Old Dog Learning New Tricks - Getting Access To Redistricting Board Court Hearings

Yesterday I sat on the phone waiting to hear the hearing on the Alaska Redistricting Board.  Turns out it was via Zoom.  Today,  I've gotten through to Judge Thomas Matthews office - he's the judge who will now be hearing the challenges to the Redistricting Board's Proclamation.  

I've filled out a TF945 form for "Application for Photographing, Filming, Recording, or Streaming a Court Proceeding".  I still need to get the email address to send it in.  The guidelines - Bulletin 45 - appear geared to manage in-court journalists and camera folks - and it seems they haven't updated their thinking for online coverage.  But, I get it, things are changing.  

There will be a hearing at 9am tomorrow via Zoom.  Here's the link to the court youtube page.  Presumably you'll (I'll) be able to get to hear tomorrow that way.  

click on image to enlarge and focus

From the Alaska Department of Law Legal Definitions:

"Discovery

The process by which the prosecution turns over all evidence against the defendant. Discovery can include written or oral statements."

If you missed the UPDATE to yesterday's post, Matt Buxton's report on what happened in court is linked.  Great coverage, lots of detail.  

Last time round - in 2011 - there was basically one major case against the Board, handled by a Fairbanks attorney.  While he got the courts to order some changes, he seemed to be a bit understaffed for such a big case.  The Board's attorney had had lots of experience in redistricting law.  But this time around there are five law suits - consolidated into one case - with various teams of attorneys.  The Board's attorney is less experienced in this area than the Board's 2010 attorney.  But he does have back up at his firm to help out.  

The time crunch is even greater this time around since the mapping process started five months later than it did in 2010, because the Census data was late in being released.  The time crunch is vicious this time.  They are supposed to be done 120 days before the deadline for people to file to run for the 2022 election.  Not sure how the Board's attorney is going to deal with responding to five different law suits at once.  

Most of the suits are fairly narrowly focused, sort of.  Valdez and Skagway don't like the districts they've been put in.  It's almost inevitable that will happen in Alaska redistricting.  Whether there was a violation of the State constitution, federal voting laws, or Alaska Supreme Court precedents is the real question.  Matsu has a complaint about a district being overpopulated.  The Board gets some help on that case from Doyon who's filed in opposition to the Matsu case.  Then there's Calista's case to get two villages into the same district as Bethel and the Anchorage/ER Senate pairing case.  I bet Board attorney Matt Singer is wondering why he wanted to represent the Board at this point.  

Some of these cases where a district has to be adjusted could trigger a bunch of other necessary changes to nearby districts.  And all this has to be done on a very tight schedule.  

I'd note that in 2010, the Board's new map was used, if I remember this correctly, for the 2012 election even while it was being challenged and a new map was made for the 2014 election.  

Hang on to your seats.  

Alaska Redistricting Boad - Called In To Superior Court, Connected, But Never Got Through To Hearing [UPDATED]

 So, what happened?  No idea. 

[UPDATE Dec. 21, 2021:  Here's a link to Max Buxton's detailed report on the hearing I couldn't get through to.]

Redistricting Prep For Monday Court Scheduling Hearing, Balanced With Some LA Photos

 Consider this like a palate cleansing.  The five court challenges to the Alaska Redistricting Board's Proclamation Plan get their first court appearance Monday, December 20, 2021 at 11:30 am.  That's tomorrow as I write this. Probably today as many of you read this.  Here are the numbers if you want to call in and listen.

I don't think it's going to be that exciting.  Here's a link to the Court's Pretrial Order.  And here's an outline of that order.  

