Bethel was -15 degrees at the beginning of December, and the ground and Kuskokwim River is frozen solid. Now, with a quarter inch of rain having fallen over the past day, the rain has nowhere to go except on top of the snow and ice, making conditions in Western Alaska a mess. Planes from Anchorage are on delay, with 800-foot ceilings and an waterlogged, icy Bethel runway.
It looks like a sloppy Christmas is ahead.
“Christmas travel, medical travel, mail, medicines, groceries — everything comes in by air,” said Steve Strait, of KEDI radio, which broadcasts in Western Alaska. Dillingham is facing similar conditions.
“Forget about Christmas shopping. Christmas Eve forecast is for a half inch of rain, which can’t go into the frozen soil and is just running all over the ice. It’s back to snow machines. And this afternoon they’re looking at 35 mile per hour winds and right now an 800-foot ceiling,” he said.
According to KYUK radio, the inclement weather in recent days has stranded travelers in Bethel. In response, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation created a temporary shelter to house some of them over the weekend. As of Dec. 21, patients who had not been able to fly home remained in at YKHC.
YKHC Public Information Officer Mary Horgan said that dozens of people were in Bethel for medical appointments when the stormy weather struck. Other people became stuck in Bethel who were traveling back to villages from appointments in Anchorage, according to KYUK.
Alaska Airlines Fight 43 from Anchorage to Bethel was delayed by several hours today.
In a win for faith-based organizations, a federal judge issued an order Monday saying the Municipality of Anchorage cannot enforce a city ordinance that would force a faith-based women’s shelter to admit males and let them sleep alongside women who have suffered physical and sexual abuse.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent the Downtown Hope Center in Downtown Hope Center v. Municipality of Anchorage II.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason found that Downtown Hope Center does not constitute a place of “public accommodation” and therefore is not subject to a city ordinance that threatened the shelter with fines and penalties for following its religious beliefs and serving women in need.
“Vulnerable women deserve a safe place to stay overnight, and we’re pleased that they can sleep soundly, at least for the time being, due to the court’s order,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson. “Downtown Hope Center serves everyone, but its overnight women’s shelter exists to provide a safe place for women, many of whom have survived sex trafficking, rape, or domestic violence at the hands of men. This is the second time Anchorage officials have targeted the center for operating according to its religious beliefs and serving the city’s homeless population. We hope the court’s order puts an end to this.”
In 2018, Downtown Hope Center filed afederal lawsuitagainst the city after the shelter referred an inebriated and injured man to a hospital to get the care he needed and paid for his taxi ride there. The man later filed a complaint with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission alleging the center didn’t let him stay at the shelter, where he would have been sleeping right next to homeless women—many of whom were victims of physical and sexual abuse. The city then chose to pursue the complaint against the center, prompting ADF attorneys to file suit on the center’s behalf.
The city eventually dropped the complaint, and both the city and the center agreed to make the court’s temporary order against the city permanent.
But since the city’s first loss in federal court, the radicalized Anchorage Assembly amended the city ordinance in an attempt to find a way around the court’s ruling, once again targeting Downtown Hope Center and trying to force it to let males sleep next to homeless women.
“Faith-based nonprofits should be free to serve consistently with their faith without fear of unjust government punishment. This is especially true for ministries that help homeless women who have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence,” said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker, director of ADF’s Center for Christian Ministries. “Because no woman should be forced to sleep or disrobe next to a man, we are pleased the court has allowed Downtown Hope Center to continue protecting women and operating according to its religious beliefs.”
Sonja Redmond, one of nearly 3,500 attorneys allied with ADF, is serving as local counsel for Downtown Hope Center.
Many recalls have failed in Alaska over the past two years. The governor and two sitting Anchorage Assembly members have survived attempts on their leadership.
But the Tanana Chiefs Conference board of directors voted last week to recall PJ Simon from his position as chief and chairman at the Native nonprofit organization. This one worked.
He had served for a little more than a year for the organization that has a mission of advancing Tribal self-determination and enhancing regional Native unity through health care and social services. Other services include tribal development services, management of natural resources, public safety, community planning, and transportation. No reason was made public for the recall.
