The well-known Anchorage Baptist Temple, which was founded before Alaska Statehood, has adopted a new name: Mountain City Church. Anchorage Christian School will become Mountain City Christian Academy.
“The church will change its name to match its expanding vision – transforming every Alaskan with the salt, light, and love of Christ,” said Pastor Ron Hoffman. Throughout this past year, Pastor Hoffman has been casting the vision for all the congregants to be Christ-centered world changers, starting with reaching their neighbors, Anchorage, and all of Alaska with the Gospel.
In 1956 the church was planted as “Baptist Bible Church” on DeBarr Road. It grew and then moved to Northern Lights Blvd., and became Anchorage Baptist Temple under former Pastor Jerry Prevo. Through radio and TV ministry, ABT started reach all of Alaska, not just Anchorage.
“No, renaming the church will not erase the legacy,” Hoffman said. “This is a history we never want to forget.” He said the church will build a history wall as a way to remember where it came from and where it’s going.
But he explained that the word “temple” is now more associated with false religion today, and the church wants be be seen as a true place of worship.
For more information, visit the church’s new website at www.mountaincity.church or check it out on Facebook or Instagram @mtncity.church.
Read about Must Read Alaska’s interview with Pastor Hoffman and his mission to reach all Alaskans at this link:
The $1.7 trillion spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden includes millions for Alaska’s fisheries and creates yet another task force to study the decline of Alaska’s salmon.
The Alaska Salmon Research Task Force will have between 13 and 19 members, with most of them appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is allowed to appoint just one member.
The task force will be created 90 days from Dec. 23, the day Biden signed the omnibus bill into law. The task force is to turn in its report within a year.
An additional $65 million is in the package for grants to restore Pacific salmon populations. Those grants are available to Alaska and five other states.
The bill also included $300 million for fishery disasters, and another $300 million is included for administrative costs. The funding is not exclusive to Alaska, according to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Commerce declared six fishery disasters in Alaska, including the 2022/2023 closure of the Alaska Bristol Bay Red King Crab and Bering Sea Snow Crab Fisheries.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced in October that fishing Bristol Bay red king crab would be closed for the second year in a row.
The spending package includes $2.75 million for the Bering Sea Fisheries Research Foundation to monitor the Bering Sea’s commercial fisheries. Among the other allocations is $1 million to the University of Alaska Fairbanks for research on seasonal weather forecasting.
“Our fisheries and oceans provide foundational food security and economic opportunity for Alaskans statewide. I’m proud to champion our marine environment and cornerstone species like salmon and crab in this year-end package,” Murkowski said in a statement. “Alaskans advocated for these projects, we worked together to deliver on them, and we can now look forward to their implementation for our state.”
U.S. Dan Sullivan voted against the spending package but said he supported some of its provisions, including the ones backing the state’s fisheries.
“However, this is a more than $1.7 trillion dollar spending bill consisting of 4,155 pages, with thousands more in supporting documents, negotiated and agreed to only by House and Senate leadership, and their staff,” Sullivan said in a statement. “We were given approximately 48 hours to read and analyze it. Decisions were made behind closed doors, many of which are clearly beyond the expertise of those making them, and the legislative process once again provided no meaningful opportunity for further input from Senators.”
Kim Jarrett’s career spans over 30 years with stops in radio, print and television. She has won awards from both the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Association of Broadcasters.
The Omicron variants were all the rage in Covid news in early 2022. But with the new year, a new Omicron variant of Covid has roared onto the scene and is now sweeping the East Coast, where over 75% of known cases are of the newest version.
Delta is done, and the Omicron BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants that dominated cases in the fall are waning. The newest mutation, XBB.1.5, accounts for over 40.5% of Covid infections around the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
That’s a jump of 21% from where the mutation was on the chart just one week ago. It’s being seen in the Northeast portion of the country, where over 80% of the population has been vaccinated and boosted against Covid, but scientists are now casting doubt on the efficacy of those boosters against this variant. XBB.1.5 is highly immune evasive, scientists report, warning that breakthrough cases and reinfections are likely.
Yet it’s not clear that XBB.1.5 causes more severe illness or is a greater threat than previous strains of Covid. During the last week of 2022, some 2,530 Americans died with Covid, compared to 17,048 during the same week in 2021.
The XBB strain has been detected in at least 70 other counties, the World Health Organization said. The variant has not yet made its grand appearance in Alaska, although is now thought to be 18% of cases in the Seattle area.