• Pleadings
• lists the five cases - Skagway, Valdez, Mat-su, Calista, and the three Anchorage plaintiffs
• cases consolidated and given the case number 3AN-21-08869CI
• Technical Support 
• outlines who is responsible for what - access to software to view census data
• how to pay transcription service - Dec 27 deadline to agree
• Trial Timelines
• Has to be done 120 days before filing deadline June 1, 2022, thus court's decision due by February 1, 2022
• To give judge time, evidence should be finished by January 25, 2022, Written closing argument and proposed findings by January 27, 2022
• Preliminary estimate - one trial day per plaintiff; board gets 3-5 days for its case, then trial has to begin by January 11, likely sooner.  Parties invited to propose start dates for trial
• Summary Judgment Motions - court permits none
• Witnesses
• Each plaintiff may call up to 3 at trial.  May present up to three video depositions in addition.  Plaintiffs have to ID witnesses in advance and make them available for video deposition by January 11
• Board may call up to seven witnesses at trial, seven more via video deposition testimony.  Same deadline for identifying witnesses and availability for deposition (Jan 11)
• Each party shall file affidavits setting forth the direct testimony of the non-expert witnesses by Dec. 27, 2021.  Witness can be called only for cross exam, redireet, and recross.  
• Each plaintiff limited to one expert witness.  Must identify them and topic of the expert's testimony.   Board limited to three expert witnesses.  Name and topic in by Dec. 27, 2021.
• Affidavits of expert's direct testimony in by December 30, 2021.
• Discovery
• Board has to provide Court, Plaintiffs, and pending intervenors with 'the record' by December 21
• Parties shall be prepared to discuss discovery deadlines and perhaps limits on discovery or deposition at the scheduling hearing on 20 December 2021 at 11:30 am.  Parties will be sent a zoom invitation by chambers.  This overrides he earlier order setting a telephonic hearing.
• Court encourages parties to begin discussions regarding discovery and scheduling before the scheduling hearing. 
• All witnesses must be made available for depositions no later than the week of January 3, 2022
• Sequences of Party and Witness Presentation
• at a date to be determined plaintiffs will discuss and propose a sequence for when each shall make witnesses available for cross exam and redirect.
• Same for the Board
• Judicial Assignment
• Judge to be permanently assigned to the case will be announced shortly after scheduling conference
• Parties will have two business days after distribution of judicial assignment to exercise a challenge
• The assigned judge may revisit these pretrial orders as the case develops.  

Now some dessert.  We had breakfast at the Mar Vista Farmers Market.  It's become an upscale event.  Lots of vendors have booths selling vegetable and fruit, food to eat, and prepared items like honey, olive oil.  There's a place for kids to play - more children's museum stuff than playground stuff - and music.  And lots of people, masked and unmasked.  A bit overwhelming.  We ended up with empanadas and tamales.  

I liked the name and they had Khao Soi on the menu - a favorite northern Thai/Lao dish.  But it was with pork and that's further from my vegetarian presences than I go, knowingly. 

 

I passed the Mar Vista Time Travel Mart on my bike ride home.  

And then there were the trees.  I think this one is an oak.  

I decided this was two pairs of palms visiting, but socially distanced.  

Not sure what kind of tree this was.  I took the picture because of the tree house.  

Trying To Keep The Blog Current On Redistricting While Taking Advantage Of The LA Sunshine

 I'm sitting outside at my mom's house in LA.  Well, she lived in this house the longest, so it's always going to be her house in my mind.  It rained Tuesday, but the sun has been out since.  Today, however, it toasty.  And since clouds and rain are predicted for the rest of the week, I'm taking shameless advantage.  

This is my afternoon office on the deck.  The birds of paradise are right behind me. 

Two legged and winged birds flit around.  The sun is on my filthy laptop screen makes using it an effort.  And I know my friends in Anchorage have no sympathy whatsoever.  

But there are things of import happening with the Alaska Redistricting Board.  I do want to make comment on the various court challenges to the Board's Proclamation.  But first here's a headsup for Monday's initial court hearing in Judge Morse's court room.  The hearing is scheduled for 11:30am and below is the info for calling in. 

[It's an image, so for those of you with visual impairments, whose  text reader can't turn images into audio, I'll add it here too:  First call 1-800 768 2983 or  1 907 206 2349.  Then, enter the access code:  2640425.]

I've also updated the Redistricting Board Page adding this court information and also adding links to all the legal challenges.  So use the Redistricting tab under the orange banner or click here.

Redistricting Board Clearly Split 3-2 The 3 Republican Appointees Ram Their Agenda Through

 I strive to write accurately and to not have sensational headlines. And I think the title of this post is more accurate than not.  I'm out of town, so I listened to the tape of the meeting available here.

