Campbell Creek Path Under Seward Highway, Yellow Pond Lilies, Moose in Cow Parsnips and an All Around Beautiful Day

 I can't remember so much warm (into the 70s) weather over a summer.  We've had good spells, but nothing like most of June and a good start in July.  So when B suggested a bike ride today to the Coastal trail, I readily agreed.


I wanted to see how the bike trail they're building under the Seward Highway is doing.  It's blocked off for now, but here's what they've got so far.

It seems the basic trail pad is done, now they just have to pave it.

Though they've taken a perfectly charming path through the bushes and made it as much like freeway as you can do for a bike path.

This could be done by the end of the summer as the project manager told me last year.

You can already ride UNDER Dowling Road.  Though this big black thing adds nothing for me.  Again, superhighway bike trails.   Yet we don't have money for school lunches. I know, the money comes from separate budget allocations from the feds, but still.  [UPDATE 9/10/13:  I learned these are to keep snow plows on the road above from dumping snow on people on the trail.  See this updated post.]

 

Ducks at Taku Lake

The lily pond is in Pamela Joy Lowry Memorial Park - at the north end of Arlene from Dimond High.  A little gem of a neighborhood park. 

The National Park Service  gives some background on the Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar polysepalum) 

. . . Another interesting metabolic adaptation found in Nuphar is anaerobic respiration, which is respiration without oxygen. This process allows the plant to respire using no oxygen in the process, which is a very useful adaptation in the oxygen-poor environment found in standing water such as ponds and lakes. Anaerobic respiration is a complex chemical process that results in the production of ethanol (the same alcohol that you find in mixed drinks) within the plants cells. Ethanol is a poisonous substance in the plant and must be excreted away quickly in order to avoid harm to tissues. One way this toxin is removed is by evaporating the alcohol back up through the balloon-like aerenchyma cells to the surface of the water. One common name for a closely related yellow pond lily in Europe is "brandy-bottle" because of the strong smell of alcohol coming from its flowers (which are at the end of long, tube-like stems filled with aerenchyma tissue). This plant forms large tubers that sprout new clusters of leaves in the spring when ponds and lakes thaw after the long winter. These tubers are storage organs for the sugars that the plant produces each summer – they can be eaten after roasting or boiling, and are quite tasty!

 We passed this bench inside Kincaid Park.  A nice way to remember a young man who liked the guitar.

This is for Jeremy who likes all things electrical.  I liked the quality and message of the graffiti.  We're not sure what this was for, though there was a long trench out toward the inlet on the other side of the trail, and B speculated it might have something to do with the windmills out on Fire Island.

 

There was a bunch of spruce grouse chicks and then I saw the hen between the trees.

Nothing special here, I just like birch trees.

I continue to be amazed at how well moose can hide in plain sight. These are huge animals, yet they can merge in with the scenery.  I would have gone right past this one without seeing it if B hadn't called it to my attention.  Even though its hind quarters were practically sticking out onto the bike trail.

 

Would you know there was a moose in there amongst the cow parsnip?  Still can't see it?

Here's a closer look.

 The cow parsnip must have been really good, because he didn't seem to mind all the bikes zooming by with a few feet of his behind.  

Why I Live Here - One Great Summer!

Our backyard thermometer read 80˚F this afternoon though I'm sure the official temperature in Anchorage didn't get that high.  We rode over to dinner in balmy weather with spectacular views.  (The fact that I still am amazed at how beautiful the mountains are here after 35 years says something.)

After dinner, it was just too nice to go straight back so we headed on to the bike trail south of Tudor. 

I thought about getting the photographer's shadow out of the picture, but then decided I'm not in the blog too often, so I left it in.  This is about 9:20 pm.  (It's 11:30 pm now and there's still some sunshine on the mountain tops.)

 

We stopped at a lookout over Campbell Creek where we saw salmon a couple of weeks ago.  Didn't see any tonight, but then this momma Mallard showed up with 11 ducklings.  They were much better behaved than human babies would have been.  

 

A little further along the sun lights up everything.  An evening when it's a joy to be alive. 

While May was cool, June was spectacular.  I missed the first week of July when I'm told it was grey and rainy.  But it's been great the last couple of days. 

How Much Do Clouds Weigh? Thoughts While Flying From LA to Anchorage

As I flew from LA to Anchorage last night clouds covered the water below most of the way.  We left as the sun was setting in LA, about 8pm.  But as you'll see it never got dark as we flew north and as we landed in Anchorage about 40 minutes early at 11:20pm, despite a moderate cloud cover, it was totally light out.  I love summers here.

Santa Monica Bay

Click to enlarge this google map

The water was already rising from the sea as we took off.  Along the Santa Monica Mountains in the background fog was already up.  Here, just west of the airport, looking north, it was mostly clear with just a hint of the evaporation.  The canal like object is the outlet to the sea from Marina del Rey.  I'd ridden my bike to sea side end of the northern jetty just before getting ready to get the Lincoln bus to the airport.  Venice Beach lies
north of the marina.

I hadn't been on the non-stop flight for a while and forgot it stayed mostly over water.  I began to think of all that water migrating up from the ocean surface and hanging in the air.  The little girl in front of me talked about bouncing on the clouds. 

Here's a view along the beach front that ends at the marina.  This is the tonier end of Venice south of Washington.  The bike path from Santa Monica, through Venice, ends at Washington - at the pier - and you have to take the streets to Top Sail, when a path begins again to the marina.  Before Venice Blvd is the carnival like area of the boardwalk with lots of people.  From Venice (going south) to Washington, the frontage is homes, including the Frank Gehry home, not shops along the bike trail.

I'm assuming the folks south of Washington didn't want the riff-raff so they didn't let the bike trail continue past their beach front homes.  But that's just a guess and I've learned our assumptions are often way off.  Only when you get several blocks from the jetty of Marina del Ray, does a path reappear, and you can see it was pretty empty on a warm July Tuesday afternoon when the norther parts of the trail were packed.

 

A little up the coast, ocean was covered in clouds and moisture had seeped in between the the mountain.

Further north the upper clouds turned pink and the lower ones, looking a bit like ice, were white.  I started wondering what percent of the ocean might be clouds right now.  I figured that was probably a very small number.

But today, I decided to see if I could find it.  Someone had emailed me a link to an article about Wolfram Alpha

Engine Outside Window Glowing and Not

Wolfram Alpha is probably the most useful site on the internet.
It's not a search engine, it's not an encyclopedia, and it's not a calculator, but it's a little bit of all of that. It's really the only member of its field.
Originally developed as an online version of Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica software, its basic functionality is that of a math equation solver.
Over the years, however, it's grown substantially, and has really matured as a site to become one of the coolest and most informative sites online.
Here are some of the coolest things you can do with it.

It had a list of interesting things you could  ask it to calculate.  So I asked what percent of the ocean was in clouds.  It couldn't figure out what I was asking.  I tried a few others and finally, how much do clouds weight?  Here's the answer I got:

I could have given that answer myself.  So I went back to google and got a few other answers:

From the Smithsonian:

"How much water is in a cloud? What would be left if you squeezed the water out of it?
Jerry Jones
Eugene, Oregon
It depends on the cloud. A giant thunderhead may contain more than two billion pounds of water, but even a modest-sized cloud may contain water equivalent to the mass of a 747 jet. If you could squeeze the water out, the cloud would disappear. But you can’t. Some desert peoples use cloth “cloud catchers” to gather condensation and fill local water tanks for drinking and irrigation.
Doug Herman
Geographer, National Museum of the American Indian"

The USGS offered this bit of trivia on its Water Cycle page:

Care to guess how many gallons of water fall when 1 inch (2.5 cm) of rain falls on 1 acre of land?

