Jesus Is Deep Inside Me, And He Ain't Pulling Out"

That was probably the most over-the-top lyric of any of the songs in Paradise, which we saw last night, at the Ruskin Theatre in the Santa Monica Airport.   But it's the sort of humor this play relied on. 

The fact that we can walk over in ten minutes, and its intimate 90 or so seats, makes this our go to theater when we're visiting my mom.

J felt all the female characters were awful.

• A sparkly prostitute turned Jesus freak, named Chastity Jones. 
• A full figured lusty disgusty dynamo with a muddy face who tells everyone that just like Jesus, she was born in a barn named Cinderella Tiara Applebaum (Cyndi).
• A ratings obsessed reality show producer named Rebecca Washington.

I wasn't quite sure how to react to her comment.  I hadn't seen it that way.  Was I blind?  The other female character, Louanne Knight, preserving her dead mom's legacy by keeping the small dead coal mine town general store running and taking care of the the sundry inhabitants, was pretty close to normal and even noble. 

And the men were all very broad caricatures as well. 

• Mayor and Tater Gayheart - the easy to sway mayor who wants to bring money and attention to his town, plus his black son who wants to be an IT billionaire, not the broadway musical star his dad wants him to be.  And no, the name isn't accidental. 
• Old Man Johnson - the bluesgrass banjo and fiddle player is right out of Deliverance
• Rev. John Cyrus Mountain - the fast talking preacher who's sold his reality show idea to Hollywood so he could build his mega church above the coal mine.
• Peter Silverman, Rebecca's cameraman who just keeps the camera running. 

I think in farce broad character stereotypes are probably ok.  The audience knows each type is being made fun of.  Though J's comments are making me think about this.

All the cast were good.  Jonathan Root acting and singing as the Reverend (and a few other brief roles) stood out for me. And while they could all sing, Michael Rubenstone (the cameraman) had a really beautiful voice I wanted to hear more of.

Essentially this was The Music Man, with Harold Hill being the Rev. bringing in both a megachurch and reality tv to River City instead of a band.  And I don't foresee too many high schools putting on this musical.   Louanne is Marian the Librarian, who sees through the Rev who brings his own sweety with him (Chastity).  It's the cameraman who loses his heart to Louanne.

This is billed as a world premiere and it was, they said, the sixth or seventh sold out performance.  The music keeps your foot tapping and covers a lot of little flaws, but it's no Music Man.  In the end though, I have to admit, I was really getting upset as Louanne's resolve to keep reality tv out of Paradise is broken down - clearly the play had hooked me.

Set and Audience for Paradise just before the play began

Daily Oil Catastrophe

I recently wrote:

"The concerns I have with Arctic oil drilling are not simply concern about the possibility of an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean.  My longer term concern is that we continue to go after energy sources that exacerbate climate change and make the long term damage worse."

In response, my daughter sent me this 2010 Onion post:

Millions Of Barrels Of Oil Safely Reach Port In Major Environmental Catastrophe

PORT FOURCHON, LA—In what may be the greatest environmental disaster in the nation's history, the supertanker TI Oceania docked without incident at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port Monday and successfully unloaded 3.1 million barrels of dangerous crude oil into the United States.
According to witnesses, the catastrophe began shortly after the tanker, which sailed unimpeded across the Gulf of Mexico, stopped safely at the harbor and made contact with oil company workers on the shore. Soon after, vast amounts of the black, toxic petroleum in the ship's hold were unloaded at an alarming rate into special storage containers on the mainland.
From there, experts confirmed, the oil will likely spread across the entire country's infrastructure and commit unforetold damage to its lakes, streams, and air.
"We're looking at a crisis of cataclysmic proportions," said Charles Hartsell, an environmental scientist at Tufts University. "In a matter of days, this oil may be refined into a lighter substance that, when burned as fuel in vehicles, homes, and businesses, will poison the earth's atmosphere on a terrifying scale." [Read the rest here.]

Why is it obvious to me that we have to get off oil as fast as possible, yet our Governor and our legislature are hell-bent on pumping as much oil as possible?  And they think giving oil companies a $600 million a year tax break (at least that's what they estimate it at) in the hopes of getting more oil drilled is a good thing.

I realize that for many people (like all the industry employees who show up to testify in favor of this sort of legislation every public hearing) self interest is a giant motivator.  And even if they truly believe that we can't live without oil and they are doing a public service, I can't help but believe that subconsciously, their oil job supported good life, influences their ability to dismiss the link between oil and global climate change.  Or to believe that we'll find some fix in the future.  

 Slavery lasted generations because people were able to create stories that hid or erased the conflict between slavery and the American ideal of equality.  We went into Vietnam and Iraq on false premises that some people still believe.  And we rush to pump oil because some of the richest companies in the world were created to do just that and they'll continue until they can't find any more oil or a more powerful force says "Stop."

And who knows?  I could be wrong and there will be a fix in the future.  But at this point the evidence* I've read points to human misery due to changing climate getting pretty bad before things get better.  Worse than living with less oil. 

