Patrick Flynn’s Blog

During Tuesday’s debate on a series of budget amendments offered by my new favorite Assembly member, Bill Starr, discussions about the Police Department proved most interesting to me.  One of the amendments would have cut $1,025,000 from APD’s budget with Mr. Starr reasoning that our addition of officers should result in reduced overtime but, instead, overtime costs have instead been rising.  The flaw in that logic is that the Assembly passes a budget while departments retain the flexibility for intradepartmental allocation, meaning a decrement to “overtime” is essentially an unallocated cut.

The Assembly swung back into action this evening with quite a bit going on.  I’ve seen more media representatives and lobbyists present than any time since my first Assembly meeting back in April.  Regarding the former, they’re mostly here to interview Mark Begich, who was declared the victor in his Senate race earlier today.  Regarding the latter, I suppose they’re here for the same reason we’re seeing a large - though not unprecedented - crowd, which is the third and final public hearing on the municipality’s 2009 budget.

The Assembly is taking a two-week break to acknowledge election day, November 4, and Veterans Day, November 11, which both fall on Tuesdays.  Accordingly I, too, plan a break from blogging until the week of November 17 - look for a post some time after our meeting on the 18th.  Thanks to all for reading and, no matter your political persuasion, please take the time to exercise your civic duty by voting.  I’m not sure who said it first, but I’m fond of the old saw reminding us that those who don’t vote don’t get to complain!

My Eagle River colleague, Bill Starr, is rapidly becoming my favorite fellow member of the Anchorage Assembly.  Not because we necessarily agree on things, or that we have started hanging out together, but because he has developed a penchant for advancing issues that draw lots of attention.  My preceding post about his bear resolution, for example, has generated record traffic despite the fact that the Assembly has no jurisdiction over wildlife management!

As you may have read in this morning’s edition of the local paper my Assembly colleague, Bill Starr, plans to introduce a resolution at our October 28 meeting that calls for hiring a seasonal “Wildlife Safety Specialist…to manage nuisance and dangerous bears.”

In the 1980’s and early 1990’s Anchorage made a concerted effort to eradicate bars and liquor stores that catered to homeless alcoholics in and around the downtown area.  One of the last to go was located at 14th Avenue and G Street and a high school friend of mine lived a couple blocks away.  I remember his mom yelling at a group apparently headed for that store when they stopped in front of my friend’s house - for no good purpose, she was sure.

On Monday, October 6, I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Glenn-Bragaw interchange.  It was a nice event where I got to meet Frank Richards, the Department of Transportation’s deputy commissioner, in person and exchange greetings with several folks I know through the Mountain View community council.  I took away a couple observations about the project that inform some of my thinking about transportation planning for Southcentral Alaska. 

[update] I received a call from Jason Lamb at KTUU, who read the post below and was looking in to doing a story on the subject.  I recommended he review articles in the Prince George Citizen, that community’s newspaper, about the project.  It’s a big issue in northern British Columbia and there’s lots to learn. [/update]

As regular readers of this site know, I generally try to focus my posts on issues related to Anchorage generally and the Assembly district I represent specifically.  This one will be something of an exception.

If you read the paper, watch the television news, listen to the radio or check the internet you’ve inevitably read about plunging property values around the country.  In the past couple weeks I’ve heard from some folks wondering whether their property taxes will go down.  While I try to avoid equivocation the answer, in this case, is a definite “maybe.”

My decision to request a new evaluation of the proposed Knik Arm Crossing generated quite a bit of interest in the local paper, which published two different stories and an editorial.  The local television station also covered the issue twice, and an AP writer did a piece from a broader perspective.  But what does it all mean?