School Board: Listening, But Not Hearing the Public [UPDATE 1]

 The Anchorage School Board met last night and in the public hearing time, there were parents there from two schools - Campbell STEM and Hanshew Middle School. 

Campbell Stem parents were complaining one more time about how their school - the only nationally accredited STEM school in Alaska - is scheduled for closure next fall because of budget shortfalls.  But parents raised issues that the numbers weren't really accurate.  They didn't count the five or six preschool classes Campbell has.  And the loss of sixth graders was a problem the Board caused when they moved sixth graders to middle school.  Parents (and one board member) questioned why they had almost no notice about the closure.  It was only announced on Friday of a three day weekend and the meeting was Tuesday.  That is the technical three day notice, but looks more like trying to sneak it past the public.  And there was no time to pass it by the Community Council.  I'm not sure that the Superintendent, who is relatively young and fairly new to Anchorage even understands the importance of Community Councils.  They are in the Anchorage Charter and are intended to keep politicians from doing things behind the local community's back.  

The Hanshew parents were complaining about a school administration that they characterized as secretive, uncooperative, vindictive.  One student (and his mother) complained that the son was suspended as retribution against the mother speaking out against the administration.  Another said the principal thwarted the PTA's efforts to organize parents, raise money for the school, and to help the school in general.  

So we had one school that really likes the school and teachers and program and another that really does not like their school and administration.  Neither felt heard by this board.  

Many years ago, for a TV production class, I made a movie about the closing of the Grandview Gardens Library.  The first half is about how the administration gathered a bunch of numbers which clearly showed it made sense to close the library.  It was too close to Mt. View Library and a new library was opening on Muldoon and the Loussac was opening.  So Grandview clearly should be closed.  

The second half was interviews with the public who used the library and they told with lots of emotion what the library meant to them and how they gathered signatures for a petition and took it to the Assembly after 4th of July weekend and the Assembly agreed to keep it open.  

I used this film as a case study in my graduate public administration classes.  After the first half, I asked students if closing the library was a good decision.  Most students agreed it was.  But then I asked the students the same question at the end of the second half, and many of them changed their minds.  

But there was a sort of appendix in which the head librarian said that after the fact, it turned out that the new Muldoon library attendance numbers were good, Mt. View library numbers were good, and that Grandview Garden library numbers even increased.  So everyone was happy and the planners' predictions didn't pan out.  

I tell this story because I think this is what happened with the School Board.  They got bad news from the State - their budget would continue to get cut.  They tried to figure out how to manage the cuts, and closing three schools was their answer.  It would allow the continuation of some sports.  Two of the closed schools would be taken over by Charter Schools.  

I volunteer in one of the schools that will be taken over by a charter school - Lake Otis.  Lake Otis is a Title 1 school.  It's very diverse and most of the kids get free lunch and breakfast because they come from low income families.  I'm guessing the parents were not at the school board last night because the parents aren't as politically savvy, and because many of them could be targets of ICE if they showed up in protest.  And if ICE isn't paying attention that closely in Anchorage, it's still a reasonable fear.  

I also suspect that members of the School Board had private meetings with the Charter Schools that will take over Lake Otis and Fire Lake.  How else could they know that the parents of those charter schools would want to move to the closed schools?  Why didn't that happen in public.  It's been publicly stated that the Rilke Schule, the German immersion school, had previously been paying about $600,000 in rent for the building they used to be in.  These are NOT parents with serious financial problems.  And they are not diverse.  Who negotiated and why was that not public?  Or at least publicly disclosed after the fact?

There are a lot of unhappy parents.  Both Lake Otis and Campbell Stem had been named in bond packages recently.  Voters approved the bonds because they wanted the improvements to those schools (and others.)  But now the Board is going to divert those funds to other projects than what people voted for.  

I'm rushing this post, because I want to post it before the Anchorage election results tonight.  I believe that the Board has grossly not listened to the public, to its students and their parents.  They've made decisions based on purely 'rational' number crunching (and probably on some side dealing with the two charter schools) and ignored the heart and spirit of the community.  