A study published the scientific journal Cellreports that BQ and XBB variants are “barely susceptible to neutralization” by current vaccines and the newest omicron boosters. The new aggressive variants could “further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections,” the researchers from Columbia University said in the article titled, “Alarming antibody evasion properties of rising SARS-CoV-2 BQ and XBB subvariants.”
One year ago, another study from Columbia University cast doubts on whether the new vaccines, rolled out in 2021, were effective against the now spent Omicron virus, reporting that the variant flavor of the day was “markedly resistant” to vaccines and boosters. In the United States, more than 614 million doses of Covid vaccine have been given and many people have had up to four booster shots.
The most recent updated (bivalent) boosters became available in September for people aged 12 years and older, but these newest scientific studies are throwing shade on the booster’s ability to defend against the new versions of Covid.
The 107-foot tug Tagish sank at a Juneau dock on Thursday. The Tagish was built in 1943 by Everett Marine Ways Inc., in Everett, Wash. for the U.S. Navy, where it was known as YTB290, the Canocan.
It was built as a fireboat replacement for the Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, during World War II. The tug was sold in 1959 to Pacific Tow Boat Co. and renamed the Sea King. Ten years later, that company was sold and came under the Foss Maritime company.
In 1976, Foss renamed the tug the Iver Foss, but then sold the aging boat to Don Etheridge of Juneau in 1978; he renamed it the Tagish. For the past 25 years Etheridge has been maintaining and restoring the historic vessel, a survivor of World War II.
Tom Brice, a friend of Etheridge’s, has set up a GoFundMe fundraising page to assist with the raising of the vessel. You can donate to that effort, which has raised over $25,000 in three days, at this link.
Tagish Marine, LLC, which is the corporate owner of the vessel, believes that a 10-inch water line associated with the fire boat plumbing may have frozen and then broke. The vessel had been checked the prior evening and nothing was found amiss, and the bilges were empty, Etheridge said. Tagish Marine wrote:
“During the early morning hours of 12/29/22 the MV Tagish sunk at the National Guard Dock. The sinking was discovered at approximately 8:30 AM by an employee of the harbor department. The vessel is owned by Tagish Marine LLC. Don Etheridge responded to the scene and began coordinating with response agencies and local salvage companies.
“Boom and absorbent materials were deployed to contain approximately 60 to 80 gallons of fuel.
“Melino’s Marine was hired to bring in a diver and plug the tank vents to prevent any further fuel leaking.
“All options for salvage are on the table and currently being explored with local contractors.
“With the plugging of the tank vent, any environmental risk has been contained.
“Due to the size and weight of the vessel, the salvage operation will take extremely large equipment and careful planning.
“This incident is a tremendous loss. We appreciate the outreach and support from the community Thank you all for your patience and understanding while we navigate this complex process.”
Must Read Alaska readers may recall that Don Etheridge ran for Senate for Juneau as an unaffiliated candidate in 2018, but lost to Jesse Kiehl, a Democrat. Read this column by Art Chance from May, 2018:
The change of the calendar is a time to reflect, reset, ditch the bad habits, adopt best practices, and make course corrections in our lives that improve our situations. Best-selling author, speaker, and positivity coach Jon Gordon has 21 tips for a positive 2023 that are worth considering.
Chief among them is to stay positive. In politics, the entire focus is almost always on the argument, the dispute between people about the best way forward for our society and the good of humanity. This synapse where disagreement takes place can consume people and turn their outlooks downright negative. Negativity can sabotage us in our personal and professional lives. It’s important to separate ourselves from the debate itself, and remain upbeat and positive in our own lives, even while events of the world seem fraught with peril for the next generation. It is up to us to be the beacon of hope and happiness for those who follow.
Gordon isn’t involved in politics — he’s in life and leadership coaching. But for those who are deeply engaged in politics, this is perhaps the most important habit they can adopt for 2023. Remember, you can be firm in your convictions, yet remain a happy warrior.
Gordon also recommends a daily “gratitude walk.” Also encouraged by life coach Tony Robbins, it can help us reset our way of thinking about our lives. It’s walking while intentionally focusing on all we are grateful for, and it’s harder than it sounds. Those who do this regularly report measurable benefits in their lives and the lives of their family members. The gratitude walk doesn’t need to be long, but it helps to get outside for this activity, rather than doing a mall walk.
