Snow Plow Day

While we were Outside, I read people's complaints about the roads, the lack of plowing, etc.  We only got back Monday night, so we haven't lived with it.  But there was a huge pile of snow in front of our house - if I'd have tried to park in front of the house in my normal spot, I would have been blocking the road.  

But today the snow plows showed up around 9am and worked our neighborhood til about 5pm.  Back and forth, widening the street, then clearing the snow.  Then widening more.  Scraping the ice until the pavement was showing.  I don't recall there ever being such a day where our neighborhood got this much attention.  

Here's he's making lots of noise as he's scraping down through the ice to the pavement below.

To the left there is still ice on the street.  To the right he's gone down to the asphalt

 

At this point they have cleared the berms on the sides of the streets several times.  Now they've gotten the snow that had been piled up on the sides of the street, including the huge pile in front of our place.  It's in a big berm in the middle of the street - maybe 5 or 6 feet high.

Here's a bit of video as this piece of equipment pulls up the snow berm and spits it into the waiting dump truck.

As I said, we missed much of the terrible road conditions.  I don't recall the snow removal teams spending this much time - the whole day - in our neighborhood and getting rid of so much snow and ice in a single day.  My thanks to the team that cleared the streets so well.  

What Red Light?

I was on my way home from 80,000 Schnizel at the Bear Tooth.  On La Touche waiting to turn left onto 36th.  It's generally a long light.  I was the second car.  After at least 30 seconds of red light, the car in front of me started to inch forward.  Was he really just going to ignore the light?  I grabbed my phone.  There's no question the driver knew the light was red.  They'd been waiting there for a while. Just didn't feel like waiting any longer I guess.  The phone says I took the pictures at 3:15pm.

It was at least another 30 seconds, maybe more, before the light changed to green.  These are low res pictures because even on my phone the license wasn't legible. It was either really dirty or even a paper dealer's license.  I'd like to think this was someone trying to get to Providence Hospital and decided it was safe to go.  

Once at this intersection, the light had turned green and I was just starting to go, when I realized a car was speeding down 36th from the east and wasn't planning to stop.  

 

Recalls Are A Pain [Updated]

[Updated Nov 2, 2021 - For folks not in Anchorage, the recall has failed badly.  There are still by mail votes trickling in, but as of Nov1, No was well ahead.]  

While I'm strongly opposed to the Meg Zaletel recall, this post was supposed to mention that briefly as I talked about problems with recalls in general.  Not that they shouldn't happened when politicians act badly, but that they shouldn't be used to harass hard working politicians over policy disagreements with ridiculous technical violation charges.  

But as I tried to track down the details, I kept discovering odd things about the people behind the recall effort.  

Let me say here, Meg is a great Assembly member.  But that's why she's a target here.  These are an odd set of characters trying to get her recalled a few months before here actual reelection would come up.  (Though in fairness, court challenges delayed actual signature gathering.)

Sometimes blog posts often write themselves and I'm just the fingers that work the keys.  Right now there's a struggle happening with this post between me and the mysterious force that throws strange facts my way in an attempt to hijack a post.  This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I started.  

So let's use  the Meg Zaletel recall election as an example of an Alaskan recall vote.  

Step 1:  From the Alaska State Statutes:

"(a) An application for a recall petition shall be filed with the municipal clerk and must contain

(1) the signatures and residence addresses of at least 10 municipal voters who will sponsor the petition;"

Steps 2 and 3 and maybe 4, depending on how you count.  The Zaletel petition was rejected by the Municipal Clerk, but later approved - in part - by the Superior Court and then the Supreme Court.  

Step 5:  Getting enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot.

From Alaska Statutes:

 "the petition shall be signed by a number of the voters residing in the district equal to 25 percent of the number of votes cast in the district for that office at the last regular election held before the date the written notice is given to the contact person that the petition is available."

2019 District 4 Assembly Results

So, there were 9769 total votes cast in the district 4 Assembly seat election.  25% of that is 2442.  (Other sources say 2468).  I read a claim somewhere that they ended up with 4900 signatures, but I can't verify that.

You may notice that the person who came in second was Christine Hill.  She was the local Republican Party chair who passed out yellow stars of David at Assembly Meetings on mask mandates recently.  

