News from Patrick Flynn

Dedicated followers of municipal governance most assuredly did not watch this evening’s football game, instead employing those valuable hours cogitating on Anchorage’s 2011 budget, right?  Okay, perhaps not, but if you have been following the process I have a brief update.  First, however, two quick administrative matters:

First, unless either the prosecution or the defense employs what I believe is referred to as a “preemptive challenge,” it appears yours truly will be empaneled on a jury for the next two weeks.  It’s my understanding that I’m not permitted to discuss or divulge details, so you won’t find any here, but I wanted to let readers know as this will surely slow my response time to queries I receive.

Second, I’ve had a couple questions regarding Port matters and don’t expect our next committee meeting to occur until some time after the first of the year.  In the meantime, however, I’ve talked to the Army Corps of Engineers and they’re reportedly working on a letter discussing the aspects of the expansion project they did – and did not – review.  If and when I receive a copy of that letter I will post it here.

Returning to the budget discussion, I expect we’ll see a substitute version some time on Wednesday, December 1.  That new version takes into account the added revenue expected from the Assembly’s recent increase in tobacco taxes and purportedly makes the following changes:

• Roughly $2.4 million of tobacco tax revenue will be used to offset (reduce) property taxes.
• $240k to restore proposed cuts to AnchorRIDES.
• $2.6 million to reverse the proposed moth-balling of fire trucks in Eagle River and Bear Valley.
• About $46k to address an administrative matter with one of the city’s trust funds.
• About $40k to reverse proposed cuts to the Northeast Community Center and Mountain View Boys & Girls Club.
• Restoration of a proposed $10k cut to Covenant House.
• Added money for the Federation of Community Councils (back to 2010 levels).
• Restoration of most of the proposed cuts in community arts grants.
• Funding for some sort of educational forum advocated for by the administration (I don’t have any details on that).

On the police front, it appears there are sufficient unspent 2010 funds and a couple other sources that will eliminate the need for any layoffs in that department and pave the way for an academy in the latter part of 2011 to help replace officers retiring from service.  I’m sure we’ll discuss that further at our Friday, December 3, work session (scheduled for noon – 1 pm).

I’m also hearing we’ll see a substitute version of the administration’s fees & fines ordinance that will sunset some of the proposed fee changes and break out the proposed increase in Solid Waste Services’ tipping fees for later discussion.  Because that tipping fee increase was slated for an April 1 implementation there’s time to work further on it.

If I correctly understand all the changes (an assumption I won’t make until I actually see the revised budget) there remain at least two gaps about which I remain concerned:

1. Reductions to People Mover service including early-morning and late-evening runs, peak hour service and elimination of route 45G remain unchanged.
2. The Samson-Dimond library branch, even in some sort of reduced format, remains slated for closure.  Earlier discussions of a potential rent break and/or a smaller size branch appear to have fallen through.

With that I’d like to take a moment to praise my colleagues who’ve worked diligently to improve upon the administration’s original budget proposal.  Budgets tend to be as true a reflection of a community’s priorities as anything a legislative body does and it’s never easy to balance the many competing interests.

Regards,

Patrick