Gordon also reminds us to “remember your why,” which is that very thing that drives us to get out of bed each morning. It might be your children, your spouse, or your faith in God. It’s your core reason for doing what you do. What is driving you? Keep that written down in your wallet, particularly.
Gordon, author of books such a The Power of Positive Leadership, is a nationally known speaker at business conferences and consults with leaders across the country to help them improve their leadership performance through the power of positivity.
His principles have been used by many Fortune 500 companies, professional and college sports teams, schools, hospitals, and non-profit groups. He has authored 26 books, including 12 best sellers. The Energy Bus has sold over 2 million copies, and The Carpenter was a top 5 business book of the year. He also wrote Training Camp, The Power of a Positive Team, The Coffee Bean, Stay Positive, and The Garden, and others. Find out more about Jon Gordon at this link. Sign up for his newsletters here.
In the category of “Must Reads,” you can’t go wrong with Jon Gordon’s inspirational books.
The final tip from Gordon is to enjoy the ride. You only have one trip through life, so make the most of it and enjoy it.
What are the changes you will make in your life for the New Year? Go to the gym? Read your Bible? Attend church? Fix your snow machine? Call your mom? Get your neighbors to vote? Share your best ideas, resolutions, and goals for 2023 in the comment section below.
Dan Fagan. What can I say? What would you like to know about my many years with Dan as a part of my life?
A couple of housekeeping items before we get started: We are all broken in our own way. Me, you, all of us. Nothing of what I write here is to say a person is perfect, or has a 1,000 batting average on every issue. If your measure for a public person is perfection, you should be prepared to be eternally disappointed, and probably a very bitter and lonely person.
First, I will admit to being biased about Dan Fagan. For probably a dozen reasons. Dan was a mentor, a bitter foil over Sarah Palin and many other issues, a business partner, and a supporter of mine for all my time on the radio. We had giant debates about the facts, we had small disagreements on faith and virtue. We discussed all parts of life with nothing held back. If there is any definition of what a friend is, Dan is a deep and abiding friend of mine.
Second, we have had a falling out, and it was largely my fault. I have asked for forgiveness, and I hope he will forgive me. It was over politics during the previous mayor’s race. I was friends with one candidate and I corrected some public things Dan was saying. I should have worked with Dan more closely on it before I went public, and that was poorly done on my part. We all have points of sorrow in our lives, and this is one example that I am still learning from. We learn more from our pain than anything else, so this continues to be an important lesson in my life.
Dan has several gifts that are superhuman. I’ll just talk through a few.
The first is that he feels a responsibility to the truth and hard-to-face issues more than anyone. The truth for Dan is a constant and irresistible force. If you think of the bond between a man and his wife. Constantly needing the other near, to know them, to hear what they think, to please them. The truth for Dan is like a person with whom he sought relationship with all his might.
The second is that Dan’s measure of success is impossibly high (or nearly so). For himself, for his friends, and for politicians. He is driven to an extent that I don’t think a normal person can understand, and certainly would not attempt. He never stops. He is always reaching out. News, facts, data, relationship. If you think about yourself waking at 3 am every single day of the year, or working late into the night, you should think that Dan is already up, or still working on something for his show, his writing. His public activities are his ministry. He is the eternal minister.
I also want to speak as someone who knows Dan personally. You have never met a person like Dan. At least I have not. In January 2014, I had reached my limit: 9 children, working 70 hours a week for 12 years, high pressure job, high pressure public life (as an avowed introvert, you can imagine what that took out of me), two to three hours of sleep a night for months on end; I just needed to stop. Stop working, stop radio, stop leaving the house, just stop.
Who saved me? Dan Fagan. He did my radio program on KBYR for six weeks while I healed. He wouldn’t take payment. He never pushed me to come back before I was ready. It’s hard to express the love present in that act. I can never adequately express my admiration, appreciation, and love for Dan for helping me when I needed it most. Underneath all the issues, the conflict, the difficult questions, and the public face, that is the face I know is the one Dan Fagan wears when the chips are down.
Finally, Dan finds a way to live his public life and include a vibrant testimony to faith. I’m sure there were many around him who counsel him to stop evangelizing. Dan saw that the evangelizing for political and civic truth should live harmoniously with the call to spiritual truth. It’s not really done in public life, and Dan broke new ground as a brave, clear, clarion for any who will listen. Just like the rest of his life.