Here's the district:

Basically, 

South:  Abbott Loop and a bit of Dimond

West:  Minnesota, C St, and Spenard 

North:  Campbell Creek, Lake Otis, 15th

East:  Along APU eastern border, a bit of Tudor, then Campbell Airstrip Road back to Abbot.

The original recall petition signed by, apparently, a group of 14 neighbors in Geneva Woods.  You only need 10 people to sign the original petition for the recall.  Then you have to get the rest of the 25% of people who voted in the election.  

This petition was ultimately accepted.  Another that claimed she limited public participation by limiting number of people who get go into the chambers was rejected because the Municipal Code explicitly allows for call in testimony.  

Basically, when there were over 15 people in the Assembly chamber, Zaletel (and all the other members present) didn't adjourn the meeting and leave.  Clearly a legalistic complaint that could have been made about all the other members of the Assembly.  And I'm sure the petitioners, who opposed the COVID restrictions, enjoyed the irony of using one as the basis of the recall.

The basic issue is that Zaletel is competent, rational, works hard, and but has different views - as does the majority of the Assembly - from the petitioners.  She also supported using the Golden Lion Hotel as a rehabilitation center.  The hotel is near the upscale Geneva Woods neighborhood almost all of the petitioners live in.  

As I was trying to track down details for this, I found several far right wing groups tracking this both in Alaska and nationally.  And we can see by the money being spent on this recall on both sides that this is much more than a typical recall.  This is part of the Trump encouraged attacks on all levels of government.  

OK, so that's what's happened regarding this current recall election which is a vote by mail election that ends on Tuesday.  

The $75,000 contribution to the recall campaign by Marc McKenna, head of McKenna Brothers Paiving, of course, raises questions.  One of the biggest users of paving are governments with streets to pave.  But I also learned that it was at a birthday party for Marc and his brother Matt in 2014, that the infamous Palin family brawl broke out.  I can't completely verify all that was reported in that link, but the BBC also reported on the party and quotes Marc's brother Matt.

So I really didn't get to say the things I was thinking about when I was contemplating this post so let me do it quickly now.

1. 
   It's hard to make a NO recall sign.  Look at the picture up top.  I think the NO RECALL part should have been bigger than Zaletel's name. Driving down the street you don't have much time to look and you can't be sure if the sign is telling you to vote yes or no because the no is too small.  [UPDATE Oct 25, 2021- walking through my neighborhood this morning I saw this]
   new and improved No Recall sign.  Compare to the one at top - the NO RECALL is much larger.]
2. It's important to have a recall option.  But it should be a little harder to get it on the ballot.  The problems with Meg Zaletel are NOT issues of her violating the law or misconduct.  These people don't like her politics and can't wait for the next election. 
3. They also tried to recall Felix Rivera in the last municipal election.  He represents District 4 with Zaletel.  That recall lost in the election.  BUT, that was a regular election.  More people show up at regular elections.  The recall crowd has more momentum in a special election.  
4. So, as good as Zaletel is, her not being recalled is not at all certain.  
5. That said, any day now there will be a recall drive started to oust Anchorage's Mayor Dave Bronson.  He's responsible, in my mind, of killing 50-60  people in Anchorage since taking office in July by not taking action to stem the spread of COVID.  In fact his actions have helped it spread rapidly making Alaska the top state in the country in terms of COVID infections per 100,000.  But the petitioners will have more specific violations.  

A Cloud Break

Sun finally came out late this afternoon.  I've been on the laptop way too long.  So I got in another bike ride.  But I quickly realized the sun might be short lived.   Those clouds surely had a lot of water in them.  

Just about halfway and I passed through a tour group getting prepared to return south.

On the way back the clouds was even more ominous.   It started raining.  Not too hard.   I was briefly back in the sun, but couldn't find a rainbow.  

And it was sunny again when I got home.  I'm 11 kilometers closer to Bangkok.  17 km to Ayutthaya and then 30 more to Bangkok.  To understand these last travel reference see this post from May this year when I started this bike 'tour.'

Alaska COVID 2021 Highs And Some Vaccine Numbers

 Today's COVID tab entry:

Wednesday, August 18,2021 - Four new deaths reported today.  That's nine in the last two days.

