Wet Little Magpie and Noisy Parent

We have a magpie nest in the back yard again this year.  Last time  - years ago - we were restricted by the protective parents to a small part of our yard.

Yesterday morning one of the chick was taking advantage of the sprinkler.

Then we went off to the Redistricting Board meeting and the Sunday market.

When we got home, several hours later, it was still sitting in the spray.

And Mama (or Poppa?) showed up and let me know I needed to keep my distance, as she told her baby he'd had enough water and to get back up to the nest.

[No one corrected my original spelling of magpie (magpy) but I finally caught it.  By the way, these are photos with the new camera.  These are the kinds of shots where it makes a bit difference.]

Photos From Last Redistricting Board Meeting

I posted my rough notes of the meeting just after it ended at 1:30pm.  Here are some photos.  And video sometime tomorrow.  Oh, there's no guarantee this is the last meeting.  If they are challenged in court there could be more meetings. 

This picture was taken after the meeting was over.  I'm sorry about the shut eyes I got in some of these. 

Board members (l-r) McConnochie, Holm, Torgerson, Green, Brodie after meeting

Here's the Board at the beginning of the 30 minute meeting.  In addition to the Board members (in the previous picture) there's Michael White and the stenographer (who's name I didn't get).

This is some of the audience - a couple more were behind me and a few others came after the picture.

Randy Ruedrich (left) was the head of the Republican Party and was at many of the Board meetings.  He also was the spokesperson for AFFER (Alaskans For Fair and Equitable Redistricting).  Tom Begich (middle) a Democratic political consultant and strategist, was a consultant for Calista.  Marcia Davis is Calista's attorney for redistricting.

In the end, the Calista map and the AFFER map were mostly the same.  Calista's Fairbanks was different and their Matsu didn't split the Borough.  AFFER's map splits the Kenai Borough twice.  The Board went with splitting Matsu twice and made their own Fairbanks map.

Above is the signed Proclamation Plan.  Chair Torgerson said that there was a typo in the signature page - a 'e' was left out of someone's name - so this wasn't ready immediately.  He didn't say, "And we'll add "adopted by unanimous vote" while we're add it.  I suspect they knew in advance.  In fact, when they get to the votes, I know I just have to type 5-0 because that's all they ever do.  But it would seem to me pretty obvious that even if they don't have more than two Board members meeting outside the public meetings, they have found a way to poll the members off the record on various things.  So they could type up "adopted by unanimous consent' before hand.

Here's a link to the Board's findings.

And another link to the Board's website page that has most of the documents for the new plan.

I've got some post-meeting videos that I'll try get later.

The Last Redistricting Board Meeting? Everyone hopes so.

Here are my rough notes of the meeting which ended at 1:30.  I'll add some pictures later.  Essentially, they approved the Plan and Findings and Maps, which should go up on the website any time now.


1:00pm Moved to approve agenda - approved.
GIS expert report - Eric? 

Eric:  Oerll very clean, I made three changes that involved population moved from one district.  Nine people total for the plan
1.  Two people from D1 to 2 to clean up Speese/Richardson Highway
2.  ??3 from ??
3.  5 From district 6 to 9 along AK Highway.  Johnson River had been the boundary, but took a jag off river that no longer exists.

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I move we adopt the technical changes reported by Eric.

Vote:  5-0 yes

Torg:  Item 6, adop[tion fo Metes and  Bounds.  Eric, that's in your proclamation plan.  How'd you work your magic on that one.
Eric:  I went along the boundaries of each district.  All clockwise.  Started at easily identified point - like intersection.  Very few changes to be made, some water boundaries, if river zigzagged.  Just plugge away at it for about 3 days.   Questions?

Torgerson:  I wouldn't know how to even form a question look at these.  Like district 9.
Eric:  They warned us about using temporary things like precincts and to use permanent boundaries.

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  move to adopt
Vote:  5-0 yes

Torgerson:  Item 7 not sure there is a legal report.  Iknow you have the proclamation.

