It appears the proposition to borrow money to build a new city hall in Juneau is failing, although narrowly. Proposition 1, is losing 4,593 to 4,351. There are a few remaining possible ballots that need to be “cured” due to errors,, but it’s unlikely that there will be enough to pass the measure.
Propositions 2 and 3 are passing by a wide margin: Prop. 2 is passing 6,056 to 2,923, and Prop. 3 is passing 6,192 to 2,793. Prop. 2 asked voters to authorize the city borrowing up to $6.6 million for city parks and recreation improvements. Prop. 3 renews the temporary 1% add-on sales tax, which has been temporary since 1972, but approved every five years when it comes up for a vote. The money will be used for infrastructure and special projects and will generate over $60 million over five years. Juneau’s sales tax is 5%.
The citizens initiative to repeal a mandatory real estate disclosure ordinance passed 4,649 to 4,281. That initiative repeals an ordinance passed by the Assembly in 2020 that forced property owners to share real estate prices with the city assessor’s office, which has the duty to determine the tax values of homes and businesses every year. Most Assembly members opposed the repeal, while many conservatives favored the repeal.
The Juneau Canvass Review Board meets at 10 am Monday at the city’s Ballot Processing Center to complete the count of the straggler ballots, but the ballots that have yet to be cured are not expected to change the outcome. Juneau, like Anchorage, does mail-in voting, and thus, two weeks after the Oct. 4 election, the citizens still do not have final results.
The first Alaska chapter of Association of Mature American Conservatives has voted to dissolve after the national office dismissed the chapter’s leader, volunteer President Mike Coons, who was the person who started AMAC in Alaska.
The Mat-Su chapter met on Saturday and voted 30-2 to dissolve. The chapter, which formed up several years ago under Coons’ leadership, has over 400 members.
AMAC is the conservative alternative to to AARP, which tends to be a liberal, entitlement-oriented organization. AMAC represents Americans older than 50 and is centered on American values, freedom of the individual, free speech, and exercise of religion, equality of opportunity, sanctity of life, rule of law, and love of family, with benefits at all levels. AMAC Action, a 501 (c)(4), advocates for issues important to AMAC’s membership on Capitol Hill and locally through grassroots activism.
Coons said he started an AMAC chapter after getting tired of receiving material from AARP. There were no chapters in Alaska at the time, and through a phone call with AMAC headquarters in Florida, he volunteered to get the organization active in Alaska.
The organization does not endorse candidates but is active in politics on issues and initiatives. Coons became cross-threaded with the national organization this year when his chapter planned to endorse Ballot Measure 1, the Constitutional Convention question on November’s general election ballot. National leaders fired him over that, Coons said, in a phone call he received while he was out hunting.
Another chapter of AMAC started two years ago in Anchorage, and there’s also a chapter in Fairbanks that was initiated by Coons. But the Mat-Su organization was the biggest in the state and was active in bringing in speakers monthly to its meetings, and promoting legislation that would have a positive impact on senior citizens, working on topics such as education and taxation. The Permanent Fund dividend, as determined by its original statutory formula, was a big topic for the Mat-Su chapter.
The group brought in many speakers, among them Sen. Dan Sullivan, Sen. Lisa Murkowki, Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka, congressional candidate Nick Begich, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Must Read Alaska publisher Suzanne Downing, state senators and representatives, such as Sen. Shelley Hughes, Sen. Mike Shower, and Reps. Cathy Tilton, DeLena Johnson, and Sharon Jackson.
At Saturday’s meeting, Coons was a participant but not the meeting leader. Coons made the motion to dissolve the chapter, and after a robust discussion for an hour, the group voted overwhelmingly to do so, even though headquarters in Florida had told the group it was not permitted to dissolve.
Leading up to Juneau’s Oct. 4 municipal election, arguments for and against several ballot propositions dominated social media, Juneau Empire pages, radio airwaves, and yard signs. Candidates on the ballot ran unopposed which focused even more attention on ballot issues.