Current COVID patients hospitalized 148 - that's 127 listed as 'Currently Hospitalized - COVID positive" and 21 more listed as 'Currently On Vent Statewide - COVID Positive or Suspected'.  Or, as I've been reporting 127/21.  That's an increase of one person since yesterday.  The cases dashboard says there are 13 newly hospitalized people.  That sounds about right - four people died and a few others maybe got better and left the hospital.  

28 available ICU beds Statewide.  Three in Anchorage!

633/617 new resident cases.  That's a new 2021 high for one day and the highest since Dec. 10, 2021.  The Cases Dashboard changed.  Instead of 'resident' and 'non-resident' options, we now get 'resident' and 'all' options.  But I couldn't get the all button to get me different data from 'resident' data.  Not sure why they thought this was a better idea.  Every time you change how you organize the data, you making tracking and comparisons harder.  So there has to be a really compelling reason.  And if you change the Dashboard, but it doesn't actually work . . .

About 10,500 tests.  Test Positivity is up to 7.43.  Another 2021 high.  Hasn't been this high since November 23, 2020 when it was 8.13.  

If you get to talk - not shout - with an anti-vaxxer, just ask when their relationship with their parents changed from parent/child to friend/friend.  

 These COVID updates don't usually show up in the main window.  They're at a tab under the top banner. Alaska Daily COVID-19 Count 3  I'm putting this one in here because Alaska's COVID situation continues to deteriorate.  Here's some added info on vaccination rate.

Last week- August 11, 2021:

The Key Numbers As Of August 18, 2021
# of people who have two vaccines shots in Alaska: 324,635. That's in increase of 3,101 since last week (Aug 11) # of people who have had one vaccine shot in Alaska: 36,519 That's an increase of 1,320 since last week.

It took Alaska four and a half months to get 50% of population with one or more shots.

It's taken three months to get the next 8%

And here's today's (August 18, 2021).  

In one week we have gone from from 58.8% with one or more shots to 59.5%.  From  356,823 people to 361,154 or a total increase of 4,669.

From 53% with two shots to 53.5%.  321,534 people to 324,635, or a total of 3,101 increase.

Remember, that the first number is people with one + shots.  So it includes all the people with one AND all the people with two shots.  To find out how many only had one shot, we subtract the two shots number from the one+ shots.

Last week: 356,823 - 321,534 = 35,289 people with just one shot

This week:  361,154 - 324,635 =  36,519 people with just one shot   

That would mean 1320 people got their first shots in the last week and 3,101 got their second shots

Looking at the graph on the bottom of this week's chart, I highlighted as close as I could get to 50% - (50.3%) on May 13, 2021.  

So, it took Alaskans about four and a half months to get to 50% with one or more shots.

And it's taken three more months to go another 9%!

I understand there are people who believe that the vaccine doesn't work, that it injects God knows what into their bodies.  There are people who make lots of money off of conning people into fearing the vaccines.  Those people who didn't vote in Anchorage's mayoral runoff election helped to vote an anti-masker/anti-vaccine guy into office.  Even though over 50% of people over 12 have been vaccinated twice.  People - you have to vote or we get crazies elected to make decisions for us.  

On a more positive note, I reached Nakorn Sawan the other day and have about 130 km left to get to Bangkok.  (No, I'm not in Thailand.  I'm doing this imaginary ride on the bike trails of Anchorage.  It looks like I'll make the 750 kms in plenty of time.  I can't tell people how wonderful it is to ride through the woods with creeks on one side several times a week.  I may have to do a short side trip after I'm done to keep me going until the snow falls.  

Anchorage Assembly Have Mid-Day Work Session on Homeless Issues

 I went to the Assembly Homeless Public Hearing today.  There were about 40 people in the audience and about 25% were wearing masks most of the time.  

Let me  highlight what I took away from the meeting.  These were the three issues that seemed to be problems that were raised for the Assembly to try to resolve or at least understand.