White:  You have the proclamation plan on redistricting.  The Proclamation that you will all sign soon.  The written findings, on the map, from a legal standpoint, findings explain the difficult decisions we had.  Excess population of Fairbanks and ????, and low rural population.  I'm convinced all the districts meet all the fed and state constitutional principles.  I can answer any questions. 


Audience member:  Take questions from the audience?  No.

White:  Those Senate seats do not stand for election until 2014, and the others are up for election in 2014.  In 2016 we will be back to the required rotation of ten and ten senate seats up for election.

Torgerson:  When we adopt the findings, does that include the truncation and senate pairings?

White:  yes

McConnochie:  I move we adopt the findings and terms and truncation and senate terms.

Discussion?  ---

Vote:  5-0

1:13:  The Board has adopted the findings and now we move to adopting the Proclamation itself.  I'd note there is a spelling error which is being corrected now.  An e will be added to the name.

McConnochie:  I move we adopt the proclamation plan.

Torgerson:  Discussion?

Vote:  5-0

Torgerson:  That brings us to Board member comments.

Brodie:  I'd like to thank all the people who came and testified this second time around, it helped us make our decisions.  It wasn't an easy job in the beginning and still wasn't easy to balance all the criteria.  Some requests contradicted others.  Thank all the Board members for taking off from the families and jobs.  Frustrating at times, but I certainly got an education.

Holm:  I'm not running for anything, so not sure if I should thank anyone.  An unusual process.  Pleasantly surprised to meet each and every one of you.  How hard it is to balance the constitution of Alaska and all the indiidual needs.  As a former legislator I find it ?? to accommodate everyone.  I'm not an Alaska Native but a Native Alaskan.  Mr. Chairman I enjoyed working with you.  You're a little hard to get along with at times, but it's been fun watching you do this.

Green:  In memory of Ron Miller who set the tone for us.  How proud I was to have known him.  Eric and Taylor stepping up.  We couldn't have done it without him.  I learned a lot from the process.  I hope one day when the next go around, that all the parties came come together.  Not so much the parties we represent but the entire state of Alaska.  Exciting when we had calls ... and two different groups coming together for the benefit of the entire state of alaska.  Such a wonderful feeling.  I really express my appreciation.  We haven't satisfied the entire state, but we did the best we could, given the 2010 population.  It will be more of a challenge in 2020.  Thank you Mr. Chair for your leadership and Bob, PeggyAnn, and Mike. . .

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Thank you ????.  No one will know how hard we worked on this.  And I thank our staff, from Mary to Eric to Taylor and Ron Miller.  We had an incredible Board.  Obstacles in our way.  We were able to do it because two different groups came together and made it work.  When you are balancing concerns on every side, we came down on the side of Alaska.

Torgerson:  When are we filing this report.
White:  Tuesday afternoon or sometime Wednesday.

Torgerson:  I, like the rest of the Board, want to thank all the Board members, and our staff, we put real pressure on Mary, and coming in on Sundays and 4th of July weekend.  And Marie is absolutely right, without Eric we wouldn't have gotten far on this.  And Marcia Davis, Tom Begich, and Randy Ruedrich for coming together and agreeing to the boundaries of 36 districts.  Only time you'll hear those two names mentioned in the same sentence.  The only part they didnt agree on was Fairbanks, and board went their own way on that one.

Some delay waiting on the Supreme Court.  Without that decision, one way or the other would have complicated things.  Hope this makes it through the scrutiny of the courts.  I want to see you all and Mr. White again, but never in this building.

White:  Extraordinarily proud to work with this group.  I've seen how hard you worked.  I know there are people in the press who have had said things about this board.  I disagree with the negative things.  I hope I served you well as the counsel.  I not only have made colleagues here, but also friends and you can call on me any time.  I think future boards will have an easier time because of the struggles you have gone through.  And I know the Board will make recommendations for the future boards.