The Board met on the record for about 30 minutes.  At the beginning of the meeting where they waited for all the members to be fully connected to the feed and we got a very brief overview from the board's attorney about each of the five legal challenges the board's results. Matsu challenging the overpopulation of the Matsu Heights district and seeks to invalidate the House plan as a result.  Valdez challenging the district it's in.  Skagway wants to be with downtown Juneau rather than Mendenhall Valley.  Felicia Wilson in Anchorage with two other challenged   Calista challenged that Hooper Bay and Scammon Bay are not with Bethel.  Doyon filed in support of the Board against Matsu.  Judge Morse has consolidated all the cases into one.  Will be heard in Anchorage Superior Court.  Scheduled room for Monday for scheduling litigation.  Board will defend against each of these.  Board believes followed the Constitution and respect the rights of those challenging the decisions.  Suits are all on the website.  Board went into Executive Session at about 26 minutes into the meeting.  

When the Board came out of executive session (about 1:34:00 on the tape, or with 20 minutes left) things got testy.  Member Bahnke tried to make a motion but the Board Chair recognized Member Marcum who seemed to be reading a motion to put Binkley and Simpson on the subcommittee to meet with and advise the attorneys. Member Borromeo pointed out that she and Simpson are both attorneys and had worked together well when hiring an attorney  Basically the three Republicans circled the wagons and said as little as possible while hiring legal counsel.  She argued the two attorney Board members (Simpson and Borromeo) should continue to work together in the subcommittee listening to and advising the Board's attorney.  But a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.  Borromeo's and Bahnke's suggestions and objections were met, basically with silence by the three GOP members.  Except for Board Chair John Binkley speaking in parliamentary procedure.  While the three GOP members may not have technically violated the public meeting requirements, they clearly had worked out what they wanted in advance, let the two minority members have their say, then voted for Binkley and Simpson to work with the Board's attorney.  

Do the Republican members have reason to believe that Borromeo and/or Bahnke are a confidentiality risk?  After all, they did publicly object to how the Board made some key decisions - specifically the way the Eagle River Senate seats were formed.  And they refused to sign the Proclamation as supporters of the decision.  

On the other hand, Bahnke and Borromeo are the only two Board members to declare that they had drawn their portions of the maps without talking to anyone except Board members and staff.  None of the Republican appointed members would make that statement and circumstantial evidence would suggest they got a lot of help in their mapmaking from people off the Board.  Member Marcum couldn't even form a complete sentence when she made the vague motion on allocation of terms.  Clearly she'd been coached on how to do it.  

So I think the GOP members' fears are either a) the two non-partisan Board members might tip off the opposing attorneys or b) they'll make it harder for the GOP members of the Board to get what they want.  

I propose they all swear an oath that they won't consult people off the Board during the legal process.  I suspect the GOP side of the Board will be much more heavily impacted by such an oath than the two Independents.  

The National Archive Has Released 1491 Documents Related To JFK Investigation

 There are 150 pages of titles and each title (at least on the pages I looked at) were linkable. These were made available yesterday.  What I saw were reports of investigations on people that someone thought was suspicious.   For example there's a document on a Gilberto Portocarpo Lopez, who had the misfortune to return to Cuba to visit his ailing mother immediately after Kennedy's assassination.   The document seems to clear him of any connection to the assassination.  

page 7 of the document

Also interesting to some, might be 

• the editing notes on the document.  
•  the notes about how the CIA didn't share information because they didn't want to reveal how they got the information.  
• the names and bits of information on the people investigated, questioned, and the investigators might be of interest to people who are related to them

I also looked at testimony by William E. Colby, Director of the CIA before US Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activity.  I would guess that most of this is already known or suspected.  This time I was smarter and included page numbers.  

 I suspect there isn't anything too interesting hidden in these many documents.  But I'm not a JFK Assassination buff. 

Here's some questioning about other assassinations.  

I get the sense that Colby is good at evasive answers and the Senators are good at knowing when they shouldn't press for better answers.  Of course I could be wrong, but that's what it feels like to me.  

The next two pages are about a meeting with Robert Kennedy where the CIA was practicing the live editing I felt in the previous page.  

If all this is top secret and being made public for the first time, then was was it marked "Photocopy from Gerald Ford Library"?  But I'm not going to nibble that bait.  

This trove of documents is a rabbit hole I really don't want to pursue any further.  There's a whole JFK assassination industry ready to do that.  But it was a good excuse to put off redistricting board lawsuits.  And to give readers an alternative time waster to Twitter.  And this blog.  