• Measurement - HMIS (Homeless Management Information System)  - They've come a long way since I took the Olé 8 week homeless class.  To plan for the future they have to count the homeless.  They have to be able to identify the different kinds of homeless - those who have lost a job or had overwhelming medical expenses;  those who are working but don't earn enough; those who are chronically homeless, perhaps addicted or mentally ill or badly physically disabled.  Several people mentioned a man with no hands who is homeless.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Then there is the issue of tracking these individuals.  This chart tells us that most of the agencies dealing with the homeless are now inputing information.  But COVID meant HUD required additional data and the work of inputting it all is becoming a problem and all that additional info is making the system harder to use.  But they also said that Anchorage has been cited as the location with the most complete data base tracking of homeless.  

These aren't problems unique to this data base.  Competing interests for which data to include, how to integrate the data, and usefulness to end users are always problematic.  And the more you add the slower it all gets and harder to use.  

Again, click to enlarge

• Obstacles Homeless People Face Getting Service 
• One speaker mentioned that people get to her agency with complaints of not being helped by other agencies.  An Assembly members asked why the others couldn't help.  The answer was:  Different agencies have different grants which often restrict who they can serve - maybe women with children, youth, long term homeless, disabled.  Or they are funded to provide a specific service.  
• The data base is supposed to help coordinate these kinds of problems, but, as I understood it, it's easier to find programs than to track individuals as they use services of different programs
• Problems Getting Appropriated Funding To Service Providers
• The Assembly has appropriated monies for different agencies, but the process of actually getting the money to them is slowed down by federal requirements.  The slide below was put up in part response to this question, but I don't see that it addresses the issue in detail

A number of agency heads or high level employees answered questions from the Assembly.  

David Rittenberg is the Brother Frances Shelter Program Director

Jasmine Boyle is the Executive Director of the Anchorage Homeless Coalition.  When I took the homeless class we heard her name often and she was scheduled to talk to the class several times, but there were always crises that came up and I never got to see her before today.  

Lisa  Sauder is the Executive Director of Bean's Cafe.

[Sorry, I was sitting on the left and got only profiles.]

There were slides that showed numbers of homeless in recent years in summer and winter.  There were predictions of the numbers of beds needed this winter.  Most of the slides about how many homeless at the meeting are at this url.

But I left sort of scratching my head.  What was the goal of this meeting?  Was it for the Assembly to get information?  Most of this they should already have.  Was it a public education meeting?  There wasn't much public there.  (Maybe it was televised, I didn't check.)  For me the three bullet points above seemed to be the things the Assembly members found most helpful - the measurement issues, the obstacles to getting service, and the hold up of the appropriated money getting to the service agencies.  

But the critical issues - what's going to happen when the federal funds to keep Sullivan Arena open as a homeless shelter end in August? - well I didn't see much progress toward answering that question.  

Little UN at Muldoon Farmers' Market In Anchorage

 Finally made it to the Muldoon Farmers' Market Saturday.  It's a little smaller and has fewer venders than when I was here last in 2019.  Maybe there will be more venders as the summer crops ripen.  

Still, I got to buy veggies from Cherry, who's from Myanmar.  

She spent something like ten or twelve years in refugee camps - first and longest, in Thailand.  And then in Malaysia.  She was in the refugee camp near Maesot, Thailand which I passed on the way to and from Umphang where one of my former students is the headmaster of the local school.  He tried to take us into that huge camp, which sprawls across a mountainside, but the officials he knew there were away that day.  Here's a picture I took from a post back in 2007.  They said 25,000 refugees from Myanmar were kept there.

This booth was set up by Vonnie whose company is Arts by Vonnie.  She has her own unique Alaska cards that she designs.  Vonnie's got cards with a number of different styles as well as stand alone prints.  The website reveals a lot of interesting pieces and also a woman who's involved in important social issues, like projects at Hiland Correctional Center and the Let Us Dream project - for which she did clever portraits of the various participants.  I recognized EJR David as soon as I opened that page.  

The vendor at this booth sold us some great kale and some baked goods.  She's from Somalia and ok'd a photo of the table, but not of herself.  

Another vendor was from Bhutan and I got a jar of rhubarb-raspberry jelly from an Alaska Native woman.  

Here are some  posts from 2018 and2019 that feature the market.  And yes, by September there are a lot more fresh vegetables for sale.  

There's also a great playground here for the kids.  