When you clicked to see the answer it was 27,154 gallons of water.  Is that a lot?  How many Olympic sized swimming pools would that fit?  *Answer at bottom.

The USGS page on Water Storage in the Atmosphere came a little closer to answering my original question.  (It also answers in more detail the 2 billion pounds answer above.)  It also had this chart.

Global distribution of atmospheric water

One estimate of global water distribution

Water source	Water volume, in cubic miles	Water volume, in cubic kilometers	Percent of total freshwater	Percent of total water
Atmosphere	3,094	12,900	0.04%	0.001%
Total global fresh water	8,404,000	35,030,000	100%	2.5%
Total global water	332,500,000	1,386,000,000	--	100%
Source: Gleick, P. H., 1996: Water resources. In Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, ed. by S. H. Schneider, Oxford University Press, New York, vol. 2, pp.817-823.

 

So, he estimates that .001% of total water on earth is in the atmosphere.  That doesn't seem like much, but when you consider how much of the earth is covered by ocean and how deep that ocean is, it's quite a bit.

From How Stuff Works (I can't find anything on this site that talks about where their information comes from and there's no author listed for this article, so be skeptical.)

The oceans are huge. About 70 percent of the planet is covered in ocean, and the average depth of the ocean is several thousand feet (about 1,000 meters). Ninety-eight percent of the water on the planet is in the oceans, and therefore is unusable for drinking because of the salt. About 2 percent of the planet's water is fresh, but 1.6 percent of the planet's water is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Another 0.36 percent is found underground in aquifers and wells. Only about 0.036 percent of the planet's total water supply is found in lakes and rivers. That's still thousands of trillions of gallons, but it's a very small amount compared to all the water available.The rest of the water on the planet is either floating in the air as clouds and water vapor, or is locked up in plants and animals (your body is 65 percent water, so if you weigh 100 pounds, 65 pounds of you is water!).

As we got further north, the sun was back in play.

I've discussed Edward O. Wilson's book The Future of Life before.   A key argument he makes is that the earth's natural systems are a huge infrastructure project - redistributing water, cleaning air and water, developing good soils, and lots of other things that men pay little attention to when they dam rivers, pollute oceans, cut trees, etc.

I think the notion of moving the huge amounts of water from the ocean to the clouds and out over the land where it comes down as rain or snow should give us pause.  Humans are working hard to find reasonably priced desalination processes.  And here nature does it for us effortlessly.  We just have to stop polluting the source and then polluting and otherwise wasting the water that the clouds provide free of charge.  







*ANSWER:  The Region 8 EPA says an Olympic sized pool holds 630,000 gallons of water, so 1 inch of water on one acre wouldn't do much to fill it. 

And since water weighs 8.34 pounds/gallon the 2 billion pounds of water in a thunder cloud mentioned above comes to about 240 million gallons, or a lot more than what you need to fill an Olympic sized pool. 

Places and Times To Sign The SB 21 Oil Tax Repeal Referendum Petition

The 2012 election finally gave our governor, former Conoco Phillips lobbyist, Sean Parnell, the votes he needed in the Alaska Senate to pass Senate Bill 21 that changed the taxes on the companies that extract Alaska's oil.  The impact on the state has been said to be around $2 billion a year, though the number varies.  The rationale was that it would stir companies to invest more in Alaska, but there were no requirements put on the oil companies and they've made no promises.

The Democrats have called this a giveaway to the oil companies at time when education and health care and other important services that Alaskans rely on are being cut.  Republicans say it is needed.

A referendum is gathering signatures and needs a few more before the deadline July 13.  I just got a notice saying where people can sign the petition.

Alaskans wanting to sign should go to one of the following two locations in Anchorage between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.:

·       The Loussac Library at 3600 Denali Street, off 36^th Street

·       Barnes and Noble bookstore at 200 E Northern Lights Blvd, near A Street

In Wasilla:  Post Office, 410 Main St.

In Fairbanks, Alaskans can go to:

·       The Noel Wien Library at 1215 Cowles Street, from 11:30 to 4 p.m.

·       The IBEW Hall at 2000 Airport Way at Wilbur Street during business hours

·       Denali Chiropractic at 1018 College Road

Given the wide difference in opinions, it seems to me that getting the referendum on the ballot will give people time to sift through the facts and better consider this decision.  There will, of course, be a lot of propaganda, but unless there are enough signatures, there will be no debate.  

Here's The Map The Redistricting Board Approved Sunday Compared To The Old One

The Alaska Redistricting Board Sunday (July 7, 2013) Approved this Conceptual Map for Alaska.  They were working from the Calista Option 4 map, but then did their own adjustments to different parts.  Jim Holm worked with the Fairbanks area and made changes there.  Anchorage, according to what they said at the meeting yesterday, was left pretty much alone.  (I haven't checked to be sure, though.)

For now I'm going to give you

1. A comparison of the 2012 Alaska Interim Plan (Amended Proclamation Plan) used for the 2012 election and the map the Board approved in concept Sunday for the 2014 election.
2. A comparison of the 2012 Anchorage map and the Board's approved concept map for Anchorage.  I also added the Calista Option 4 plan - developed by the Calista Corporation and which the Board used as a starting point.  

I've saved these as pretty big maps so you can double click on them to see them bigger.  But you can also get the PDFs for all these maps and see them in street level detail.

Proposed 2014 Alaska Election Map
2012 Alaska Election Map

Proposed 2014 Anchorage Election Map (Inset in the Alaska map)
2012 Anchorage Election Map

The Two Alaska maps - 2012 election map and the new map for 2014.  (The Board still has to finally adopt this and then it has to survive any court challenges.)

And here's a comparison of the 2012 and proposed 2014 Anchorage maps.  And the Calista Option 4 map that the Board used as a starting point. 

Sorry, Please change 2914 to 2014 and add an 'a' to Calist

 One thing I see that appears to be significant are the Senate pairings.  In 2012 Bettye Davis was put into a new Senate district (M) had an Anchorage house district (25) and an Eagle River house district (26.)  This time it looks like both Eagle River districts are paired to make a Senate seat.  Does this mean that Fred Dyson (R) will be running against Anna Fairclough (R)?  I'm not sure, but it's possible. 

Also, Cathy Geisel's (R) Senate district included a South Anchorage house district  a North Kenai house district.  Now the South Anchorage district is paired with a Muldoon house district.

Those are some obvious changes.  Given how many Republicans are in the Alaska House and Senate, it would be hard to make changes without impacting Republicans. 


Here's the page with the old maps - there are separate maps for different parts of the state in great detail. 
  

Board Finishes Up "In Concept" - Schedules Sunday July 14 at 1pm To Formally Adopt New Plan

[Sorry, I had some interruptions here so I missed some parts.  I do have a list of
Senate Seats
The Districts they are made up of
Whether they are two year or four year.

But I don't have a map.  And I missed the final truncation list but I think there were just four districts - the new C, F, G, and P -  truncated.  They ruled that any district with 75% or more of the same population as before would not be truncated, so that kept District B,  at 77%, from being truncated.  The other four were near 50% or below. 

The GIS guy, Eric, will go through the maps again and check for any holes or errors and as long as he doesn't change a district by more than ten people, he can do it on his own. [Would they know if he did 20?  I doubt it.  But my sense is that Eric is a straight shooter and they can trust him.]  He's also going to do the metes and bounds.  Here's my June 13, 2011 post that explains Metes and Bounds.  (This is so much easier the second time around.)

OK, here are my very rough notes.  I probably should review them one more time, but  I haven't had lunch - it's almost 5pm here in LA - and I'm getting cranky.  But during all this I did get my mom onto Hospice today which is great.  That means the care-giver will have a support system behind her and she won't be sent to the hospital for minor things like last weekend.  The Hospice folks who came out were terrific.