*It's hard to gather together all the evidence on climate change, but for the skeptics and deniers, including those in the Alaska legislature, here are a few recent pieces on the topic:
NPR
The Economist
Union of Concerned Scientists
Skeptical Science
Media Matters - talks about the "climate denial machine"

One Of The World's Most Important Writers Dies

The LA Times has a front page story on Chinua Achebe's death at 82.  It begins:

"When Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe was in college, a European professor assigned "Mister Johnson," which portrayed Africa as a land of grinning, shrieking savages. Time magazine called it "the best novel ever written about Africa."
Achebe was outraged. He vowed that if someone as ignorant as Joyce Cary, the novel's Anglo-Irish author, could write such a book, "perhaps I ought to try my hand at it."
The result was a masterpiece: "Things Fall Apart," his 1958 debut novel, changed the face of world literature by presenting the colonization of Africa from an African point of view. With more than 10 million copies sold in 50 languages, it established Achebe as the patriarch of modern African literature.
Achebe, who has been praised by Nelson Mandela as the writer who "brought Africa to the world," died Friday in Boston after a brief illness. He was 82."

People who think racism is simply the idea of consciously hating people because they are a different race are missing the bigger picture.  It's about how our unconscious minds are shaped to believe lots of stereotypes about the other race.  From parents, media, religion, advertisements, text books, all parts of our culture that shape our understanding of things.  This is illustrated later in the LA Times piece:

"Growing up, he had absorbed Western prejudices so thoroughly that, he later wrote, "I did not see myself as an African to begin with." But in college, it dawned on him that he had given up too much of his identity and could not accept white authors' portrayals of Africans as culturally inferior and subhuman. "

 If you've never heard of Chinua Achebe, now's a good time to read one of his books.   Loussac's library's online catalog lists 7 titles:

• UAA - one print copy
• Muldoon - one audio
• Matsu - one audio and one print
• Loussac - three print
• Kodiak - one print
• Valdez - one print

And if you aren't near Anchorage, I'm sure you can find a library copy or a used copy somewhere nearby.  Meanwhile, you can read the whole LA Times article here.

Bikerowave - I Learned More About Bike Repair In An Hour Than My Whole Life

I have a cheapo bike I bought very used a couple of years ago and leave in my mom's garage for when we visit.  The derailer was having trouble, shifting gears was getting tricky, and the bike couldn't be rolled backwards.  I knew about Bikecrowave - they have a bike parking lot at the Mar Vista Farmer's  Market - but I waited until things bent and locked completely. 

So last night I stuck the bike in the trunk and drove over to see how this worked. 

"Bikerowave is a bicycle repair collective, much like the Bicycle Kitchen, Bike Oven, or Valley Bikery here in LA County.  We provide space, tools, and equipment in order to effectively teach people how to build, repair, and maintain their bicycles. We are a not-for-profit all volunteer member run organization. Our goal is to empower cyclists with the basic knowledge to maintain their steed, as well as enable them to more easily connect with the cycling community."

I felt like I was in Kindergarten again.  Dan helped me get the bike on the bike rack and walked me through every step of the process.  What tool to get, where to get it, what to tighten, what to loosen.  

He found a suitable new derailer in the back, but then decided I needed to true the wheel.  Really?  How . . .  Wait, I'm at Bikrowave, they'll walk me through it.  I got handed off to Joe who showed me how to adjust the spokes and a few other things to make the wheel work better. 

It was so easy!  When I hesitated, he pointed at what I had to do next.  








Why don't we have a place like this in Anchorage?  The bike shops wouldn't be happy with people giving this away free.  Sharing versus selling.  Would a lot more sharing and bartering of talent ruin our economy or mean that a lot more people would become more self-sufficient and less dependent on a paycheck?  Today's bottom line capitalism with smaller businesses being bought out by bigger ones that demand maximum profit, means helping and sharing with others is bad. 

And at the end I asked what I owed.  $3 for the used derailer and $7 for the hour of bike stand time. (Just look and they have various deals - but really, had I taken this to REI, it would have been at least $45 and more likely over $100.  And taken several days.   I was one of the last 'customers' there and the volunteers all got sandwiches and sat around talking about a variety of things and I heard a few philosophers mentioned. 

I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to actually go do this, but I really love having a bike here.  They are only open in the evenings on weekdays, closed Fridays, and open days on the weekends.  So I made myself go try something new and different.  Wow, I can't believe that I changed a derailer and trued the wheel. 

And their blog suggests they do a lot more things - sort of like the Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage.  I'll get them to check this post and see if we can find a way to set up something like this in Anchorage. 


Oh yeah.  Can't ride my bike right now.  The gears are great, but when I put the tire back on the wheel, I must have poked a hole in the tire.  I'll go back tomorrow and fix that. 

For west side LA folks - they're on Venice between Centinela and Grand.

Should Hirohito Have Been Hanged? The Movie Emperor Addresses That Question

The US occupation lands in the ruins of Tokyo in August 1945.  McArthur wants to make this occupation the model for all occupations.  There's pressure from DC for the Emperor's head, but McArthur believes that would cause the Japanese to revolt and cost countless American lives.  But as the symbol of Japan, stateside politicians want his head.

General Bonner Fellers was given the task of finding evidence that would exonerate the Emperor of supporting the war.  He's given ten days to accomplish this.

There are lots of flashbacks to Bonner and his Japanese girlfriend in college and later in Japan as he pursues his task.

This film didn't feel like a typical Hollywood movie.  It was thoughtful, yet moved right along, weaving the past and present well. (The NY Times reviewer Stephen Holden was less generous about the flashbacks, and while they worked ok for me, his comments about east-west romance do ring true.)  It's tricky when you're discussing an historical movie.  Do you evaluate it as a movie, regardless of its historical accuracy?  Do you focus on its accuracy?  Or do you do one review for each?  Of course, this assumes the reviewer knows the history. My basic qualification is having read William Manchester's biography of McArthur, American Caesar.   In other words, not enough to judge the history,  but things didn't fly out at me as obviously phony as they did in Argo.  And as a film, I liked it a lot. 