The full board of Tanana Chiefs Conference met at the Westmark Hotel on Dec. 14. The motion passed with 22 of 33 members voting in favor of the recall. Chief Financial Officer Brian Ridley will service as acting chief and chairman until the March meeting when the tribes will hold a special election.
In October, tribal members began openly questioning the operation of the organization. Over the following weeks, other complaints and grievances were aired in private meetings with the board; none has been made public.
Simon was born in Tanana and was raised in the Village of Allakaket by parents Pollack Sr. and Julia Simon. He finished high school in Fairbanks, moved to Galena, and became a hunting guide. Later her returned to Allakaket to care for his parents, and he became chief of the village. He served on the board of Doyon from 2014 through 2020.
Tanana Chiefs Conference includes 41 tribal entities and 20,000 tribal members.
Nine U.S. senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), along with 38 members of the House of Representatives, filed an amicus brief in U.S. Navy Seals v. Biden.
The 38 House Republicans were led by Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the House Republican Conference chair.
The lawsuit originated from 26 Navy SEALs and other Navy service members with sincere religious objections to receiving the Covid-19 vaccine are challenging the president’s vaccine mandate for the Navy.
The service members argue that both the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment require the federal government to allow exemptions for their sincerely held religious beliefs, especially since they are willing to take other precautionary measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in lieu of vaccination and the Navy is already allowing medical exemptions.
Rep. Laddie Shaw, a member of the Alaska House of Representatives is a retired Navy SEAL, the only one in elected office in Alaska. He supports the lawsuit.
Rep. Laddie Shaw speaks to military members in November.
“I’m absolutely on board with that,” Shaw said. “I’m so against mandates. It costs a quarter million to put a Navy SEAL through a year of training. To go through all that hell, then get told they have to get a jab for something that has a 99 plus percent survival rate?”
The SEALs are some of the most fit people on the planet, with high cardiovascular capacity and low body mass index. They would not typically be in the “comorbidity” group.
“My class started with 112 and ended up with 18 because not enough people can do push-ups all day,” Shaw said.
In the amicus brief, the lawmakers wrote:
“Plaintiffs’ religious liberty and the government’s asserted interest in protecting our service members from COVID-19 need not be in conflict, especially where, as here, the individuals seeking an exemption are willing to adopt non-vaccination measures to protect themselves and others from the spread of COVID-19. They are only in conflict here because Defendants refuse to accommodate Plaintiffs’ religious objections even as they accommodate those who will not receive the vaccine for non-religious reasons. This violates RFRA by substantially burdening Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs without a compelling reason, and violates the First Amendment’s guarantee that government not discriminate against religion.”
“Defendants’ policies mandating that Plaintiffs be vaccinated in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs does not come close to satisfying the strictest scrutiny Congress demands in RFRA. Defendants’ vaccine mandate forces Plaintiffs—individuals who have devoted their lives to the protection of the country—to choose between following their sincerely held religious convictions and effectively being discharged, losing their calling, and destroying their financial well-being.”
“Religious freedom is fundamental to every American’s liberty, but we have seen in recent years increasing hostility among elected and appointed government officials towards those who seek to exercise that freedom. . . . That same hostility to religion is on display with Defendants’ mandate. Defendants could easily accommodate Plaintiffs and similarly situated religious individuals given that Defendants are already accommodating individuals with medical issues or who received placebos in clinical trials. They have simply chosen not to do so.”
“[T]he impact on the military and our national security strongly counsels in favor of granting a preliminary injunction. The mandate is sidelining the deployment of soldiers on whose service our country relies. If this mandate (as currently being applied or threatened) is not enjoined, these Plaintiffs cannot fulfill their pledge to serve and defend our country, even though, based upon their training and experience, these Plaintiffs, as well as others similarly situated, are some of our most qualified, equipped, and fearless soldiers. Our men and women in uniform have fought to protect the freedoms that every American, regardless of belief, enjoys. Now they ask this Court to protect their religious freedom from encroachment by the very government they have sworn to protect with their lives.”
Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, the Navy SEALs are a nimble, elite maritime military force suited for all aspects of unconventional warfare. They:
Conduct insertions and extractions by sea, air or land to accomplish covert, Special Warfare/Special Operations missions
Capture high-value enemy personnel and terrorists around the world
Collect information and intelligence through special reconnaissance missions
Carry out small-unit, direct-action missions against military targets
Perform underwater reconnaissance and the demolition of natural or man-made obstacles prior to amphibious landings
Alaska joined 23 other states on Tuesday in a lawsuit asking a U.S. District Court in Louisiana to block yet another federal Covid-19 vaccine mandate, this one to require Head Start workers and volunteers across the country to be vaccinated.
The lawsuit is another example of the state’s ongoing effort to protect the individual freedoms of Alaskans and preserve the state’s authority under the 10thAmendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“The Biden administration’s misguided and overreaching vaccine and mask mandate to the Head Start program poses a far greater threat to the children of families that rely on this important federal program than the virus does. We know that losing Head Start staff, curtailing essential programming and closing classrooms will hurt kids – not just today – but long into the future,” said Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy. “This nation should be prioritizing children and families, not putting parents in the untenable situation of choosing between their rights as parents and the education of their kids. This new policy will create obstacles for workers and families that need the program the most. We will continue to fight these policies with every resource we can to protect Alaskans from these unconstitutional mandates.”
The Head Start mandate is one of a series of broad and overreaching Biden Administration actions taken in recent months forcing millions of Americans to choose between submitting to an unwanted vaccine or losing their economic livelihoods. Alaska is already fighting three other mandates in federal court. Those other lawsuits challenge vaccine requirements for federal contractors, private businesses and healthcare providers.
“The federal government has again forced its way into matters delegated to the states and to the people under the 10th Amendment,” said Attorney General Treg Taylor, whofiled the lawsuit on behalf of the state. “Our Head Start workers and volunteers have the right to decide for themselves whether to get vaccinated, without the fear of losing their jobs or without the fear of the federal government defunding Alaska’s preschool programs.”
Alaska has 17 Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Head Start is a federally funded preschool program for children from low-income families.
The Head Start vaccine mandate would apply to more than 273,000 staff and more than 1 million volunteers serving about 864,000 children nationwide. Contractors who come into contact with or provide direct services to Head Start children or families would also be subject to the mandate.
Under the Head Start mandate, workers and volunteers would be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with very limited exceptions. There is no provision for opting out of the requirement through testing. In addition, all Head Start programs would be subject to a masking mandate for both adults and children as young as 2.
The additional, onerous masking requirement will make teachers take away important instructional time to ensure that toddlers are complying with masking rules that potentially interfere with children’s social and emotional development.
Alaska’s lawsuit maintains the vaccine and masking requirements violate the 10th Amendment and that, by attempting to institute the mandates, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has exceeded its authority under federal law.
Joining Alaska in the lawsuit are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
On the agenda for Tuesday’s Anchorage Assembly is an ordinance rewrite that gives the Assembly chair the right to prohibit items she deems to be a danger or distraction from the room where the Assembly meets.
Although not stated explicitly, this would mean that the chair could take away the American flags, or signs that sometimes people bring into the chambers to wave in protest, since clapping is not allowed. It could also mean she could prohibit firearms from being brought into the Assembly chambers. Currently, they are allowed on city property.
The chair could also prohibit the use of Guy Fawkes masks that some members of the audience are wearing to comply with the Assembly’s mask rule for its meetings. At the meeting illustrated above, the public brought cardboard tombstones for businesses that had been driven out of business by the former mayors’ lockdown orders in 2020 and 2021. These items could be ordered removed, under the proposed ordinance.
At a recent meeting of the Assembly, the leftist media and some Assembly members expressed horror when a man who was arrested for making a disturbance in an Assembly meeting was discovered to also be packing a sidearm. The ordinance gives broad authority to the chair to prohibit firearms or even belt knives worn by many working class men and women.
The agenda item is Ordinance No. AO 2021-117, “an ordinance of the Anchorage Assembly amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 2.30 Rules of Procedure for Assembly to codify additional Rules of Procedure for the Assembly and Presiding Officer to promote the efficient, safe and orderly conduct of Assembly business, Assembly Chair LaFrance, Assembly Vice-Chair Constant and Assembly Member Perez-Verdia . 14.B.1. Assembly Memorandum No. AM 771-2021.”