You can see, there was still a bit of confusion among the Board members.  Even after the break.  Since I wasn't there, I'm not exactly sure what they did on break and who consulted with whom, but they were much more organized and had their motions pretty well prepared and got everything approved 4-0 (Board member Holm had an flight to catch and left before they were done).  But unanimous is pretty much how every single vote has gone.  I somehow seem to remember a time when there was a vote that wasn't 5-0, but I'd be hard pressed to go through my notes to find it. 


3:50pm Call back to order
PeggyAnn McConnochie; I’d like to get one thing off the table so we don’t have to deal with it, if less than 75% they have to be truncated and B has 77% so it does not have to be truncated.
Green:  second
Torgerson:  That has 75% the same.
Roll call:  Holm absent.  4-0 and one excuse 75% and above not truncated.  Brings us to actual senate pairings and terms.
is there a solution to the 4-2-4-2
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I’m going thru individually on each district and tell you whether they will run or truncate and two or four year term and proposing a couple of lettering number switches that won’t affect pairings, but only the lettering that allows us to have good 4242


Concept Plan A - running anyway in 2014 - four year term
B - not truncate, has two years left - run for two year term (wouldn’t run now)
Torgerson:  for four year.
C - truncated - then four year term
White:  three four year terms
Torgerson:  no
D and E - propose flipping them
D would have - new D - two years remaining and E four years
White:  Is D running again?
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  No, yes,
D becomes not running and two year
F.  truncated. running
Torgerson: Already up, so not truncated
G truncated because 50.9 - then four years
Torgerson:  P?
PeggyAnn McConnochie: will be two year.
Sen that are 100% of previous  I and J flipping
I two year and
J four year
Old H and I not running? 
K running, for four year
L has a four year term.  two years left
M  has to run 2014
N truncated and two year
Torgerson: Not truncated, up for election
O is out and running anyway for four year
P truncated, running anyway for two year
Q anyway because out of years
R has two years left
S is truncate and running for 4 years
T running again for two year term.

did I do that right.
White H and I again.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  H and I flipping, whole purpose so have 424242 all the way.  Flipping I and J so the letters allow a sequence of 4242
Concept I and J
Talking about concept plan district (or not?)
White:  New I, former J, two year term, but not running this time.
Green:  That’s the new J.
White:  The new I, is running this time?
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Yes
No
Yes
White:  New I running now for four year term?  I see 14 that need to run this time, 6 people on four year terms, not running this time and all two year terms?  or randomly split?
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  random in that have 42424 - so no confusion who will be on four year and who on two year term. 
Torgerson:  Eric can you make a clean sheet?
I understand 42424 still start with A and changed some lettering to around so it works
Marie:  D and E  I and J. 
4;02[they’re talking to themselves I think
I hear people talking softly.  It’s like they are informal now.  ]
4:04 - Still not really speaking in the mikes, I guess they’re each looking at the charts trying to figure them out.  If they had someone in the office who could use the website, they could post the list and the latest map, but they don’t.]

[I got interrupted at this point and missed the final truncation plan, but I did get the gist and Ill go through it.  I also saw that Mary at the Board was able to email me the Senate pairings list which I’ll check against what they did below.  I imagine that since they changed some of the letters that it will be a little different.]

[I'll try to put this into a table and replace this if I have time.  A will run next time for four years, B for two years, C for four years, D for two years on down the line until T which will run for two years. What I can't tell is how these relate to the old Senate seats.  I know from the discussion that some - like the new R was mostly N before.  This is Kodiak which now goes to Cordova.]

Eric
A   House districts 1 and 2   - 4 years
B   House districts 3 and 4  2 years
C 5 &6
D 7&8
E 9&10
F districts 11 &12
G 13& 14
H 15 and 16
I   17 and 18
J   19 and 20
K  21 and 22
L  23 and 24
M  25 and 26
N  27 and 28
O 29 &30
P 31 and 32
Q 33 and 34
R  35 and 36
S  37 and 38
T 39 and 40

Vote:  4-0  Senate pairings adopted

[UPDATE 8:20pm: Below is the table I promised]

Senate Seat	House Districts	Years Next Term
A	1&2	4
B	3&4	2
C	5&6	4
D	7&8	2
E	9&10	4
F	11&12	2
G	13&14	4
H	15&16	2
I	17&18	4
J	19&20	2
K	21&22	4
L	23&24	2
M	25&26	4
N	27&28	2
O	29&30	4
P	31&32	2
Q	33&34	4
R	35&36	2
S	37&38	4
T	39&40	2

Term of office

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Accept in concept in term lengths as board 4242 down the list A has 4 years to T with two years. 

Vote:  4-0  board has adopted term of office and truncation all taken care of and who will be running in 2014.  I believe that gives us a complete conceptual plan
Regionally all of Alaska
Senate pairings and Truncations and terms of office.

I would like someone to make a motion to let Eric make changes to the map for contiguity purposes and any holes, up to ten people per district.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: I will move Eric Sandberg our GIS extraordinaire to make any changes up to ten persons per district, if more, needs our permission.
Torgerson:  Last time there were a couple and that threshold worked well.

Vote:  4-0 authorized GIS expert to proceed

Last thing on my agenda is to discuss and adopt schedule to be completed with final plan, as well know here, for those who don’t know, the Board scatters to the wind on Monday and we don’t have them back until next Sunday.  I want all of us here for that.  Earliest time all 5 is the 14th.  Reconvene next Sunday.  Report from Eric if any anomalies and we’ll adopt it all in its entirety. 

If on teleconference I will be here and any member who needs to come or teleconference.  I anticipate a pretty short meeting.
Brodie:  What time?
Torgerson:  Good question.  I like ten.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  10:30?
Torgerson:  11?
Green:  That’s when i’d be arriving.
Torgerson:  how about 1?  Brodie?
Brodie:  I’ll check with my wife.
Torgerson:  I probably should check with mine.
Convene at 1pm on Sunday July 14.  I anticipate that will be our final action, adopting, whatever we’re going to call this - Seconded Amended Proclamation.
Vote:  4-0 Board has adopted their completion schedule. 

PeggyAnn wondering if reason for the schedule go to court?
White:  We will notify the Court where we are and the schedule.  Eric, you going back tonight?
Eric Tomorrow morning.
White:  Will do Metes and Bounds from Juneau?  I have four days blocked out for Michael to write his stuff up.  We’re a week away.  Should have enough time.
Brodie:  Given the vagaries
White:  Court order said adopt a plan by the 14.
Pending something extraordinary we plan to meet that day and adopt our plan. 
Torgerson:  Good question I thought about something like that.  Ok.  anything else we need to do?
White:  No I don’t think so.
Torgerson:  Time is 4:35 We’ll adjourn Thanks for sticking through this.  Stand adjourned until next Sunday. 

Board's Reasoning Ability Truncated

The Board's getting tired.  As they tried to figure out the truncation and then which half of the terms have two year and which half have four year terms, their brains turned to mush as they got so hopelessly confused that Randy Ruedrich actually jumped into the discussion from the audience to suggest - what I was thinking here - that one out would be to change the numbers and letters of the districts so they didn't require almost everyone to end up with another set of two year terms. 

I tried to explain truncation two years ago at this post - what it means and why they do it.

Real brief:  if a new seat is substantially different from the old one, it means that the majority of voters in the new district did NOT elect that Senator.  Therefore, to have someone represented by the voters of the district, that seat must run again in 2014, regardless how long that term was before.

