For years, the municipality has been making an effort to eliminate redundant street names, so that 911 dispatchers don’t risk confusion when directing emergency responders.

Lori Drive is one (two, I guess) such location. There is a Lori Drive in Muldoon, pressed up against the mountains, and another in the Sand Lake area off Dimond.

That’s a whole lot of road in between two locations.

The public works department chose the secluded south side street for a new name. It touches just three residences and is the access road for just one. Only a single suggested name came from the Lori Drive residents: “Crockett Place.” The city also provided a suggestion: “Eventide Place.”

The choice was voted on by the three households. The Crockett residence voted for their suggestion and the Isabelle residence voted for the city’s. The third resident was out of town and did not cast what would have been the deciding vote. The city decided on Eventide via a coin flip, and Anchorage Resolution 89 codified the switch.

Team Crockett was not amused, filing a petition protesting the name change.

“We would like to change the name to our suggestion, which is Crockett Place,” Lynn told the body. “We’ve been there for twenty years, my kids were born and raised there, I was born and raised here, my family has been here since the sixties.”

She brought documentation stating that the third neighbor (absent for the vote) preferred Crockett Place.

There’s no current policy awarding street names for tenure, and votes aren’t generally honored when cast after the election, but why not try? If you win, you get your very own street!

Sue Isabelle, the other affected resident, also spoke. She felt Eventide was the better choice and, as the household using Lori Dr. as an access road, requested approval of the order.

Robert Crockett provided additional testimony that said little, but definitely conveyed his frustration about the process. It was kind of intense.

I had never seen the birth of a family feud before and expected a bit more than calmly registered complaints via a city assembly. This is Alaska – I figured we’d at least get a recreational explosion or two.

But it was a bit of an “aha!” moment.

The bizarre scene awkwardly emphasized how local government should work. The planning department explained, step by step, what the renaming process looked like as laid out in code (21.15.133). Police Chief Mark Mew fielded questions about if further delay in renaming the street might cause undue risk for residents of either Lori Drive. It wasn’t partisan; no one had their minds made up going into the issue, and that fostered an environment of curiosity. It was neat.

Twenty minutes later, however, the assembly chose by a 7-4 vote to postpone the order indefinitely.

Now everyone’s back at the beginning. Because, clearly, both Sue Isabelle and the Crocketts are in a better position to compromise now. Nothing like arguing with each other in front of an entire city to calm tempers and encourage measured negotiations…

The assembly’s failure to deal with the Lori Drive family feud, nestled in between two unrelated ordinances also on the docket, illustrated why those more controversial ordinances actually don’t fix our problems, and kind of miss the point.

A decade-long debate over what future development in Anchorage will look like recently ended when the body passed Title 21, the city’s land use code. The municipality’s planning division is tasked with implementation. Anchorage Ordinance 43, proposed by Adam Trombley, would eliminate the planning department - the folks responsible for ensuring that development meets “the quality of life, economic, social, environmental, and physical needs of present and future residents.”

“It’s roughly a four hundred thousand dollar savings; you’re not adding a single service, you’re not adding any additional labor, but you’re going to find efficiencies in this reorganization,” Trombley said in defense of the proposal.

The planning division is already operating with half the staff needed to approve the volume of permits coming in. Piling the planning division’s duties atop the existing workload of the public works department is not efficient. And yet the assembly would like to add re-renaming a street to their to-do list. Trombley took a backlog, renamed it a logjam, and tried to cut the remaining staff – people we need to green-light projects that will grow the Anchorage economy.

Trombley’s ordinance was shot down.

Chair Hall’s Ordinance 63, which would allow a simple majority of the assembly to shut down public testimony according to whenever they got bored of hearing it, survived the night. The large crowd criticizing his attempt to restrict public testimony forced the hearing to be continued.

AR89 was a shining example of the purpose of taking public comment. The residents impacted by the order provided pertinent insight that assembly members did not have going into the discussion. It took as long as it needed to and all voices were heard.

Adam Trombley should stop trying to arbitrarily cut his way to solutions. Ernie Hall needs to realize that public comment isn’t a problem facing the city – it’s an underused resource. If a lot of people are concerned about a bill, there are probably a lot of reasons worth listening to.

The seven members voting to kick the can down the road were the breakdown in the system. Not the public; not the planning division. The failure was the assembly’s ultimate refusal to adjudicate the matter. That’s their job. They didn’t do it.

They couldn’t even rename a street.

When testimony was shut down on Ordinance 37, somewhere a camel felt inordinate pressure on its back from a small straw that originated in West Anchorage.

The Anchorage Assembly – which in terms of political clout registers right around the level of municipal dog catcher – didn’t escape the public outcry of residents who felt left out of the conversation.

In April’s municipal elections, the mayor’s appointee to fill Harriet Drummond’s seat, Cheryl Frasca, lost by 20 points. Andy Clary, another candidate with a Sullivan endorsement, got trounced by Dick Traini. In 2010, Traini fended off Clary by just three points. This year, the spread was 16.

And Hall  (one of the few household names in municipal politics) was almost ousted by Nick Moe, a last-minute write-in challenger with little name recognition.

The people felt ignored, shut out, and increasingly benign to the processes that decide what life looks like in Anchorage. And that’s not good government.

The Anchorage Charter begins with a clear statement:

We, the people of Anchorage, in order… to achieve common goals, to support individual rights, to form a more responsive government, and to secure maximum local control of local affairs, hereby establish this Charter.

Those elected to elected office in Anchorage need to serve the people who live here; make sure their voices are protected, heard, and respected as a vital resource for local knowledge. This past April, many expressed dismay over the erosion of that first sentence in our municipal constitution for sake of political expediency. So, they raised their voices.

And Hall seemed to get it. He announced immediately that he would be introducing legislation clarifying the rules for accepting public testimony. On April 23, Hall released his public testimony ordinance, to be introduced in Tuesday night’s meeting.

I’m not sure what message Hall pulled from the election, but it does not seem to be the right one.

Anchorage Ordinance 63 takes the growing frustration of people who feel that the mayor and assembly are ignoring public involvement, and combats that with multiple restrictions that limit testimony further. Rather than codify public comment as an important facet of local governance, Hall’s ordinance greatly reduces the ability of Anchorage residents to testify while increasing the power of the Chair to control it.

Next thing you know, we won’t be able to sit down or lean during a public meeting without a special permit.

There is no current structure dictating how public comment is taken. The Assembly can exercise flexibility according to the specific circumstances surrounding any given proposal. A strength of this bill is that it tries to find uniformity. But it goes too far.

