News from Patrick Flynn

I was out of town most of the preceding week and monitoring voice- and e-mail from the road.  Here’s a sampling of what I learned from those communications:

• With Rosemary Shinohara calling me about Assembly issues I knew something must be afoot.  Sure enough, Don Hunter, whose coverage of municipal issues dates back to my tenure as an ankle-biter, recently took a buyout and to leave the Anchorage Daily News.
• One of the privileges of chairing the Assembly is oversight of the Ombudsman‘s office.  This small, hard-working group does a tremendous job helping Anchorage residents navigate through their local government but, occasionally, are unable to address certain concerns.  Then they call whomever the chair happens to be.  Fascinating stuff.
• At least one of my neighbors is more than a little ticked off that my colleague, Bill Starr, is apparently willing to torpedo Anchorage’s bond rating in an effort to “get” Mark Begich.  I have to confess that my colleague’s behavior did recall an infamous quote referencing Ben Tre, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it…”
• The Regulatory Commission of Alaska finally approved “net metering” regulations, which will help those generating their own power sell any excess back to their local electrical provider, thereby reducing their overall utility costs.  Check your federal tax credits folks, it may finally be time to put solar panels on your roof!

There were quite a few more messages, including a significant number regarding the anniversary of my appearance on this planet (only a few snide ones), but I’ll stop at that.

Regards,

Patrick