Part two has to do with staggered terms.  Half the senate runs in one election and the other half in the other.  That way they never have everyone running at once and half the senate at least has some experience.  Now they are adding geographic staggering (so not all of Anchorage or Fairbanks Senators would run in the same year) which makes sense.  But someone said contiguous districts, which probably would be impossible because several districts may be contiguous. 

This is what they are trying to figure out how to do.  And since this is the second redistricting plan in two years, it looks like a large number of senators may be forced to run every two years for two or more elections in a row, contrary to the four year terms  the Constitution assigns for Senators. 

Without their chart and their maps it's impossible for me to have any idea of what the implications are for specific districts and Senators, except Gary Stevens who Brodie names.  Since I'm on line, I don't have the new map or the list of truncations. 

They've recessed for twenty minutes.  They're due back already, but this will take them more than 20 minutes to figure out.  It sounded a lot like the Abbot and Costello "Who's On First" routine.

Here are my rough notes, while they are on a 15 minute recess, to figure out what they are doing. 



Calling meeting back to order.  It’s 2:38.  During the break to let the individual members to look at ????.  Also handed out the truncation report on the districts that changed and percentage they changed.  Struggled understanding.

Eric:  Board concept senate turns
Senate seats in new plan, second column,  third column largest % of Senate seat

A - 97% of old Senate B

Assignment of term lengths is from the old districts, so you can see from the current ones.

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I read from two middle columns?  Thank you.

White:  Looks like 8 senate district that are clearly truncated, down 50%.  Q, old P is 97% the same, but that’s the one that didn’t get truncated that time, so should be ready to run this time or would be

77% one, that’s in that gray area, do you require it or not.  That person ran for 4 years seat last time.  How you map out two and four year seats is different from truncating.  You’d have ten and ten and make two and four based on that.  those who have to run now would be four.

Torgerson:  Sounds simple, but it isn’t back to Eric’s list.
staggered 4-2-4-2
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  A is 4 B is 2
Proclamation go ABCD, the 2-4 out of whack, but next column.
Torgerson:  Q has to be four year?
White:  He hasn’t run since 2010 so has to run. 
BEFGNOPand F  I suggest to you, they need to run in 2014.  If 2 year term anyway.  P is up now anyway.  If assign two year or four year.

C is a four year so shouldn’t run until 2016, but truncated so has to run in 2014.
A was a four year

B fro m concept plan - 70% is within the Board’s discretion.  The rest are under 50% so they have to be truncated.

F - 4 year but only 50%
R doesn’t need
Q needs to run this tie anyway
P needs to be truncated because 4 year but 50%

G only 50%

Brodie:  In our haste, in the third column concept N and O, we have a duplicate N -
Eric:  Both have majority from old one, District R went to new Sen P, cross tabs, New concept N and O get from old N
Torgerson:  for those on tele

White; Sure truncate

C - 4 year, 46%
G - 4 year about 50% the same
P - 4 year only 51% the same
S/F?  - 4 year only 54% the same

The only one’s I see that have to be truncated.
Torgerson:  Assuming the one with 70%

We know A is two year time this time
D is two year and needs to run again
F needs to run only two year, 40%
N needs to run
Brodie:  J and K two year terms, M, N,
White:  Now we’re over 50%
Brodie:  Go left to right
 N and O scheduled and have 50%
Q is scheduled
P
White:  12 districts that would be up for running with truncation,
Brodie:  I got 14
White:  You’re talking about two year terms. 
PeggyAnn McConnochie: 
White:  We assigned them two year terms last time, don’t have to change.  Up to us.  At the end, there have to be ten four year terms and ten two year terms. 
You have five, regardless to 2012 that need to be truncated and need to be run in 2014 and ?? that have to run in 2014 because term up,

Brodie: 
C
D
P
S
Two to go, that’s five
and ten scheduled with 0 time left to go.

15 up for election.  Ten on normal schedule up and five truncated.
Of those, two year and four year.
Torgerson:  If ran on two years, we can’t give them another two years. 
White:  Assignment different from truncation. Five need to be truncated.  Have to run this time again.  Were on four year terms.  Either pick 5 more to go four or pick the five truncated and give them four year terms. 
Torgerson:  Need to end up with ten and ten. 
White:  J and K are 100% the same.  But on two year terms.  Have to run again, but could assign a four year term.
Torgerson:  Are you saying if term expired we can give them another four years without an election?
White:  Not what I’m saying
Torgerson:  Ones with two have to run.  The ones with four but are truncated.  Matter of where we want to start.  four or two,
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  We could go with ones on 2 year, and make them four.  Then go down the percentages. 
Brodie:  Put 15 numbers in a hat
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  have to do truncated first.
Brodie:  Those five get four years.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Ones we have have to run.  all the truncated people had four year terms.
Torgerson:  Sen B two years,
Make A  a four year - if you go two-four-two-four  - I don’t know how that would work. 
Brodie:  We could pull out of a-hat.
Torgerson:  That won’t work.  Always did A, B, that would be ?? that would have 2 year terms. 
Brodie:  Fairbanks should probably be alternate, not all at the same time. 
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  If running other times would always have people who knew something.
Torgerson:  I always saw these as 2-4-2-4  If the A was four, the B was two. 
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I agree it needs to be that way. 
Torgerson:  Otherwise the Board could say everyone in Anchorage was up at the same time,  Mr. White is that right?
White:  One more time
Torgerson:  No, I’m not saying it again.  I’m almost certain you have to stagger A-B-C-D
Brodie:  Then it gets tricky, potentially we could end up truncating everybody.  If someone has two years to go, and ends up on the wrong side of the flip.
Torgerson:  That’s the way it falls.  We could go down the list and see what happens. 
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  We could start with drawing a hat - 2 or 4 and then go from there.  They need to be staggered through the districts.
Brodie:  Some are tied geographically.
White:  We know these four need to be truncated.  Then, there are four four year terms that have to run this time.  Then five other two year terms, four of them are truncated, so they are up.  Q needs to be up this time.(on 2 year term)
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Bottom line:  need geographical don’t have two contiguous seats not running he same term.  Flip a coin and then flows up or down.  Then ten on two year and ten on four year.
Brodie: I think I have it based on what Mike said.
Starting at bottom - S and T up.  R has two years left to go - put 2 opposite him.  Q is up.  P, our rotation has two year term and truncated. N is truncated and up for election, so two.  L has two years to go, not truncated.  Put two for him.  J and K - off here,  I and H.  Start at R, L and I stay in four year rotation and every other.  Only person cut short is H.  Others stay on even/odd. 
H stays and I gets changed.  Is that right? 
Torgerson:  If 4-2-4-2  the whites on the sheet will all be the same.  Does that work out? 
A was two years and now four.  Let me think this through, boy. 
C would truncate, but be on four year
E four
R two year
T truncate but on four year.
I said T but G, would be four
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  reading them too fast for me
Brodie:  Just the opposite.  whites have two years to go, but not all.  If we make all the white two year and all the beige four year.  I guess I was off.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Read beige is four, white is two
A=4
B =2
C=4 all the way down and T is

White:  Assignment of election for this plan.  If map didn’t have to be redrawn there would be ten and ten.  But because changed, there are four people who need to be truncated.  GPBand F need to run.
That means the other two year up - ten of those.  Some we already know can stay because being truncated.  And five more of them.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  more people running this time than will ever have to run than ever again. 
listing of people whose terms are over with.  One time until we’re back on schedule.
Torgerson:  We’re saying the same thing.
Brodie:  Anomaly with translation.  Current Senate district R.  It’s not there
Eric:  Majority of current senate districts
Torgerson:  In conceptual plan all are there, not in Proclamation plan
Brodie:  What was R last year, now becomes P according to this he had two years to go, but he had a two year term.
White:  But he wasn’t truncated.
Eric:  This sheet wasn’t designed for what you’re doing.  Maybe easier to look at old one cross. 

