With apologies to Jackson Browne, the songwriter whose lyric I’ve amended above, I’m not sure how to react to a recent KTUU story on the latest budget battle between Acting Mayor Claman and members of the Assembly. While the story focuses on a dispute as to what the Assembly can, or can’t, do to address Anchorage’s budget shortfall the real issue is the ridiculous lack of collaboration between the Acting Mayor and his former (and, likely, future) Assembly colleagues on this important topic.
I’m in Juneau today, having arrived yesterday, and leaving tonight. As a co-chair of the Assembly’s Legislative committee I’m spending my time touching base with many of the Anchorage-area legislators to get their perspective on how the session is progressing and discussing some of Anchorage’s priorities.
After slowly wending our way through the consent agenda, the portion of Assembly business that’s supposed to be brief but often drags on – last week over lunch budget discussions, this week over garbage truck deliberations – we will ultimately deal with three motions that would rescind our previous approval of three labor contracts. What’s interesting about them is the differences between the seemingly similar motions.
One of aspects I enjoy about serving on the Anchorage Assembly is the opportunity to work with a wide variety of people to address disparate issues. In doing so I am frequently reminded that whatever our differences we are usually more alike than not and can often find common ground to solve problems. That’s another way of saying that there’s more to folks than media depictions can portray.
In addition to our three-hour “special” meeting Tuesday night, we had another two-hour work session on budgetary matters on Friday, February 20. Despite that additional time we still haven’t managed to wade through the administration’s explanation of their cuts and the reasoning behind them, so we’ll have yet another work session this coming Friday. While excessive pontification by Assembly members certainly bears part of the blame for the amount of time spent on this subject, it’s worth noting that a fair amount of time at the Tuesday meeting was spent discussing the new IBEW contract.
This evening – Tuesday, February 17 – marked the first of two “special” Assembly meetings scheduled to address Anchorage‘s estimated $17 million budget shortfall. (I didn’t find it very special, mostly because I missed my wife’s birthday, but no one forced me to take this job.)
With bonds now set for the April ballot, a topic to which I’ll likely return prior to the election, I’d like to switch gears a bit and cover a somewhat different topic. Below is a copy of an e-mail I sent to my Assembly colleagues on Thursday, February 5: (more…)
The Assembly meeting on Tuesday, February 3, will include the first major fiscal discussion of the calendar year when we take up eight bond proposals which, if approved by the Assembly, will appear on the ballot for our April 7 election. Here’s a quick summary of the bond proposals: (more…)
One of the good things that happen when things go wrong is the opportunity to see where room for improvement lies. Wednesday morning’s awful weather and road conditions provided a good example when an accident on the north end of the A/C couplet closed vehicular access to Government Hill. I’m still not clear what caused the accident, but I did notice traffic backed up across the bridge around 9 am when I was driving underneath on my way to a meeting. Whatever the cause, for a little more than two hours no vehicle could get on or off Government Hill without driving through Elmendorf Air Force Base.
A recent discussion by the Anchorage School Board as to whether they should seek to place school bond proposals on the ballot in April’s election, coupled with economic uncertainty and dysfunctional financial markets, got me thinking about whether the Assembly should put any bonds on the ballot this spring. Instead, perhaps, we should take a “bond holiday” with no bonds proposed this year.
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