The Bonners Fellers website that says it is maintained by his family endorses it this way:

The compelling and meditative film Emperor depicts with fidelity
  Bonner Fellers' character and
the complexities of finding the path toward justice and peace.

The Bonner Fellers website also tells us more about General Fellers.

JAPAN

Bonner Fellers entered Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, in 1914. He became friends with a Japanese exchange student who introduced him to Japanese culture and history, including the writings of Lafcadio Hearn.  He visited Japan 4 times prior to WWII.  In 1934 he wrote an insightful and prescient thesis entitled "The Psychology of the Japanese Soldier."  It foresaw Japanese behavior, including Kamikaze attacks, and suggested strategies to address Japanese militaristic tendencies.
From 1942-1946, Brigadier General Fellers was in the Pacific Theater under General MacArthur.  Along with many other assignments, he led the psychological warfare effort against Japanese forces and the homeland. For this he was awarded a second Distinguished Service Medal.  The citation reads in part, "Through his outstanding professional ability and resourcefulness, General Fellers contributed in a marked degree to Japan's surrender and the initial success of the military occupation."
During the first year of the occupation he was MacArthur's military secretary and Secretary General of the Allied Council for Japan.  Due to his 30 year military experience and interaction with Japan, MacArthur relied on him for advice.
In 1971, Emperor Hirohito conferred on him the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure.

A good film.  

Kid Music For Adults - Z and I Bond With Dan Bern's '2 feet tall'

Dan Bern was already my favorite contemporary song writer/singer before I took his songwriting class last fall.  

At that time I bought his CD "2 feet tall" knowing I'd have someone to listen to it with.

It's his first children's album, inspired by his own daughter.

Z and I listened to it as much as I could get away with while we were in Seattle with her.  The music sounds simple, but the melodies proved tricky when I tried to sing along, or worse, sing them on my own.  And the lyrics are fine for a baby or three year old, but the parents will hear their own stories.  For instance  'Milk' - has a chorus for the baby and then there's more for the parents which the baby will eventually grow to understand.  Here's a bit:

milk milk milk milk
milk milk milk milk
just milk (slurp slurp)
just milk (slurp slurp)

there’s kung pao chicken and garlic naan
green beans, walnuts, custard, flan
fish that’s filleted and beef that’s ground
but for now you’re a milk hound

And I had great appreciation for this song on Z's 6th week birthday:
you never give me sass or walk out of the room
you never chase the kittens around with a broom
you never say, I’m not coming in from the cold 
perfect little angel
6 weeks old
you never talk back to me
or monopolize the phone
you never say go away leave me alone
you never demand slippers made of gold
perfect little angel
6 weeks old

The 12 year old was too old for this - "why are you listening to this stupid stuff about the monkey and the kangaroo going to tea?"  And Dan's Dylanish voice didn't appeal to him either.  But as I said, the music is surprisingly complex - just try to sing it.  Dan's a very talented, imaginative, and sly singer. 

You grew, you grew, 
You grew you grew you grew
You grew, you grew, 
You grew you grew you grew

No authorities were notified,
No papers were filed
We’ll keep it between us
We’ll keep it on the sly

 But you have to hear these words with the music, and you can listen to short clips here.

Every parent, when alone with their baby, makes up silly songs.  But when a talented singer, songwriter with a wicked imagination does that, it makes a great album.  These are his silly songs.

And there are a lot of songs on this album.  They're each my favorite when they're playing, but here are a couple that have particularly grabbed me:

• 5 Things  - have you ever heard 1-5 sung so sweetly?
• Perfect Little Angel - right through my heart
• You Grew  - great for dancing with your baby to get the milk digested
• Screamin Dreamin - another sweet song to sooth a baby/toddler and any parent or grandparent can appreciate

So, while other people are giving clothes and blankets and Good Night Moon, here's a great gift for new baby. 

And poking around to find the audio I also found out that Dan will be at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium in Anchorage on April 6.   For the rest of you, his schedule (at the link) includes Salt Lake City,  three Colorado concerts, two in Iowa, and Winnipeg. 


BTW, it seems I cut out some of the songs in the image.  Here are the rest:

Watchin Over You

Labor Day

Favorite Cat

Monkey and the Kangaroo

Naked Outside

8 Weeks Old

Tomorrow is Another Day

Lulu's Lullaby 2

Jews And Chocolate - Deborah Prinz Talk

It turns out that Jews played an important role in spreading chocolate from Spain to the rest of Europe.  It first came from the so-called New World to Spain after Columbus and about the same time as the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were being persecuted in Spain.  As Jews fled Spain for Holland and other European countries more friendly to Jews, some of them brought chocolate and the process for making it from the beans.


So I learned at this lecture last week that friends invited us to.

It felt a bit like a Trekkie conference as the speaker talked about her Choco-dar (like gay-dar, but here it refers to knowing there is chocolate somewhere nearby) and other confessions of chocoholic obsessions which many in the audience appeared to understand well.  Don't get me wrong, I like a good dark chocolate, and I've been known to chip away at a chocolate bar piece by piece, or eat way to many brownies.  But I wouldn't go to the store just to get some chocolate, let alone go to Europe to visit special chocolate shops.