And I suspect that Bond proposal #! - for school bonds - is going to fail, in part because of the behavior of the Board in closing these schools.  There's a second bond for funding teachers.  It's a one time payment.  Will that go down too?  I don't know.  

School Board - Carl Jacobs in particular.  If the bonds fail, it's on you.  You shoved these closures through.  Your numbers - many of which the public has heard about in general, but not specifically, seem packaged to get what you decided was best for the public. And, I understand, how you could reason yourselves into this.  But a bizarre side effect of our seriously disturbed president's war on Iran, is that Alaska's income this year is going to go up, because of the increase in the price of oil.  And there will probably be money to keep Lake Otis and Campbell Stem and Fire Lake going for one more year.  And after that we will have a new governor.  

And there are sources of money other than the State that School Board members could have pursued.  We didn't hear about those efforts.  Extraordinary times call for extraordinary imagination and effort, not tired number crunching.  

OK,  I'm done before the first of tonight's  election numbers are in.  

UPDATE 8:40pm - I was wrong.  The first vote count was already in when I posted this.  With 17% of the vote counted and posted at 8:12, the school bonds were both losing.  It's close.  

Bond Prop 1 is yes 49.17% to no 49.49% (yes - 20,708; no 20,831).  

Bond Prop 9 is yes 48.94% to no 49.84% (yes - 20,600; no 20,978)

All the other bonds are passing, with only one - the special police area Bond - even close.  49.79% yes and 47.76% no. 

I'd note that 17% of thte vote, this early in the evening, is a pretty high turnout.  We've had many Municipal elections where the turnout wasn't much higher.  But turnout has been up significantly since the Municipality went to (mostly) mail in elections.  Last year (2025) the final turnout was only 25%.  Mostly because the regular polling places are not open, just a few places, lie City Hall, Loussac Library, and one in Eagle River.  There are drop boxes throughout the Municipality.  And I suspect the early reporting is due to early voting.  

I'd also note that that most of the more liberal candidates are leading, so the school bonds, in normal times, should be ahead.  One exception is in my district.  At this point relatively conservative Dave Donley is slightly ahead of more liberal  Janice Park (47.03% to 45.72% - 3,196 votes to 3,017 votes).  Donley has signs up all over while I have yet to see a sign for Park.  And Donley was one of two School Board members (he's termed out  this year) who voted against the school closures.  

But that doesn't mean these early numbers will hold.  We'll see.  

Government At Work (No Irony Here)

Break up has arrived in Anchorage.  It waited until almost April this year, but finally, the messy harbinger of warmer weather, of white replaced by green, is with us. 

Below is a picture of the small lake at the end of my street.  (The Municipality had already sent in plows to scrape the ice off the roads in our subdivision.  They even (for the first time) posted No Parking signs every hundred feet or so in the ice berms the day before.  

So the streets were in good shape on April 1.  It was just at the last 100 feet  to the main road where things were bad.  I had to walk through this obstacle course on my way to and from my volunteer gig at my local elementary school. 

 

Looking from the other side of the lake and ice field.

On Tuesday, March 31, when I got back home,  I called the Street Maintenance Department and explained the problem.

On Thursday, April 2, when I was walking to school, there was a big truck with hoses at the corner, and on my way home, the water was mostly gone, but not the ice.

But by later in the day, the ice was gone too and the sewer drain had been cleared so newly melting snow had a place to go.  If you look closely at the photo below you can see the drain on the left just below the middle - the black rectangle.  

This is a kind of responsiveness we haven't seen in Anchorage for a while.  

People tend to notice government when it doesn't work.  When it's working fine, we take it for granted and don't notice the mostly invisible work being done to keep things running smoothly.  

So I just want to thank Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's administration for being responsive and clearing the streets.  

I'd also note that during the winter, the sidewalk snow plows along Lake Otis - at least between Tudor and Northern Lights - were out early after every snow storm and making a walkable space for pedestrians.  