It’s rare when an Assembly-sponsored bond proposition doesn’t pass muster with the electorate and even more uncommon when a city and borough ordinance is repealed by voters. But both of those outcomes have come to pass.
Two of the four ballot issues, Proposition #1 and Proposition #4, were the subject of some controversy. The first authorized issuance of $35,000,000 in general obligation bond debt to partially pay for construction of a new City Hall and the second repealed recently enacted CBJ Code requiring disclosure of prices realized in private real estate transactions.
The first round of election results showed the new City Hall funding losing narrowly and the repeal of real estate disclosure passing narrowly – both by less than 1%. Later mail-in votes widened those margins considerably. It’s virtually impossible now for any remaining outstanding votes to change the end result.
City leaders need to ask themselves, what happened?
The last several years of Covid relief have effectively masked deficit spending that has proceeded unchecked at City Hall and allowed the Juneau Assembly to delay taking the necessary steps that would balance revenues and expenditures. Instead, city leaders have ignored the growing concern of taxpayers over the mounting list of expensive projects being promoted along with the recent steep escalation in commercial and residential property taxes.
Juneau’s economy has also shifted somewhat over the past two years. Voters have found it hard to ignore the vacant commercial office space and the number of empty storefronts, not to mention Juneau’s stagnant population and dwindling school enrollment.
With that as a backdrop, the Assembly and city staff rationale for a brand-new city hall with a $42 million price tag apparently did not reassure voters. The city’s own financial analysis indicated it would take 52 years to break-even and that was based on a lower construction cost and smaller bond amount than presented to voters.
Mandatory real estate disclosure, while not a tax measure or an authorization for expenditures, also failed to resonate with the public. Many voters rejected the Assembly-passed mandatory real estate disclosure because it was viewed as an over-reach and invasion of privacy (Juneau would have been the only city in Alaska with this requirement) coupled with a public distrust of city tax assessment policies.
City staff explanations that mandatory disclosure would “equalize” property taxes and make them “more fair” did not convince property owners after many saw their tax bill increase dramatically and may have suffered through a long, contentious, and unsuccessful tax assessment appeal process.
Election results were probably also influenced by the Assembly’s single-minded determination to continue spending public funds on planning for a new ($77 million) civic center that included a grandiose arts and cultural facility component despite a less expensive project being rejected by voters in 2019. This could explain some voters’ reluctance to approve additional spending elsewhere.
Will this election be a wake-up call for the Juneau Assembly?
Expenditure reductions, facility consolidations or closures, and elimination of sales tax exemptions should top the Assembly agenda before consideration of expensive replacements to city buildings serving staff and arts patrons.
Most importantly, economic development should be a high-priority topic at the Juneau Assembly’s next annual retreat on Dec. 11. Years ago, the CBJ out-sourced economic development to the Juneau Economic Development Council which has been generously funded.
But, as noted in Mark Lautman’s book, “When the Boomers Bail,” economic development is not simple. Lautman posits that almost everything that economic development specialists have traditionally promoted will be mostly useless in the coming decades. Shifting demographics, the lack of a properly educated workforce and competition to attract qualified talent will challenge even the most prosperous communities.
City leaders can meet this challenge by focusing more on growing the economy and less on growing the budget.
An expanded economy has always proven to be the key to avoid saddling taxpayers with unnecessary taxes and debt.
After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.
Have you been wondering about these avalanche of “Vote No/Defend Our Constitution” commercials? Who are the people paying for them? Who are the people who are promoting them?
You will notice some of their scripted “typical citizens” have hard hats. This is a visual ploy to speak to the conservative part of the working class. They will certainly not interview pro-aborts, rainbow-clothed leftists or liberal bureaucrats.
The Green Lobby, the Democrats, the socialists, the RINOs, the Leftists are the people who will be voting “No!” They have got everything they want right now. Why would they want to change anything? They must convince the very people who would actually benefit and control a constitutional convention, to vote against their own interests.