But Rabbi Prinz did. 


At the end, everyone got a piece of Barton's chocolate.  It was very chewy and satisfying.  Here's the link to the Barton's chocolate.  And they're kosher for Passover.










And then Rabbi Prinz then signed books.

Rabbi Deborah Prinz, Jews On the Chocolate Trail. 

Sorry, the book cover's a little blurred.  The person holding it moved - she was waiting in line to get it signed. 





This is much better than writing about the redistricting board. 

How Could Redistricting Board NOT Hire Laurel Hummel? Political Neutrality Appears Ripped To Shreds - Part 2

In Part 1, I went through a chronology leading up to the Board's decision to not hire anyone including a brief explanation of why I thought Laurel Hummel was a perfect candidate for the job.  In Part 1.5 I looked at the 1982 Supreme Court decision on public meetings the Anchorage Daily News used to get the candidate interviews public.  It appears they didn't follow the law completely in this process.

In this post I'm going to explore some reasons why she wasn't selected.
 

So, why did the Board not choose Hummel (or anyone)?


Explanation 1.   The Board wanted to hire someone they knew would do their partisan bidding and keep it all confidential. 

The Board had lined up a Republican party loyalist they would hire for this $95.000 - $113,000 position who would do their bidding and keep the partisan tampering with the district borders confidential.  They did go through a public search and had six applicants.  They were set to keep the names of the applicants confidential as well as their resumes.  They would then interview them in executive session and announce the new executive director, who would be a Republican loyalist.

But then at the last minute, the Anchorage Daily News challenged the process of keeping the names and resumes secret as well as the secrecy of the interviews.  This has all been hashed out in a 1982 Supreme Court case and the Board didn’t have much choice.

If they cancelled the interviews because they were required to do things publicly, it would look like they were trying to hide something.  In the end they interviewed three candidates. 

• The first was ok, but didn't have particular expertise in this area.  
• The second candidate turned out to be a superstar perfectly matched for the position in terms of technical GIS experience,  Alaska Native experience, and management experience.  And a vet!  What could be better?  
• The third candidate, a former Republican legislative staffer,  who chaired his unsuccessful primary candidacy in 2012, totally bombed the interview - his answers showed no preparation or ability to think well on his feet. 

Clearly Dr. Laural Hummel was by far the best applicant and fully qualified for the job.

And then the bombshell.  Suddenly they decided, out of public view, that they wouldn’t hire anyone.  The only reason an organization doesn't hire after they've interviewed candidates is that none of the candidates was good enough.  But in this case, they had a super candidate based on their job description. 

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they had assumed that they would simply be able to pick their preordained candidate.   As an anonymous commenter on the previous post noted - they didn’t want someone truly competent who they couldn’t control inside the sausage factory when they made the districts.  Not only was the super-applicant very skilled in all aspects of the job which meant she might be able to figure out totally fair districts, the Anchorage Daily News found out she was a Democrat.  There was no way they wanted a competent Democrat in the middle of the process. (They seemed to have worked out something with the lone Democrat on the Board - if they work with her on the Native districts, she'll ignore other issues.  I'm not blaming her; she had a very difficult job here.  And her cultural norms likely are to avoid public conflict.)

So, they just decided to not hire anyone.  Without an open interview, we wouldn’t have been any wiser and they could have hired their political crony. 

Of course, this is all conjecture, but it seems to make the most sense. All the facts are consistent with this narrative and the other explanations (see below) don't make sense.

The Board hasn’t publicly offered any more plausible alternative explanation.  Actually, as I pointed out in the previous post, the decision to not hire anyone should have - by law - been made in a public session and the reasons and the vote should have been public.  But they weren’t. 

I emailed the Board Chair and several other Board members to get some explanation but no one has replied, even though this blog has covered the Board meetings since they first got the 2010 census data in March 2011.  It's been more than three days now with no reply.   
 
Rich Mauer at the Anchorage Daily News got a couple of short responses from two Board members.

Explanation 2:  "there wasn't much need for an executive director now because of a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that could influence Alaska's redistricting."  from Board member Bob Brodie.

Let's see now.  They've known about the Supreme Court case since at least October or November.  The Board met February 12.   Their attorney discussed the Supreme Court case at length with the Board and they went on with planning to hire an Executive Director.  The March dates were right on schedule based on their plan.

It's true that they did make their decision before the case was heard on February 27 and before the press speculated that there was a good chance that the conservative majority on the Court would take action to somehow modify Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

But then why didn't they just cancel the search earlier?  Why wait until after the interviews?  Because in the interviews it became clear that, because the interviews were, at the last minute, forced into public view, they wouldn't be able to hire their pre-ordained candidate.  He just came off so poorly - both his experience and how he related it - that even they knew they couldn't be that blatant.  Dr. Hummel was just way too good to pick anyone else over her.  But deciding not to hire anyone is almost as blatant.

They actually do need an Executive Director but they didn't want to hire someone who could make their partisan machinations harder to pull off.  Deciding they didn't want a director was just an excuse for not having to hire Hummel.

Whatever the US Supreme Court decides on Shelby County v. Holder, the Board does have to first make a map of the districts based only on the criteria in the Alaska Constitution.  Only then, do they adjust those districts to also meet the Voting Rights Act.  So, a director who knows about mapping and has great management, supervisory, and coalition building skills would be a great asset. If the Court changes the Sec. 5 requirements, then they could still use a competent director to wrap up all the work they have left. 