Under AO-63, a proposed bill could be opened up for a single hearing seven days after posting it online. The opportunity to sign up to speak is relegated to a single day. If you wish to speak on a public matter but are stuck at work, have a medical emergency, or a familial commitment on the day the sign up sheet is doled out, you’re shut out. A lot of people can’t get a day off from work with only a week’s notice. Many more won’t have heard about the bill until far after – how many media outlets cover assembly agendas complete with advance notice?

Stuff happens. Any sign up sheet should have a window of opportunity for people to register to speak, and it should be a window that cares more about the community dialog than the gavel signifying the end of it.

Additionally, the bill strengthens the Chair’s control over shutting down testimony, but does nothing to ensure that the testimony offered is relevant. In 2009, the municipality played host to what is often referred to as the “Summer of Hate,” as the body deliberated an ordinance seeking to extend anti-discrimination protections to LGBT residents. Dozens of hours of testimony over several meetings spanned from June 9 through to August 11. During that time, then-Chair Debbie Ossiander chose the exhaustive approach of hearing anyone who wished to speak – including people bused in from outside the municipality, and even state. That was in sharp contrast to Hall’s response to AO-37 testimony.

This law should address the ambiguity of who can testify – whether testimony should be limited to Anchorage residents, residents and people with business interests in municipality, or anyone under the sun. Any law aimed at providing a rational, function framework for public comment should reach that low bar. Otherwise we aren’t looking ahead to the next time we’re held hostage by Jerry Prevo, Jim Minnery, or another special interest shill’s email list. AO-63 doesn’t touch residency qualifications.

This ordinance isn’t about making sure that “maximum local control of local affairs” is reserved for We the People of Anchorage. It’s about getting to shut down public comment if it starts to become bothersome. And it’s about reminding people who’s in charge.

Chair Hall – the guy who an angry voting public almost showed the door because of his inattention to public input – has written into AO-63 a clause that changes protocol for offering comment before the Assembly. If this ordinance were to become law, anyone wishing to speak would be required to “respectfully recognize and address the chair by title, and… refrain from speaking until recognized.”

Government in general has an access problem. Even in a state as small as Alaska, the notion that three people can represent us nationally is hilarious. But it gets harder to excuse the further down the ladder you go. Juneau is taking note of the national model and the influx of special interest money, and our citizen input is rapidly losing its value. That pesky lack of a road system makes that a lot easier.

But our assembly? We can walk the pitchforks and torches to their doorsteps. We have their cell phone numbers. They’re right-freaking-there at the Loussac every second Tuesday.

The outcry objecting to the decreasing weight given to public comment/input/involvement is legitimate. If anything, it’s been downplayed. The reliance on republican government – the Jeffersonian concept of ward-level politics being the impetus for legislation – is waning. The recent shift, from relying on public input to viewing it as an impediment, is as shortsighted as it is perilous. Representative government that doesn’t represent those governed is quickly ignored. That translates to short term political victories awarded to the insiders, but long term damage to the rest of us. And the rest of us is Anchorage.

AO-63 will be read before the Assembly Tuesday night. Speak up.

[John Aronno serves as staff to Patrick Flynn on the Assembly. His views are irreparably his own.]

Five of the eleven seats are up for grabs this April. Paul Honeman and Jennifer Johnston are running unopposed. Ernie Hall faces a write-in challenger in Nick Moe. Moe ran against Mark Begich for mayor back in 2006, landing 2.5% of the vote, and currently works as the sustainable communities coordinator at the Alaska Center for the Environment. Hall and Johnston were both absent.

In Chugiak, Debbie Ossiander is terming out. Three challengers are vying to replace her. Pete Mulcahy is retired military who now works as a business development manager in the private sector. To his political right, Amy Demboski is Chugiak Community Council President. And then there’s Bob Lupo, a perennial candidate and Grateful Dead groupie lookalike who’s far too moderate to garner any political traction in Eagle River. The headband probably doesn’t help.

In West Anchorage, Cheryl Frasca and Tim Steele are running for the seat recently vacated by Harriet Drummond. Steele is a Vietnam veteran who served on the Anchorage School Board for nine years. Frasca was working for the Sullivan Administration as the Director of Office and Budget Management before the Mayor appointed her to the assembly. Also in the race is Phil Isley.

In midtown, voters are presented with a rerun of 2010′s bout between Dick Traini and Andy Clary. Traini was first elected to the Assembly back in 1991 and has served on and off ever since. Clary serves on the Budget Advisory Commission – a board that has become the consolation prize for candidates supported by the mayor. Alongside Clary, on the commission, are former mayor-backed candidates Liz Vasquez and Bob Griffin – as well as current candidate Demboski. Adam Trombley served after losing his first attempt.

Public Transportation.

The first question of the night came from a St. Mary’s congregant wanting to know about improvements to public transportation. She referenced the AnchorRIDES program, which does not provide weekend service, cutting some seniors off from church services.

Moe led off by calling public transportation one of his top priorities. Though not mentioning any specific plan, he expressed his belief that Anchorage should be growing access to public transit, not cutting back.

Demboski lamented the gaps in service in Eagle River, putting an emphasis on the need for more taxi cabs. “Our seniors are really at a disadvantage. If you can’t get a cab and there’s no bus that runs, how are they supposed to get back and forth?” She went on to say that the “role of the community should be to take care of the sick and the elderly.”

It’s not the job of the private sector (nor does it make sense) to serve at the behest of the community. Taxi cabs aren’t going to service a market too small to provide sustainable revenue because it’s the communitarian thing to do.

Isley and Steele both thought the municipality should look at smaller sized buses and an improved road grid.

Clary, acknowledging the importance of public transit and admitting that “things can always be done better,” seemed to disagree with his colleagues that there is anything wrong with the current system. He told a story about a friend. “He’s legally blind; cannot drive; depends on the bus service to get everywhere. And he in particular is one who’s had experience in other locales like Washington DC and Chicago. And I was very pleasantly surprised to hear from him how well he praises our bus system compared to these other locales.”

Raise your hand if you have used public transportation in other metro areas. Raise your hand if you’ve relied on bus service in Anchorage. I’m guessing that Andy Clary’s hand just remained at his side twice.

Funding the “Bootstraps.”

The second question came from a Central Lutheran congregant who was concerned about the dwindling funding for non-profit programs like Camp Fire, which provide youth development opportunities in low income areas.

Phil Isley objected to the premise. He feels that churches should bear the complete burden of social services.

I would recommend that he pay a visit to the Anchorage Baptist Temple and kindly ask if Jerry Prevo would be receptive to the idea of taking the millions of dollars he wants to dump into the world’s tallest cross and, instead, dedicate those funds to finance more beds at St. Brother Francis Shelter.

Happy hunting.

