Anchorage Assembly Liberates Bikers

Anchorage friend DZ sent me this link to a KTUU story.  I'd seen it at Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage blog (which is on my AK blog list at the right) and knew it was big, but being Juneau, other things distracted me.  I do miss my bike and I know good bike paths are part of the answer to our dependence on foreign oil.  As I've said before, biking to work isn't for everyone, but many people could bike in the summer only, or three days a week only, or even one day a month.  The cumulative effect would make a big difference in energy consumption, physical fitness, health care costs, traffic, parking ease, mental health, and even people in the community talking to each other as they get out of cars and into closer contact with their fellow citizens. 

The Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage posts begins:

 While it turned out to again be a long night, those that stuck it out were greeted with a great cap to the evening. The Assembly first voted 10 to 1, rejecting an amendment to withdraw the proposed route that would parallel the railway from Westchester lagoon to south Anchorage. It is a great uninterrupted route and we were happy to see it stay in the plan. While it will no doubt require a lot of work to make it a reality, BCA is certainly up to the challenge and hopes that the Railroad and the City can find a solution. Rails along trails can be tricky but there are many successful examples from across the country.
Then to top the night off, the Assembly showed 100% support for the Bike Plan. We extend our thanks to the Assembly for their patience. There were a lot of bicyclists who came out to let the Assembly know how important this is to the bicycling community. BCA is excited that the Plan has the Assembly’s full support. And, assuming AMATS approves the plan, that we can all move forward with its implementation.  It no doubt will make Anchorage safer and more convenient for bicyclists, but it will also make Anchorage a more livable city for everyone.

All good stories need a villain and the KTUU story inserts one whose imagination is constrained by money.  If you don't believe in something, you package it as $100 million, but if you believe in something, it's $5 million a year for 20 years.  If you don't believe in something, it's too much money.  If you believe in something, you find ways to raise the funds.  After all, the mayor does support the Knik Arm Bridge which is waaaay more money.  Maybe if the bridge were just for bikes and pedestrians we could bring the cost down. 

Assembly unanimously OKs 20-year bike plan

Mayor Dan Sullivan says the plan would be great in an "ideal" world, but it's just too expensive. (Joshua Borough/KTUU-DT)

by Jason Lamb
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Cyclists have something to look forward to after the Anchorage Assembly approved the 20-year Anchorage bike plan at the Tuesday night Assembly meeting.
Supporters say it will cut bike and vehicle crashes while adding new bike paths and bike lanes in Anchorage.
The plan, which passed unanimously, will create more bike trails, add bike lanes and create connections between existing trails.
The cost for the plan's proposals adds up to more than $100 million dollars. Mayor Dan Sullivan says that's too much.
Despite unanimous approval, some Assembly members wanted to make sure that cyclists wouldn't be left with unplowed bike lanes come winter.
"There's the expectation that these lanes are going to be there and they're going to be striped. But we need a strategy for prioritizing in the winter time, which ones we're going to clear first and some sort of coordination so people won't have expectations that those lanes will be there if they're not going to be cleared," said Assembly member Sheila Selkregg.

Thanks DZ  

To Think That I Saw it on Seward Street

Every day, I keep thinking about Dr. Seuss as I walk around the Capitol.  But I hadn't read this book for over 50 years. 

When I got it from the library, it was a little different from my experience.  The boy in the book doesn't see anything more exciting than a horse drawn cart. 



So in his imagination, and in his eagerness to have a great story to tell when he gets home, that cart gets embellished a bit. 

And a bit more

 But I go to the Capitol every day and I see things that need no embellishment.   I just need to describe them in words and pictures and video. 

 A few examples:

It turns out that I share my office (the staff/public lounge) with a lot of interesting people including former legendary legislator and now lobbyist Al Adams.  We first talked when he was talking at a nearby table where I was writing on my laptop.  I had to go to a hearing and so packed up and as I got up to leave, he apologized for making too much noise.  I assured him that it wasn't a problem and introduced myself, the blogger.  He looked at me funny and said something about forests and that he isn't doing anything now with logging. 

And here's another legend, Fairbanks native, Anchorage Daily News writer and former editor Michael Carey, on the Capitol steps.  He said he's been coming down during the legislative session for 40 years.  It was great to chat with him about what this all means. 

This chain saw version of former legislator Bettye Fahrenkamp showed up outside the House chambers.  There's a Capitol Mini Golf Championship scheduled in the this week.  Apparently $75,000 was raised at this event in 2002, but it's hard to find much on this event, though Rep. Paul Seaton mentions it in his newsletter in 2008.