Explanation 3.   "the most important job now is mapping, and that requires an expert in geographic information systems software." - from Board member PeggyAnn McConochie

Again, the obvious flaw in this argument is that they waited to make this decision until after they'd interviewed the candidates.  If all they needed was a GIS expert, they should have cancelled the Executive Director search earlier.  It is true they need someone who can do the GIS mapping.  And they told each applicant that they plan to hire one.  But last time around they relied on their Executive Director to do a lot of this work.  And Dr. Laurel Hummel can do this.  She's got a PhD in geography and knows the software.  They need an Executive Director - to mange all the day-to-day things like keep the website working and deal with all the administrative stuff the Board needs taken care of.

This sounds way too much like an after-the-fact cover up explanation as does Brodie's.  


I've pounded my head to figure out other possible explanations.  Maybe they'd offered her the job, but couldn't offer her enough pay and she turned them down.  But that makes no sense for several reasons:

1. The pay was on the job announcement so she would have known what was available before applying, and it's a very good salary for this position.
2. It's a temporary job.  And for Dr. Hummel a perfect job for her skill set.  The money is more than sufficient.  She wouldn't have turned it down. 
3. If she had turned down the job, they would have told us that and avoided this bizarre turn of events.

So, Steve, (you ask) how can you be so confident this is about partisan gerrymandering?



It's no secret that redistricting is highly political.  The stakes are no less than who wins the elections and thus gets to make policy.  The New York Times wrote as the census data was coming out  in spring 2011:

"Beyond hiring lobbyists, major players in Washington — including high-priced lawyers, union officials, House leaders and national party operatives — are spending time and money to influence how officials in state capitals design the political maps that will affect the balance of power in Congress for the next decade.
The stakes are enormous, with Republicans looking to use their control of a majority of statehouses to cement their hold on the House in 2012 and beyond."

Alaska's redistricting doesn't affect Congress since we only have one member of the House of Representatives, but it does affect how the oil companies are taxed and that's a giant issue here.

The Charleston Tea Party website stated it more bluntly:

"Activists should lobby their governor and their state legislatures.  Demand that they exact the full price of reapportionment.  Demand that they exact the full price of their newly gained redistricting powers.  Nothing less is acceptable." 

Yet, the Board's guidelines, set out by their attorney Michael White early in the process, and approved by the Board, included four federal Constitutional principles, including no political gerrymandering.

The Alaska Redistricting Board shall use the following criteria in order of priority listed  in adopting a redistricting plan for the State of Alaska.

1.   Federal Constitutional Redistricting Principles A.  One Person, One Vote”. Standard established by US Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr & Reynolds v. Sims. According to “one person, one vote”, legislative seats must be apportioned exclusively on the basis of population and the populations of the respective legislative districts must be substantially equal. B.   Districts of as nearly as equal size as practicable. Maximum overall deviation of no more than 10%, (i.e., plus or minus 5%).  Deviation is the measure of how much a district or plan varies from the ideal. Good faith efforts to make deviations as small as practicable must be made. C.  No purposeful discrimination against a group that has been consistently excluded from the political process. D.   No political or racial gerrymandering.

from Redistricting Board Webiste

So, if gerrymandering is part of the equation, the Board can't talk about it, because it's illegal.  But it's also hard to prove.  Unless you have a professional on the staff, who is also a registered Democrat who might be willing to blow the whistle if they illegally give Republicans an edge in the mapping. 

I wasn't watching previous redistricting boards ten or twenty years ago, so I don't know how this board operated compared to previous boards.

There were some actions that suggested this board was tinkering with district lines to give Republicans an advantage.  Most notably in Fairbanks.  The first stab at Fairbanks was presented by Board member Holm and approved by the Board with almost no discussion.   Holm, a former Fairbanks legislator who'd lost the previous election to Democrat Scott Kawaski, claimed that he had no idea how the map affected incumbents.   Yet the map had carefully cut out from Kawaski's district, an address listed in the phone book as S. Kawaski.  (It turned out to be Scott's sister's place.  Her name is Sonia.)  Later Fairbanks maps split the City of Fairbanks into different Senate seats (for the first time ever) and had protrusions that included or excluded people in a way that clearly was intended to favor Republicans.

Anchorage's Democratic Senator Davis, Alaska's lone African-American legislator, had a  much more conservative Eagle River district added to her district and lost her reelection bid.  There were a number of other such little adjustments where intention is hard to prove, but the results - such as the toppling of the Senate bi-partisan coalition - would seem to demonstrate.

Plus, long time Republican party chair Randy Ruedrich was a regular presence at Board meetings and often hung around afterward discussing the political implications of district lines with the staff.  I know because I watched him do it on occasion.  The Democratic party chair was also at many meetings, but didn't seem to have the same rapport with the staff, including Executive Director Taylor Bickford who had worked as the 2010 Republican Victory Director for  Ruedrich, just before becoming the deputy director of the board. (He later became director after the unexpected death of director Ron Miller.)

So, given the close ties the previous Executive Director had to the Republican Party chair, it is not stretching it too far to think that the majority of the Board was looking for a similar type of person for the position now.  Not only would this mean that the new director would be amenable to tampering with district lines to favor Republicans, but it's also a good state job for a year or so for a party loyalist.  And the remuneration is nothing to sneeze at.  The job announcement lists the annual salary at "$95,316 to $113,364 depending on experience."