Our supposedly “model” constitution, the recipient of much overblown high praise, came right out the socialist think-tank of the Rockefeller-funded University of Chicago. The Public Administration Service [PAS] was a great place for loyal FDR New Dealers to spend their dotage in the late 40s and early 50s. They crafted model templates for municipalities and states, who would hopefully come to them to get an impressive and scholarly-looking model in which to craft their local governments.
None other than conservative Bob Atwood, the editor of the influential Anchorage Times, is the man who was somehow suckered to signed off an Alaska template from the PAS. If today’s “Vote No” lobby, now flooded with millions of dollars of “dark money”, is warning frightened conservatives that the outcome of a constitutional convention might lead to a socialist constitution, they certainly don’t want to change the current one.
We already have a socialist constitution, crafted by socialists and for socialists, and the hideous problems we are facing now are a result of all this.
I submit:
Unlike the lower 48, Alaskans do not have sub-surface mineral rights. Who does? The state! This is the very definition of socialism.
We cannot control the courts because of the tyrannical judicial council system. Socialism.
We were forced to accept Article 12, Section 12, which gave the federal government control of unconstitutional properties. And how much? Fully 65 % of the state is owned by the federal government. Socialism.
Another 25% belongs to the state. Socialism.
Another 10 % by natives, under the watchful eye of corporations which are receiving billions of dollars in federal contracts. Socialism.
Only about 1 % of Alaska is in private hands. Socialism.
Even Walter Hickel identified Alaska as “The owner State.” Socialism.
They raid our PFD to feed an already overblown bureaucracy. Socialism.
We were not allowed four options during the statehood vote, which was guaranteed to all Non-Self-Governing Territories under the UN Treaty of 1945. Puerto Rico and Guam still have these four options. Alaska and Hawaii do not. Ignoring treaties obligations is a federal art. Socialism.
We do not have counties, but boroughs. Just why is a matter of conjecture, but counties have sheriffs, who are the ultimate authority in their area, because they are elected by the people. They can order out the FBI and the IRS if they are wielding their power in an unjust manner, which they are doing all over America and Alaska, right now. Socialism.
We cannot build a 12-mile gravel road from King Cove to Cold Bay for the sake of humanitarian health care. Why? The federal Congress fears the propaganda of the Green Lobby. Socialism.
Despite guarantees that the current constitution “is dedicated to the principles that all persons have a natural right to life”, we have been unable to allow the definition of “personhood” to be submitted to a vote by the people, but instead is defined by unelected federal and state judges. Socialism.
The power of the purse has been seized from the people’s elected representatives. Socialism.
And now, let’s go to this “dark money” thing. The propaganda machine of the Vote No consortium tells us that should a convention be called, it might — might — come under “dark money” control. What hypocrisy!
They fear that economic independence will lead to a political one. They insert straws into our guts and take what vital resources they can use, but never so much as to allow us freedom to control our own destiny. By depriving the people of subsurface mineral rights, the lobby that controls us is Big Business, not what would naturally arise from a free economy — the people. We have seen this with fish, oil, timber, mining. It gives us a boom, to be followed by a bust.
Over $2 million dollars has come into the “Defend Our [socialist] Constitution” lobby from Outside of Alaska. They have been at it for nearly a year. The “Vote Yes” works out of its own pocket or from contributions received by Alaskan residents, and amounts to a miniscule $21,000.
Yet the governor has just endorsed the Vote Yes. Despite a stacked deck in their favor, however, the Vote No side fears something.
They fear Alaskans, who know that we cannot keep the status quo, which feeds socialism.
As Rep. Ben Carpenter has said, “The question is not, will a con-con make things worse. It is whether do you believe it can get better without one?”
Bob Bird is chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show on KSRM radio, Kenai.