No Kings Anchorage

 There's still nearly a foot of snow on the ground.  Fortunately, the temperature warmed up during the day into the 20s so if you were standing in the sunshine, it was not too bad.  

This is a bit late because I was having trouble loading photos - you'd think after all these years that wouldn't happen.  

When I got there I moved up onto the hill on the south side of the Town Square.  There was about a foot of snow, some of it reasonably packed, but some steps had me sinking down into the snow.  The view from here was not conducive to a good view of everyone.  

So after a while I moved over to the steps at the Performing Arts Center.  (You can see people there on the far left about in the middle.  The view from there, while still not perfect was much better as you can see below.  

How many people were there?  Not an easy job to calculate from the ground.  There were clearly a lot more people than had been at a previous protest demonstration at the Town Square that had about 2,500 people.  I tried counting a cluster of 50 and then trying to see how many clusters there were.  It really was hard to do that accurately, so I'll leave a broad ranged guess of 3000-5000 folks.  

This Weekish In Anchorage

Friday/Saturday/Sunday January 31/February 1   7-10 pm Anchorage Folk Festival.  FREE. Just go to 

 The Festival website and download the program.  There are also concerts around town - mostly free - as well as workshops during the weekends.  Lots of good cheer and good music.  Locals and imports.  

Sunday, February 1, 2026. Loussac Library, 4th Floor  3pm-5pm- Sunday Solidarity -  Group meets to

 write letters to Alaska’s US Senators and Representative, post cards to voters, and many other activities to resist the slide into Fascism.  Chance to meet others with concerns and learn what others are doing.  See this recent post for more information.

Monday, Feb 2 - Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis ~ Presented by the ACLU   Bear Tooth Theater 6pm  

Or get comfortable with a good book.  (At my book club meeting Monday, they started talking about The Art Thief.  I got confused.  What were they talking about?  “Did we all read the same book?”  I asked?  Turns out they were reading The Art Thief by Michael Finkle.  I had read Hitler’s Art Thief  by Susan Ronald.   And someone else had read another book called The Art Thief.)

Sunday Solidarity Group Growing

Every Sunday people concerned about the survival of US democracy show up at Loussac Library - 4th floor.  I'm not sure quite how to describe the event.  It's a gathering place to connect with like minded people.

Looking through the photos on my phone, it appears the first time I came was December 21.  At that time there were about 15 or 20 people attending.  The numbers seem to be climbing each week.  There were over 40 people there tonight.  

It's a place to find folks to help with your pet political project.  A place to just see that there are others who are concerned enough about the attacks on democracy to show up Sunday afternoon.  A place to find projects that fit your schedule and comfort level.

Sometimes there's a speaker.  Always there are POMs (Public Official Messages) on which to write your thoughts to your members of Congress.  Someone then takes them to Rep. Begich's and Senators Murkowski's and Sullivan's offices.  They've delivered about 700 POMs so far since November. 

There's also information about other groups working toward the same goals.  They also pay attention to people's mental health.  A couple of weeks ago, there were two therapists who work with people who have experienced political trauma.  

Several tables were for writing postcards.  At this table people were writing cards to US Senators who someone decided might be persuaded to vote against funding ICE further with first reining them in.

I wrote one to someone in California whose district had been redrawn in response to Texas gerrymandering to gain five GOP seats, telling the voter that his district had changed and when the primaries and general election were.  

There was a table for making sandwiches for the homeless.  People had brought in sandwich fixings and people were going to take them to a group that gathers food like this from all over Anchorage.   

More post card writing.  This one was for Mazon, and people were sending post cards to the Secretary of Agriculture regarding foreign aid that feeds the poor, particularly children.  

Before the Sunday Solidarity group meets, a book club meets from 2pm-3pm.  They are currently reading a book called Capitol Crude:The Impact of Oil on Alaska Politicsby Lisa A. Weissler.  Weissler was a legislative staffer for many years and this is an account of the building of the pipeline, the influence of oil money on the legislature, the

history of the unsuccessful attempts to build a natural gas pipeline.  We read a few chapters a week.  