The Alaska Human Rights Commission  does not list political affiliation as an illegal reason to discriminate.   However, it is customary in labor relations that you cannot reject an applicant for a factor that is not listed in the job announcement or job description.  The Board's job announcement did not mention party affiliation as a required or even desired factor for the job.

And the  Alaska Constitution says:

"Appointments [to the Board] shall be made without regard to political affiliation."

This refers to appointing Board members, not staff, but if that standard is there for the board members, it would be reasonable for it to apply to the staff as well. 


Absent any more plausible explanation from the Board, I'm left to conclude that they expected to do this in private and the Daily News' demand that it be public caught them with their pants down.  With everything in view, everyone could see that Dr. Hummel was not only the best qualified, but a perfect fit for the job.  They could also see the political choice they most likely were expecting to hire after a secret process without names made public, was clearly the least qualified of the three.

That meant they couldn't pick their favored candidate and they were afraid to have such a competent Democrat in their inner workings so they wouldn't be able to diddle with the lines enough to keep a healthy Republican majority in the legislature.

I hope the Supreme Court keeps this in mind when they have to evaluate whether this Board can do their job without political gerrymandering. 

Someone I talked to suggested that perhaps the Board would do another search later, waiting for Dr. Hummel to take another job first. We should all be watching. 

Did The Redistricting Board Violate Alaska Public Meetings Law?

I was writing Part 2 of this post on the Redistricting Board, when, I got sidetracked on the Supreme Court decision the Anchorage Daily News relied on to challenge the Board's decision to withhold the names of the applicants.  Maybe this should be called Part 1.5. 

While reading the case, I began to believe that the Board did not comply fully with the decision's interpretation of the Public Meetings Act.  I'm not a lawyer, but I know that the law is not always straightforward and that there might be other cases that have modified the original decision, though it is regularly cited in situations like this.  But as a blogger I can raise the issue. And if I'm right, it points out a reason why the Board needs a competent Executive Director who knows the Alaska Public Meeting laws. 

City of Kenai v. Kenai Peninsula Newspapers, Inc.  is the 1982 Supreme Court decision referred to in the Anchorage Daily News article about the Alaska Redistricting Board's decision to NOT hire an Executive Director.  This is probably a good time to pull out some of the decision and remind people just how public our government is supposed to be.   And also to consider whether the Redistricting Board fully complied with the law.

The case consolidates a case from Kenai and a case from Anchorage where high level public officials' names and resumes were requested by news agencies and the cities refused to furnish the information.  In both cases the courts favored the media.  

The court summarized the Kenai case this way:

During June of 1979, the City of Kenai began soliciting applications for city manager. Subsequently, the City Council met, without notice to the public and without keeping minutes, to review applications and interview applicants. Max Swearingen, the publisher of the Peninsula Clarion, a daily publication of Kenai Peninsula Newspapers, Inc., asked the City to release a list of names and a summary of credentials of the applicants. This request was considered by the City Council on August 2, 1979, and rejected. In a letter written to Swearingen, the mayor voiced a concern that such disclosures would jeopardize the applicants' personal privacy, deter future applications from qualified people concerned about public exposure, and compromise the council's moral obligation to respect the privacy interests of individual applicants.

Kenai Peninsula Newspapers filed suit to require the City to allow inspection of the applications and to enjoin the City Council from further review and action upon the applications except at a public meeting.

The Court summarized the Anchorage case this way:

In February of 1980, the Municipality of Anchorage began soliciting applications for police chief. The nationwide search was conducted through written advertisements which promised that applications would be held in confidence.

From June 1, 1980, through July 8, 1980, Don G. Hunter, a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, sought access to the names and qualifications of the applicants. The Municipality refused to honor these requests on the grounds that disclosure was prohibited by municipal ordinance, and because confidentiality had been promised to all applicants. The Anchorage Daily News filed suit on July 9, 1980 alleging that the applications and resumes were public documents subject to disclosure and requesting injunctive relief and a temporary restraining order restraining the Municipality from appointing a police chief until a hearing on the merits. Mayor Sullivan appointed a new police chief the next day before the hearing on the temporary restraining order. After the hearing, the court ordered the Municipality to refrain from any action confirming the appointment until a hearing on the merits. The appointee subsequently declined the appointment after disclosures reflecting adversely on his qualifications were made.  (As I recall, the Anchorage Times discovered that the new appointee had been let go from his previous position for sexual harassment.)

The Court focused on the balance between the public's right to know and the applicants' right to privacy.

They determined that for important policy positions, the public's right to know trumped the applicants' right to privacy.   They noted that since the resumes requested had been submitted by the applicants, there wasn't likely to be any information prejudicial to the candidates.  But they also recognized that some applicants might not want their current employers to know they had applied for a job elsewhere.   So they allowed for the jurisdictions to notify applicants they could withdraw their applications if they didn't want them disclosed. The court also noted

Of the 89 original [Anchorage] applicants, 8 withdrew their names. An additional 19 could not be reached within the time frame prescribed by the stipulation and their names were also considered to have been withdrawn.