A Venice Beach Break

 Our outdoor thermometer read -10˚F (-23˚C).  That was not abnormal when we first moved to Anchorage in 1977, but it hasn't been that frequent in the last 10 or 20 years.  I know it sounds awful - especially to folks who have never experienced it, but the sky was crystal clear, the air still, and it's like being in another, amazing world.  As they say, there's no bad weather, just bad clothes.

In any case, we flew through Seattle and got to LAX Monday night.  LAX is still trying to be a world class airport.  But it still doesn't have rail service and you have to take a shuttle bus to get a taxi or Uber, etc.  It used to be a taxi to my mom's house was around $30.  That's why we often just took the bus.  Then came Uber and Lyft and we could get to the airport for about $19.  But when I opened the Uber app, prices ranged from $33, then a bunch between $56-$86, and then some that were $200 and up.  We decided on a taxi, which ended up $29.  (That's all without tip of course.)

Tuesday was the storm.  It rained on and off, but didn't seem to match the great storm predictions.  Or maybe we slept through it.  By the afternoon there was sun.  But it was in the high 40s, chilly for LA.

Yesterday it was in the 50s and J found the bike pump and I went off to see what the last two years have brought.  Things look pretty much the same.  The biggest difference was the fence along Penmar Golf Course.  (This is a public course that was a swamp when I was a kid and a great natural playground I spent many hours in.)

Well, of course the gold course has always had a fence.  But there's a dirt pathway along the outside which had been changing into a homeless camp.  It had campers parked there for a while, but last time there were also tents along the walkway. Here's a pic I posted January 2019:

Here's what it looked like yesterday:

There are houses across the street and having homeless folks camped out by your house without bathrooms can become old.  From the neighbors' perspective this is neighborhood improvement.  Not sure what the homeless who camped here think.  If they've been offered decent lodging, maybe they'd agree.  

From my perspective, the city has blocked off a beautiful walkway along the golf course that I used to jog along when I was still running.  The bike trail is still usable.  It's only an improvement in the sense that our society has deteriorated to the extent that there are so many homeless people that the city has to fence off their encampments to get them out of the neighbors' hair.  Having a social safety net like most European countries have would have been a better way to deal with this - that is make it so people have health care, including mental health care.  Have jobs that pay a living wage.  Support those losing jobs to cheaper labor overseas or automation.  Better education.  Child care for working families, etc.  Then this would still be a lovely walk way for the neighbors to enjoy without the extra fencing blocking it off.  

Our understandings of the world and of human behavior never worked all that well, but the Protestant work ethic - just work hard and you'll do well - is not an accurate description for most people.  Yes, there are examples of it working, but the homeless populations in the various US cities shows us that we need more complex theories.  

But I was headed for the beach on this nbikeride and so were you in this blog post.  

The next picture has me almost there - riding down the last block of Rose Avenue before getting to Venice Beach.  I love this view with the palm trees and the water off ahead of me.  I spent a lot of time at the beach here as a kid and later in life visiting my mom.  

But I got to the bike trail, which wasn't there anymore.  Truly, we must have slept through the worst of the storm.  The bike trail was completely covered with sand.  Mostly it was navigable by bke, but there were places I just had to get off and walk.  I did google to see if anyone has explained all the sand, but all the reports are from previous years - usually wind blowing sand.  But I've never seen it like this.  Was it high tides and wind?  (The moon was close to full.)  I did call a number on an LA City Venice Beach website, but the woman who answered said she had nothing to do with Venice Beach.  I've sent an email to an address on that page, but I'm not holding my breath.  

I got to the skateboard park which had a few skaters despite a sign saying it was closed for filming obligations.   

Folks were filming - tv show?  movie?  commercial?  - taking advantage of the dune like setting.  I'd note this wall of sand is usually there, courtesy of the City of Los Angeles.  Then I made my way a little further to Venice Pier where I got these pictures 

Santa Monica mountains in the background.

This isn't a high resolution photo, but if you look closely above the building, closer to the pole on the left, you can see what I think is Mt. Baldy with a good amount of snow.  I'd note, with the sandy bike trail, there were very few other bikers.  The pier was pretty empty and I didn't see anyone fishing in the choppy waters.  Nor were there any surfers below the pier.  That's a first for me.  