Cheryl Frasca answered by impressively failing to say anything:

“It comes down to a matter of prioritization. And there’s no question that ensuring that children are safe and well fed is a community priority. So my approach, if elected, would be to bring together the stakeholders – again, the parents, the providers, and other representatives that deliver services – and come up with, if we can, some efficiencies by which the services can continue. It could be some consolidations, some other ways to deliver the service, but there’s no question that service is needed. The question is how. And that’s what I would be committed to try and work toward.”

Sidenote: “efficiencies” still doesn’t mean anything.

Andy Clary piled on: “We don’t always need to look for a government solution. There are private entities. And my hat’s office to these ladies who are working already… to provide this service to these children.”

Amy Demboski agreed that churches should burden the brunt of social service efforts, and that government isn’t the answer, noting that “you can’t tax people 100 percent.”

I would ask her to point me towards a single person proposing that as a solution.

The current demand in the municipality for services far outweighs what the churches (at least those that have chosen to make homelessness and poverty a community priority) can provide. For free. The expectation that those same private church volunteers – the same ones announcing changes to their homeless policies due to growing safety concerns – should just buck up and volunteer harder is a more than alarming cognitive dissonance.

And purporting that a 100 percent tax rate is the only other policy prescription is ridiculous.

Isley, Clary, Demboski, and Mulcahy all echoed Frasca’s belief that it should be up to the “stakeholders” to initiate the needed social service programs, not the government. They didn’t seem to notice that the “stakeholders” in question were the two women from Central Lutheran standing in front of them.

Their message was clear: We need help. Did you not just hear us just say that?

No one mentioned that downtown churches are changing their homeless policies because of rising public safety concerns. No one mentioned that the mayor recently axed the position of homelessness coordinator.

Traini looked annoyed. “We have money in this town. According to my budget analyst, we have a surplus of $34 million dollars. It’s not a matter of ‘we don’t have money,’ it’s a matter of where it’s being spent….”

Traini expressed frustration that more effort wasn’t being put in, at the assembly level, to make child development services a higher priority: “We need to reach out and help them. Especially the parents that are working three jobs and have kids. If you don’t help them, their children are lost.”

Nick Moe stated his belief that there is no better investment then in future generations, and that includes children of low income families. He spoke, specifically, about child hunger: “There are 68,000 Alaskans who are food insecure, and most of them are children, meaning they don’t know where their next meal might come from. Schools have a great opportunity to increase access to affordable, to nutritious foods that help increase that opportunity as well.”

Public Safety.

Pastor Robert Evans of Bethel Chapel asked the third and final AFACT question of the night:

“Statistically, in a community where police officers work a traditional beat, crime rates go down; community involvement goes up. In Anchorage, we have a CAP [Citizens Assisting Police] team that moves from troubled area to troubled area… and it seems like maybe they’re putting a band aid on a problem.”

Pastor Evans asked how, or if, the candidates would change this approach.

Tim Steele said that public safety was the number one issue raised when going door to door. He said that Ordinance 37 was an example of how the Sullivan administration didn’t respect police officers.

Dick Traini agreed. “On the 26th of March, we’re going to see the police leave this town.”

That’s today, when the Assembly is expected to pass the ordinance.

He said our police force is demoralized.

Honeman backed the midtown assemblyman up, saying that he had talked to five officers who were planning on leaving due to the mayor’s labor overhaul. The ex-cop described crime as a displacement problem. If you stick your finger in a glass of water, the water doesn’t go away, it just relocates. Honeman claimed that, to enact effective policing, Anchorage needs to double the police force.

He also believes Anchorage Ordinance 37 makes things worse. “We’re going backwards, not forwards, and that’s shameful. The community loses.”

Andy Clary disagreed. “My understanding is that it’s going pretty well.”

He admitted that APD may need more staff.

Phil Isley, who lauds himself as being a non-career politician (despite running for state house in 2012, 2010, and mayor in 2009) took a more offensive tack: “If AO37 causes our police officers to leave, maybe they’re not that dedicated to the community.”

Phil Isley is a career politician. He’s just really bad at it. This is an example of why. And he should stop.

Parting thoughts, and Cheryl Frasca.

A bizarre theme developed over the quick hour of debate among many of the candidates. There was a sort of expectancy that the people who really make the differences in the lives of Anchorage residents – church volunteers, public employees, first responders – should just work for substandard wages or, better yet, free. And if crime is getting worse, or homelessness is on the rise, or if children are going hungry, that’s their fault.

Sometimes barriers happen. We shouldn’t have to clear those roads. The cars should just pile up.

Of the priorities facing the municipality, many running to serve as elected officials seemed to posit that taking ownership of the problems ailing Anchorage is not one of them.

I was left unsure of what many of the candidates thought the role of the assembly was, other than outsourcing responsibilities. “Managed competition,” I suppose.

Dick Traini probably made the best case for himself. Fresh off an embarrassing campaign for state legislature, the Mayor Sullivan’s anti-union bill has afforded the midtown candidate a new spotlight.

Andy Clary was surprisingly off his game.

Amy Demboski, likewise, did nothing to help her candidacy. But her opponents did nothing to raise their stock either.

Nick Moe is soft spoken and well versed in the issues he addressed. He also faces an unlikely surmountable uphill battle, and didn’t make clear a pathway to eclipse the Sisyphusian effort before him.

And then there’s Cheryl Frasca, who chose to end the night by joining her colleagues on the issue of Ordinance 37 – despite her stance on it.

“I’ve got to be candid, one of the frustrating things to me about the Assembly process is the role of the public. And it is real limiting to think that they’re only entitled to three minutes when an issue comes before the Assembly. And, so, my commitment is to rethink how the Assembly does this process, and what way can the citizens be engaged – especially on difficult policy issues where their comments serve as input into the decision making.”

The Assembly voted to shut down public testimony on a bill which drastically changes the landscape of what it means to be a worker in Anchorage. The Assembly is obligated by charter to allow all citizens who wish to speak on a matter time to do so.

One problem. When Paul Honeman made a motion, in the waning moments of the near five hour long March 11, third special meeting, Cheryl Frasca was the first person to vote to shut down public comment. 8 days later, we get a defense for the public’s right to comment?

In a tribute to what many hope to be irony, the bell rang, and her time was up.

Among the ardent supporters of Anchorage Ordinance 37, on which Chair Hall’s name is listed as the sponsor, are lawmakers who crusaded against unions during their campaigns.

During his first run against Dick Traini, Andy Clary told a crowd that he felt limiting city contracts to the public sector was “wrong.” Back in 2010, he said: “I believe that excludes a whole crop of private contractors out there which, if we opened the door up and let everybody compete, we would get a much better rate.”

That same year, Adam Trombley was running against Paul Honeman for Sheila Selkregg’s seat. He agreed then: “What you’re going to do is you’re going to find a lower price and you’re going to find a better service.” He’s been consistent ever since.

