Special election guide
May 2, 2022 at 8:04 am | Posted in alaska, politics, satire, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: AK-AL, alaska politics, don young, special election
It’s not often that we receive a ballot with 48 candidates for one office! Never voted in a California “jungle primary” or anything like one. It can be confusing if you are undecided — so as a public service, a quick take and brief candidate statement from each of them.
Note: the order was determined by starting with a letter blindly drawn from a Scrabble game, and alphabetical henceforth.
Ornelas, Robert
Party affiliation: American Independent
Quick take: fundie carpetbagger
Candidate Statement: “This election is about what voters consider important, from CRT to abortion to second amendment rights to freedom to inflict your religious beliefs on others. My experience running in high-profile races in several states will help me to win this! Heh — kidding! I’ll be ecstatic to get 0.5%! That would be righteous!”
Palin, Sarah
Party Affiliation: Republican
Quick take: yesterday’s papers
Candidate Statement: “If you’re not in it you’re out of it and while I have not been in it I’ve actually stayed in it, very active in thoughts and prayers for the state of our state and great country the greatest on earth and constantly under attack by the unhinged left and their minions such as AOC and Joe Biden and all of the Hollywood elite and I will counter all that and never — or, maybe, it depends — quit.”
Pellegrini, Silvio
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: cipher
Candidate Statement: “Some transmission systems contain multipliers, which amplify a signal prior to re-transmission, or regenerators, which attempt to reconstruct and re-shape the coded message before re-transmission. In a crisis, military officials send a coded message to the bunkers, switching on the dead hand.”
Peltola, Mary
Party affiliation: Democrat
Quick take: Bush Dem
Candidate Statement: “The Yup’ik have a word for conflicted but didn’t have time to dwell on it. Is Lisa Murkowski one of the greatest leaders of her generation, or the best we can do under the circumstances? Is some amount of compromise worthwhile in pursuit of recognition and the destiny of our culture and region? Or is it more, give them an inch and they’ll take a mile?”
Revak, Joshua
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Reddest of the red
Candidate Statement: “When you’re looking to replace the rudest, crudest, slavishly incoherent, larger than life and longest-serving buffoon the US House has ever seen with more of the same — I’m your man! I’ll kick those Blueheads to the curb every two years for the next 24 elections! I interned in Young’s office and when I take over everything will remain just as it is! Alaskans are fans of continuity. And bumbling and red-hot rhetoric!”
Sumner, Maxwell
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: No camo required
Candidate Statement: “The drunken sailors in Juneau will return to port someday to find their sad shanties and the corpus of representative government have been moved to where the people of the Mat-Su — the meth-heads, rednecks, gun-toting, government-hating, God-fearing, truck-driving monsters and soccer mommies — can keep an eye on them and their nefarious agenda.”
Sweeney, Tara
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: DC insider
Candidate Statement: “I’m here to explain the difference between the real Alaska and the idea of Alaska. Dependency vs self-reliance, pristine and unspoiled vs open for development, connected to the landscape vs exploitation. Whose side am I on, anyway? The real Alaskans, and all those who appreciate the idea of Alaska and whatever that may mean to them — the qualities it instills — all the insanity and breathtaking grandeur.”
Thistle, David
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: Wind generator
Candidate Statement: “GOD bless you. GOD bless TEXAS. GOD bless California. GOD bless Alaska except for the bears and the Democrats. And, GOD bless the United States of America.”
Thomas, Ernest
Party affiliation: Democrat
Quick take: Scrappy
Candidate Statement: “Alaska’s a young state; still, it doesn’t take long to accumulate piles of obsolete approaches. Politics is messy. We need to clearly know what to keep and what to throw away. The traditional role of our delegation as the hoarder of the state’s resources and our national standing is at stake.”
Trotter, Richard
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Fundie burgher
Candidate Statement: “Some say Alaska is one of the top five least religious states in the country, and its multicultural array is the opposite of a Christian mono-culture. Our response at Alaska Family Council is: let’s not get carried away.”
Welter, Bradley
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Beyond obscure
Candidate Statement: “I am an enigma wrapped in a conundrum and trumped by an opt-out clause. Campaign website? Social media? Bwaaa-ha-haa! I dare you to try to find out anything about me.”