The ordinance gives the chair the right to change the seating chart, and this action is seen as a direct hit at Mayor Dave Bronson.
In past meetings, Chairwoman Suzanne LaFrance has attempted to remove Bronson from the upper dais, where he has a bulletproof guard around him, to a lower level.
Symbolically as much as physically, this would place him beneath her and without the kind of protection she enjoys. It would also allow the Assembly to observe over his shoulder what he is reading or the conversations he is having with his staff during the meeting.
The ordinance also allows the chair to shut down Assembly members who are making what she sees as “dilatory” motions, points or order, or requests for information. This section of the ordinance is clearly aimed at Assemblywoman Jamie Allard, an outspoken conservative who typically has many audience members in her corner during meetings. Allard has used motions, points or order, questions, and other techniques to bring out important points, much to the irritation of the nine liberal members of the Assembly.
The revised ordinance language says:
The chair shall have the authority to make rulings, subject to being overruled by vote of the assembly, to promote the efficient, safe and orderly conduct of Assembly business. That authority shall include:
Establishment of a seating chart, arrangement of chambers. The chair shall have the authority to establish a seating chart for individuals participating in an Assembly meeting, and to prescribe how the physical space of a premise used for an assembly meeting may be used.
Prohibited items. The chair shall have the authority to prohibit members of the public from bringing dangerous or distracting items to Assembly premises, or to require an item to be removed from Assembly premises if it is being used to create an actual disturbance.
Removal for actual disturbance. The chair shall have the right to order a person to be removed from a meeting for creating an actual disturbance to the meeting. Direction to security. The chair shall have the right to direct security guards at Assembly chambers, in furtherance of Assembly meeting purposes.
Signage. The chair shall authorize signage posted at Assembly meetings, related to the Assembly meeting. Safety rules. The chair may adopt rules to promote the safety of members and attendees of assembly meetings.
Dilatory motions, points of order, and requests for information. The chair shall rule out of order motions, points of order, and requests for information that are dilatory. Non-germane requests for information. The chair shall rule that a request for information is out of order if it is not germane to the pending motion or public hearing.
Recess. The chair may temporarily recess a meeting for convenience, to restore order, or to resolve a technical issue. Committee assignments. The chair shall appoint assembly members to subcommittees of the assembly, and appoint a member to chair, or members to co-chair, each subcommittee. Office assignments. The chair shall assign members office.
The Anchorage School Board on Monday night overrode Superintendent Deena Bishop and put the masks back on the students when they return Jan. 3. The mask mandate extends to Jan. 15, for now, but the board seems willing to extend it further.
The board received much public comment, both online, on the phone, and in person, by the time it met on Monday night. Most of the teachers who testified were in favor of the mask mandate, and most of the written comments also supported the mandate. A few parents opposed it.
Before school began in September, Superintendent Bishop made the decision to implement universal masking in all school buildings in the district. After overwhelming testimony against it, the board said the decision was up to the superintendent.
Last week, Bishop wrote a note to parents removing the mandate on Jan. 3.
On Monday night, the board took back the power from Bishop. Only School Board member Dave Donley voted against the extension of the mask mandate.
Testimony from Dimond High School English teacher Soren Wuerth, who said mask wearing is an “act of love” and “mental health protection” and characterizing the unmasked as “maskless mob,” was typical of what was presented by other teachers in oral testimony:
“This impulsive decision to lift the mask mandate is insanity.We are facing staffing shortages, holiday travel, and with the omicron [variant], unprecedented rates of viral transmission.Schools across the country are shutting down as Covid surges. In this context, a context that includes a mutating, rapidly spreading virus, giving up a fundamental protection is unacceptable.
Just Friday I had a student collapse in my roomwith another almost too sick to walk to the nurse, both exhibiting acute Covid symptoms. Multiple students have been out sick with unreported covid.
Not only do masks provide physical protection, but are a form of mental health protection. With renegade mask wearing in a school community where students don’t fully understand the virus transmission and omicron, the stress and anxiety on an already extremely stressful environment.Why this? Why now? Someone in an online forum echoed what I perceived to be the attitude of ASD leadership and its rationale for this decision: ‘Man Up’ is the attitude. Join the maskless mob.