If you were an informed voter over the past few years, you should have had a good sense of who you were voting for.

Hall is a bit more puzzling. In eleven years, we’ve seen him transition from Fran Ulmer’s choice as a Lieutenant Governor, to an unaffiliated self-proclaimed moderate running against liberal incumbent Matt Claman, to the Chair of the Assembly and sponsor of a bill that could make the Tea Party blush.

That’s a lot of ground to cover in a decade.

In 2002, ex-Teamster John Sroufe wrote a letter to the editor of the Juneau Empire in support of Ulmer and Hall: “They are pro-labor and they will work hard for Alaskan families.”

By 2010, the waters had muddied and it was Matt Claman who received support from the police and firefighters unions, while vocalizing a belief in the need for stronger a police force.

Sullivan measured his endorsement for Hall, telling the ADN’s Rosemary Shinohara, that year: ”I don’t have any grand agenda…. I want to restore the fiscal health of the city. Having the votes aligned is helpful.”

Hall called the Mayor’s budget cutting “very prudent,” and ironically commenting that “Maintaining what we have is critical to us. We’ve got things other communities would die for.”

Like good jobs. High paying jobs. Jobs that provide infrastructure and public safety for the community and a future for the worker, and his or her family.

You don’t have to go back to 2002 to find a version of Ernie Hall who agreed.

In 2010, I moderated a candidate forum at the University of Alaska Anchorage. During the segment where candidates fielded questions from the audience, current conservative radio talk show host Dave Stieren – then just a twinkle in Dan Fagan’s eye – raised his voice on the matter of labor contracts and “managed competition”:

When the municipality takes taxpayers’ money and decides how that money is going to be spent, and you have union companies and nonunion companies, the municipality has, with some of the labor agreements, excluded some of the nonunion companies unless they pay signatory rates to unions. My question specifically is do you support that process or are you opposed to that process? …[S]pecifically, is it the right of nonunion companies to be awarded work without signatory dues to union? For the nonunion companies of course.

Ernie Hall answered.

I’ve bid a lot of public sector jobs. They all are Davis-Bacon jobs. So, when you bid that job you bid it understanding that you’re going to pay a prevailing wage. You’re basically going to provide prevailing benefits as well. My frustration in all my life in bidding in public jobs is I would love to see a practice made that a low bid was always thrown out. It’s frustrating when you go and put the time and effort into bidding a job, and somebody will come in and literally low ball the job and be awarded it, only to find out later that the change orders that are put in absolutely exceed what might have been the highest bid on the job to start with. But I believe that everyone should have equal access to public funds when it’s being spent on projects.

Hall didn’t believe that labor contracts were a net negative. He even advocated beefing them up, so that private sector, over-optimistic, and unaccountable bids could get tossed – which is the main concern with opening up public sector jobs to the outsourcing contained in AO37′s “managed competition.”

Dick Traini agreed.

[W]e’ve got labor contracts in effect right now. And according to Wheeler, if you listen to him, those labor contracts are a reality. They can’t change. They’re not going to come up for years. So, your issue will come up in years, but not right now. Labor contracts are in place.”

Something tells me that Dave Stieren remembered. Pretty sure he’s made the bulk of a radio show out of it.

But Ernie Hall had a different idea. Remembering, again, what he told the ADN during that first Assembly campaign: ”Maintaining what we have is critical to us. We’ve got things other communities would die for.”

How does starving the work force provide an end to that means?

Hall had another solution. And it came during a question about the possibility of a sales tax. Dick Traini dismissed the notion of adopting a sales tax because of the voter-adopted threshold requiring 61 percent of municipal voters to approve any change in taxation. Hall saw things differently. He said he was more of an optimist.

This is something that needs to be done by our community as a whole, and take the time to have conversations with each other that if we really want to see this city meet the potential that it possibly can be, first thing we need to do is get an initiative to repeal the 60 percent… and go to just a 50; a majority vote. And then put it back on and see if the community wouldn’t come together and support it, so that everybody would share the burden.

It’s a weird juxtaposition. In 2010, Ernie hall called for the entire community to come together and discuss how we share the collective burden of maintaining the services that “other communities would die for.”

Three years later, the self-proclaimed moderate administered the unprecedented move to close public testimony on a community discussion that could force irreplaceable workers out of the city they love and serve, because a bill he is sponsoring is revoking the “prevailing wage” he recently found to be ubiquitous with public sector jobs.

Back in 2010, Ernie Hall explained the unexpected Sullivan endorsement to the ADN:

“I asked Dan Sullivan why it was that he wanted to endorse me, and his comment was, ‘Ernie, you’ve always been a moderate, somebody that keeps his word, and I can work with that.’ “

Brian Dollarhide’s “Stuff” video was the winner of a contest put on by the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, in partnership with the group’s advertisement campaign: ”Live. Work. Play.”

As the AEDC explained it:

In 2008, the available workforce in Anchorage was tight. Many of our investors were finding it difficult to hire skilled, qualified and experienced workers in the city. Because of this, many businesses were looking outside of Anchorage to hire young professionals in the lower 48 and bring them up to Alaska.  The challenge for these businesses was dispelling the myth of Alaska as being only cold and dark.

And thus an ad campaign was born, and a goal was articulated: AEDC’s president and CEO Bill Popp declared that by 2025, Anchorage would be “the #1 city in America to Live. Work. and Play.”

2011 brought us the first report, and first optimistic rankings among US cities.

Live: #10. Work: #1. Play: #9.

On January 30 of this year, the AEDC hosted their annual Economic Forecast Luncheon and revealed our progress. Live: #8. Work: #3. Play: #11.

We slipped in two out of the three categories.

Anchorage, by AEDC’s metrics, is becoming less desirable. Popp opined about the cause of the decline: “I think any number of the business people can tell the personal stories of how difficult it is to find qualified workers to fill the jobs that they have available right now and in the future.”

Richard Florida was the keynote speaker at the annual AEDC luncheon. An urban theorist and national best selling author, Florida has dedicated his life to understanding what makes cities great. And, from Abu Dhabi to Anchorage, he’s recognized certain steps or missteps that translate directly to the fate of any given locale.

When the AEDC picked the “Live. Work. Play.” moniker, he took notice.

Live, work, and play. That’s been the mantra of my work for more than a decade…. In economic development, we think about keeping our business climate strong; making sure companies have the right set of incentives; making sure our real estate prices are in order; making sure our business environment is competitive. But what we’ve learned over the past couple of decades is even if you do all of those things right, you can still fall behind if you don’t have the kind of community that people want to live in.