I Made It To Uttaradit Today On Anchorage's Campbell Creek Trail

 I mentioned in an earlier post that last summer I biked from Santiago, Chile to Conception - all while staying comfortably isolated on Anchorage bike trails.  About 700 kilometers.  This year I wanted to go a little further so I'm biking from Chiangmai to Bangkok.  

The first destination point was Lampang (120 km) which I got to a while ago.  Today I hit km 269 which gets me to the next stop, Uttaradit.  As I rode today, I was wondering if I have ever been to Uttaradit.  Probably the train went through it when I first arrived in Thailand in 1967 and the Peace Corps volunteers headed for the North all took the train to Chiangmai.  

But I knew that I must have been at least near Uttaradit in 2009 when I was a volunteer with the Northern Thai Farmers Association in Chiangmai and we went to a meeting in Petchabun for Thai farmers from all over Thailand.  

I found a couple of pictures of the trip on a post from then.  It was January and there were record low temperatures.  It even snowed on Doi Suthep.  

On the road somewhere between Lamphun and Uttaradit.

In Thailand, there are always great places to eat along the way.  

It was putsa season.  And a few days later, on the way back to Chiangmai we stopped at a tamarind farm.  Petchabun is said to have the world's best tamarind and I bought enough fresh tamarind to last our whole trip.  Until you've had fresh tamarind in Thailand, you haven't really tasted tamarind.

So these are the landscapes I've been imagining myself biking through for the last couple of weeks.  But actually, I've been on the beautiful bike trails of Anchorage enjoying the greening of the trees and grasses and shrubs and the various colors and gurglings of Campbell Creek and Taku Lake and Goose Lake.  

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal tweeted an article about making friends with a tree.  That it's good for your health.  I've known that a long time, but hearing the WSJ dip their toe into such touchy/feely water is a surprise.  [Of course, I say touchy/feely ironically.]  My bike rides last summer and this summer have been regular forest bathing experiences.  

And Anchorage temperatures are so much more conducive to biking that it would be now arriving in Uttaradit.  

Taku Lake this morning.  Everything's soooo green right now.

Red necked grebe amongst the water lilies at Goose Lake the other day.

Riding under the Seward Highway bridge today.  This really is better than drugs to energize me.

I've got 90 km to get to Sukhothai - an ancient capital of Thailand and directly north of where I lived in Kamphaengphet for two years in the late 60s.  Back then, there was no direct road and I remember riding on the back of a motorcycle through rice paddies.  

And then from Sukhothai to Kamphaengphet.  The bike tour I found online does this trip in ten days.  There's no way I could do that now.  My knees can't take that much biking in such a short time.  But I can spread the 750 or so kilometers more slowly over the summer in Anchorage. Another several weeks to Sukhothai.  I'll let you know when I get there.  

Video About China's Contribution To Saving Wetlands Along International Flyways Of Migratory Birds [Updated]

[UPDATE:  Here's a link to a great site about birding and other wildlife in Beijing and beyond:  https://birdingbeijing.com.]

When I taught a masters of public administration class in Beijing in 2004, I paid close attention to the birds I saw.  We had a fifth floor walk up apartment in the faculty housing on campus and so we had a treetop view from our apartment.  The most prominent bird at the time was an azure magpie.  

But I was surprised to learn that most of my students were unaware of the birds on campus.  They simply didn't see them on campus.  They were surprised that there were birds and that their American professor was interested in them.  

I searched bookstores for birding guides.  I identified birds by taking pictures and sending them to a birder friend in Anchorage who sent them to her birder friend in Japan who would identify the birds and then I could google them to confirm.  

Eventually a student took me to the biggest bookstore in Beijing - about five stories - and we found a birding book published by, I think, the World Wildlife Association.  I'd even look straight up and sometimes see flocks of birds way, way up high above Beijing.  

So when Emily retweeted this video, I was excited.  The Chinese government has stopped reclamation projects along the Yellow Sea where migratory birds stop on their migration path.  

This post is for my students in Beijing. Ben (Frank), I hope you'll pass the video along to your old classmates.  

There is a variety of people speaking here - from China, from Cornell University, from New Zealand, and from Anchorage.  

