A nonprofit that represents landowners on the south Anchorage hillside won a $200,000 grant from the Alaska Legislature to use for fire mitigation work in the area of town most prone to wildfire. It’s also an area of town that provides massive amounts of property taxes to the municipality, all of which could be erased if fire swept through the area.
HALO, the Hillside Home and Landowners Organization, had received the grant through the Municipality of Anchorage, which serves as the fiduciary middleman.
But at Tuesday night’s meeting, it became clear that several on the Assembly are hostile toward HALO, and so voted to postpone releasing the money.
After the city scrapes its 10% fee, HALO would actually only get $180,000 to coordinate activities with volunteers, nonprofit groups, veterans groups, contractors, and the Anchorage Fire Department to make the area safer.
One of the projects involves taking down fallen trees across a trail that children use to get to school, providing better access for the children and removing some of the possible dry fuel for wildfires. The wood would be bucked up into burnable lengths for use by homeowners who use wood for heat. That and other projects are being coordinated with the Anchorage Fire Department.
The $180,000 is one of the most modest grants the Anchorage Assembly usually approves. But Assemblyman Daniel Volland said it’s “a lot of money.” He doesn’t really “get” HALO or he doesn’t like the group, so he doesn’t want it to get the state grant.
“To me they sort of function as a collective community council, maybe community council+ that represents several of the LSRAs [limited road service areas] in South Anchorage. … It’s a lot of money, $180,000 and I guess my main question is why wouldn’t the money not be going to the fire department for elsewhere in the municipality to execute and steward the projects, but working with HALO in consultation,” Volland said, suggesting that the municipality steal the grant from the nonprofit.
Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel said that HALO should not be in the fire mitigation business, anyway. If it’s a new line of business, she just didn’t know about it.
“I really don’t get the intersection with HALO. I’m actually not comfortable with it,” Zaletel said, adding she would be a no vote.
HALO has been working for at least four years on wildfire mitigation issues and planning, especially after some large wildfires broke out in Anchorage in 2019.
In the end, the Assembly majority delayed awarding the pass-through grant from the State at least until the next meeting in mid-August, creating another two-week delay for HALO, which may result in not being able to get the work it has planned done this summer. Summers are typically shorter on the hillside and the delay may ultimately mean the group ends up forfeiting the grant if the Anchorage Assembly digs in its heels.
Although this is a State grant to a nonprofit in Anchorage, with the Municipality as the pass-through, the comments from Volland, Zaletel, and Assembly Chairman Chris Constant indicated that since the grant is to a group they consider represents a wealthier segment of the city, the Anchorage Assembly going to be obstructionist.
The Assembly routinely awards grants to nonprofits in much greater amounts, but Assemblyman Constant said it doesn’t typically direct money to community councils.
Yet HALO is a nonprofit, not a community council. On its own, it applied for, and won the award from the State; funding was shepherded by Rep. Julie Coulombe and Sen. James Kaufman, who both represent the area.
At no time during the Assembly discussion did Mayor Suzanne LaFrance ask to be heard in order to either defend the grant or point out why it should not be awarded. Her city manager Bill Falsey was unhelpful and the Anchorage Fire Chief Doug Schrage dodged the question about whether he was supportive of the grant.
The entire section of the meeting devoted to denying HALO the state grant it was duly awarded can be seen here:
Nero is fiddling.
And what, pray tell, would reflect genuine value added for the 10% cut the Anchorage Muni would take for passing through the legislative appropriation?
It’s long been a given that the Anchorage Assembly loves the homeless, vagrants and bums more than they do the Anchorage taxpayer. But reading this article, one would wonder if the Assembly, Mayor, City Manager and Fire Chief met ahead of time to work out their actions before the actual meeting. For decades now, I’ve heard the, “but they’re only rich hillside people,” in assembly testimony and elsewhere. Has this now infected the actual members of the assembly?
My only word is WOW, this can’t be real…
The assembly is a criminal enterprise that is misappropriating hundreds of millions of dollars in order to perpetuate their own agenda and line their own pockets. They have ZERO right to delay that grant from being awarded to the proper recipient and the redirection of that money would be a criminal act of fraud.