Florida made no qualms about how the uniqueness of our geography served as a barrier towards the AEDC’s goal. He called us a community of flux – a new evolution of American society that departs from the structural solidity in cosmopolitan staples such as New York and Pittsburgh and Boston; cities with centuries of infrastructure, history, and rooted ancestry. We don’t even have consistent bus schedules. Our circles of friends change with the prime time lineup on television.

The “work” part of the “Live. Work. Play.” dynamic is our bedrock; what the municipality does best. How we become the best city in America is weighted heavily on our retention of high quality workers and the jobs available to them. Flipping burgers does not grant a city a workforce rated between #1 and #3 in the country.

Those not-McJobs illustrate one of Florida’s key findings about what makes a city work:

You’ve got to have good basic services. If your roads are terrible, if your infrastructure doesn’t work, if the lights go out and flicker all the time, if your schools are bad, if people don’t feel safe and secure on the streets, if there’s a crime ridden place, you can’t go anywhere.

After giving a brief presentation on his Education Summit, Mayor Dan Sullivan listened as Bill Popp delivered the economic forecast. He saw our rankings slipping under his tenure. He shared the stage with Richard Florida and presumably sat in the audience during the keynote speech.

The message of the night was fairly clear: Don’t piss off your workers. Those workers can take their ball home, somewhere else and to our collective detriment.

Mayor Sullivan managed to take that message and ignore it entirely. Two weeks later, he insulted our city workers with Ordinance 37.

Under the mayor’s proposal, disagreements between the administration and labor require unions to pay half of the costs of mediation. The added financial burden is combined with a new provision that avoids arbitration by awarding the final say in contract disputes to the Assembly, who would be vested with a brand new power to “impose the last best offer of one of the parties.”

Upon any contract deliberations, if the administration decides not to budge, it simply has to dig in its heels and continue not to budge until it’s gone through the mediation process (which labor now has to pay for) and has arrived back in the chambers of the Loussac. Once back before the body, the administration’s original offer can be chosen. As long as the administration holds the majority of votes on the body, negotiations can take place, at expense to the union, without any negotiating on the part of the municipality.

And, just in case the labor unions getting hosed in the process object to the process, the bill includes a ban on strikes, work stoppages, and slowdowns without exception.

Work. Live. Play. But don’t expect much, especially not a say in the matter.

We provide opportunity for Americans coming from states who tax them out of their shoes or frack them out of their drinking water. So long as they’re willing to work hard, we call them neighbor. Union households call them family. That’s what we do. That’s who we are.

Anchorage has a strong workforce supported by the jobs we secure for them. That workforce secures us a safe place to live our lives; raise a family. And the formula works. The AEDC found that Anchorage has the highest household income among cities. We’re ranked third in per capita personal income. And we are the least taxed city (as a percentage of income) in the United States.

We pay a very little amount to make sure we don’t have to pay an immeasurable lot when a big storm hits or your house catches fire.

The cornerstone of Richard Florida’s work suggests that “flux” cities depend on talent recruitment and thrive on talent retention.

James Dokken is one of hundreds who have spoken out against Ordinance 37. Monday night very likely will be the last opportunity to do so. Dokken spoke about what Ordinance 37 means to that retention rate; to this community that has prospered so much from the mere presence of people like him:

I came to Anchorage as an infantrymen in the Army in 2003. My plan was to get some experience in the army and then become a peace officer in my home state of Washington. However, after spending several years in this community and coming to know it better, I decided to apply for the Anchorage Police Department, and was fortunate enough to make it through the application process….

My daily contact with firefighters, EMS, and other servants… revealed a mirror image of my department’s goal to make this city the best place in this country to live and work. I wear this pin on my lapel to signify the pride I am filled with to serve the people of this great city for five years. I am filled with sadness and frustration that the proposed law changes which will force my family and me to leave public service in this city. If I were to weather the pay and benefit cuts that my union representatives have advised me that this ordinance would impose on my family, I would not be able to maintain my current living arrangements. Also, as I have read myself, it would not stop there….

I think maybe the reason you would consider these drastic changes is because you haven’t had the unfortunate pleasure of experiencing the emergency services this city has to offer. Maybe you haven’t experienced the compassion these people show above and beyond the task they are given of keeping you safe, treating your wound, and saving your home. But then I remember all of the services this city provides so well other than that. Power outages are few and well contained even in the harshest of storms. Last year, our employees removed enough snow from Anchorage roads to fill five acres of property several hundred feet high in an all time record snowfall. I’m in this city every week. I see the work your employees provide and am constantly amazed at the level of service they don’t have to give but do. You will lose these people if you pass this ordinance….

If these changes are passed, I will take what little I have in my 401k, my training, my experience, and my skills to another state.

Live. Work. Play. And do it better than any other state by 2025.

Under AO37, I ask: How?

The ordinance, backed by Mayor Dan Sullivan, Chair Ernie Hall, and Vice Chair Jennifer Johnston, is billed as “An ordinance amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 3.70, Employee Relations, with comprehensive updates securing long term viability and financial stability of employee and labor relations.”

It’s an elusively chipper, albeit bureaucratic, sounding title given to a very long, very complicated, and exceedingly controversial piece of legislation.

The 30 page document detailing the Mayor’s plan was announced last Friday, presented to labor groups on Monday, officially introduced Tuesday, and could be voted on as early as the upcoming Assembly meeting on February 26.

The objections to it are equally worth their weight in paper.

Among them, Ordinance 37 would strip unions of longevity and performance-based pay. It also rewrites the pay structure to tether labor contracts – salaries, benefits, and pensions – to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This link can result in a problematic effect on workers’ pay, as CPI forecasts historically overestimate the inflation rates used to justify capping pay.

If this cap is so severe that it results in a dispute between the affected union and the municipality, under current law, the employee relations board assigns the two parties a mediator tasked with resolving the conflict within a span of two months. Failure to reach an agreement within those parameters results in the case going into arbitration.

The Sullivan administration believes those days should be over.

Under the new bill, disagreements between the administration and labor require unions to pay half of the costs of mediation. The added financial burden is combined with a new provision that avoids arbitration by awarding the final say in contract disputes to the Assembly, who would be vested with a new power to “impose the last best offer of one of the parties.” (p.18, line 19)

Upon any contract deliberations, if the administration decides not to budge, it simply has to dig in its heels and continue not to budge until it’s gone through the mediation process (which labor now has to pay for) and has arrived back in the chambers of the Loussac. Once back before the body, the administration’s original offer can be chosen. As long as the administration holds the majority of votes on the body, negotiations can take place, at expense to the union, without any negotiating on the part of the municipality.

And, just in case the labor unions getting hosed in the process object to the process, the bill includes a ban on strikes, work stoppages, and slowdowns without exception.