Thanks to all these folks for making this happen.  (This video is dated May 23, 2021)

Biking Chiang Mai To Bangkok This Summer In Anchorage

 Back around Fall 1981, the University of Alaska Anchorage swimming pool had a challenge - swim the Bering Sea over the semester.  In the pool.  50 miles.  I've never been as fit as I was that semester.  Each swim was not just a swim, but a leg across the Bering Sea.  That was a lot of incentive to get in the pool three or four times a week.  

So last summer I decided I should have a mental trip in mind for my biking.  I chose Santiago Chile to Concepción - a distance of about 650 kilometers, depending on which route you take.  So, as I rode last summer, I was in Anchorage, but also in Chile.  I looked at maps and pictures of the places I was passing.  Just like swimming the Bering Sea, riding from Santiago to Concepción was the inspiration I needed to get on the bike, even on days I was feeling lazy.  And once out, I never regretted it.  

So I've started already this summer and thought about going from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.  I wasn't exactly sure how far that was, but it seemed in the ballpark.  I looked on line to see if it was doable.  Not only is it doable, but there are a number of companies that will take you on the actual trip and so I picked Exo Travel because their trip was 745 km and the itinerary included a stop in Kamphaengphet - a town I lived in for two years teaching English.  I've also spent six months in Chiang Mai over two years and about a year in the Bangkok area.  

I've added up the miles from Exo Travel's itinerary and marked the distance from Chiang Mai for each daily destination.  The 165 km from Kamphaengphet to Nakhon Sawan would be way too much for me to do in one day.  I think about that trip on the main road back in the late 1960s.  It was a red dirt road.  Very dusty. Lots of rice paddies and some interesting hills jutting up oddly out of the earth.  Of course, it's paved now - they were working on that back when I was first there.  

So, as of today, I've ridden about 102km.  (That doesn't count three or four early, shorter rides on the old mountain bike before the ice was totally gone.)  

So let's look at today.  Before riding I swept the cottonwood catkins off the deck.  I have to do that twice a day right now.  

The catkins are VERY sticky.  If I don't sweep they stick to the deck, except for the ones that stick to my shoes.  Very messy period every year.  But they do smell very sweet.  

The tulips opened today.  At least two of them did.

There was a moose browsing by the trail as I went past the UAA student housing.  I'm always amazed at how such huge creatures can be so well hidden out in plain sight.  

Then up the trail toward Stuckagain Heights and Campbell Airstrip.  

Here's the north fork of Campbell Creek as it crosses under the Stuckagain Heights road.  

So given my bike rides so far since April including today, I've covered 102 kms, so I'm about 20 kms out of Lampang.  This is an old northern town that still has horse drawn carriages you can use to get around town.  There are no moose, but the elephant sanctuary is nearby.  

Here's are some links to posts I did at the elephant sanctuary in Lampang.

Elephants Part 1

Thai Elephant Conservation Center Hospital in Lampang and the Nursery (Part 2)

First Anchorage Election Totals Have Dunbar Ahead By 114 Votes Out of 72,036 -UPDATE 3

UPDATE 3:  Friday May 14, 2021 - The Bronson lead continues to grow.  With 6,043 new votes reported today, Bronson now leads Dunbar by 1,116 votes - 489 more votes than yesterday.  

So Bronson must have gotten 3266 new votes and Dunbar must have gotten 2777.  So that would be 54% for Bronson and 46% for Dunbar this round.  

I suspect later analysis will show that Bronson had much more enthusiastic supporters - they were angry about how COVID restrictions affected their businesses and their sense of liberty. And many of them believe or pretend to believe that the presidential election was stolen.  Dunbar's supporters were split among three candidates and were mostly motivated by fear of Bronson winning - a fear they apparently didn't feel too strongly.  

I would guess that national GOP supporters did a better job of targeting their voters via social media and other forms of communications than Dunbar was able to do.  But that's just speculation.  

UPDATE 2:  Thursday May 13, 2021 - The tallies are following the pattern of the original election.  Each new report increases Bronson's lead.   It's now 627.  Of course, I exaggerate a bit since there have only been a total of three reports.  But it's not looking good.  Add your own favorite profanity.[

[UPDATE 1:  Wednesday May 12, 2021 - new numbers today put Bronson ahead by 278 votes. 