And today there were optometrists on the 2nd floor giving eye tests to legislators and staffers.  I talked briefly to Jill Matheson, chair of the Alaska Board of Examiners in Optometry who explained what they were doing. 



You can see HB 245 here.   It looks like this bill has passed on the House Floor and so will replace the Senate version of this.   Passage of this bill is among the BOARD OF EXAMINERS IN OPTOMETRY  GOALS AND OBJECTIVES FOR 2010:

1. Continue regular review of optometry statutes and regulations. This review is necessary to be sure that the laws are adequately protecting the public and properly regulating the modern practice of optometry. Possible examples
1. Consider "standard of care" issues.
2. a. Licensure by endorsement should be restricted to those coming in at the
3. Review the approval of alternate and electronic forms of continuing education such as webinars and virtual grand rounds
4. 12 AAC 48.210(a)(1) and (a)(2) could be improved by removing "contact" and just stating 36 hours continuing education.
2. Develop a list of recommended changes to legislative statutes for the audit committee to take note of. Possible examples:
1. Licensure by endorsement should be restricted to those coming in at the highest level of license. HB245/SB193 was introduced to accomplish this
2. All new licenses should be at the highest level. HB245/SB193 was introduced to accomplish this.
3. All current Alaska licenses to be at the highest level of licensure by 2012. HB 245/SB193 was introduced to accomplish this.
4. Refusal of license: authority for the board to refuse to grant a new license for certain reasons and/or to impose certain stipulations. Include in the division's Omnibus statutes for standardizing licensing, if possible.
3. Make active Alaska licensed optometrists aware of recent amendments to regulation.
4. Continue to meet twice per year.
5. Send a board member to ARBO.
6. Keep informed of and support legislation on the state and federal level concerning patient protection and access to care.
7. Continue to support provider non-discrimination language in state and federal legislation.

Grey, Blue, Flag Song, Racism, Custody, Nurse Overtime, Raven

Yesterday the sky was solid grey.  There were no clouds, there was just one grey mass.  Wet micro-drops flowed downward all day.  

But this morning looking up at the same view, the sky was bright blue.  But turn around and look toward town and the water and the grey had descended to street level. 

There was only one item in State Affairs this morning - approval of the second verse of the Alaska State Song.  The last time this came to the legislature, it made it through the House, but not the Senate.  This time, we were told by Sen. Menard's staffer Mike Rovito, it had made it through the Senate and is now going through the House.

This group of women - native and non-native - were there to support the bill.  Who would have thought that the issue of racism would come up in this hearing?  I need to go over my notes and video and the audio [It's not up.  I'll have to check what happened to it.]  before I write about this.  It was an interesting history lesson I'll try to share in a later post. 

In the end, because there was only half and hour and there were people there to speak, only the public testimony got heard and the fate of the bill was put off until next Tuesday.  Other posts mentioning the second verse of the flag song.

I sat in on the House floor today.    House Floor Session (ARCHIVED AUDIO)

 HB50  to Limit Overtime for Registered Nurses passed on the floor with only four no votes.  And HB334 on Military Deployment & Child Custody passed without a no vote.  Now they have to pass the Senate.  I know there is a Senate version of HB 334. 

I'd agreed to take someone to the airport today and pick them up Sunday.  In exchange I have a car for the weekend.  On the way home I stopped at Fred Meyer where I'd been told I could get some pictures developed.  I'd never been in the Juneau Fred Meyer.

It's huge!  An employee told me it was a quarter mile from one end to the other.  You can see a box of light at the far end of the aisle that is the exit.  The  photos were .19 each. 

It's hard to get pictures of ravens.  They will sit there as people walk by.  Even if you stop but look the other way.  But if you look at them, let alone pull out a camera, they're gone.  So I got the camera ready, then spun around and took the shot just before it flew off. 

I'll try to give a bit more detail on some of this later.

Legislative Stats Update: House 420:40 Senate 308:26 Both 728:66

	HOUSE		SENATE		TOTALS
	INTRO	PASSED BOTH	INTRO	PASSED BOTH	INTRO	PASSED BOTH
Bills	420	40	308	26	728	66
Joint Res.	53	16	29	6	82	22
Concurrent Res.	22	6	16	5	38	11
Resolutions	15	10	10	6	25	16
Special Con. Res.	0	0	0	0	0	0

[These numbers come from BASIS bills statistics, Wednesday afternoon, March 24.]

So we still have an 11 to 1 ratio between bills introduced and bills that have passed both houses.