The Court cited a couple of sections of AS 44.62.310 which give considerable weight to the presumption of openness:

FN28. AS 44.62.310 provides: Agency meetings public. (a) All meetings of a legislative body, of a board of regents, or of an administrative body, board, commission, committee, subcommittee, authority, council, agency, or other organization, including subordinate units of the above groups, of the state or any of its political subdivisions, including but not limited to municipalities, boroughs, school boards, and all other boards, agencies, assemblies, councils, departments, divisions, bureaus, commissions or organizations, advisory or otherwise, of the state or local government supported in whole or in part by public money or authorized to spend public money, are open to the public except as otherwise provided by this section. Except when voice votes are authorized, the vote shall be conducted in such a manner that the public may know the vote of each person entitled to vote. This section does not apply to any votes required to be taken to organize the afore-mentioned bodies.

(b) If excepted subjects are to be discussed at a meeting, the meeting must first be convened as a public meeting and the question of holding an executive session to discuss matters that come within the exceptions contained in (c) of this section shall be determined by a majority vote of the body. No subjects may be considered at the executive session except those mentioned in the motion calling for the executive session unless auxiliary to the main question. No action may be taken at the executive session.

(c) The following excepted subjects may be discussed in an executive session:

(1) matters, the immediate knowledge of which would clearly have an adverse effect upon the finances of the government unit;

(2) subjects that tend to prejudice the reputation and character of any person, provided the person may request a public discussion;

(3) matters which by law, municipal charter, or ordinance are required to be confidential.

(d) This section does not apply to

(1) judicial or quasi-judicial bodies when holding a meeting solely to make a decision in an adjudicatory proceeding;

(2) juries;

(3) parole or pardon boards;

(4) meetings of a hospital medical staff; or

(5) meetings of the governing body of any committee of a hospital when holding a meeting solely to act upon matters of professional qualifications, privileges or discipline.

(e) Reasonable public notice shall be given for all meetings required to be open under this section.

(f) Action taken contrary to this section is void. [emphasis added]

And

AS 44.62.312 provides:

State policy regarding meetings. (a) It is the policy of the state that

(1) the governmental units mentioned in AS 44.62.310(a) exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business;

(2) it is the intent of the law that actions of those units be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly;

(3) the people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them;

(4) the people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know;

(5) the people's right to remain informed shall be protected so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.

(b) AS 44.62.310(c)(1) shall be construed narrowly in order to effectuate the policy stated in (a) of this section and avoid unnecessary executive sessions.

The Court also ruled that discussions of the applicants' qualifications should be held in public with one caveat.  Kenai argued that discussing applicants in executive session was necessary so they wouldn't "prejudice the reputation and character of any persons" (one of the exceptions allowed.)

But the Court found that discussing the applicants' qualifications relating to experience and education and background shouldn't prejudice people's reputation.  HOWEVER,  discussing personal characteristics or habits might be prejudicial.  So the Court ruled that when discussing personal characteristics or habits the body could go into executive session.    Here's the court's discussion:

In Kenai the court enjoined the City from “any deliberations toward appointment of a city manager unless those deliberations are held in compliance” with the public meetings law, AS 44.62.310-.312.[FN28] The court held that such deliberations “are not within any of the exemptions of AS 44.62.310(c)” relating to subjects which may be discussed in executive session. The City of Kenai appeals from this ruling, contending that s .310(c) (2) which permits the discussion in executive session of “subjects that tend to prejudice the reputation and character of any person” is applicable. . .

The appellee does not contend that the City Council may never go into executive session when discussing city manager applicants. It argues that generally such discussions do not have a tendency to damage the reputation of the applicants, and that the City erred in routinely convening executive sessions.

Appellee's reading of the statute is not without a degree of merit. Ordinarily an applicant's reputation will not be damaged by a public discussion of his or her qualifications relating to experience, education and background or by a comparison of them with those of other candidates. However, a discussion of personal characteristics and habits may well carry a risk that the applicant's reputation will be compromised. Such a risk is especially acute where the qualities of several applicants are being compared. We believe therefore that the City Council was authorized by s .310(c)(2) to meet in executive session while discussing the personal characteristics of the applicants.[FN29] To the extent that the order of the court prohibits this, it must be reversed.[FN30]    [Emphasis added.]

With that in mind, let's look at what the Board did.


When confronted with the ADN's challenge, they:

• notified the applicants and allowed them to withdraw their applications rather than have them made public
• made the remaining people's names and resumes public
• held the interviews in public meetings

So far, so good.   But then they

• held their deliberations on the candidates in private
• made their decision to not fill the positions in private
• did not respond to requests for information about why they made the decision and who voted for the decision

The deliberations, according to the Supreme Court decision, should have been in public to the extent that they were discussing education, background, and experience.  Just based on those topics, without having to discuss personality or habits (which didn't seem to come up in the interviews anyway), it would be clear that Dr. Hummel was the superior candidate.  (I can't imagine there was any debate on that.)

Then they made the decision to not hire anyone.  This was not a decision that should have been made in Executive Session.  The should have come out of Executive Session, had a motion to not hire anyone, had a discussion, and then publicly voted.  They didn't do this.

Finally, at the request of the media - this blog - they should have explained their reasons for not selecting anyone and should have told me how they voted.  

How Could Redistricting Board NOT Hire Laurel Hummel? Political Neutrality Appears Ripped To Shreds - Part 1

In Write Hard, Die Free, Howard Weaver writes of his frustration as a reporter in Juneau constrained by journalistic convention from actually telling what he knew about what was going on:

"Journalists were objective, right?  Just the facts, ma'am.  I wrote a few stories that tried to poke through the public illusion of the legislature as a high-minded, public-spirited institution, but somewhere between the copy desk in Anchorage and my own constipated sense of fairness they often wound up being  'he-said, she-said' stalemates at best."(pp. 56-57)

I've been covering the Redistricting Board since March 2011.  I generally try to present the facts and let the readers come to their own conclusions.  But sometimes, like now, I feel like Weaver.  And so in these two posts, I'm going to try to explain what I think is going on here and why.  I'm going to comment on the visible facts and speculate on what we can't see.