On the way back I just stayed on the pedestrian walk (that turns into the Venice Boardwalk) which had been cleared of sand.  I stopped at the Frank Gehry house (designed by the famous architect, not where he lives).  Here's a post with the Disney Concert Hall for a very different Geary construction.

Finally back to the Boardwalk - Venice's contribution to edgy kitsch.

And then I was back on my way home having enjoyed the beach, and pushing pedals.  

And yes, I've got links to all the redistricting legal challenges and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with them.  Also so Tom Begich's press release about yesterday's Board meeting (also an email and I can't find a link) which I spent at Venice Beach.  Later.  

AIFF2021: Award Winners

 This year I did not go to the Award Ceremony - I was busy watching movies and also getting ready to fly south.  But the Festival Facebook Page put up the winners.  Like always I agree on some, not on others, and some I didn't see so I have no opinion. 

Actually, I tend not to like the idea of awards, so at the bottom I'm just going to list my favorites because each film will connect with the viewer for reasons that have nothing to do with film.  

Jury Awards: 

Documentary Feature

1st place - 80.000 Schnitzels, Hannah Schweier

2nd place - The Form, Filip Flatau

3rd place - Not About Me, Kelly Milner

Narrative Feature

1st place - Tall Tales, Attila Szász 

2nd place - Americanish, Iman Zawahry

3rd place - Lune, Aviva Armour-Ostroff & Arturo Pérez Torres

Documentary Shorts

1st place -  Hunger Ward, Skye Fitzgerald

2nd place - Aguilucho - Dance of the Harpy Eagle, Daniel Byers

3rd place - Myrtle Simpsons - A Life On Ice, Leigh Anne Sides

Narrative Shorts 

1st place - Sinking Ships, Andreas Kessler

2nd place - Ala Kachuu - Take and Run, Maria Brendle

3rd place - Synthetic Love, Sarah Heitz de Chabaneix

Short Animated: 

1st - Eternal Igloo, Mostafa Keshvari

2nd place - Johnny Crow, Jesse Gouchey and Xstine Cook

3rd place - The Farmer and the Lightning Storm, Danielle Browne

Made in Alaska Feature

Newtok, Michael Kirby Smith & Andrew Burton

Made in Alaska Short

1st place - Pinguat, Joshua Albeza Branstetter

2nd place - The Kathryn Treder Story, Aalina Tabani

3rd place - Keepers of the Shy Place, Gianna Savoie

Screenplay: 

1st place - Racing the Wolf God: by Alessandra Bautze

2nd place - Uphill: by Adam D. Boyer

3rd place - Midday Black Midnight Blue: by Samantha Soule & Daniel Talbott

Audience Awards: 

Documentary Feature

1st place - From the Hood to the Holler by Pat McGee

2nd place - Not About Me by Kelly Milner

3rd place - On These Grounds by Garrett Zevgetis

Narrative Feature

1st place - Tall Tales by Atilla Szasz

2nd place - 18 ½ by Dan Mirvish

3rd place - Americanish by Iman Zawahry

Made in Alaska Feature

Granted: A Wish Story by Dan Redfield

Made in Alaska Short

1st place - Trailbound Alaska by Max Romey

2nd place - Pinguat by Joshua Albeza Branstetter

3rd place - Keepers of the Shy Place by Gianna Savoie

Short Animated: 

1st place - Pottero by Lindsey Martin

2nd place - Mni Wiconi - Water is Life by Jeremias Galante & Miguel Antonio Genz

3rd place - Goodnight Mr. Vincent Van Gogh by Lindsey Doolittle

Documentary Shorts: 

1st - 15 grains of sand by Rachel Handlin

2nd place - The Black Stonefly by Cody Lewis & Mark Rotse

3rd place - Why are you black? By Julie Skaufel

Narrative Shorts: 

1st place - Ala Kachuu - Take and Run by Maria Brendle

2nd place - Sinking Ships by Andreas Kessler

3rd place - Like the Ones I Used to Know by Annie St-Pierre

WHAT DO I KNOW? Favorites

Documentary Feature:

1st Place   - Captive

2nd Place - The Art of Sin

3rd Place - Not About Me and Sexplanation

[Didn't see Scrum, Newtok, On These Grounds, Underdog, Outloud, I'm Wannita]

Narrative Feature

1st Place - Tall Tales

2nd Place - Lune

3rd Place - Landlocked and Tiger Within

Documentary Shorts

1st Place - The Hunger Ward

2nd Place - Why Are You Black?

