Although the Municipality of Anchorage received $156 million in CARES Act funds, only 3.8 percent of it will be designated for small businesses and nonprofits suffering from the COVID economy. That’s $6 million.
The Municipality on Saturday closed its application period for grants for businesses that have been hurt by government mandates.
The Muni says that more grant applications came in than there is funding set aside for businesses, so the Muni will hold a random drawing on Thursday, Sept. 17, to pick which businesses and nonprofits will survive.
The $6 million is likely inadequate to make up for an unknown millions of dollars of lost revenues in the Anchorage city limits, but the method is supposedly color blind. That means it is 180 degrees opposite the method Assembly Chairman Felix Rivera insisted on, when he demanded a color-based equity distribution in July.
“And I stated emphatically that we must not be color blind in our policies, and we must not be color blind in how we distribute this money. Because if we are color blind, then these systems of racism, these systems of oppression will continue to perpetuate,” Rivera said, as seen in the video posted in the story below.
“This next tranche of money, if there is one, that comes for the small business and nonprofit relief program, must have some type of equity measure built into it … or I will make sure it is defeated on this floor.”
The Anchorage Assembly meets next on Sept. 15.
The Anchorage Assembly has allocated the funds into the following priority areas:
- Economic Stimulus: $33,442,380.04 ($6 million for small businesses and nonprofits)
- Family Support: $18,850,000
- Housing & Homelessness: $38,050,000
- Public Health & Safety: $31,300,000
- Community Investments: $5,500,000
- Direct Municipal Response: $14,635,000
- Contingency Fund: $14,936,186
Total: $156,713,566.04
So Rivera “demanded a color-based equity distribution”? Isn’t that racist?
Definition of racism according to Merriam-Webster
1: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race also : behavior or attitudes that reflect and foster this belief : racial discrimination or prejudice
2a: the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another
2b: a political or social system founded on racism and designed to execute its principles
.
So according to the dictionary definition yes that would be racist.
Only if you mean privilege is doled out by the color of your skin. Oh wait. Yup, Felix has shown for all he is racist while trying to appear that he is not.
Strange world we live in.
Next thing we’ll hear is that some white people will be angry enough to declare that the icecream treat called an “Eskimo Pie” for 98 years is racist and the name will have to go!
Started to write my comment but it seems that I’m at a loss for words. Doesn’t happen often but there are 2 things I just need to say…
1. Elections have consequences
and
2. We need to block the entrance to the Kenai Peninsula from Anchorage.
They closed the application period on Saturday? Hell, I didn’t even know they had opened the application period. It will be very interesting to see what “random” selections are made. I call BS on all of this. They don’t even try to hide their crap anymore.
Where is the rest of the cash? Administrative cost like the Clinton foundation?
By his own words Mr. Rivera has established himself as an unapologetic racist. To end racism we need to keep such individuals away from pubic positions.
Mr. Rivera reveals an ignorance beyond the obscene. He may want to review the following plea from an American clergyman from August 1963:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.“
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Mr. Rivera is a disgrace to himself and his family. The people that elected Mr. Rivera should share in that shame.
J mark,
Very good point, I wonder if Felix considers Korean business owners in his color scheme? Albanian business owners? Montenegro business owners? Huh, would be interesting to see his ” color line”.
This was all planned ahead of time and its why the Democrats always ask for billions/trillions to fund “infrastructure, small business, etc etc” This all gets siphoned off to their cronies and we wonder why the Demos have so much money to spend on elections. Have you seen and heard the escalation in Dr Gross’s political campaign? This guy is 24/7 and now has a new glamour photo of himself while declaring he is “independent.”
This is a money lesson, the Feds really had no strings attached to the CARES money on how it was to be spent.
Recall the Fed guy instructing Anchorage on how to shift money in order work outside the slim Fed guidelines.(Wait, What?)
So when my kids go to collect their Social Security checks someday, the bank will be empty.
Comforting to know that the priorities of the Municipality’s radical racist power structure controlling the CARES money, puts no-account bums ahead of hard-working paycheck-to-paycheck business owners.
After April the recalls begin. Wait Anchorage, but do not forget.
Ethan and his Assembly are stealing 60% of the total for government. Most of it is squirreled away in a variety of slush funds. Of course, their homeless Taj Mahals are fully funded as are people to man them.
They have nothing to lose here, as their continuing lockdowns crush the entrepreneurs here in ANC while their public employee union supporters get a paycheck every week. Think of it as an in-kind campaign donation. Cheers –
I believed, as many Americans probably did back in April that this CARES Act money was to help businesses, especially small mom & pop ones stay in business during this pandemic. Whats sad is that a paltry 6 of the over 150 million that Anchorage got was decided to be used in the manner that my belief held. So, the Assembly will virtue signal and provide “protection” from looking racist by having a lottery which, by the way wouldn’t be necessary if the6 just used the funds as intended.
So…. let’s see….
$22M for the purchase of buildings to support the homeless.
$6M for businesses that where knowingly destroyed in order to preserve the healthcare system, which was never in jeopardy in the first place. And, still isn’t. (What was the highest hospital use? 50 beds?)
Here’s an idea. Leave the homeless situation in a state of status quo, and increase the amount for the businesses to $28M.
I smell a civil rights abuse suit against the Anchorage Assembly. Felix is a clear racist by those remarks.
Where is the ACLU?
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