That’s a lot of registered voters: According to the Division of Elections, there are 600,894 registered voters in a state that has 732,000 residents. It’s never been so high, but this is because everyone who files for a Permanent Fund dividend is automatically registered. For the record, for the 2021 dividend, there were 674,454 dividend applications and 636,895 were paid. The population last year was, according to the state, 732,670.
10 days until early & absentee in-person voting: The Division of Elections started mailing absentee ballots out today. Early and absentee in-person voting starts Monday, Oct. 24, 2022.
Knocking for Nick: Americans for Prosperity crews will be out in Kenai, Anchorage, and Wasilla on Saturday. They’ve been knocking on doors in Anchorage for weeks, but have enough volunteers to branch out.
Dunleavy and Dahlstrom: Friday night Mike Dunleavy will be at a Young Republicans event at 49th Street Brewery. Young Republicans are knocking doors and making calls to support his campaign. Tomorrow he’ll be at the Alaska Outdoor Council banquet. Will they endorse him like they did last time? The last fundraiser scheduled for Dunleavy is at the Petroleum Club on Tuesday. Dunleavy gives a keynote address on the opening day of AFN convention in Anchorage on Oct. 20.
Debates: The televised KTUU Debate for the State starts Oct. 19 at 7 pm. This event is in cooperation with KTOO and Alaska Public Media:
Oct. 19: Gubernatorial candidates
Oct. 26: U.S. House candidates
Oct. 27: U.S. Senate candidates
Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) forums are next Saturday, Oct. 22, from 9:45 to 11:45 am, according to the following schedule (watch for a story about this later next week).
U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Representative Mary Sattler Peltola
Nick Begich
Sarah Palin (Invited)
U.S. Senate
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski
Kelly Tshibaka
Patricia Chesbro
Alaska Governor
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy
Bill Walker
Les Gara
Charlie Pierce
Konnech, which leaked voter data to China, exhibited its software in Alaska in 2013: Konnech exhibited at the annual conference of the National Association of State Election Directors in Anchorage in 2013. Now this from the New York Times: “the company, Konnech, transferred personal data on thousands of the election workers to developers in China who were writing and troubleshooting software, according to a court filing that Los Angeles County prosecutors made on Thursday.
“The filing adds new details about the arrest last week of Mr. Yu, whose company has been the focus of groups challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election. Some of those groups have accused the company of storing information about poll workers on servers in China. Before the arrest, the company repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in statements to The New York Times.
“Los Angeles prosecutors initially accused Mr. Yu of embezzling public money by knowingly violating the terms of the company’s contract. Since searching Konnech’s offices and Mr. Yu’s home, the prosecutors have also accused him of conspiring with others to commit a crime, according to the new legal filing. It is rare for an executive to face criminal charges for potentially mishandling data. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.” More behind the paywall at the New York Times.
Josiah Patkotak big day: Rep. Josiah Patkotak’s wife Flora gave birth to what the representative describes as his “chunkiest bundle,” 9 pounds 7 ounces on Wednesday morning. She’s a she.
District 30 Republicans meet: The GOP district meeting is scheduled for Oct. 17 at Sheep Creek Lodge at 7 pm. Will they send a message to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky over his nasty attacks on Kelly Tshibaka?
Endorsement gold: Here’s an endorsement that you don’t see every day: The Alaskan Independence Party endorsed Republican Kevin McCabe for House District 30 for Big Lake.
Birthday Events:
On Fox & Friends: Sarah Palin said Alaska is handling Putin’s nuke threats: “That’s why we need to keep are eye on Putin. That’s why Alaska, our strategic location, we’re keeping him in check. Putin and his guys trying to get in our air space. It’s our responders who are shooing him away.”
Palin on Tulsi Gabbard: Palin said she thinks Tulsi Gabbard should remain independent. “She is independent. She is what this country needs when it comes to not allowing partisanship to get in the way of just doing what’s right. If she’s start, she’ll stay independent because the Republican Party has problems of its own too, within the establishment.” Palin did not welcome the former Democrat representative from Hawaii to join the Republican Party. “I’m for independence. I’m for commonsense constitutional conservative and values and planks in a platform, and not letting the machinery on either side get in the way of doing what’s right for the people.”