Dan’s program was a presentation of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, the play of conservative values within a system that denigrates, erodes and falsely attacks them. Dan was the ringmaster to help explain the political circus of our state, country and city. There will be no other like him. There never could be.
We will miss you here in Alaska, Dan Fagan.
Your friend, Glen.
Glen Biegel is a technology security professional, Catholic father of nine, husband to a saint, and politically active conservative.
From sequins and tuxes to Carhartts and Xtratufs, Juneau will celebrate the inauguration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom Alaska style during the first-in-state 2023 inaugural celebration, which will be held on Friday, Jan. 20, from 7-10 pm at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall.
To kick off the party, Juneau’s own Taylor Vidic assembled the Southeast Swingers, a mix of the best jazz musicians Southeast has to offer, with a rhythm section out of Ketchikan, lead guitar from Sitka, and keys, sax and vocals from the Capital City. The group includes educators, full time performers, recording artists, Rasmuson Foundation awardees, state and federal employees, and born-and-raised Alaskans.
“This is what Alaskan Music looks like – hardworking, multi-talented and community-minded. With songs that stretch from the 1920s to the 2020s, they’ll keep the energy high, your toe tappin’, and the room swingin’ all night long. Enjoy a selection of tantalizing appetizers provided by Smokehouse Catering, complimentary non-alcoholic punch and a no-host bar,” the Juneau Inaugural Committee said.
The first order of business for the Anchorage Equity Committee, a committee of the Assembly, is to figure a way to get paid.
The Equity Committee met in November and December, and between those two meetings alone spent over an hour discussing how to get money from the city budget for their time.
Perhaps, they said, this could be done through an honorarium that would be appropriated by the Assembly. Suggestions from the body started at $50,000 to $100,000, to be divvied among the committee members in a fashion yet to be determined. The entire membership of the committee appears to be elastic, but at $150 per meeting, attendance and membership might grow, something the co-chair of the committee, Rev. Leon May, said would be a side benefit.
“The Anchorage Equity Committee of the Assembly is a Special Assembly Committee and members represent a variety of community and faith-based groups, and other community perspectives who are underrepresented and have lived experience of systemic inequities. Committee membership will prioritize engaging the necessary perspectives to achieve equity and optimal well-being for all Anchorage residents,” is how the committee is described on the municipal web page devoted to its mission.
The matter of payment for services was discussed at length at the December meeting, when Assemblyman Felix Rivera described how he tried, at the committee’s request, to squeeze the funding into the city budget, but it did not pass. During that December committee meeting, the discussion about funding and appropriate levels of payment went on for an hour. No one seemed to have an idea of how the money would be split up, and whether all members would take an honoraria, or whether some might refuse it and allow the group to use the funds in a different way.
No other committee of the Assembly gets paid for the work it does. Committees are considered volunteer service, but nearly all who serve on the Anchorage Equity Committee believe that being paid to meet once a month is the least the city can do for them.
They started out describing the ask for funds as an honorarium, but later in deliberations expanded the concept to cover community outreach and planning. At one point, an amount of $500,000 was mentioned by the committee.
The Equity Committee majority seems to believe that $150 per meeting is not too much to ask, and sees itself as a different kind of committee than all other committees of the Assembly. The committee has no specific deliverables, nor a business plan, as of yet, but it has published something it considers to be a charter.
Listen to a portion of the November committee meeting at this link, about 10 minutes of the meeting:
Assemblyman Rivera told the committee that honorarium for serving on committees is not provided for in municipal code. He cautioned the committee that “right-wingers” would criticize the group for starting out of the gate by asking for funds that no other committee gets. The committee members did not seem fazed by the anticipated criticism.
The Anchorage Municipal budget for 2023 was $587 million after the Assembly added back items vetoed by the Assembly. The discussion among the equity group was that a mere $60,000 to $100,000 would be a drop in the bucket in the budget, barely noticeable.
The conversation in the December meeting drifted to include not just honoraria, but also vaguely referenced planning and community engagement work. The committee members even discussed that it could give grants or at least advise the Assembly on who to give grants to, and the committee discussed that although a request for the budget that was up for Assembly approval was unlikely to pass on such short notice in 2022, the ask itself would give the group “cover” for another ask in April, when the Assembly takes up budget revisions.