Let's compare with two weeks ago:
March 24: House 420:40  Senate 308:26  Both 728:66
March   8: House 412:38  Senate 302:26  Both 714:64


You can click on the committee links to see which bills they have to hear.  
[These numbers come from BASIS-Bills-Bills in Committee]

Finance - has 80 House Bills to deal with (plus 17 more resolutions and Senate bills)
[On 3/9 they had 72 bills]
Resources -39 [3/8 - 38]
Health and Social Services - 34 [41]
Labor and Commerce - 33 [35]
State Affairs -32 [37]
Rules - 25 (plus 15 more resolutions and senate bills) [21] (Note: Rules is the last stop before going to the House Floor)
Judiciary - 21 [28]
Transportation -18 [25]
Education - 16 (also not counting Senate Bills) [20]
Community and Regional Affairs 14 [19]

Energy -13 [15]
Fisheries -11 [15]
Military & Veterans' Affairs -1 [1]
Econ. Development, Trade & Tourism - [1]



I've learned that it usually helps to check things out before jumping to conclusions.  So while I often conjecture, I try to leave the conclusions open ended.  I did talk to the House State Affairs staff and the chair briefly to see why they have 27 bills, but Thursday they are only going to start at 9:30am (instead of the regular 8am) and they will only hear one bill, Sen. Menard's SB 43 to add a second verse to the Alaska State Song.

The answer was interesting.   Two common reasons bills are never heard - at least in State Affairs - are

1. The sponsor hasn't asked that they be heard.  They may have 27 House bills, but for most of them, the sponsors haven't requested that they be heard.  Chair Rep. Lynn says he won't hear a bill unless the sponsor requests it.  
2. There may be several bills on the same topic.  For example, there were three House bills on campaign expenditures in response to the US Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, and one from the Senate.  The bill that passes in its body's chamber first is the one that goes on through the other house. So, if the Senate version of a bill passes the Senate before the House version passes the House, the House bill gets dropped and the Senate version is the one that goes on.  And the Senate bill's sponsor gets credit if it becomes law. 

That got into a long discussion of why people introduce bills, a discussion that I'll save for later.  But the point here is that State Affairs is pretty much up to date. The key point though, in some cases there are good reasons why a committee may have a lot of unheard bills, or that a lot more bills are filed than are passed.

That's not to say that sometimes Chairs simply sit on bills they don't like to kill them and other such things. But there are also valid reasons.

SB 220 Alaska Sustainable Energy Act Lunch Overview

Senate Resources Committee Co-chairs Senators Bill Wielechowski and Lesil McGuire hosted a pizza lunch as their staffers Michele Sydeman and Mike Pawlowski discussed SB 220 and what they learned during a summer trip around the state - alternative energy projects that worked, state programs people liked, and what's in the current bill.
[This was last week, but it took a while to get the video done.]




The report was quite detailed and I looked in vain for the power point online where they suggested to look.  But here's a link to all the documents up with the bill on BASIS.

I was impressed by the quality of the presentation - it gave a clear overview of the bill and various projects around the state, plus it gave a fair amount of detail.






The first video offers some snippets from the presentation, enough to give you a sense of it.




Given the fast pace of the legislature, where no one seems to be able to put more than a few minutes together before they are interrupted, I was curious how this report and the bill had gotten the quiet time necessary to put something like this together. So, when I saw Sen. Bill Wielechowski in the hallway after the presentation I asked him.




I'd also note that one of the peculiarities of the bi-partisan majority in the Senate is the amount of cooperation between the Republicans and Democrats, as with these two co-chairs, a Democrat (Wielechowski) and a Republican (McGuire).

Decoupling the Capitol

I'm told this event is a regular part of the Legislative Session.  It's the night the staff offer skits and spoofs of their bosses.  I was told all proceeds this year go to the Southeast Alaska Food Bank, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and AWARE.  This is Saturday night at Centennial Hall. 

In the spirit of the evening, I'm asking readers to use the comments to:

1.  Explain the title to those who aren't keeping up with Alaska politics
2.  Name the people in the pictures and what the images mean, if anything. Use the letters in the bottom picture. 

The top picture is pretty big so you can double click it to see the faces better. Who can get the most right?

I'm hoping to learn something myself from the answers.  And even if you want to be be Anonymous, please, at least, leave some sort of id in the comment.

Here are some help links - State Senate  and State House of Representatives.

Free Riders, Healthy People, Mandatory Health Care, and NO Option

I listened to way too much of the Congressional debate over the health care bill on Saturday and Sunday.  I heard a lot of anger against mandatory health insurance.  And C-Span had callers giving their perspectives too.  Several young men called to say they didn't want to be forced to buy health insurance.  They took care of themselves and didn't need health insurance.  None of the commentators asked these callers if something should happen to them - say, they get severely injured in a car wreck - whether they would forgo medical treatment.  I suspect they would end up in the emergency room just like insured folks.