Williams, Jason
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: Almost nonexistent
Candidate Statement: “I do have a campaign website but it is a blank page! Either I am an open blank book, or the website is still under development, or the website developers were not paid. Check back later to find out which it is, or move along to somebody else.”
Woodward, Jo
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Bone to pick
Candidate Statement: “I do not want to witness ALASKA becoming another lower forty eight state. With old, vacant, dilapadated buildings, polluted waters, etc. — especially if it is New Jersey and we have to put up with a fat, ignorant douche of a governor for eight years.”
Wool, Adam
Party affiliation: Democrat
Quick take: Maybe a little bull
Candidate Statement: “For many years I owned a bar in Ester that was famous for having a gigantic frickin’ wood stove that could burn a half-chord of wood at a time. In all things, moderation, right? Sometimes you just have to let your freak flag fly!”
Wright, Stephen
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Wingnut
Candidate Statement: “There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot. I live on a one-way street that’s also a dead end — not sure how I got there? I have a friend who is a radio DJ — when we drive through a tunnel I can’t hear him talk.”
Aguayo, Dennis
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Wait, what?
Candidate Statement: “We flew with the tribe of fur babies — in 2006 we arrived in Alaska, first Anchorage then made are way to the Kenai Peninsula, where we purchased are home in Nikiski. My wife is a great practical joker and there have been a bunch of people calling and congratulating me for running for office — something I would never do in a million years! I’m simple country folk, not ready for taking the country back in DC.”
Armstrong, Jay
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: wingnut
Candidate Statement: “Just like ALL Western States, Alaska has been ‘captured’ by the Feds not Constitutional Statehood agreements and are in fact States in ‘Waiting’. Elect me and be free! I’ll be free as well, since there’s no way I’m going to be part of an illegitimate government.”
Beal, Brian
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: another empty flannel
Candidate Statement: “Running for office is a passionate pastime for me. Some go to the rifle range, some blow up the News-Minus comments section. Me, I file another candidate declaration. What is it this time? Congressman for all of Alaska? Sure, that suits me to a T.”
Beck, Tim
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: OK, boomer
Candidate Statement: “The bridges to nowhere got a bum rap. That’s treehugger nonsense! All of our plans involve making inroads to little nowhere-villes, for nobody. That’s what built America from the ground up!”
Begich, Nick
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Wingnut
Candidate Statement: “Yes, I’m part of the Begich family, perhaps the most well-known Democratic political dynasty in the state. I’m not a Democrat, though. Seriously! Current projects — working on the links between Scientology, chemtrails and extraterrestrials. Did I mention I am a Republican?”
Brelsford, Gregg
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: Makes sense [shudder]
Candidate Statement: “I’m hoping that a few well-placed bromides and the headshot with white hair will be enough for Alaskans on the fence and they won’t scroll to the end where I profess support for the Arts.”
Brown, Robert
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Waiting to jell
Candidate Statement: “Campaign, shmampaign. Signs, mailers, web presence, talking to the media — all dealing with Liberals who only want to distort what I’m saying and bend me to their agenda! Nope, sorry, not going there!”
Bye, Chris
Party affiliation: Libertarian
Quick take: Textbook Libertarian dogma
Candidate Statement: “Libertarianism is one part fantasy, one part outsider and one part anarchist. If you wonder how all this co-exists and thrives — it has its issues. On my campaign site I acknowledge impending environmental collapse [sort of] by saying we ought to double-down on oil, coal and nuclear. At least I put more than a single paragraph on the site, as weird as it gets.”
Callahan, John
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Just kidding
Candidate Statement: “My one-sentence website only has that General Sherman quote: ‘If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.’ Not sure what it has to do with this special election, in which there is not a nomination process and one only has to file an intent to run — which I have done. What happens next? I guess we will have to wait and find out!”
Carle, Arlene
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Winging it
Candidate Statement: “How about a car that runs on Liberal tears? What happens to the escalator when the basement fills up with stairs? I wanted to buy an electric car but I needed a longer extension cord. Let’s talk about Global Cooling for a minute. Give me a break!”
Claus, Santa
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: Democratic Socialist
Candidate Statement: “I know what you’re thinking, but if one lives here one goes with the theme, and the name and white beard and jelly belly are de rigeur. I don’t have to tell you what to do — wishing for something? Anything? World peace, an end to tyranny, sharing the wealth, saving our home? Just put it in a letter and drop it in the mail to me here at North Pole. One of my elven bros will read it to me and I will direct an appropriate policy initiative.”