Listen to a portion of the December deliberations about payment for service that the Anchorage Equity Committee wants from taxpayers:
The group’s charter says that initially it was a Department of Health committee that was convened in 2021 to advise the city on vaccine distribution and pandemic response.
“In December 2021, AHD determined it no longer needed to engage with this committee. The members determined they would like to build upon the successful engagement and actions during 2021, remain together as a body, and continue the committee’s advisory role. At the invitation of two Anchorage Assembly members, the committee has re-formed as the Anchorage Equity Committee of the Assembly to work with the Anchorage Assembly to build an equitable, thriving community for all,” the group writes of its history.
The group describes “equity” as “the intentional, consistent, and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to under-resourced communities that have been denied such treatment. These communities include Black, Latino, Alaska Native and other Indigenous, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; immigrant and refugee communities; people with limited English proficiency; persons experiencing disabilities; older adults and elders; veterans; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
The meetings of the Equity Committee do not as of yet include a land acknowledgement, as is done by so many public committees in this era, nor the Pledge of Allegiance.
The committee’s charter was finalized Oct. 6, 2022, and includes no mention of grant-giving, honoraria, or how a committee that requires no ethics oversight would manage a budget without staff.
The committee is co-chaired by Thea Agnew Bemben, a principal and co-founder of Agnew::Beck Consulting, and Rev. Leon May. Other members include Alaska Black Caucus President Celeste Hodge Growden, “Sage Alaska” LGBTQ elder advocate Candace Bell, Anchorage School District Equity Director Sonja Hunt, Catholic Social Services’ Refugee Program Coordinator Issa Spatrisano, Alaska Literacy Program Executive Director Lori Pickett, and Anchorage Assemblymen Felix Rivera and Kameron Perez-Verdia. It has added Mara Kimmel, wife of former Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and executive director of the Alaska ACLU, to its membership.
Hilcorp Alaska was the successful bidder on a Cook Inlet tract for oil and gas offered by the federal government. The amount just shy of $64,000, it was announced Friday.
Hilcorp was also the only bidder on the lease sale. The tract stretches from Kalgin Island to the north as far as Augustine Island to the south.
Texas-based Hilcorp Alaska has 14 other inlet leases from a 2017 sale, the last one held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. During that offering, Hilcorp was also the only bidder.
Friday’s lease sale was executed on the last business day of the year in what is called in the news business a “take out the trash” day, or a day when the government hopes no one will notice.
The sale, opposed by many within the Biden Administration and offered under duress, was mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the first offshore oil lease auction in five years for the inlet. Hilcorp has not yet begun production in its current leases.
Although President Joe Biden promised he would end offshore drilling, he made a compromise in order to ensure the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, agreeing to three new lease sales, even after the Department of the Interior had withdrawn a proposed sale in the inlet in May, citing no interest from industry. The Inflation Reduction Act required BOEM to conduct the inlet lease sale by Dec. 31. The other leases mandated are in the Gulf of Mexico.
Biden took criticism from the Left, upon the passage of the act, and took additional criticism today from environmental nonprofit advocacy groups, who say Alaska is the sacrificial lamb to get the Inflation Reduction Act passed.
“This damaging sale never should have happened in the first place, and we’ll continue challenging it in court and fighting to preserve beautiful Cook Inlet,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We urge Biden not to issue any leases without meaningful consideration of drilling’s threats to local communities and wildlife like the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales, as he’s required to do by federal law.”
“Today’s lease sale for dirty and dangerous offshore drilling represents the dark side of our nation’s climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. Continued leasing for oil and gas undermines efforts to address the climate crisis,” said Diane Hoskins, of the environmental group Oceana. Hoskins is also a former field director for the Democratic Party of Georgia and officer at Pew Charitable Trust. “Where oil companies drill, they spill, and that’s why it’s time for President Biden to fulfill his campaign commitment to end new leasing for offshore drilling. The president can make good on his promise by finalizing a five-year plan for offshore drilling with no new leases.” The bid now goes through a 90-day evaluation process to “ensure the public receives fair market value before a lease is awarded, and will be reviewed by the Department of Justice to check for antitrust conflicts.
The lease sale terms include stipulations to protect biologically sensitive resources, mitigate potential adverse effects on protected species, and avoid potential conflicts associated with other Cook Inlet users.
If a lease is awarded, it will be posted to BOEM’s website following the 90-day review. Materials and statistics for Lease Sale 258 are available at www.boem.gov/ak258.
