Sean Murphy: Eaglexit prepares to send packet to Local Boundary Commission for incorporating new city

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By SEAN MURPHY

Alaska is alive with the sound of spring, and we are absolutely bursting with anticipation! Can you even fathom that since 2019, we’ve been actively making things happen? 

So many milestones have been achieved, and we’re eagerly awaiting what’s next on the horizon. We want to extend a huge shoutout to all the amazing supporters who have generously backed us throughout the years, particularly those who’ve pledged to contribute monthly. You are the backbone of our organization, and we require your assistance now more than ever!

We implore you to seize the moment and continue donating to Eaglexit. This week alone, we’ve received numerous contributions from first-time donors. Your support will cover the legal expenses that we cannot handle alone. We have to compensate our lawyers for the next stage of legal analysis, which includes reviewing the petition, charter, and legal brief, and your donations are crucial at this critical juncture.

So, what have we been up to? Well, as an all-volunteer group, we are fully committed to seeing this through. Here’s a list of our achievements so far:

  • Expanding our outreach and educating our fellow citizens about the detachment of Chugiak-Eagle River from the MOA and the incorporation of the Chugach Regional Borough. 
  • We’ve been busy building a social media plan, writing articles, calling in to talk shows, and providing our Eaglexit members with a monthly newsletter, Eaglexit Insights, to keep them updated on the latest developments and ask for donations. 
  • We’ve also been working hard to keep our website up to date and to establish an independent non-profit identity and business identity in our community. 
  • We’re proud to say that as of January 2022, Eaglexit became its own 501c3! 
  • We presented our petition and charter to our legal team for review in June 2022, and in October of the same year, we received a legal presentation on The Chugach Regional Borough: Detachment and incorporation. 
  • In January 2023, we obtained a business license and a state gaming permit for fundraising purposes. 
  • We’ve also conducted additional research and data to support our efforts, and we’re preparing to send our completed legal reviewed documents to the Alaska Local Boundary Commission staff for review. 
  • Once they’ve completed their review and affirmed its compliance with state constitution, statutes, and regulations, we’ll bring the petition to our community for signatures.
  • Educating the public on detachment and incorporation through your generous donations. We’ve commissioned an independent study written by Northern Economics on Assembly District 2’s Revenues and Expenditures, and we’ve attended and paid for the Bear Paw Booth for the last three years and the upcoming year. 
  • We’ve also sent out several mailers over the last two years, designed a new logo and website in 2020, and developed a new and improved website with the adoption of our own 501c3 in 2022.
  • We conducted a survey in the early stages of Eaglexit in 2019, and asked if studies confirm that Assembly District 2 is able to thrive financially as an independent municipality, would you support separating from Anchorage? 
  • We received 1,411 responses, and the majority of answers were yes. Today, we believe that the majority of yeses will exceed 59.18%. 
  • Without the additional funding needed for hiring an independent survey, we believe that the best survey to demonstrate this will be the actual petition signature drive itself.
  • Our goal is to give the citizens of AD2 a choice for independence or to stay with the Municipality of Anchorage.

We all know everyone is busy during these times, but we need you to help us and volunteer to be a member on one of the following committees.

  1. Fundraising Committee
  2. Petition Development and Signature Gathering Committee
  3. Assets and Liabilities Committee

The members on these committees will have a hands-on approach to the next step of our detachment from the Municipality of Anchorage and the incorporation of the Chugach Regional Borough. Please join us. Call me, Sean Murphy, at 907.632.5307 and let me know you’re ready to take this incredible step towards the education and the development of our community.

We encourage you to get involved, too! Feel free to call us anytime, and don’t hesitate to come to our weekly Tuesday evening meetings at the Cozy Carpet Warehouse behind the store at 7 pm.

Thank you for joining us in this effort!

Sean Murphy, Chair

Sean Murphy came to Alaska in the Army. Met his wife and moved to Eagle River in 1999 with his family. He is a retired Anchorage School District educator and administrator. He is active with his community council and is the new chair of Eaglexit.  He can be reached at [email protected] or 907-632-5307.

17 COMMENTS

  1. I’m in. We moved to Eagle River to get away from the rest of Anchorage. Time to officially recognize Eagle River is a different community.