On the Anchorage Education Association’s facebook page, a message urging membership to attend Tuesday’s meeting read clear: “All unions in Anchorage are asking members to turn out IN FORCE for Tuesday’s Assembly meeting at 5. You may not be able to get in, but come prepared to be outdoors for a bit and make how you feel known.”

An email sent out from incoming chair Michael Wenstrup of the Alaska Democratic Party was even louder: “Not since Alaska emerged from the shadow of Russian control have such heavy handed anti-democratic tactics been used to crush citizens’ participation in their local government.”

And on Tuesday night, union members from all ends of organized labor, as well as non-union supporters, showed up in solidarity.

Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News tweeted: “I’ve never seen the Assembly this crowded.”

Jeanne Devon of the Mudflats posted on facebook: “Chambers at capacity! Fire Marshall’s official count is 250 in the lobby plus more than 500 outside in 28 degree weather!”

The Loussac Library was awash in chants of “No on 37!”

Inside the chambers, however, the will of the body – despite an attempt to postpone the bill indefinitely followed by a handful of attempts to postpone it until after the April municipal election – was “Proceed with 37.”

A 7-4 split, which may ultimately represent the vote that leads to the downfall of collective bargaining in Anchorage, secured that the bill would move on to the next step. It will be revisited at the February 26 meeting, where public testimony will be taken. If tonight was any indication, that could be a fairly long and drawn out process.

Rather than answer any questions, the proceedings at the Assembly meeting, in lieu of providing an answer as to how this proposal could go, instead raised questions. Did the mayor’s proposal – which is consistent with the message he has conveyed throughout his time in office – wake up an organized labor force who’s voice has diminished in recent years?

Or does this put us further down the path of that organized labor force going away? Recall that he was reelected by a large margin on that same anti-union message just a year ago.

The answers to those questions have very real results in where this state is headed. And they may be answered in a scant two weeks.

The memorandum proposing the contract came from the mayor and made the case for why Dan Coffey was the right man for the job:

“Coffey Consulting is uniquely qualified due to extensive community experience, business acumen, and familiarity with processes and procedures of local government. The contractor is a long time resident of Anchorage, has specialized knowledge, and the confidence of the Administration relating to many issues involving both the public and private sectors.”

A memorandum from the Mayor’s Chief of Staff reinforced the messaging:

“As a former Assembly member, Coffey has substantial familiarity with the processes and procedures of local government. He is uniquely qualified to assist the Administration as it develops and analyzes the efficacy of these special projects.”

The memorandum before the Assembly awarding Coffey the contract was bolstered by an accompanying resolution echoing the mayor’s charge and adding the qualifier that “by approving this contract, the Assembly has also determined that Coffey Consulting is uniquely qualified for the task at hand….”

That resolution passed by a margin of nine to two, with Ms. Drummond and Ms. Gray-Jackson dissenting. The memorandum passed by the same margin, and Mr. Coffey had a new job.

At the time, Gray Jackson voiced her disapproval to Rosemary Shinohara of the Anchorage Daily News:

“[Mayor Sullivan's] going to pay an ex-Assembly member $60,000 to do what his chief of staff should be doing,”

On December 13, 2012, the Alaska Public Offices Commission received a formal complaint by a member of their staff, Brenda Joan Mize. The complaint alleged that Dan Coffey had not registered as a lobbyist during the period of time the municipality hired him to be a lobbyist, and that he had violated campaign contribution laws by donating to twenty different political campaigns in districts where he was ineligible to vote. This law is put in place because it gives lobbyists an undue power of quid pro quo influence over elected officials.

Yesterday, a settlement was reached between APOC and Dan Coffey. In a seven page agreement approved by the commission yesterday, “Staff concludes Mr. Coffey violated three sections of the lobbying law and one violation of campaign finance law.”

The violations included:

1. AS 24.45.041 – Registration – Failure to register as a lobbyist in 2011 and 2012

2. AS 24.45.051 – Registration – Failure to submit reports as required in 2011 and 2012

3. AS 24.45.121 – Prohibitions – Engaging in activity as a lobbyist before registering and contributions to legislative candidates

4. AS 15.13.074 – Contributions to candidates for legislative office outside his voting district

The maximum penalties for these violations would have reached $36,610.

However, APOC chose to mitigate the financial penalties for Mr. Coffey for two specific reasons. The first was an “inexperienced filer” discount. The second claims that “the civil penalty assessment is significantly out of proportion to the degree of harm to the public for not having the information.”

The result of these two factors being taken into consideration ended in Mr. Coffey’s $36,000 penalty being reduced by two thirds, to just around $12,000.

The justification for the initial contract to Coffey Consulting given by the Sullivan Administration and the Assembly was that Mr. Coffey was “uniquely qualified due to extensive community experience, business acumen, and a familiarity with the processes and procedures of local government….” [emphases added].

During that initial 2011 Assembly meeting where the body deliberated over whether this was a wise or unwise decision, Assemblyman Paul Honeman asked aloud:

“So, for $60,000 dollars, what is the return on investment? And of course that’s a tough one to grasp. I know Mr. Coffey, and the only thing that I have been able to say with a straight face is that you are very good at getting money; asking people for money.”

To which Mayor Sullivan responded, in part:

“[W]e’re actually saving money for the city by having Mr. Coffey do that same work on a contract basis rather than having a full loaded employee that we previously had in the executive branch. So, I think we’ve accomplished a win-win here with adding Mr. Coffey to the team and in doing so adding a savings to the city.”

According to the settlement agreed to by APOC and Coffey this Wednesday, “Mr. Coffey asserts that he was not required to register or report as a lobbyist because he did not exceed the statutory threshold of 10 hours in any 30-day period.”

Anchorage taxpayers hired Mr. Coffey at $1,000 per hour to procure only 30% of the funding for the port he was hired to secure. Somewhere in those ten hours per month that Mr. Coffey dedicated to lobbying as a not-a-lobbyist, he managed to use his unique qualifications and familiarity with the process of local government to commit four APOC violations.

This is our win-win.

The watch dog commission in charge of oversight and accountability is reducing the penalties to account for his inexperience. The Anchorage lawyer is getting an eighty percent reduction on the penalties accrued as a result of not registering as a lobbyist and a fifty percent reduction in the penalties accrued as a result of illegal contributions to candidates outside of his home district.

But he agreed that “should he enter into a similar consulting contract in the future involving lobbying activities, he would register and report such activities in accordance with this Consent Agreement.”

Last week, the price of gasoline climbed seven cents overnight, and more and more people are getting on the bus and seeing the benefits of Anchorage’s public transportation system, one that we all support in some way or another, but rarely take advantage of. This Tuesday, we have one more opportunity to tell the Anchorage Assembly how critical it is to upgrade our transit system.