Old A - 4 year and now  this one causing you trouble
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Need to be sure Senate from old one was R, what happens to him today.
Eric:  Elected to two year term in 2012.  Up to run now.  Most of his district went to the new P.  Reason it didn’t show up, because P got more from old O than R.  R was western Alaska, underpopulated district. 
New N has breaks pretty evenly between Proc. N and M, Concept district O broke evenly between proc N and O, but majority from Proc N.  That’s why N is listed twice.  Concept P is mostly from O
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  But a lot from R and few from N. 
Brodie:  I think
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Sen R will no longer exist.  That person has to run in the new senate seat
Brodie:  And already due to run.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Has a new letter, I don’t know who it is.
Brodie:  Lost in translation - we can go from old letters to new for determining the term.  If old R is now Assigned concept P, it shows he has two years to go, when he doesn’t.  Gary Stevens elected two years ago for a two year term.  His new district will be P.  It shows the new P with the old showing he was
Torgerson:  The old P was elected for two years.
Brodie:  But he was a different guy.  If all the Proc districts, two N’s instead of an R.  That lets us build our plan.  Then we assign the new letters to them.
Suggest:  Take a recess  [Ruedrich?]  In the process of relettering creates uncertain.  100% to two years and the sen who ran for two years is extended for four years.  Maybe a numbering problem.  If change the 1,2,3,4 locations, then A would be back and it would become straightforward.
Torgerson:  We’re not extending anyone on a two year seat.  They have to run again.
Brodie:  I agree with what you said.  But because of our lettering it seems to indicate two years when they don’t. 
PeggyAnn McConnochie: I don’t see that.
Brodie:  Proc -there is no R because Eric assigned from where they were in last election.  If go to concept P, it indicates he has two years left.  I think we need to drop the concept letters and use the current ones and then we will be more able to tell.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Don’t we still have the problem about what happened to N and P?
Brodie:  Sure, but he’s artificially being given two extra years.
Torgerson:  He still has to run
White:  no under 50% the same, so truncated.  How much of R is the same as the district he is in now?  Not sure, truncated based on incumbent or on the district?
Torgerson:  Pretty close because he had Lincoln Pen last time and not Kenai.  We’re not extending anybody.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Whoever occupies P has to run again.
3:25, take a 15 minute recess.  Come back at 20 to 4. 

Alaska Redistricting Board Rushing to Completion

[2:35pmI’ve been busy and didn’t have time to put this up, but they are still on break so I will.  I have not proofed this at all.  So, be warned.  There are gaps, but it will give you a sense of what was covered.  They approved most things and are now preparing to do the truncations and and some other details.  They just went back on line to say they hadn't forgotten us but are still getting things done]


It’s 11:13 and now we’re online and you missed my speech

Eric:  Of the 17,735, 7.787?  were in Matsu or about 43%
In District 10 - of 17, 671 9932 were in Matsu Borough

Torgerson:  Mr. White
White:  There are four districts 100% in Matsu.  a 5th where they are in a majority and one more with 45%.  Deviations in the area all under ½%.  Total deviation in Matsu districts about .97%
Holm:  Eastern boundary is, ?????
Torgerson? Eric?:  Highway and pipeline, then ???
White:  Highway for population reasons?
Eric:  yes
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  This is under the divided Borough plan?
Yeah.
Torgerson:  Want to take a look at Glenallen/North Anchorage population?  How many people come out of Anchorage.  Non-split option. 
Same people, 7,739 are in Anchorage out of that.  17,755 is the total. No 17,940
43% of that is Anchorage.
White:  In this plan you put the Knik river back in.  Yesterday, if you move back to Matsu it creates 3-4% deviation?
Eric:  Of D10?  yea. 
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I’ll go back to say the two split is more powerful than just one splitting of the Borough. 
Torgerson: Questions
White:  What if we end up on border of ten?
Eric:  Used Calista 4 - Ft. Greely.  We’ll have to fiddle with that piece.
White:  Greely to Valdez to Knik?  Current interim plan has Ft. Greely to Valdez
Brodie:  I have a slight question.  If that lower appendage that runs into Anchorage.  If we just move it up to Matsu.  Why can’t we just do that?  thinking of Eastern Alaska going so far if all we’re going to do is trade 7,000 out of Anchorage or Matsu.  If leave like this and back out of Anchorage like we talked about?
Eric:  splitting Matsu twice.
Brodie:  Why making 6 so large again. 
Eric:  You’re going to have an extra half district in the Matsu.
White:  See where 26, assume that’s the line going to District 10 - to be 7,000+ short.  Would have to pick out into 6 and find 7,000 to put into ten.  Have to go to 6 or 8 which is what they do now.
Brodie:  This 7 go here and ????
White:  Instead of taking it out of the East of Fairbanks, take it out of the West.  West going to rural.  The major players would be Eilson, that would be recreating a lot of the rural.  Is Eilson in 6?
Eric:  Yes.  7 is completely outside the NS Borough.
Brodie:  I guess I’m looking from behind the trees?
Torgerson:  Any other discussion?
White:  Some tradeoffs and some tough discretionary decisions the Board needs to make.  Calista - Valdez Anchorage doesn’t split Matsu Borough twice, but pushes up to Frot Greely.  Whehter SEI integrated, arguments could be made.
Seven split twice.  District 6, old district 5 in past, doesn’t have to go down as far.  Split Matsu twice, according to numbers they control five districts and entitled to do that.  Not sure if consideration can take, fastest growing districting in the state.  No one in that district raised a problem.  Mayor supports it.  If we go into interior districts?  Wasilla/Palmer ones, we like follow major roads.
Eric:  From his - Mayor’s - maps.
White:  Liked them because follow major arteries.
I think there will be pressure points wherever you go.  Mr. Holm used the balloon metaphor.  Splitting Borough twice problem, but supportable.  I’d be concerned about SEI and compact.  Balancing one consttutional factor overe another.  We understand proporitonality but not strict, accommodating excess Anchorage population which you canpush to Cordova.  More to current - SEI of pipeline, Highway Corridor.  Or for this map the better choice would be Matsu split twice. 
Torgerson:  Other discussion.
Motion to adopt Matsu split twice into our conceptual plan.
Vote:  5-0  adopted Matsu split twice for all the reasons we debated last three days.
Let’s do Western Alaska and maybe Kenai too. 

39, 40, 38, 37, 32, 31 and 29.  Twenty eight. 

32 Kodiak - All of K borough, Yakutat, Cordova, ??, and Chenega,  that block side of city of Seward through Kenai Fjiords National Park and non-road side of Halibut Cove, Seldovia etc.  and Westrn Cook Inlet - Tyonek  - Divide onece.

Grayling, Holy Cross, Takotna, McGrath, Sleetmute, all of Bristol Bay and Aleutions 37

38 Lower Kuskokwim, Newtok ….. Russian Mission

39  Bering Striats and Yukon Delta to St. Mary’s, Yukon Koyukuk regions

40 is North Slope borough, Arctic Slope, Wiseman

6 ARctic Village Venetai.  Denali Borough, Eastern Sid of Fairbanks North Star, Slana, Chitna, McCarthy, Eastern half of Copper River

NW - split o
NSBorough once - East side - Eilson

Brodie:  I move to adopt districts as numbered on this map 28-40 and 6
Green:  Second
White:  Make sure, Kenai split once, but three districts wholly in the Borough. 
Eric;  13% excess stayed outside the road system in Kenai to put into Kodiak. 
White:  No objections for Kodiak or Cordova as I understand.
Roll Call:  5-0 adopted districts outlined 6 and 28-40

That Bring us to South east.