  

There we're 3,986 new votes counted.  (Today (76,022) minus yesterday (72.036).  In this batch Bronson would have received 2189  and Dunbar 1797 - Bronson needed 114 to catch up with Dunbar and then another 278 to get 392 votes ahead today.  

That means out of 72,036 votes reported yesterday, Dunbar got 50.08% and Bronson 49.9%.

But out of 3,986 votes counted since yesterday, Bronson got 55% and Dunbar got 45%.  That's quite a difference.  I don't know which votes were counted today.

But in the general election, Dunbar led the first two or three results, then Bronson went ahead and his lead kept increasing.  That's not a good sign.  

How many votes are left?  Not sure.  if we speculate about the same as came in today (I'll round up to 4000 to make it easier to calculate), Dunbar would need to get 55% of the votes just to break even with Bronson.  

The odds aren't good.  The only positive I foresee if Bronson wins is that the Assembly will fight him all the way.  But there's still a lot of damage he can do. ] 

People said the vote would be close, but I believed that Anchorage had moved further along than this, than half the voters voting for a pandemic denier, a virulent pro-lifer who has been equally opposed to LGBTQ rights.  

These are the results as of 8:15pm.  There haven't been any updates since then, so  that's probably it for tonight.  I'm guessing these are all the mail in ballots that arrived by yesterday or this morning.  Maybe people who voted in person before today.  So people who voted today in person or by mail are probably not counted.

There are more votes to come in during the next week - mail in votes that were post marked by today. Maybe people who voted in person today.  I'd like to think that the anti-masker crowd got all its voters out and the progressive folks just couldn't believe it could be this close.  But that's probably wishful thinking.  

Unless the first mail-in votes depart radically from the trend so far, it looks like we aren't going to know who our next mayor is for at least ten more days.  And if it stays this close, there will be an automatic recount.  

For the visually impaired whose devices can't read the image, Dunbar is ahead by 114 votes:

Dunbar   36,075

Bronson  35,961

72,144/236,777 - These numbers are listed as "Times Cast" which has never been an obvious descriptor.  It also says 30.47%.  I understand this to mean the number of votes over the number of registered voters.  If that's correct, then 69% of Anchorage voters did not vote.  (Well, we probably have a few thousand more votes coming in.)  

But it also raises the question of the 108 difference between this number (72,144) and the number of votes listed if you add Dunbar and Bronson's votes.  Are those write-ins?  There's a line that says "Unresolved Write-ins = 0".  I'm guessing they mean they've resolved all the write ins.  

Anchorage, I'm ashamed it's this close.  Ashamed that so many people voted for Bronson, ashamed for all the people who didn't vote.  I had thought people had learned from Trump and Dunleavy, but I am obviously wrong.  

When Is A Crossroad Just A Copied Fork In The Road Dishonestly Promoted?

 With mail in voting, there really is no such thing as election day any more.  It's an election period with a deadline.  And so we're in that period in Anchorage in mayoral runoff.  If we had ranked choice voting, it would have all been over at the end of the original election.  

In any case, I got this flyer (among many others) the other day.

Cross roads, I thought.  When roads cross.  Like an intersection.  But this is really a fork in the road. One road becomes two.  No roads cross.  But, no matter.  Truth, accuracy, literacy all those things have been abandoned by about 30% of the public.  A crossroads - "a" before "crossroads" is a bit like a fingernail on a blackboard to me - is whatever Dave Bronson wants it to be.  

There was also a bit deja vu.  I'd seen this picture before.  And it took less than a minute to pull it up via google.  

This is John Kasich making the same point when he opposed Donald Trump.  Recycling old campaign ads is an old political habit.  

And then I read the ad from Bronson.  Sorry, the resolution is probably too low for people to read it. It's a quote ranting against Forrest Dunbar, Bronson's opponent signed by "Todd Peplow, President of Local 71."

That seemed odd.  Why would a public employee union be supporting a candidate who has promised to cut every department except police?  I even considered calling the union to ask.  But lots of things were already on my mental to do list.  

But then I saw a Tweet.

A clarification is made. The mailer from Bronson falsely claims Local 71 supports him.

