Assembly Report for March 25, 2008

PARKS MAINTENANCE ORDINANCE KILLED: Voting along traditional party lines, Assembly conservatives tanked a proposal by Mayor Begich and Allan Tesche and Sheila Sellkregg to create parks “Legacy Fund” that would attract public and private contributions for parks maintenance in Anchorage. Only Matt Claman and Dick Traini joined the sponsors of AO 2008-39 which would have allowed the Anchorage Parks Foundation to receive donations from private and public sources for maintaining the approximately 15,000 acres of public parkland and over 300 miles of improved trails throughout Anchorage. South Anchorage conservative Chris Birch told assembly members there is no need for a special fund dedicated to parks maintenance, and others objected to creation of another private “bureaucracy” to maintain parks and trials. In a particularly mean spirited way, Eagle River’s two assembly members ganged up on the ordinance and urged fellow Republicans to kill the measure because it would somehow allow the Anchorage Parks Service area to better maintain its own parks and trails differently than those are maintained in Eagle River-Chugiak and that change is somehow offensive to the two Assembly members. Ignoring the recommendations of their own parks boards which had recommended approval of the Legacy Ordinance and of the City Attorney, these two shortsighted Eagle River representatives effectively denied Anchorage residents the use of a lucrative new way of maintaining parks and trails in this community.

$737M 2008-9 SCHOOL BUDGET APPROVED: With little fanfare, the Assembly unanimously approved a 2008-9 budget for the Anchorage School District totaling some $736,769,943 for the fiscal year beginning in midsummer, 2008. Of that amount, $217.6M will come from local property taxes, the rest from a combination of state and federal aid. The new budget is 5.46% higher than the prior years, representing a restrained increase in spending, largely due to state and federal mandates and special education.

DAN COFFEY’S DOG POOP LAWS IN THE TOILET: Dan Coffey attended his son’s Little League game one night last year. He stepped into some dog poop on a baseball field and got mad: there ought to be an ordinance against this outrage, he claimed. For almost one year, the assembly and the public struggled with a series of ordinances authored by Mr. Coffey and West Anchorage Assembly member Matt Clamnan. Over a year, the Assembly held about six public hearings, heard hundreds of citizens and debated the issue for hours. Four of the ordinances, AO 2007-106, 106(S) and AO 2007-143 and 143(S) were back again before the Assembly Tuesday night and several dozen people again showed up, ready to testify. Dan has apparently calmed down a bit and his once soiled Italian loafers have dried in the crisp winter air. He ordered his pals on the Assembly to postpone the ordinances indefinitely pending continued discussions between dog owners and parks users. The handle pulled, all four ordinances whooshed quietly to Pt. Woronzof.

LABOR RELATIONS ISSUES LOOM OVER NEW ASSEMBLY: A trio of measures introduced on Tuesday night suggest the Assembly will face several important labor issues shortly after the new Assembly is seated on April 15, 2008. Introduced last night and set for public hearing on April 15 is a one year wage and retirement opener with IBEW, and a similar contract with Operators' Local 302. Also introduced and set for public hearing on April 29 is AO2008-47 relating to service pay Mayor Begich has long targeted for elimination and which proved controversial last year.

“POCKET SHOTS” COMING TO ANCHORAGE? Tampa, Florida is the home of three well known professional sports teams: the Tampa Bay Bucs who play at Raymond James Stadium, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays who play at Tropicana Field, and the Tampa Bay Lightning who skate at the Ice Palace. Tampa is also a party town known for a huge winter blowout parade known as Gasparellia which sort of resembles New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebration. It was only a matter of time before Tampa’s robust alcohol industry figured out a way to avoid stringent rules forbidding bottles or cans used to import beer and alcohol into these public events and sports venues with a new product sold in local faucets across the Tampa Bay: the Pocket Shot. This container is a small plastic pouch containing 50 ml of hard liquor, usually whisky, rum or vodka, about four inches high and town inches wide. Using flexible plastic, the pocket shot can be concealed on the person on a Tampa concert goer with ease and immune from metal detectors or body pat downs used to detect glass bottles. The “pocket shot” sells for about $1.99.