Eric:
Southern D - all of Ketchikan B and City and B or Wrangell, Hydaburg and S half of Pof Wales

Rest with Sitka, Petersburg B, Kake, Angoon.

Haines and Skagway, Gustavus, and Downtown Juneau, Douglas

Other completely in City and Borough of Juneau, Auke Bay and down the road.  Fred Meyer is the break. 

Motions for adoption.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Move to adopt
Torgerson:  second by Holm.  Picked up Hydaburg, mainly for deviation purposes.  Had option to split boroughs prior to Hydaburg.  All deviations under one.  .70
Juneau has substantial testimony from Skagway, Haines that they wanted to be paired with downtown Juneau.

White:  Hydaburg more culturally tied with that area.

36 and 35 - Haines and Skagway and them SEI with downtown Juneau, better fit.  36 very discrete that has mining claims, reasonable to go to downtown area.

Vote:  5-0  adopted Southeast 4 districts into our conceptual plan.

Leaves us with Valdez and Anchorage.  I want to take a break to understand some of the reasoning for that.  time is 11:43 and we’ll come back on at noon.


Torgerson:  Back on Record.  Time is 11:57  Anchorage
Eric:  Anchorage bowl, from base south, Girdwood. The same districts from the proclamation plan, so same in Anchorage. 
Torgerson:  Proclamation Plan - overlay the Calista 4 with this?
Eric:  Fairly similar, had done a few things differently, here and here, probably for deviation.  basically have the same boundaries [sorry had an important phone call].

12:01
Green:  Mr. Chair, deviations are similar?
Eric:  Yes.
Torgerson: We had a request from the Mt. View Community Council to move in Mt. View Elementary and park in District 13, no one lives in them so it wouldn’t matter.  It’s military and elections said not to take little pieces of military land.  It’s part of a block of the larger Military base, so you’d be grabbing 8 people in the military base.  Can’t just grab the elementary school and the park. 
Torgerson:  Do you have interaction with people to look at the blocks.
Eric:  We can ask them but they won’t pay any attention. 
Torgerson; Letter from lt. Gov asking us to back away for precinct purposes.  So, a request we can’t fulfill.
White;  Deviations in Anchorage?
Eric:  about - same districts, boundaries as proclamation plan.  runs from 13-26 all within 1% either way.  22 is actually perfect. 
Torgerson:  Motion to adopt Anchorage districts - 13-28.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I move to accept in concept 28-13 Anchorage districts.
Torgerson  moved and seconded.  Discussion?
Roll call vote:  5-0  has adopted in concept to our conceptual plan, the Anchorage districts.  That leaves us with the Fairbanks districts.  One question.  Right where the number 3 is, Zero in to that one.  What we’re calling the Anvil.  About 600 people. 
Jim, I know you tried moving that around.  Can you tell us how you tried to do that?

Holm:  Folks there wanted to be together.  Didn’t want to take population out of 4 and put in 5.  Tried moving from west to east as much as possible.  Wanted to keep integrity of the city as muchas I could.  500 over.  Only way to do it easily was move it to 5.  If I move it into 5 it skews things the other way.  The limits of these borders are veery good and I saw no reason to make that change.  cross the river for parts of 5 any way.  Keep west side.  Think there is a ?? needs to be done.  6 at North pole could be cleaned up.  Deviation is good now.  All these are west side of Borough, all inclusive of borough line.  Bounded by East Highway, I believe in the north, all the way up to ???? Deviations are small.  ???%
Torgerson:  ...right below NPole to find population. 
Holm:  That’s the whole city of NPole.  Lots of population to south and east.  6 we took Moose Creek and Eilson for population of 6.  Made sense to keep them.  Chena River is the Northern Border of 3. 
White:  All one big block or two little ones? 
Holm:  Two, take those out, looks really weird.
White:  People live in there?
Holm:  Yes
Eric:  67, 240, 42
White:  Most people in the Anvil live in those.  Those are separate blocks?  The outlines? 
Eric:  200 ..
White:  What about oness at the top?
Eric:  50, huncred some people. 
White:  ½ %  If you put those in three wouldn’t that keep those people with their neighbors?  Go up to 1.2 wouldn’t it? 
Torgerson:  Talking about the three squares? 
White:  Just see what happens, put that one into 2 maybe and that one into 3?
Torgerson:  click on rest of that block what do you get?
Eric:  242
White:  no idea where they live, no roads in there
……
12:16
Torgerson:  I hear Mr. Holm saying, not dividing Ester Goldstream, some anomalies up there, this is the better choice
White:  Just dealing with compactness, doesn’t matter SEI cause all in borough, move around, doesn’t affect deviation.  If you just turned it, wouldn’t have that anvil, but could debate.  Taking hard look and reasonable choice is this is the method you prefer.
Torgerson:  otion to adopt?
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Move to conceptually adopt Fairbanks
Green:  Second
Torgerson:  Further discussion?
Vote:  5-0 approve conceptually, Fairbanks 1-5 and 6
Matsu left. 
Eric:  7-12
Torgerson:  Matsu district primarily what the Mayor gave and some Calista and AFFER
Eric:  AFFER Option 2 revised.  Change over in Dry Creek.  Otherwise looks the same.  We have it in 6. 
Brodie:  Move we approve in concept districts 7-12.
City of Houston entirely in
Holm:  Dry Creek - reason why in 6 and not 7?
Eric:  Followed Matsu Borough
Holm:  Calista had Dry Creek in 7. 
Torgerson:  Look at deviations.  Under .50 in all districts.  Discussion?
Vote:  5-0  Adopted 7-12.  Take about 5 minute break.  Tasked PeggyAnn MoConnchie to do numbering, then senate pairings and truncation. 
How long do you need.  Now 12:25, come back promptly at 12: 35. 

(McConnochee)

1:39  - finishing up. Need truncation and finish map.  Take break to 2:30. 

Fairbanks Done, Now Redistricting Board Is Working On The Valdez District - Connect To Matsu or To Anchorage?

[You can listen in at the legislative tv link.   They're on break now, but will be back any time now when the numbers get crunched.]

The Hospice team was in to do an evaluation, so I missed the first part of the meeting.  I got it on about 30 minutes late. 

It seems they were just finishing with Fairbanks.  Holm was leading that, and I have no idea how much he changed the template that Calista and AFFER seemed to have agreed on to make him comfortable.  He’s the Board member I’m least comfortable with after the way he did the Fairbanks maps last time such as putting the two city districts into two different Senate seats and after there were little fingers and protuberances  that coincidentally seemed to cut out a house or two of sitting legislators or potential candidates and put them into other districts, where all of these actions tended to hurt Democrats and help Republicans.  I missed the discussion today, plus since I’m listening online I can’t see the maps.  Nor do I know enough about where people live to catch it right away anyhow.  We’ll see how things fall. 

Right now they are on break.  They are deciding between the Calista Option 4 plan which leaves all five Matsu Borough districts inside Matsu (one of the basic criteria for good plans) and the AFFER #2 plan which splits the Matsu twice.  They asked Eric to come up with the numbers to see whether, as I understood it, the Matsu folks would have a majority and be able to control the election.  But, that doesn’t address the issue of how the interests of Valdez and the other people that would be in this district would be represented. 

Below are my very rough notes.  Use with caution, until the official transcripts are available. 

10:32
Holm:  many ways to skin a cat.
I think we took into consideration the complaints as much as we could.  Now paired with another surrounding Fairbanks grouping.  3. 
Torgerson:  1,2,3,4, and 5 are all within the Borough so they are SEI.

Move to Matsu:

Eric:  Valdez-Chugiak  - basically the two plans identical except for 6, 10 and the Matsu.  Whichever way you want to go with that.
this has Calista4 except the Knik River piece.
Made some changes to Eagle river - proclamation plan, in and out.  For Anchorage Bowl I just put in the Proclamation plan. 
Calista?  I think our ER deviation was higher.
Torgerson:  Either one this would be the same?
Eric:  ER boundary the same in both. 
Calista, there are a few blocks that are different between the two plans, The only difference.  Otherwise use the same general boundaries AFFER and Calista.
Torgerson: Overall deviation?
Eric:  4.2
lowest Northwest - 2.43
highest Kodiak + ?.4 
4.2 total deviation

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  question???? see map again, split twice.  Matsu gets split twice? 
White:  How many people out of Matsu in 7?
Eric:  4,000 here maybe another 4-5000 here.  About ½ a district
White:  Exact number?
What about Anchorage Matsu share?
Eric:  About ½ about 7,000 in Anchorage
Holm:  Certainly more compact this way.
Torgerson:  I don’t understand this way.  Dividing it twice?
Holm:  yes.  SEI argument that can be made, coming across the ice fields to Valdez and Cordova ??
Torgerson:  We built that into the record yesterday.  That’s why we got it figured out.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Can you show the numbers part on the bottom?
Torgerson:  Let’s start with Valdez.  I see two options
1.  divide Matsu twice
2.  Chugach/Anchorage to Glenallen

Holm:  I make motion to adopt the twice split Borough idea.  I might make the argument that the Valdez corridor towards Fairbanks , Delta,  that’s been a common grouping of folks.  If you go into ER, North Anchorage, I don’t think they have much in common.  Even if you argue there’s an Anchorage Valdez flight every day.  Not as palatable as this one.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I prefer this as well.  Makes Valdez more in common, SEI, instead of just coming in a grabbing people out of Anchorage.  More compact,
Also, Matsu likes it as well, not the only reason, but makes me feel better that Matsu wants to be split twice.
Green:  Reference to AFFER and Calista, wondering difference, based on testimony, public is ok then I’m ok with it.  In the process we reference to support we receive.  I don’t recall what the boundaries were.
Torgerson:  Calista option 4 Valdez-GlenAllen - N. Anchorage.  Not the same, but came together on Option 2 revised.  Wasn’t Calista’s best option, but if Board decided to divide Matsu twice, then this was how they’d prefer.
I have trouble with this.  They both work.  My deciding ??  dividing
60% outside and 40% Anchorage - connection of glacier and no roads.  End of Knik road - two people - connected by water before.  District 35 - Kodiak - over water, not hiking across glaciers.  Ahtna has Cantwell and that’s a plus, maybe not a very big plus.  Keeps TCC the same in all the maps.  It is a tough decision though.  A little worried about that pinnacle that comes into Anchorage.  Read the 1992 court decision many times and they suggest a borough population should be in one, I hope that in different circumstances.  Better SEI for Copper Valley.
Holm:  Did I remember in 2002 they also had a Borough split twice.
Torgerson:  White, you remember?
Probably didn’t come down to Fishhook, but more Sutton.  This one takes more of upper valley population.
White:  I’d love to see those numbers …. on this options.  How many in Matsu are ???
one, two, three, four districts entirely in the Borough.  then there’s ten.  If Borough makes up majority, then they control this district.  Courts has said no right to control, but when possible, split only one way
Torgerson:  How long take to run that?  I’m pretty sure.
Eric:  20 minute break
Torgerson:  holy cow, how about ten?
Ok, we’ll take as long as it takes our genius to figure out.
We’ll stay on teleconference.

Break, but mike is still on

Holm:  Do we want that, let them control?
10:52  Mike off. 

Asiana Crash and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers Chapter Seven: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes

[UPDATE 7/12/13:  Be sure to also read Ask A Korean's critique of Gladwell's chapter on plane crashes, which a commenter alerted me to.]

When I heard about the Asiana crash in San Francisco today I had three thoughts:

1. As someone who flies more frequently than I like, and not long ago to and from San Francisco, my sympathy goes to the families of people who died in the crash and my very best wishes go to those who were injured. 
2. We flew from Seoul to Anchorage returning from China probably in the 1990's. I know we've flown that route on Korean and on Asiana, so I'm not sure which airline this was on. On our seats was an English language newspaper, maybe the International Herald Tribune with an article about Asiana's (or Korea's) airline travel partners dropping the airline because of safety issues.  Not something that made for a relaxing flight.
3. Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers has a chapter on how culture impacts cockpit communications, with a number of pages dedicated to Korean Airlines.  That's what I want to focus on now.  You can read the chapter online beginning here.

There are three preconditions that lead to plane crashes, he tells us:

• a minor technical problem
• bad weather
• tired pilot

Gladwell then focuses on pilot behavior citing two pyschological/anthropological models:

• mitigated speech
• "Hofstede's Dimensions"

 Mitigated Speech

". . . 'mitigated speech,' . . . refers to any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said. We mitigate when we're being polite, or when we're ashamed or embarrassed, or when we're being deferential to authority. If you want your boss to do you a favor, you don't say, "I'll need this by Monday." You mitigate.

You say, "Don't bother, if it's too much trouble, but if you have a chance to look at this over the weekend, that would be wonderful." In a situation like that, mitigation is entirely appropriate. In other situations, however—like a cockpit on a stormy night—it's a problem.
The linguists Ute Fischer and Judith Orasanu once gave the following hypothetical scenario to a group of captains and first officers and asked them how they would respond:
You notice on the weather radar an area of heavy precipitation 25 miles ahead. [The pilot] is maintaining his present course at Mach .73, even though embedded thunder storms have been reported in your area and you encounter moderate turbulence. You want to ensure that your aircraft will not penetrate this area.
Question: what do you say to the pilot?
In Fischer's and Orasanu's minds, there were at least six ways to try to persuade the pilot to change course and avoid the bad weather, each with a different level of mitigation.
Command: "Turn thirty degrees right." That's the most direct and explicit way of making a point imaginable. It's zero mitigation.
Crew Obligation Statement: "I think we need to deviate right about now." Notice the use of "we" and the fact that the request is now much less specific. That's a little softer.
Crew Suggestion: "Let's go around the weather." Implicit in that statement is "we're in this together."
Query: "Which direction would you like to deviate?" That's even softer than a crew suggestion, because the speaker is conceding that he's not in charge.
Preference: "I think it would be wise to turn left or right."
Hint: "That return at twenty-five miles looks mean."
This is the most mitigated statement of all. Fischer and Orasanu found that captains overwhelmingly said they would issue a command in that situation: "Turn thirty degrees right." They were talking to a subordinate. They had no fear of being blunt. The first officers, on the other hand, were talking to their boss, and so they overwhelmingly chose the most mitigated alternative. They hinted.
It's hard to read Fischer and Orasanu's study and not be just a little bit alarmed, because a hint is the hardest kind of request to decode and the easiest to refuse. In the 1982 Air Florida crash outside Washington, DC, the first officer tried three times to tell the captain that the plane had a dangerous amount of ice on its wings. But listen to how he says it. It's all hints:
FIRST OFFICER:
Look how the ice is just hanging on his, ah, back, back there, see that?
Then:
FIRST OFFICER:
See all those icicles on the back there and everything?
And then:
FIRST OFFICER:
Boy, this is a, this is a losing battle here on trying to de-ice those things, it [gives] you a false feeling of security, that's all that does.
Finally, as they get clearance for takeoff, the first officer upgrades two notches to a crew suggestion:
FIRST OFFICER:
Let's check those [wing] tops again, since we've been setting here awhile.
CAPTAIN:
I think we get to go here in a minute.
The last thing the first officer says to the captain, just before the plane plunges into the Potomac River, is not a hint, a suggestion, or a command. It's a simple statement of fact—and this time the captain agrees with him.
FIRST OFFICER:
Larry, we're going down, Larry.
CAPTAIN:
I know it.