Mary Peltola sighting: Peltola had lunch with Ben Stevens last week, just a few days before he died on Thursday, she noted on Twitter, saying she will miss him. Tonight she is in Ketchikan after a long weather delay and spending that time campaigning in Sitka. She will attend the Ketchikan Filipino-American Festival on Saturday.
My military career spanned five presidential elections and four mid-term elections. Four of those elections I was enrolled in a military school. Another four I was deployed or preparing to deploy to the sandbox. Even under circumstances where my focus clearly wasn’t on politics, voting remained important to me.
It was a wise NCO who helped me early on in my career frame my dual status as military member and American citizen. Our constitutional republic only works if Americans perform their civic duty to vote and my oath to defend the constitution didn’t excuse me from my civic duty.
Throughout my time in uniform, voting was important enough that the chain of command always made it a priority. At every installation I was stationed at, unit commanders assigned voting assistance officers and NCO’s tasked with the responsibility to help educate soldiers and airmen on how to cast their vote.
During unit formations, the obligatory safety briefing by commanders also included words about the importance of voting. One such message I remember made an impact on me. For one moment in the purposeful life of all service members, the act of voting connects each of us with civilians from “home.” Or the local population where we are stationed. Whether voting by absentee ballot, or in person, this simple act serves as a reminder that our military is subordinate to the civilian population and remaining connected to the cares and concerns of that population is important. It’s also a reminder that service members have a say in the policies affecting their lives around the installation they serve at.
What the voting assistance officers couldn’t do was promote specific candidates. For the big national races that usually wasn’t a problem. Plenty of airtime, mailers, and other advertisements identified the national candidates. But the state-wide and local races were a little more difficult to follow.
For the JBER community this election there is one candidate for the Alaska House of Representatives who uniquely understands the local issues and the military lifestyle. That’s because he’s one of you.
First Lieutenant David Nelson serves with the Alaska Army National Guard. He is seeking re-election to the State House and your trust in him is not misplaced. I have served with him for two years and I have observed him to be a champion for veteran issues, an opponent of a state income tax, a defender of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, and an enthusiastic promoter of the military family.
Rep. Nelson sponsored legislation signed into law this year allowing civilian employers to grant an employment preference to spouses and dependents of servicemembers, including surviving spouses and dependents. Representative Nelson co-sponsored legislation that would enable spouses of servicemembers who are licensed or credentialed in another state to receive a temporary license from the State of Alaska while working to receive a permanent state license. This would have improved opportunities for spouses of servicemembers to obtain employment had it passed the Senate. Perhaps we can pass it next year with Rep. Nelson’s help.
Representative Nelson lives in North Muldoon and understands base life and the challenges service members face living off-base. If you have kids in Alaska schools or you’re a spouse who works in the economy, your JBER voice matters. If you benefit from the Alaska PFD and oppose a state income tax, your JBER voice matters. If you enjoy Alaska’s vast wilderness while you are here or intend to ETS and make Alaska your forever home, your JBER voice matters. Rep. David Nelson is JBER’s effective voice in the State House, and he needs your vote by absentee ballot or in person on Nov. 8.
Major Ben Carpenter represents the northern Kenai Peninsula in the State House. Major Carpenter served on active duty with both the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army and retired from the Alaska Army National Guard in 2018. He resides in Nikiski on his peony farm with his family.
Alaska Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka, pictured above with neighborhood moose in Anchorage, enjoyed her best fundraising quarter of the campaign to date, raising nearly $1.3 million in the third quarter of 2022, bringing her cash-on-hand total to over $1 million at the end of the quarter.