In economics, such people are called free riders because they enjoy the benefits of group action without paying for it.





So to help these young men and those who think like them, I propose they be given an option.  Americans  should be able to choose whether they buy insurance or not.  If they don't buy insurance, they will get a free tattoo "NO" on their  foreheads so that health care providers know that they do not want health care.  They will be provided a free, no-frills burial.    



While the Democrats have never considered such an option, many in our present system have received the equivalent.  They were denied medical treatment because they could not get insurance. 


[original photo from Sophistic, Miltonian, Serbonian blog, though most likely it comes from somewhere else.]

Strictly Business - Daniel Hernandez's Film Showing

Daniel invited me to last Friday night's showing of his film "Strictly Business:  The Prologue."  It's not that I'm special.  He invited everyone he saw.  I didn't even see this poster about it until yesterday.



He was able to set up the showing at the bar in the Prospector Hotel.  By the time we arrived, about ten minutes early, most of the seats in that section of the bar were taken. 

I wasn't sure what to expect.  Daniel is KTUU's camera man for their legislative coverage.  This is his first film.  I asked if it was going to be a Zombie movie and he laughed and said no. 

It turned out to be a movie about drug dealers and buyers in Anchorage.  It was good.   The photography and editing were impressive, and the story moved right along.  The big showdown scene worked well.  There was a second or two of bad focus that should have been cut and the sound was uneven.   He's calling this the prologue because he didn't have enough money to make the whole film.  The photo shows him answering questions after the showing. 

The film shows downtown Anchorage in a way I've never seen before. 

I was really surprised when he told me how much it cost.  He did this for less than $500.  That means he has a lot of friends who pitched in.  I'm hoping he'll submit it for the Anchorage International Film Festival. 




Here he is setting up for the evening news back in early February.

Getting Out of Downtown for Breakfast Sunday

[I thought this one had gone up already, but I see it didn't.]

The last time I was here, two and a half years ago, only the tent/shed was there.  M has been building the house  and the family is living in it. 

S is a full time pirate these days.

Breakfast.

The boat's in the backyard.

They said these were jelly mushrooms and Bird's Nest Mushrooms.

Then we went over to the rocky beach.  The sky was bright and clear, the air was in the 30s, and with a strong north wind, I was getting cold. 

But it was spectacular.

And as we walked back to the house we passed a neighbor child who was playing in a little swimming pool.  He was in the sun, and the deck may have been protected from the wind, and maybe there was warm water in the pool, but I had been fooled by the sun into dressing too lightly for the chill wind, and I was cold.

Then off to another spot on the water.

Where S showed me this titled little cabin in the parking lot.  It was good to see another part of Juneau where people live in the woods and near the water.  But I'm not into driving 20 miles each way every day.  But it was beautiful. 

Obama Signs Health Care Bill with Many Pens

I had hoped to put these pictures up as they were happening, but I was already late for the State Affairs Committee.  This is certainly an historic moment.  Will the passage and signing of the bill mark the highpoint of the opposition or will this mark a point where the conservative anti-forces go into a new phase of anti-government organizing,   bolstered by corporate America's new power to spend money at election time?  Will they make proving themselves right their priority and work to sabotage the bill?  How many will accept the decision and work to make it work for the sake of the citizens of the United States?  In any case, this is not the 'end' of anything, but rather a notable stopping point on the collective journey we're all on. 

Would the opposition be less extreme if our President were a white man or a woman? 

Whatever the answers, this is a major event in American history. 

As with all major bill signings, President Obama used a number of pens to sign the bill.  My basic reaction to this practice is negative.  I understand the practical benefits of being able to give a number of people a 'piece of history' but it seems to me this is like moving Washington and Lincoln's birthdays to the 3rd Monday and calling it Presidents' Day. We take 'practical' action which dilutes the symbolism of real events. We give a dozen people a pen that was used for a letter or two instead of having one pen that was used to sign the bill.  We take something that has inherent value and then chop it up into little pieces each of which have some cheaper value.  

This speaks to the interesting nature of how our brains work, to add value to an item because it has some unique characteristic. An original Rembrandt is worth far more than a copy that no one but an expert can distinguish.  Much of that value is historic value, but much of it simply becomes commercial value. 

I do the same thing.  My grandfather's pocket watch has value to me simply because my grandfather touched it.  It's a connection between us that I wouldn't otherwise have.  So I'm not condemning how our brains work, just noting it.  I understand why the President uses so many pens, but one pen seems more 'pure' to me.  Whatever that means.