Torgerson:  We didn't have instructions from the previous board.  MIA.  Some ideas may take legislation, like a planning team prior to the board, some rfps,  We do have the cleaning corrected spelling.  I don't see a need to stay on the record to sign that.  So Eric, you still there. You want to say anything.

Eric:  Webposting, I assume once you have signed everything, I can post all this?

Torgerson:  We'll do this in ten or 15 minutes and I'll call you with the goahead.  I supposed you can go ahead and send them to the webmaster.  The only thing he won't have is the signed proclamation.  And the Board signed findings.

STands adjourned.  1:30pm

Overstocked.com Charges More For Alaska Shipping Because of Customs

I know, everyone has stories about people being told that Alaska is a foreign country so they charge more or won't ship something at all.  This is not new.  But this is 2013 and it's ridiculous.

The off-brand battery that I bought for my handset for my landline phone at Frigid North a while back was not charging well anymore, even though the original Panasonic battery in the other phone was still reasonably better.  Phone conversations suddenly ended because the battery would go out.

I finally decided to check on line and immediately found the original Panasonic battery at Overstocked.com.  It was less than $5.  When I put it in my cart,  a popup window said I could also buy two more batteries for under $8.  The other battery is starting to lose juice fast too, so I said ok.   I looked up the shipping options and saw that Alaska and Hawaii would be charged more.

But when it showed me the bill it was three batteries for about $12, plus $2.95 shipping. That sounded fine.  The off brand battery I'd bought at Frigid North had cost about $18.  So I clicked to go to the checkout.  I gave them the pay info and then clicked purchase.

That's when I got a receipt that showed the shipping was $9.80 almost three times what I'd agreed to.  But I was checked out already.

So I did a chat online with someone.  I explained I understood that Alaska and Hawaii sometimes had higher shipping charges, but he should get the IT folks to show that before we've paid, not after.  He sounded like he might or might not pass the word on.

A couple days later I got an email saying it had been shipped - USPS first class.  I know that the post office is pretty equitable about the cost of postage.  I got the online USPS calculator and put in their zipcode in City of Commerce and my zipcode in Anchorage.  I didn't know how much it would be, but I guessed 6 ounces.  $2.53.  [When they finally came it turned out to be 4 ounces which the calculator says should be $2.24.]

Then I repeated this and put in a Seattle zipcode instead Anchorage.  $2.53.

So, as I suspected, there was no difference and they were charging me three times as much because someone believed it cost more to ship to Alaska.

This time I called and talked to a very nice woman who listened.  At first she was programmed to say, but you're in Alaska, but I got through that.  She understood what I was saying and put me on hold.  When she came back she said, it's because it has to go through customs.

Wait.  Alaska is a state in the United States.  You don't need a passport to come here and you don't go through customs.  Customs?  That's ridiculous.  It's not true.

She put me on hold while she went back to talk to someone else.

Now she said it was more because it was shipped in two different shipments.  We have lots of different warehouses. Why, I asked, would they do that?  It was three identical batteries.  They all should come from the same place.  It would have been cheaper for me to buy four batteries (ordering the two/fer price) than three batteries because the battery is much less than the shipping.  I also mentioned my issue about not being told the correct shipping price until after I bought the product.

She got it down, wrote it up and said she'd get it to the people who could help.

A couple of days later, I got a customer satisfaction survey online from Overstocked.  I decided to leave it in my email until I got the batteries.

Then a day or two later, the batteries arrived.  All three in one package.

Next I found the email with the link to the survey and explained it all once more.  That the price was the same to Seattle as to Anchorage, so we shouldn't be charged more, that there was only one package so I shouldn't have been told there were two, etc.

The survey was clearly sent because I'd used their customer service and I'm guessing they'll be able to track the two people who helped me and give them feedback - I said they were fine, they didn't have the power to fix things.

But how long will Alaskans continue be treated like another country?  

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.