The idea of voluntary masking is, of course, oxymoronic. A mask only works when others are masked.
Masks are proven to be one of the only measures to prevent transmission and this is why the CDC recommends all students pre-K through 12 continue to mask.
Moreover, as usual, it will be the poorest kids and large families who will be most harmed by this…
This declaration is short-sighted, reckless and ignores basic safety precautions, but worse, it puts lives at risk, the lives of teachers who have families and of children, and for what, for what?Political ambition?
We have a dichotomy. Either this is a unilateral decision — no teachers were certainly consulted. Or it is ignorant. Or it’s malicious. Elevating someone’s political image over the safety of our children is immoral.
You can’t pretend your way out of this pandemic. Now, school board, do what’s right and figure out a way to walk this back.Thank you for your time and remember, wearing a mask is an act of love.“
Assembly Seat 6, now occupied by Kameron Perez-Verdia for West Anchorage, has another candidate running — former Rep. Liz Vazquez.
A fundraiser-meet-and-greet is calendared for Wednesday, Dec. 22 from 6-8 pm at Round table Pizza, 800 E Dimond Blvd #208, Anchorage, AK 99515. The restaurant is in the Dimond Center.
Hosts include Larry Baker, Liz and Hugh Ashlock, Brian Hove, Frank and Jeanie McQueary, Mike Robbins, Steve and Olga Zelener, Steve Strait, Joan Priestley, M.D., Bern Davis, Matthew Fagnani, Stan and Candice English, Chris and Bud Duke, Loren Leman, and Win and Audrey Faulkner.
The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday will take public testimony and will vote on a rewrite of Title 28 of Municipal code, putting severe restrictions on election observers for the all-mail-in ballot counting process.
The Assembly’s radical left majority describes the changes as “housekeeping.”
Working in consort with Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones, the nine leftist members of the Assembly plan to significantly reduce the number of observers who can be in position to watch ballots being counted at the Municipality’s Election Center at 619 East Ship Creek Ave. They also have other requirements, such as not allowing election workers to answer the questions of observers, but to require all questions to be funneled through the Municipal Clerk.
Clerk Jones objected to several election observers from the Dave Bronson for Mayor campaign and got into disputes with several of them during the April election and May runoff election. Their presence visibly rattled her and she was recorded scolding and talking down to the Bronson observers on several occasions. Jones and her operation has never had such scrutiny as they had during the April-May election.
At the same time, Assemblyman Chris Constant was recorded delivering a lavish bouquet of flowers to Jones during the counting process. Constant was a top lieutenant of Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar campaign for mayor and, as a member of the Assembly, is one of Jones’ bosses. The Muni Clerk reports to the Assembly.
The new rules Jones has written will allow her to remove any observer by simply rewriting the election observer handbook on the spot. Observers will also be required to be signed up over three weeks in advance, which is a barrier to candidates who do not have support of unions. Unions are able to deploy people to campaign activities, while candidates without unions must rely on volunteers.
In addition, observers will be required to undergo training from Jones’ staff and will not be able to record what they are seeing using their phones or cameras.
Brice Wilbanks, who was the campaign manager of the Bronson campaign, called these the “Brice amendments,” because most of them appear a result of volunteer vigilance on behalf of the Bronson campaign. Another testifier during Dec. 14’s public hearing described the amendments to Title 28 as obvious “retaliation” against the Bronson campaign.
Others noted that the city is getting ready to have body cameras on police officers, and that the cameras installed in the counting rooms are at such a distance that it’s not easy to see what is going on in the Election Center.
The proposed restricting of observers comes at a time when many in America have doubts about the results of election results in the 2020 General Election.
“Many Republicans appear to have bought into Trump’s lies about nonexistent widespread fraud in an election he lost,” reported NPR in a November news story. “Seventy-two percent of whites with degrees said they had trust in elections, while less than half of non-college-educated whites said they did.” The NPR poll found that only 33 percent of Republicans trust that the 2024 elections will be fair.
The Assembly meets at 5 pm on the ground floor of the Loussac Library, 3600 Denali Street. Information about the meeting, including how to watch it live on YouTube, can be found at this link.
Public testimony will continue tonight on the revised rules. Supporting documents provided by the Assembly:
