As faithful readers know, this coming Tuesday (April 3) features our municipal election. What some may not know is that, even though there are no Assembly seats at stake (“only” the mayor’s office, three school board seats and various ballot propositions are up for consideration), the Assembly will reorganize at our April 17 meeting.
It’s been a long time since our last edition of Assembly insider baseball, the quiz where random factoids test even the most ardent followers of matters municipal, but with spring training underway there’s no time like the present!
Welcome to yet another installment of what is sometimes referred to, not so fondly, as the “silly season,” the period preceding even relatively minor elections like Anchorage’s municipal contests. It’s a place where, all too often, hyperbole shines and facts whither. Nevertheless, we’ll ferret out a fact or two just to keep in practice.
Readers may have noted a recent article in the local paper discussing neighborhood concerns surrounding the realignment of Chester Creek near Muldoon and DeBarr roads. Unsurprisingly, this was the most time-intensive matter at our February 28 meeting.
Like most everything, life on the Anchorage Assembly has its ups and downs. For the most part I enjoy the work and appreciate the opportunity to serve my community. But every now and again I encounter one of those low spots that leave me shaking my head. Friday was one such day.
It was fascinating to read a recent article regarding funding for KABATA, the state-sanctioned organization committed to building a Knik Arm Crossing without regard for its effects – financial, traffic or otherwise – on Southcentral Alaska. Even those who might be expected to tout development at any cost, like the Anchorage Daily Planet, are casting doubts. But what’s most interesting to me is the dichotomy between various representatives of our governor.
In a pleasant surprise, I recently received the following e-mail:
At Stateside Associates we have been reviewing blogs that cover local politics for several months to find the very best the web has to offer. Your blog was selected for inclusion on the Best Local Politics Blogs list. The list is a comprehensive review of blogs that cover politics and policy issues in cities, towns, counties and regions across the country. Stateside Associates’ Best Local Politics Blogs list has been published alongside the Best State Politics Blogs (published in fall 2011) on our website. It has also arranged into a printable FactPad insert that slides easily into a FactPad mouse pad, distributed free of charge to clients and other friends of the firm. In addition, we’ve published a press release detailing the release of the list and your inclusion on it.
I’m not enjoying writing this in mid-November, in advance of events I expect to occur prior to my posting it, but I’m not sure I can avoid writing it, either. When I do publish this it will be on the heels of an announcement that Governor Sheffield is no longer Director of the Port of Anchorage, perhaps assuming a post like congressional liaison, but resigned from the post he’s held since the Wuerch administration. (more…)
Happy one week ‘til solstice, when winter begins (unless you live in Alaska and it started back in October). Tuesday’s meeting, on December 13, was the last Assembly assembly until January 17 so those afflicted with excess interest in local politics have no choice but to relax and enjoy the holidays with family and friends. In an effort to tide you over, here are a few tidbits from the front lines.
The Assembly’s agenda for Tuesday, December 6, is both light and heavy. The former because it includes the municipality’s 2012 budget and the school district’s proposed bond, the latter because there appears to be general consensus surrounding both. General, of course, does not mean universal.
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