Mitigation explains one of the great anomalies of plane crashes. In commercial airlines, captains and first officers split the flying duties equally. But historically, crashes have been far more likely to happen when the captain is in the "flying seat." At first that seems to make no sense, since the captain is almost always the pilot with the most experience. But think about the Air Florida crash. If the first officer had been the captain, would he have hinted three times? No, he would have commanded—and the plane wouldn't have crashed. Planes are safer when the least experienced pilot is flying, because it means the second pilot isn't going to be afraid to speak up."  (pp. 60-61)

Hofstede's Dimensions

Hofstede's three dimension across cultures are:

• individualism - collectivism scale
• uncertainty avoidance
• power distance index

For looking at cockpit conversations like the one above, Gladwell tells us the power distance index is the most important.

"Power distance is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values and respects authority. To measure it, Hofstede asked questions like "How frequently, in your experience, does the following problem occur: employees being afraid to express disagreement with their managers?" To what extent do the "less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally?" How much are older people respected and feared? Are power holders entitled to special privileges?
"In low-power distance index countries," Hofstede wrote in his classic text Culture's Consequences:

power is something of which power holders are almost ashamed and they will try to underplay. I once heard a Swedish (low PDI) university official state that in order to exercise power he tried not to look powerful. Leaders may enhance their informal status by renouncing formal symbols. In (low PDI) Austria, Prime Minister Bruno Kreisky was known to sometimes take the streetcar to work. In 1974, I actually saw the Dutch (low PDI) prime minister, Joop den Uyl, on vacation with his motor home at a camping site in Portugal. Such behavior of the powerful would be very unlikely in high-PDI Belgium or France." 25

You can imagine the effect that Hofstede's findings had on people in the aviation industry. What was their great battle on mitigated speech and teamwork all about, after all? It was an attempt to reduce power distance in the cockpit. Hofstede's question about power distance."How frequently, in your experience, does the following problem occur: employees being afraid to express disagreement with their managers?".was the very question aviation experts were asking first officers in their dealings with captains. And Hofstede's work suggested something that had not occurred to anyone in the aviation world: that the task of convincing first officers to assert themselves was going to depend an awful lot on their culture's power distance rating.

The power distance in Korea is extremely high. More from Outliers:

The Korean linguist Ho-min Sohn writes:

At a dinner table, a lower-ranking person must wait until a higher-ranking person sits down and starts eating, while the reverse does not hold true; one does not smoke in the presence of a social superior; when drinking with a social superior, the subordinate hides his glass and turns away from the superior;… in greeting a social superior (though not an inferior) a Korean must bow; a Korean must rise when an obvious social superior appears on the scene, and he cannot pass in front of an obvious social superior. All social behavior and actions are conducted in the order of seniority or ranking; as the saying goes, chanmul to wi alay ka issta, there is order even to drinking cold water.

So, when the first officer says, "Don't you think it rains more? In this area, here?" [from a pre crash cockpit tape] we know what he means by that:
Captain. You have committed us to visual approach, with no backup plan, and the weather outside is terrible. You think that we will break out of the clouds in time to see the runway. But what if we don't? It's pitch-black outside and pouring rain and the glide scope is down.
But he can't say that. He hints, and in his mind he's said as much as he can to a superior. The first officer will not mention the weather again.
It is just after that moment that the plane, briefly, breaks out of the clouds, and off in the distance the pilots see lights.
"Is it Guam?" the flight engineer asks. Then, after a pause, he says, "It's Guam, Guam."
The captain chuckles. "Good!"
But it isn't good. It's an illusion. They've come out of the clouds for a moment. But they are still twenty miles from the airport, and there is an enormous amount of bad weather still ahead of them. The flight engineer knows this, because it is his responsibility to track the weather, so now he decides to speak up.
"Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot," he says.
The weather radar has helped us a lot? A second hint from the flight deck. What the engineer means is just what the first officer meant. This isn't a night where you can rely on just your eyes to land the plane. Look at what the weather radar is telling us: there's trouble ahead.
To Western ears, it seems strange that the flight engineer would bring up this subject just once. Western communication has what linguists call a "transmitter orientation", that is, it is considered the responsibility of the speaker to communicate ideas clearly and unambiguously. Even in the tragic case of the Air Florida crash, where the first officer never does more than hint about the danger posed by the ice, he still hints four times, phrasing his comments four different ways, in an attempt to make his meaning clear. He may have been constrained by the power distance between himself and the captain, but he was still operating within a Western cultural context, which holds that if there is confusion, it is the fault of the speaker.
But Korea, like many Asian countries, is receiver oriented. It is up to the listener to make sense of what is being said. In the engineer's mind, he has said a lot.

[UPDATE 9/29/13:  Ask a Korean adds context to this which challenges Gladwell convincingly.  He notes one co-pilot was older than the pilot and both had graduated from a much more prestigious institution, which counterbalances the status Gladwell mentions.  He also translates the sections of the flight recorder that were in Korean and that would seem to contradict what Gladwell presents.]

Korean Airlines got help.

In 2000, Korean Air finally acted, bringing in an outsider from Delta Air Lines, David Greenberg, to run their flight operations.
Greenberg's first step was something that would make no sense if you did not understand the true roots of Korean Air's problems. He evaluated the English language skills of all of the airline's flight crews. "Some of them were fine and some of them weren't," he remembers. "So we set up a program to assist and improve the proficiency of aviation English." His second step was to bring in a Western firm—a subsidiary of Boeing called Alteon—to take over the company's training and instruction programs. "Alteon conducted their training in English," Greenberg says. "They didn't speak Korean." Greenberg's rule was simple. The new language of Korean Air was English, and if you wanted to remain a pilot at the company, you had to be fluent in that language. "This was not a purge," he says. "Everyone had the same opportunity, and those who found the language issue challenging were allowed to go out and study on their own nickel. But language was the filter. I can't recall that anyone was fired for flying proficiency shortcomings."
Greenberg's rationale was that English was the language of the aviation world. When the pilots sat in the cockpit and worked their way through the written checklists that flight crews follow on every significant point of procedure, those checklists were in English. When they talked to Air Traffic Control anywhere in the world, those conversations would be in English. . .

Greenberg wanted to give his pilots an alternate identity. Their problem was that they were trapped in roles dictated by the heavy weight of their country's cultural legacy. They needed an opportunity to step outside those roles when they sat in the cockpit, and language was the key to that transformation. In English, they would be free of the sharply denned gradients of Korean hierarchy: formal deference, informal deference, blunt, familiar, intimate, and plain. Instead, the pilots could participate in a culture and language with a very different legacy. (p. 68)

And the training eventually got Korean Airlines back into the top ranks of international air carriers.  However, This was a while back and it wasn't at Asiana.  I'm sure that anyone who works in Airline safety has read this chapter and is thinking about this.  Or, it could be something totally different.

This also reminds us of the importance of anthropology.  It helps us understand cross-cultural differences  - differences that make people from one culture more useful in some situations and from other cultures in other situations. (A little power deference might be helpful in some parts of the US politics these days.)

You can read Gladwell's chapter "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes" here. 

[UPDATE Sept. 29:   The Ask A Korean post gives context which refutes Gladwell's narative about the the Korean airline pilots.  If you read this, I strongly recommend you read  Ask A Korean's critique of Gladwell's chapter  as well.  He convincingly punctures much of what Gladwell says.

I've included these updates today because many people are reading this post and going on to the original Gladwell chapter, but only a few are following the Ask a Korean link which credibly challenges Gladwell.  If you've gotten this far, you owe your world view a chance to see another view of this.]