Narrative Shorts

First Place - Ala Kachuu 

2nd Place - The Manila Lover

3rd Place - Al Sit

[I didn't see many in this category]

Imagine That Alaska Only Had One Polling Place In November 2020 [And AIFF2021 Recs]

 I just watched From The Hood To the Holler online via the Anchorage International Film Festival.  It's about Charles Booker's 2020 Democratic primary race against Amy McGrath in Kentucky.  She started the race with $29 million and he had $300,000.  But the Louisville protests over Breonna Taylor helped spark his campaign from the West End of Louisville through the Hollers of Kentucky.  

What struck me the most was this tidbit from the movie:  In Louisville, Kentucky, a city of over 700,000 people, there was only one polling place in the 2020 primary!   [Note: most of the facts here come from the movie, but I did check on the population of Louisville.  Here's what Wikipedia says:  

The city's total consolidated population as of the 2020 census was 782,969.[4]

Consolidated is the key - it's all of Jefferson County.  The Currier confirms:

"For the commonwealth's June 23 primary elections, Jefferson County offered voters only one polling location, at the Expo Center."]

The state of Alaska has roughly the same population as Jefferson County.  Imagine.  Just one polling place!  One of many ploys Republicans are offering to suppress votes.  

The movie was like a campaign film for Booker, rather than a documentary, and perhaps a bit too long, but well worth watching.  

Some other suggestions for people in the last couple of days before the Festival ends.  You'll note the documentaries are a strong category.  I recommend all of these.  

Documentary Features.

Captive - So far this is my personal favorite.  We can debate what makes a good film.  I spelled out what I consider important in a 2012 Film Festival post.  Captive is the story of western journalist of Asian descent going to Nigeria to interview girls and young women who had been kidnapped by Book Haram.  It's an important and well told story.  I posted about Captive already.

The Art of Sin -   Ahmed Umar, a refugee from Sudan who is now a Norwegian citizen, is an artist and a gay man.  The film tells his story of coming out - the first Sudanese of any fame to do so.  We see him in Norway and then on hist first trip back to Sudan after ten years away.  A powerful film.

The Form - The form in the title is an application to nominate someone as Righteous Among Nations, a recognition given by the yadvashem foundation to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazis.  A young Frenchman is asking his mother to fill out the form for the people who hid her in Poland in WW II.  His mother has refused to talk about those experiences and doesn't want to fill out the form.  The son wants to know about that part of his mother's life.  

A Sexplanation - The title seemed exploitative. (Ya think?)  But it turns out to be accurate.  A 36 year old gay Asian man from San Francisco wants to learn more about why he had so much trouble finding out about sex and the shame he felt over masturbation and being gay.  He talks to a number of experts and also interviews his parents.  A fun and informative movie.  

Run Raven Run - I wrote about this film opening night.  Good movie.

Narrative Features

Tiger Within - Not entirely believable, but a good story anyway.  A Holocaust survivor takes in a runaway girl with a swastika on the back of her jacket.  Ed Asner plays the role of the old man.  

Lune  and Tall Tales - I wrote about these here (Lune) and here (Tall Tales).  Tall Tales is just a good story told well by a Hungarian film maker who has won best narrative feature  twice already at AIFF.  

I still have a bunch of features to watch.  I will note that I dropped out of The Wanderers about midway.  I tend to like off beat films, but this one just wasn't working for me. I finally gave up waiting for whatever it was that got this picked by the reviewers.  Given the relatively few narrative features, maybe it seemed good compared to others they watched.   And it's easier to move on to the next film when you're watching online than when you're in the theater and you'd have to wait for the next film to start anyway.  

Narrative Shorts

These films aren't too long, so I'm just going to list them and let you decide which to watch.