As you do anything is how you do everything. Mr Bronson fails to be honest in his dealings.
https://t.co/DwRN5687Ks

— Christopher Constant (@akartisan) May 7, 2021

The link goes to a letter from Jordan A. Adams, Business Manager/Secretary-Treasurer, Local 71 the union.  In part, it says:

"Today, I find myself in the unfortunate position of informing you that your recent mailer quoting Todd Peplow constituted an unauthorized and invalid endorsement, which must be corrected. To be clear: Public Employees Local 71 has not endorsed your candidacy, and I must correct this misinformation publicly.

In utilizing his official title and purporting to speak for “hundreds of union members,” Mr. Peplow has violated our LIUNA Constitution, longstanding protocols for candidate discussions, accepted procedures, and the expressed direction of both our Executive Board and General Membership provided to him following extensive debate on 13 March 2021 and 17 April 2021."

It's a long letter that says they don't go out looking for candidates, but if candidates come to them, they will review their platforms and make decisions about donations and endorsements and that Bronson never came to them.  

One might give Bronson the benefit of the doubt here.  After all, the president of the union gave him the endorsement.  Shouldn't that be good enough?  This is a problem for the union, not the candidate. Part of me says, 'yeah, that's plausible.'

But, reading the letter again, I don't think so.  

"Unfortunately, the only arguments Mr. Peplow has brought to our membership to deny Mr. Dunbar support have been based on his personal non-union issues related to lifestyle and actions of Mr. Dunbar’s family.  Had he made enough of a case to support your candidacy, our membership would have taken action to do so a mere two weeks prior to Mr. Peplow acting on his own and disregarding our members direction that they approve all endorsements."

This sure sounds like Peplow did try to get the union to endorse Bronson and the union turned him down.  I'd be surprised if Bronson didn't know that was going on.  And then when Peplow failed to get the endorsement for Bronson, he just went rogue and said, "I'll just put my name on it.  What is anyone going to do about?"  

And, if something like that happened, he wouldn't be wrong.  There's really no serious penalties for violating the Alaska Public Offices Commission rules.  A $10,000 fine would be unusual, but it's like an ad buy for some candidates.  Part of the cost of the election.  

If Bronson is elected mayor of Anchorage, we're screwed.  We got Trump nationally.  We got Dunleavy for the state, and now there's Bronson hoping to be mayor.  His greatest claims to fame in the public arena are fighting gay rights, fighting women's right to choose what they do with their own bodies, and fighting efforts to minimize the impact of COVID-19.  

 

Short, But Very Noticeable Quake In Anchorage -UPDATE "Hey Southcentral, we're working on processing the earthquake at 9:54am. We'll have reviewed information soon."

 The Alaska Earthquake Center website is giving me this message:

Error 503 Backend fetch failed

Backend fetch failed

Guru Meditation:

XID: 90047248

---

Varnish cache server

Depending on how far away and deep the quake was, I'd guess anywhere from 4.0 - 5.3.  

Nothing fell or broke.  These things are common here, but this one was not one you could mistake for a truck passing by.  

[UPDATE 10:02 am:  This Tweet is the last thing up at the Earthquake Center's Twitter Account. It says there was an earthquake at 9:26 am.  The one I felt was much closer to 10am.

click on image to enlarge and focus

That was a 4.1 and it says felt in Anchorage.  I didn't feel that one at all.  So I'm thinking this latest one was definitely 5.0 or more. ]

[UPDATED 10:10 am:  Latest Tweet from Alaska Earthquake Center:

"Hey Southcentral, we're working on processing the earthquake at 9:54am. We'll have reviewed information soon."]

[UPDATED 10:13AM: Earthquake Center website working again and there's a small note:

• M4.9   at 09:54 AM, 8 mi N of Anchorage]
• 
  

 [Last UPDATE 10:30 am - Tweet From Earthquake Center xxxx

We have our reviewed location and magnitude for the event at 9:54am as a M4.8 aftershock of the 2018 Anchorage Earthquake. It was felt widely in Southcentral Alaska.
Yes, it can still be an aftershock more than two years later! https://t.co/kSIVuxngyd pic.twitter.com/VJffWsEkL3

— Alaska Earthquake Center (@AKearthquake) April 27, 2021

This is an image so the link won't work - go here