubble outlines. Now, there is a new place where observers can go and look at the ballots themselves, so they can verify where the marks are on the ballot. Jones did not allow people to see these ballots in prior years.
Notification: In years past, Jones would not tell observers when the adjuration process would start, but miraculously some candidates, like Forrest Dunbar and Chris Constant, would show up right before ballot adjudication started. Observers for other candidates had to stay at in the building at all times to wait for when Jones would start an adjudication session. Now, the election office has established and published a schedule that gives the times for adjudication, signature verification, and sorting.
Ballots arrived in most Anchorage voters’ mailboxes this week and already the ballots are coming into the election office. You can watch the various cameras around the building at this YouTube channel.