• Absurd Man
• Al-Sit
• Ala Kachuu - Take and Run
• Dualba - This one is odd, but it's Iranian and shows an unexpected side of that country - the location and the fact that someone made this film.
• Manila Lover 
• Synthetic Love
• The Women's Hour - Homage to old films

Documentary Shorts

I realize that I haven't seen many of these.  Here's one I'd recommend:

• Why Am I Black - Another African immigrant to Norway film.  A Somali this time if I remember right.  

Alaska Redistricting: Meeting Wednesday Dec 15; Law Suits Due Soon; VRA Language Requirements Alaska

 Let's just get a few things out here:

NEXT MEETING OF THE BOARD 

"The Alaska Redistricting Board will be meeting virtually on Wednesday, December 15 starting at 2:30pm. The meeting can be accessed in the following ways:

Listening to the audio stream on the legislature’s website at: www.akl.tv.

Calling in to the listen-only teleconference using the legislature’s teleconference system:  from Anchorage 563-9085; from Juneau 586-9085; from anywhere else: 844-586-9085.

The agenda and backup materials are posted to our website at: Alaska Redistricting Board - Minutes & Audio (akredistrict.org). They are also attached to the public notices on the State of Alaska’s Online Public Notice system at: http://notice.alaska.gov/204673 and on the Legislature’s website here.

Note: public testimony will not be taken at this meeting."

Looking at the Agenda, I'd say there won't be much public discussion of anything important.  

Agenda

1. Call to Order and Establish Quorum
2. Adoption of Agenda
3. Adoption of Minutes from previous BoardMeetings
4. Litigation review in Executive Session with Legal Counsel
5. Litigation management discussion
6. Adjournment 

There's also a link to documents - "Board Packet" -  that includes:

1.  Board Minutes Since September 2020 - I'd note that while the Board has been good about putting lots of documents up on the website, including audio and video, in a timely manner, none of the parts that said "minutes" on the site had links.  Now, we get them.  Some over a year old.  How did these get approved?  It would seem that decision, at least how it was going to be done, should have been public.  That said, the minutes are far more detailed than the minutes kept by the 2010 Board.  

I'd point to his from the February 26, 2021 meeting about contacts Board members had with members of the public:

"Although it may be helpful for there be a policy for individual board members not to engage in off-record discussions, this is also a valuable way to gain public input.

• Ms. Bahnke suggested that if the board allows itself to individually engage with the public and community groups in their formal role as Redistricting Board members, a record of the engagement activities of each board member should be publicly shared."

It would be helpful to hear from members Binkley, Marcum, and Simpson detailing the contacts they had with people not on the Board concerning advice on making maps, pairing House districts into Senate seats, and allocating senate terms.  After early testimony that voiced concern that partisan politics had played a big role in the early maps, Members Borromeo and Bahnke publicly said they had not had contact with anyone except other Board members and staff concerning how they made their maps.  The other three Board members remained silent on this.

2.  A copy of the Matsu Borough lawsuit 

 

LAWSUIT DEADLINE IS 30 DAYS AFTER PROCLAMATION - BY MY COUNT FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2021

 One lawsuit is already in and available at the end of the Board packet.  I believe there will be at least one more filed, possibly more.  So today (Thursday December 9) or tomorrow we should know.

VRA LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS FOR ALASKA BALLOTS 

This twitter thread explains this better than I can.  [Click on the Tweet to get to the whole thread] But I'm putting up the image with the list of Alaska communities required to have ballots in languages besides English.  I had a few questions - still unanswered:

1. Why is there a Yup'ik requirement for Kenai and Kodiak?  
2. My first reaction was why Filipino?  I thought that there were many languages spoken in the Philippines - the main one being Tagalog.  Well, Wikipedia answered my question:

"Filipino (English: /ˌfɪlɪˈpiːnoʊ/ (About this soundlisten);[2] Wikang Filipino, locally [wɪˈkɐŋ ˌfiːliˈpiːno]) is the national language (Wikang pambansa / Pambansang wika) of the Philippines. Filipino is also designated, along with English, as an official language of the country.[3] It is a standardized variety of the Tagalog language,"

NEW: The Census Bureau has released an updated list of state and local governments that are required to provide language assistance to voters who do not speak English very well, per Section 203 of the Voting Rights Acthttps://t.co/OJn5Vfi8Pg pic.twitter.com/jGCDeudY4j

— Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) (@hansilowang) December 8, 2021