Tshibaka has raised a total of $4.3 million since the beginning of the campaign and has raised more support than any Republican opponent Sen. Lisa Murkowski has ever had. Tshibaka is already off to a strong start in the fourth quarter, attracting over 3,000 online donations since the beginning of October.
“All the momentum is with Kelly Tshibaka, clearly, as she has been hard at work meeting with the people of Alaska and hearing their concerns. She has been steadily building to this point and is showing strength, impressive fundraising, and a clear lead in ABC News’ statistical analysis of the race. It’s no wonder that Lisa Murkowski and her D.C. allies like Mitch McConnell are dumping millions of dollars into Alaska on ads full of desperate lies about Kelly,” said Mary Ann Pruitt, advisor to the Tshibaka campaign. “Murkowski has grown increasingly liberal since she was appointed to her seat by her father, and now serves as a key ally of Joe Biden, whose radical agenda has attacked Alaska every day he’s been in office. It’s time for a change in Alaska, and Kelly Tshibaka will be a senator who will fight for her state, instead of always doing the bidding of the D.C. elites.”
A Republican district committee in Alaska has asked the Republican Party of Kentucky to take action against Sen. Mitch McConnell for breaking party rules and spending millions of dollars to maliciously attack the Alaska Republican Party’s endorsed Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka.
District 9 Republicans met Thursday and voted for the resolution, which says that McConnell’s “indecorous endorsement of censured Senator Murkowski, who does not support the Republican platform,” is a violation of the Kentucky GOP’s own “Republican Integrity” rules (section 12.05).
This is the second Republican committee in Alaska to condemn McConnell’s attacks on the candidate that is endorsed by the Alaska Republican Party. The first was District 6, a Homer-area subdivision of the Alaska GOP.
The District 9 Alaskans condemned the “egregious, misleading, and divisive behavior of Senator Mitch McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund,” and said, “We steadfastly support our very own District 9 resident and Senate-candidate Kelly Tshibaka.”
The group, based in Anchorage, has asked that the Senate Leadership Fund immediately stop the attack ads against Tshibaka and discontinue support for Murkowski.
The Alaska Republican Party chairwoman has issued a short statement that does not mention McConnell or the Senate Leadership Fund by name but says people should not believe the attack ads about Tshibaka, but instead find out more about her by going to her website at Kellyforak.com.
Former State Sen. Ben Stevens has died at age 63. His passing was unexpected.
Benjamin Aavan Stevens was born March 18, 1959, the son of former U.S. Sen. Ted and Ann Stevens. Ben served as senator and was elected Senate President, and was a member of the Republican Party. Later in life, he was chief of staff to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and at the time of his death worked for ConocoPhillips.
During his life he had worked as a commercial fisherman and as the president of Cook Inlet Tug and Barge. He was married to Elizabeth Stevens.
Ben received his B.A. in economics at Arizona State University and earned his Master of Business Administration from George Washington University.
Ben Stevens was a victim of a relentless investigation by the FBI during his time in office, but he was never convicted of any of the charges the FBI pursued in its never-ending witch-hunt.
Former Sen. Lyda Green said, “I am just devastated to hear this news. I loved him. We got along so well and he was welcome at my office at any time and I was at his. He was one of the most politically astute members I ever worked with. He had such great history, knowing government at a totally different level because of his growing up in D.C. He was so smart.”
Stevens’ mother Ann died in a plane crash in 1978, and he deeply grieved her passing. His father died in a plane crash on Aug. 9, 2010, near Dillingham.
The Stevens family has not made an announcement.
Erec Isaacson, president of ConocoPhillips Alaska, issued a statement on Friday morning:
“The entire ConocoPhillips family is deeply saddened by the sudden passing on Thursday evening of our friend and colleague, Ben Stevens. Our sympathies are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. Ben was a valued leader at ConocoPhillips Alaska and leaves a significant legacy in the state of Alaska. Ben will be deeply missed not only by his family and colleagues, but in the broader Alaska community.”