It's particularly interesting because I know the names of so many of the people involved, and I know many of them personally.  Next week we'll read about the political-corruption trials which I blogged starting in 2007.  

What's Going To Happen To Totem Theaters?

On my bike ride back from the Muldoon Saturday Market at  Chanshtnu Park, I rode through the parking lot of the Totem Theater.  I've passed by several times this summer and noticed that while things look dead, once in a while I see someone go in.  And two weeks ago they said they were showing Freaky Friday on the marquee.  

And today again I saw someone going in..  So biked over to the entrance and the man came out.  I asked what was
happening and he said he didn't really know.  But Totem was pretty much closed down.  I asked about the possibilities I've thought about as I've come by here over the summer.  The individual theaters could be used for church services, for musical events, theater, speakers, weddings, all sorts of things.  Even showing movies.  

He said it was a Regal theater - like the Dimond Mall theaters and Tikahtnu.  That the company is owned by a corporation in England.  

When I got home I looked it up.  Wikipedia has a long piece on them.  

"Regal Cineworld Group (trading as Cineworld) is a British cinema chain and operator. Headquartered in London, England, it is the world's second-largest cinema chain (after AMC Theatres), with 9,139 screens across 747 sites[3] in 10 countries:[4] Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and the United States.[5][6] The group's primary brands are Cineworld Cinemas and Picturehouse in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Cinema City in Eastern and Central Europe, Planet in Israel, and Regal Cinemas in the United States."

There's a long history including being bought by Blackstone private equity company and then later being sold, buying Regal, COVID, bankruptcy, not necessarily in that order.  

Regal, by the way, is headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee.

"By 2001, Regal was overextended, and went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It became the namesake for the theater chain in which it would be merged into with the Edwards and United Artists chains.[10][11]

When all three chains went into bankruptcy, investor Philip Anschutz bought substantial investments in all three companies, becoming majority owner.[18] In 2002, Anschutz consolidated his three theatre holdings under a new parent company, Regal Entertainment Group.[19] Regal's Mike Campbell and UA's Kurt Hall were named co-CEOs, with Campbell overseeing the theatre operations from Regal Cinemas' headquarters in Knoxville, and Kurt Hall heading up a new subsidiary, Regal CineMedia, from the UA offices in Centennial, Colorado. The Edwards corporate offices were closed."  (from Wikipedia)

The movie theater business has had tough times since Blockbuster came on the scene.  Then streaming video added to the problem and bigger and bigger home screens, and of course, COVID.  

But what happens to a community like Anchorage when big pieces of real estate are owned by far away - Knoxville and London - corporations?  What say do we have?  Who do we talk to and why would they even care?  It doesn't seem to be for sale, yet.  The building and the parking lot are pretty big.  But at the moment we're losing population.  Who locally would buy it?  A developer?

The man I talked to said that the Totem theater was his first job when he was 16 years old.  He stayed with the company until he was 19, when they first got bought out.  That there were a lot of changes all at once so he decided to leave and try something else.  

One day, he said, the general manager, who was also his good friend, called and jokingly asked if he wanted to work at the Totem again, and the he surprised his general manager friend by saying yes.  That was when he was 21. 

He said he is 26 now and that he literally 'grew up here" in the building and that he's sad to see it go.  

"I'll always appreciated the buiding and what it stood for."

Talking to him I was convinced - vibes as much as words - that he's a serious worker, takes the job to heart, and if I had a position, I'd hire him in a minute.  

Then I went over to get a picture of the marquee and I see that across the street from the Totem,  the Wayland Baptist University, has a For Sale sign up.  If you want to buy it, the number is 907 762 5801.

An Alaska Business magazine article begins:

"Texas-based Wayland Baptist University (WBU) is emptying its Alaska classrooms and transitioning to online instruction only. The school’s campus in Anchorage will be sold, its leased location in Wasilla vacated, and classrooms at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Fort Wainwright, and Eielson Air Force Base returned to military service."