  2. I really hope the detachment survives the inevitable trip to the state Supreme Court, or, as I nicknamed the top court for no reason, the southeast party district for Mad Myrna.

  3. best of luck on your secession movement I’ll probably throw you all a couple bucks and if you are able to pull this off I will be doing some serious contemplating about leaving south anc for beautiful ER

  5. Eaglexit cannot happen soon enough!
    It would be FANTASTIC to be finally free of the tyranny of the Marxist statists on the Anchorage ass-embly!
    .
    But statists of all stripes cannot stand having anyone evade or slip away from their control. So I fully expect this movement to be fought in every legal, illegal and unhanded way by the control freaks in Anchorage, and on the state level as well. Sadly, I think the Eaglexit organizers are woefully naive on this point, and have not prepared for that eventuality at all.

  6. I fully understand why Eagle River/ Chugach would want to exit the MOA, I recently exited the MOA for many of the same reasons.
    However, there is one giant looming question I haven’t seen any of the organizers answer:
    How is ER/Chugach going to pay for all of the infrastructure owned by the MOA?
    To clarify, I’m talking about infrastructure like:
    – roads
    – road maintenance facilities and equipment
    – schools
    – municipal parks
    – police stations and equipment
    – fire stations and equipment.
    – etc.

    The MOA won’t and can’t give these things away. What is the eaglexit plan to pay for these things?

    • Well like I brought up before there would have to be some sort of sign over agreement on equipment however when you consider the obstacles that the new ER/Chugiak would have to overcome with that aspect alone its pretty interesting. Where would your main firestation be ? would it be Station 11 ? would you maintain the terrible service/support you get from the CVFD who is largely inept in my dealings with them over the last 30 years ? What about a PD ? where would a police station be ? what level of staffing etc ? It’s a pretty big leap on that end.

      The roads are easy state roads stay state roads, the new ER/Chugiak roads they would need some handover agreement. The schools the same.. MOA COULD hand them over but I would think it political suicide to hand it over without a payment since the rest of MOA also shares in the costs of the bonds and build out of it over the years.

      Will The residents of the rest of Anchorage are still paying for the bonds previously voted on so do their taxes get reduced by the % of projects in the new area ? Also the new ER will have to maintain the earthquake insurance requirement by the feds on all property repaired by FEMA/State under the earthquake repair projects. I’m still curious what the proposed ER/Chugiak area tax liability will be projected for with the schools and roads. I think once the average voter realizes how many tax exempt and tax reduced properties are in the proposed area they might be shocked. I would expect that a new ER/Chugiak would have to also have some sort of sales tax since it has very sources of revenue streams aside from funds derived from taxing home owners. There are no large employers in the area that you can draw any sort of taxes from and enticing buisiness to set up shop in eagle river has always been difficult aside from small businesses in the business blvd core district which is so traffic logged now ER has lost it’s small town charm.

      If they think they are going to annex JBER they might be shocked to realize that is a zero sum game. There is little to no revenue from that area (property tax- only taxes would be vehicle taxes) and no money spent in that area and traditionally low voter turn out in local elections. The schools are still however ASD school and not DOD funded schools.

      I’ve asked these questions and no one can tell me the answers all I got was “it will be better” well that wasn’t a good enough answer for me, or my in laws who still live in Chugiak.

      • EagleExit can be thought of as a speculative fiction. Which is healthy and fantastic because imagination is what pushes innovation to become reality. Maybe you want to join the assets and liabilities committee? Sounds like you would bring in and add some grayscale shading that is needed to support their journey on the devil’s details.

  7. May we ask Sean for a word on how Chugach Regional Borough will assure no part of its education system -ever- operates like Anchorage School District?

    • It is the number one reason why we should have self governance at lowest level. Will your neighbors get involved and make that guarantee? That is our plan. There is a process. We invite you to get involved.

  10. Show us how, Eagle River. Other communities will follow suit. If successful, we should be able to isolate all the Leftists, communists, LGBTQs and drug-riddled wackos into downtown Anchorage……..and keep them from escaping.

    • Yes I want to join and have my neighborhood taken out of the leftist MOA. I have no representation but plenty of taxation.

  11. Our nation, our state, and our city’s need to have a discussion about divorce while we still can. Otherwise CWII will be the only option left to separate ourselves from this insanity

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