In this post I'll give the background.   In the next post I'll move to speculation about why this has happened.


The Perfect Applicant Gets Rejected


If God herself had wanted to intervene in the Alaska Redistricting process, She could not have created a more perfect candidate to be the Board's Executive Director than Laurel Hummel.

Yet they chose not to hire anyone.  How could that be?

The job requires knowledge of geography and mapping including GIS.  

Laurel Hummel has a PhD in Geography, specifically human geography which would come in particularly handy when the board has to determine things like socio-political [economic] integration of districts.  She was modest about her GIS skills - she hadn't taught a class on GIS.  She'd only used it and only knew the names of various software that was used to do GIS.  And the kind she had used was the kind the Board used.  The previous director had gone to classes to learn GIS as part of his on-the-job training, and she's apologizing for not having taught it!  [GIS is geographic information systems]

This job requires knowledge of Alaska Native culture.  

Laurel Hummel did her doctoral dissertation on the impact of the US military in Alaska on the Alaska Native population. As part of her dissertation she traveled around Alaska meeting Alaska Native leaders to discuss those impacts.  She's a human geographer and talked about how by understanding that different people had different 'truths' one could hope to understand them and find ways to consensus.

The job requires management skills including working with the press and consensus building and understanding confidentiality.   

Laurel Hummel went through a long list of examples of situations in her 30 year military career where she displayed these skills, including the integration of women in Afghan institutions (I didn't quite get the details here - it may have been the Parliament [a reader emailed it was the army]) and the fact that she worked in Army Intelligence had given her lots of understanding of   confidentiality.  She pointed out that in the Board's case, there was certain information that must be made public, other information that should be public, and information that has to be confidential.  She also said that unlike in some of her military situations, here there were no enemies.  That she regarded the public and the media as part of the process.  (Maybe that's what got her in trouble with the Board.)

There were things that she didn't have personal experience actually using - like the Alaska Public Meetings Law, or the Alaska Administrative Procedures Act.  Yet she had read them, discussed them knowledgeably, and had dealt with similar laws at the federal level.  It wouldn't take long to get up to speed.  Like a day maybe.  Compared with the need to get up to speed with the GIS software, which the Board all had to do, but which Hummel already has used.  This is a non-issue.

There was nothing about this candidate not to love for this job.


Chronology of the hiring process

Feb 12  - After the Alaska Supreme Court said, in December, that the Board had to start all over because they hadn't followed the Hickel Process, the Board met to discuss its next steps.   After a lengthy legal discussion about the Alaska Supreme Court decision, the Board's Petition for Reconsideration,  and the Shelby County v. Holder decision still to be heard at the US Supreme Court then, they talked about their time line for finishing up.  This included interviewing for a new Executive Director around March 14.

Feb. 24 - The Alaska Supreme Court rejected the Board's petition for reconsideration.

Feb. 27 - The US Supreme Court heard the Shelby County v. Holder case and court watchers speculated that the conservatives on the court sounded inclined to rule for Shelby County, though it was not clear how sweeping such a ruling might be.

March 8 - The Board posted notice of meetings on March 13-14 to review applications and interview applicants on their website.  There was a link for people who wanted to listen online.

Screen shot from Board's website - click to make it bigger and clearer

March 12 - I contacted the Board to find out if there would be a back up phone-in option if the LIO connection didn't work. (This has happened in the past.)  I was told that the Chair had decided that since the meeting would mostly be in Executive Session and there would only be a brief public opening of the meeting, there wouldn't be a teleconference of the meeting. 

March 13 - I checked back in the morning and talked to the Chair pointing out that the agenda had the attorney talking about legal issues before the Executive Session and the Board member comments after the session.  I also pointed out that the teleconference link had been advertised on their website.  He said he'd think about it and shortly after I got a call saying I would be able to listen via the Legislative tv channel online. 

The Board met.  Board attorney White spoke about the Shelby County case and its possible impacts on the Board's work, then the Board went into Executive Session.

I also had asked how many applicants there were (originally six, but one had dropped out at that point) and was told that they would all be interviewed.  I knew about the 1982 Alaska Supreme Court decision saying that for high level policy making positions, applicants' names and resumes needed to be available to the public.  So I emailed back to get the names and was told that no one had asked that question, they hadn't gotten permission from the applicants to release the information.  So no I couldn't have them.

March 14 - At the meeting, attorney White explained that the Anchorage Daily News requested that the Board release the names of the applicants and referred to the Supreme Court case.  He said they had notified the applicants that their names would be released.  One applicant dropped out rather than be publicly noted.  Another dropped out, not having  realized the job wasn't permanent.  White also said it wasn't clear whether it was required to have the interviews public, but the Board had decided to do that.

So, at the last minute, the Board released the names and the interviews were public.

UPDATES:
In the next post, I'll speculate on why the Board did not choose a new Executive Director.

Actually, the next post turned out to be a look at the Supreme Court case the Anchorage Daily News cited in getting the meeting opened.  Examining it, it's clear that the decision to NOT hire should have been made in public too.  Actually most of the deliberations on the candidates should have been in public.