The Assembly began deliberations on the 2013 budget earlier this month,looking at a host of city services, including fire and police protection, libraries and parks, and public transportation. Virtually every city department sees cuts under Budget Plan A, which could make bus transportation more difficult than it already is. Among the many cuts across services, Plan A proposes to eliminate all Sunday buses and many early morning and late evening routes for People Mover. This is a bad idea, because it will most likely impact the people who need it the most, those who ride the bus to work.

But Plan A has been deemed a “straw man” proposal, one essentially dismissed by the Mayor Sullivan himself, who proposed it. He is subsequently recommending Plan B, which retains all People Mover service from 2012.

The Public Transit Advisory Board, a municipally chartered board charged with advising the Mayor and the Assembly on transit issues, will recommend the funding provided under the Budget Plan B. Additionally the Board is supporting a modest fare increase, as well. Fuel costs are rising for everyone, including the public transportation department.

In 2005, People Mover crossed a threshold when it provided over three million rides per year. The system has consistently averaged more than 14,000 rides per day since 2008. So it stands to reason, that the status quo is unacceptable.In spite of cuts in service from Eagle River in 2010, ridership and demand remain strong.

Currently, only five of the city’s 14 buses travel every 30 minutes. The rest arrive every hour, rendering bus service an inconvenient alternative for most drivers. The Public Transit Advisory Board, citing a long-term transit planning document, considered recommending 30 minute head ways on all routes. But this would cost upwards of $4 million, a hefty ask of the Assembly this year. The board settled on recommending increasing the frequency of the #75 route, which serves the new Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center in midtown and the Veterans Administration health clinic in Muldoon—an overall net increase in service.

But Anchorage can and must do more. People Mover has an on time performance of 70 percent due to passenger pickups and road construction projects. Would you take the bus if you knew there was a 30 percent chance you might be late for an exam or a job interview?

Buses that serve downtown, South Anchorage, the University of Alaska and Alaska Pacific University campuses and midtown could all stand to benefit from more frequent service. Buses to Mountain View and along Spenard Road and Arctic could be on 15-minute head ways and still keep pace with demand.

Every Anchorage property tax payer is supporting public transportation and deserves to get the most for their money. We deserve a system that is convenient and accessible. The Assembly needs to recognize the value of transit in Anchorage as an investment. Perhaps the entire burden should not fall on property tax payers. But if you think this city can’t afford a strong public transportation system, guess again. We can’t afford not to have one.

Just because we were graced with his re-election, doesn’t mean he should be bothered to inconvenience himself to come accept his re-confirmation in person; he had bigger plans. On an island in the sun.

Equal rights? There’s no need for that in his golden city. Please, don’t bother him with trivial things like public testimony; he knows what he is talking about. His esteemed review showed no quantifiable evidence to necessitate equal protection under the law for all Anchorage residents.

If you want to be a homeless person and protest city policies on homelessness, please keep your protests clear of Mayor Sullivan’s causeway. He doesn’t want to stumble over any unwashed peasants. Aren’t there laws against that sort of thing? Well, now there are. At least, for the time being.

So, when a freak September arctic storm pounds the city into stunned submission and leaves thousands of Anchorage residents without power – some still without, five days later – expect silence. When hundreds of mighty trees are felled, keeping arborists, electrical workers and chainsaws burning midnight oil for days, don’t expect to hear our venerable leader over the din of gas-powered generators. You know, it’s just one of those things that happen to the little people. They’ll just put on their Xtra-Tufs and get stuff done. Bootstraps and all.

Clearly the head Sully-in-charge can’t be bothered to make an official statement; he has more important things to do than be burdened by updating his constituents, much less lead them.

The Municipality of Anchorage was unusually mute on the subject of this storm. Once the winds started really kicking in the early evening hours of September 4, we only had our own hushed, wondering voices and the growl and howl of nature making her presence known.

Residents found no official announcement warning of the possible scope of the storm on the Muni website. There were no emergency broadcast alerts. No safety recommendations. No flashy headlines like: “Rope down your furniture,” “stay inside,” or “DUCK!” No one projected what might happen, or what we should we do after.

Wednesday morning broke, and thousands of Anchorage residents woke up to unpredictably relocated trees, damaged homes, and no power. There was no press conference to assess the damage; no call-to-action for citizens to rally together or assurances from our officials; no coordinated effort to inform the public on what the city was doing, nor any public statement from our elected executive in response to an event that would be called a Category One hurricane in any other state.

Even two days after, as thousands of residences remained powerless, Anchorage continued to hear nothing out of City Hall.

The mayor wished to be left alone.

Finally, on Friday, the Anchorage public heard from Mayor Sullivan – provided that you happened to be listening to the Rick Rydell radio show, at a time most tend to be working.

Rydell: Did you have to go into the emergency response center or anything like that during [the storm]?

Sullivan: No. My municipal manager did though. He was pretty much up all night that night responding to calls from utilities and others on whether to call in other people. That kind of stuff. And we’re calling in folks from, literally, all over the state to help restore power lines. I think at ML&P we’re pretty much back on track. I know Chugach, which has a lot larger service area, they’ve still got some challenges. But, you know, this is one of those things where it just takes a few days and, one by one, folks get their power back. So, hopefully, I haven’t heard a report yet this morning, but I think we’re getting to where just about everybody’s restored.”

Power restored to just about everybody, the mayor told Rydell’s listening audience – away from questions from the press. Away from callers Rydell had on in the first hour hearing rumors of weeks without power, callers blasting the lack of communication. Mayor Sullivan’s casual assertion likely came as a bit of a shock to the estimated thousand-plus residents still without electricity as Friday rolled into the weekend.

Saturday evening, a press release from the mayor’s office offered the first glimpse at an official response from the uncharacteristically quiet administration. It reads, in part:

“The shower and restroom facilities at Fairview Recreation Center will be available for use beginning on Sunday 9 September from 10 AM until 8 PM for residents who still may be without power.”

So far, this is the entirety of communication from the highest elected official in Anchorage, vested with administrative power of the Municipality. Go take a shower. The mayor does not wish to be bothered.

What happens when another storm descends on Anchorage in the dead of winter? When subzero temperatures and a power deficit equate to the real possibility of lives lost? What radio show does he call into to opine then? What are we supposed to do, other than shower in Fairview during standard business hours?

Will he allow himself to be bothered then, or shall we just sit in silence and hope for the best?

Mr. Hall and I earlier this week met with Mr. Wheeler, the Municipal Attorney, and Ms. Tucker, the Assembly Attorney to ask [the question:] even if we are not required potentially to hold a special election, what parameters govern this body if we do want to call one. Our Municipal Code, Title 28, is silent on this point….

Some of the questions that I believe we still need to ask and clarify is how many ballots were actually delivered to each precinct; since ballots were available, why weren’t they delivered to polling places before polls closed; were election workers trained on what to do if they ran out of election materials, and, if so, what were they told – if not what should they be told in the future….

