News from Patrick Flynn

Tonight’s Assembly meeting is moving along at a not-too-glacial pace, in part because we delayed consideration of a few items to future meetings, and there’s hope we’ll get quite a few items completed by night’s end.  One aspect I’ve enjoyed is the reappearance of three people from my past.  To wit:

1. Dave Donley, a former State Senator from Anchorage during my tenure in Juneau, appeared as an Abbott Loop community council board member, advocating for more intesive bear management.
2. Lorali Carter, another person with whom I worked in Juneau (we were both staffers), appeared as a Matanuska Electric Association representative.
3. Jim Lottsfeldt, with whom I worked on a couple campaigns, is present with the firefighters.

As to the issues these folks discussed, it looks like the Public Safety committee is going to have another public hearing on bears later this month.  There are several different viewpoints on how to better handle bear encounters and I’m guessing we’ll find some sort of blend of the ideas (though we’re also trying to blend on the fly, so maybe something will pass tonight!).

On the MEA front, we denied a proposed agreement between them and Solid Waste Services for MEA to use methane from the Anchorage Regional Landfill to generate electricity.  Members were intrigued by the idea but felt an RFP that allows other potential partners to offer their ideas was more appropriate.  MEA also wants to rezone some land in Eklutna that would allow them to build a natural gas-fired power plant.  That proposal was also postponed to work on some of the conditions of that rezone.

As for the firefighters, we’ll approve the pay reduction the IAFF offered as a method for addressing our deficit.

And through it all, I see reminders that no matter how large Anchorage seems to be we’re still a small town.

Regards,

Patrick