How many low cost housing units could be built on the Totem's big parking lot?  How many empty buildings like WBU do we have now?  I say we should look at these as opportunities to reimagine how they can be used and not just let them rot.  

[I had almost finished this last night, but left it for today.  I noticed that the Anchorage Daily News mentions the closure of the Totem in its story today on businesses that have recently opened and closed.]

 

Anchorage Stands With Ukraine As Trump and Putin Seem To Be Heading Here

I say seem because so many people think that one or the other or both will pull out at the last minute.  But the first protest (that I know of) was this afternoon.  Lots of peoples, lots of rumors, lots of questions, lots of noise, lots of cars and trucks honking with the protestors, cars with Ukrainian flags. 

You'd think that Putin and Trump meeting in Alaska to discuss a cease fire in Ukraine would be at the top of the news, but Trump leaves so much debris in his wake, that there are a dozen stories competing.  And so none get the attention and outrage they deserve.  

• Texas redistricting and California's response.  
• Federal troops taking over Washington DC.  
• Masked and armed thugs claiming to be ICE continuing to sweep up dark people without regard to their legal status, including US citizens, and shipping them off to distant detention centers, and possibly off to countries which apparently are getting payoffs to take them from Trump, 
• The massive wealth vacuum in the White House, cementing the Rose Garden and making the East Wing of the White House into a glitzy ballroom
• Shaking down universities and other institutions that pursue truth
• Firing the head of the BLS because he doesn't like her employment data
• Leaning on institutions to erase all history of people who aren't white

I could go on, but you get the point.  But much of what Trump does these days is terrible by itself, and a distraction from releasing the Epstein files.  Is that what this trip to Alaska is?  

It was supposed to go from 4:30-6;00 on one of the busiest corners in rush hour Anchorage - Northern Lights and Seward Highway.  I got there about 5:20 after picking up our weekly CSA vegetables at Grow North Farm in Mountain View.  

I couldn't tell you how many people were there altogether - 500?  1000? 1500?  Couldn't say.  Lots.  Planning really started at a meeting on Monday!

There were lots of rumors flying and I'm going to check out one right after I post this.  That rumor was that the Russian delegation asked for 400 visas and then for rooms.  They finally got put up at the University of Alaska Anchorage dorms.  I'll go over there shortly and see if I see any Russians.  

Rooms are scarce.  It's high tourist season.  So pictures for now and I'll fill in when I get back from the UAA dorms.  

[UPDATE: 11:10pm - Back from campus. The rumors are true.  See the next post for more details and pictures.]

This is an Estonian journalist.  Estonians have a strong interest in what happens in Ukraine.  They have lots of Russians and are a very small country that borders Russia.  

And below a Polish journalist asked my friend John some questions.  

Her 

I understand that this flag was sewn here in Anchorage this week.  It has a lot of smaller pieces sewn together sort of like a quilt.  

This guy was still there well after six when most folks had gone home already.  

This is Erin Jackson-Hill who heads Stand Up Alaska and was the driving force at the center of this rally.

 

Going To The Dogs In A Good Way

The Anchorage Museum has a dog exhibit this summer.  I thought about the dog pictures people put up on social media platforms and skipped it.  I was more interested in the famous artists: 

"historical images, contemporary art, and major artworks on loan from the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Bridges Foundation, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Stanley Museum of Art. 

Artists included in this exhibition include: Rebecca Lyon, Daniel Martinez, Ken Lisbourne, Jessica Winters, Adolph Gottlieb, Grace Hartigan, Theodore Roszak, Kurt Riemann, Conrad Marca-Relli, Trevor Paglen, Peter Ermey, Amy Burrell, Annie Murdock, Mark Rothko, Vera Mulyani, Franz Kline, Charles Stankievech, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Ben Huff, and Dan Deroux."  