The certification vote and the election commission report are currently scheduled for our next meeting on the 17^th, but, again, I want to emphasize I do not believe we should certify the election until we are satisfied that we understand what happened this year and what its impact was….

Chairwoman Ossiander said that there was still much work to be done, and added that Title 28, which deals with municipal election law, must be amended to add clarity. She closed by reaffirming where the buck stops.

The Anchorage Assembly is responsible for the oversight of the election process. As an Assembly Chair, on behalf of the entire assembly and our departmental staff, I want to apologize to voters, potential voters, and election workers for what they had to deal with in terms of ballot problems this year. I deeply regret that polling places ran out of ballots during this municipal election. Every voter must be allowed to vote. No voter should be turned away. And for as long as I am a member of this body, I will commit to making sure that a situation like this never happens again.

Assemblywoman Harriet Drummond also chimed in:

…I might remind this body that paper… turned out to be the core of the issue in this election. For a few thousand more sheets of paper we would not have had this issue and we seriously have a problem if we can’t print a few more sheets of paper and have them available where they need to be available.

Paper however is not the core issue. According to an April 9 media advisory sent out from the clerk’s office, “sufficient ballots” were printed (Anchorage Charter requires that enough ballots must be printed to cover 70% of all registered voters). The problem developed because city officials “did not allocate enough of the ballots to the individual precincts, given the turnout and number [of] people who voted outside of their precincts.”

The problem was in distribution and other external factors. Election tampering has already been admitted in at least one case, by Jim Minnery, of the Alaska Family Council and the “Protect Your Rights” Prop 5 opponents.

No one at the assembly meeting made mention of this (until testimony from Mel Green of Bent Alaska at the end).

As Bent Alaska readers are already aware, on February 17, Minnery sent out an email to the “Protect Your Rights” group (also sent to his Alaska Family Council mailing list) stating explicitly:

“Sunday, March 4^th is the LAST DAY [emphasis his] you can register to vote in the April 3^rd Election.”

On April 4, he sent out an email entitled “Humble Pie,” in which he confessed to sending out a mailer instructing people to vote on election day; that Anchorage had same day voter registration. “I should have done more research before sending out the Action Alert,” he confessed in the letter. “I am willing to own up to my mistakes.”

Under Alaska state law, [AS 15.56.035] it is a class A misdemeanor for an individual who “knowingly solicits or encourages, directly or indirectly, a registered voter who is no longer qualified to vote under AS.05.010” – which necessitates that voters must be ”a resident of the state… in which the person seeks to vote for at least 30 days just before the election”.

Minnery needs to be held accountable. The free pass afforded him by elected officials and the media is irresponsible. Mistakes happen, as does forgiveness. But so, too, should media scrutiny and due process of law.

But one case of criminal malconduct isn’t the only invalidating factor already on record. The Anchorage Daily News reported on accounts of photo-copied ballots. While this is creative, it’s also completely illegal. Again, under state law [AS 15.56.035, section 2] “a counterfeit of an official election ballot” is also a class A misdemeanor. It is unlawful interference with voting in the second degree.

This isn’t meant to suggest the arresting of election workers simply trying to accommodate democracy, but instead to point out again that fraud, as defined by state law, is on record as having occurred in Tuesday’s election. Municipal Code clearly states that “voters may contest the election of any person or the approval or rejection of any question or proposition upon one or more of the following grounds: 1. Malconduct, fraud or corruption on the part of an election official sufficient to change the result of the election.” [28.100.010]

We need a new election.

Some dismiss the idea because of the wide disparities within the individual contests. Incumbent Mayor Dan Sullivan fended off challenger Paul Honeman by a 59-38 margin; Prop 5 lost 58-42. The 13,000 question ballots have a very minimal chance of changing who the winners and losers are. But the question ballots are only one of two questions that need to be addressed – the other being the votes not cast. The people turned away, or unable to find a polling place.

The broad language of the municipal code should cause pause. The election can be struck down as invalid if malconduct sufficiently changes the election results. There is no specification that the winner is the result that must change. The addition of a single vote – which was not cast due to suppression or tampering that we know occurred – may not change the winner, but it absolutely changes the result. 52,801 votes were cast. If 52,802 votes were cast, that is a different result. The vote tally is a fundamental part of the election result.

ACLU executive director and vocal Prop 5 supporter Jeffrey Mittman testified before the assembly explaining how, in this case, the election result was sufficiently different as a result of disenfranchisement:

“If this had been one or two precincts, I think this would be a relatively easier task to determine the scope of disenfranchisement. Given 55 precinct places [were] without ballots we cannot ask that question.”

As of Tuesday, the ACLU had received over one hundred and fifty responses on their voter issue hotline, as reported by the ADN.

Mittman attended the meeting to advocate for the assembly’s hiring of an independent legal counsel to investigate the election. The proposal was a last minute addition to the agenda, offered by Assemblywoman Elvi Gray-Jackson. Many expressed reservations about jumping to this action – members Jennifer Johnston, Ernie Hall, Dick Traini, and Patrick Flynn voiced the opinion that such a move should wait until Friday’s scheduled work session, which would be the body’s first chance to hear from the election commission. This would be the prevailing sentiment, as the vote failed, 4-7. Members Birch, Hall, Johnston, Ossiander, Starr, Traini, and Trombley voted in the majority, with Drummond, Flynn, Grey-Jackson, and Honeman dissenting.

The door, however, was not shut on the idea completely as a possible future option.

Mittman felt that waiting was an unnecessary show of restraint, and that the assembly needed to separate their duties from those of the commission. He said that the election commission’s responsibility was to count the votes cast. Answering to the votes that were, for one reason or another, not cast was the duty of the assembly.

Assemblywoman Harriet Drummond, speaking in defense of the failed measure, drew applause with parting comments on the topic:

This body has, over the last several years… approved the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars on independent investigations of various issues. But none of them investigate anything nearly as important or fundamental to the democratic process as the election process.

The night ended with public comment, which came in the form of a healthy late night appeal for what many perceive to be justice. Quantifiable testimony was put forth from people who offered first hand accounts of being turned away from the polls, being unable to find a poll with available ballots, having ballots rejected from the machine.

The only clear takeaway from the night’s proceedings is that there is no clear end in sight. The debacle could have many layers yet to unfold. At the next assembly meeting, reorganization of the body is slated to take place. Alaska Commons has a sneaking suspicion, based solely on tonight’s interactions, that Ernie Hall will wind up the new chair. Also, Friday’s work session will provide us with another page in the unfolding story, and will set some ink in place as to the next steps the assembly will take as they try to get this right.

[featured image courtesy of Elstun Lauesen]