I was particularly looking to see the Mark Rothko paintings.  Okay, it takes a certain kind of person to be excited about Rothko's art.  And standing before one is a very different experience than looking a pictures of them.  Unfortunately, there was only one piece of his - not a particularly exciting one - and all these artists' paintings were somehow used to illustrate an installation on 

"COLD WAR TO THE COSMOS: DISTANT EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS AND THE ARCTIC"

The best part as I cursorily walked through it were the parts related to Peter Dunlap-Shohl's Nuking Alaska.  I had been expecting a great art exhibit, but the paintings were used to illustrate the Cold War.  I probably should go back. (Generally I like the juxtaposition of unexpected things, but I was looking forward to the Rothkos and was disappointed there was only one.)

But this recent visit was to see what they did with dogs.  And they did very well.  A thoughtful exhibit.  

There were plenty of sled dogs.  But they were given a bit more context than they usually get.  

The scrimshaw, and this James Albert Frost's The Sleigh Team on the right.                                       "The Sleigh Team is one of a series of illustrations by George Albert Frost for Tent Life in Siberia, a travelogue of George Kennan chronicling their 1885 travels across Kamchatka.  Keenan's writing identifies the attributes of the Siberian Husky (enduring, disciplined, and observant), indigenous sled technologies such as the oersted - a 4-foot wooden stick with an iron spike - used to slow the dog team and his own knowledge about the difficulty of mushing:  "The art of driving a dog-team is one of the most deceptive in the world. . . [one is] generally convinced by hard experience that a dog-driver, like a poet, is born, not made."

And we have more modern images.  From Alaska Natives themselves.  

Rosie Charlie, Basket c1972

Pootoogook, Composition
(Woman with Dogsled) 1991

 

But there are lots, maybe more, depictions of dogs from a whole array of artists.  A few examples:

This is a quilt by Chichi and Giannone called Coleccionistas de trapos [Rag collectors] 2022.   "Argentine artistic duo Leo Chichi and Daniel Gannon portray themselves in an everyday moment with their children/pet dogs.  Created from collected and salvaged textiles, the artists use their materials to transform and re-inscribe stories that celebrate "Cuevas configurations familiars, en este case una familia lgtbq multi specie, rodeados de un mundo de telas que representa los recuerdos, tiempos y memorias de quienes han pertenecido pestos trapos."/"new familial configurations, in this case, a multi-species LGTBQ family, surrounded by a world of textiles that represents the memories and times of those who formerly owned these 'rags.'"                     

Gordon Parks, Woman and Dog in
Window, Harlem, New York 1943

And this dreamy picture is by Shona McAndrew  "Oh, To Be Loved"  2023

Sesse Elangwe, A Different Kind of Love, 2022

"Texas-based Cameroonian artist Sesse Elangwe frequently paints his subjects with bold colors and patterns to celebrate their individuality and confidence.  Reflecting on this work, which also features three pet dogs, Elangwe shares, 'We look so different but so alike;  you're my soul's true counterpart.'"

There is a lot more to see in the museum.  A good reason to get an annual membership that allows you to go as often as you want so you can look at one small part on each visit.  Or you can go free on the first Fridays of the month.    

And I want to call people's attention to the exhibit in the atrium - photos, large photos, by Roman Dial of the trips he's taken, often cross country for miles and miles, through Alaska's wild lands with friends and family.  Here's one picture I found amazing - both the picture itself and how it is presented.  

I didn't catch the title, but there's a packraft at the bottom and then folks way up on top of the ice.  And it's displayed right on the wall, over a door with the handle right there.  

 Again, I encourage folks to go.  Get distracted, get your brain stimulated, or your heart.  

SUMMER HOURS (May - September)
10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Monday - Sunday
*Extended hours through 9 p.m. on First Fridays with free admission after 6 p.m.

MUSEUM Admission & Tickets

$25 Adult (18-64)
$20 Alaska resident (18-64)
$18 Ages 13-17, senior (ages 65+), military, and students 
$12 Ages 6-12*
FREE Children age 5 and younger, museum members, and enrolled members of federally recognized tribes.

*Children age 12 and younger must be accompanied by an adult age 18 or older. 

There are a number of times when there are free or discounted tickets which you can see here.

Or find a friend with a membership who can take you as a guest.  Or get your own membership.