Coghill, John
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: R-mod
Candidate Statement: “Nenana, oh bama, cabana Bananarama — I can never remember all the words. We have a wonderful railroad depot building, a 100-year old trestle flung high above a deep-running river, a tripod ice breakup guessing game around longer than that, and my family’s grocery store that is preserved in ether. Not sure what more one could want or expect except if it’s fiscal sanity.”
Constant, Christopher
Party affiliation: Democrat
Quick take: Dogged persistence
Candidate Statement: “If you show up to the Assembly with an axe to grind, a posse of church ladies and a belligerent stupor, we just might table debate indefinitely. The last two years have sent me willy-nilly back to my canine companions after meeting’s end. You know that cat Mayor of Talkeetna? My staff are all going to be dogs. A German Shepherd for Press Secretary [pays attention like nobody’s business], Doberman Pinscher Chief of Staff [unquestionable loyalty and follow-through] and Special Assistant Labrador-Husky. How could it be anybody else? About 20 times as effective as any human being.”
Dutchess, Lady Donna
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Marianne Williamson minus intellectual rigor
Candidate Statement: “We are ourselves capable of resisting those who want to limit our potential. We have to learn to fly in the rain and the dark. We have to dare to dream of a better world where we are all one! All-one!”
Florshutz, Otto
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: second effort
Candidate Statement: “I’m running a grassroots campaign, and it’s kind of a word-of-mouth campaign. I do not have a lot of money. I’m not even accepting money from people. Is this because I want to fail or am I philosophically opposed to fundraising? Or some other reason I’m still trying to figure out?”
Foster, Laurel
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Captain Obvious
Candidate Statement: “The state of our political climate is in dire need of change. Focus has shifted from the needs of everyday, ordinary Alaskans to the political parties who serve agendas not always in line with the needs of the people. And wait until I find out the rest of what’s really going on!”
Gibbons, Thomas
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Man of mystery
Candidate Statement: “When in the course of human events it becomes unnecessary to explain oneself, a dystopian landscape will unfold for all to behold and exist without trifle or unwanted interference. For some of us, that time is already upon us.”
Griffin, Karyn
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: Sincere, standoffish
Candidate Statement: “I know in all honesty, I don’t have a shot in the dark at this. Or a shot in the light. Wouldn’t it be weird if I could flip the script, though? Woah!”
Gross, Al
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Hunting for votes
Candidate Statement: “Are you aware? I shot that bear. You mean with a tranquilizer dart, and then helicoptered it out to the base of Mt. Susitna? No, Dad — I shot it, DEAD! KA-BLAAAM!! And it does not get more Alaskan than that, try as you may, come as you are, hell-bent for weather.”
Halcro, Andrew
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: R-mod, erudite
Candidate Statement: “‘And let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ they said unto the air and all present. And you know — we chucked that mother! With no hesitation, grief, or reconsideration.”
Heintz, Ted
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Wingnut
Candidate Statement: “Booting Biden will be top priority. Impeachment proceedings begin in the House. Bring on the dancing horses and the subpoenas!”
Hibler, William
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: mole from the ministry
Candidate statement: “This is no way to run a democracy. I’m a Truman Democrat [voted for him, in fact] turned Republican plant. My best friend is a dog and I’m joining him in barking up all the wrong trees, trying to convince Congress that Climate Change is a real thing.”
Howe, John
Party affiliation: Alaskan Independence
Quick take: wingnut
Candidate Statement: “The government; Federal, State, borough, city, all are thieves. Even when the spending comes from a vote of the people it is stealing, the only difference is those that voted for spending are now also guilty. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.”
Hughes, David
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: gone, daddy, gone
Candidate Statement: “I’m either a Christian Counselor in Raleigh, NC; a retired UAF professor with a ham radio hobby or I died in 1930 at age 52. Or maybe all three. It’s for me to know and you to try to find out.”
Knight, Don
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: Same as the old Don
Candidate Statement: “My email address is A New Don for Alaska. I can’t be bothered with any other outreach for this hopeless, lackluster attempt to impress my relatives and friends. Be charitable.”
Lowenfels, Jeff
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: One for the compost bin
Candidate Statement: “I know the garden very well. I have worked in it all of my life. It’s a good garden and a healthy one; its trees are healthy and so are its shrubs and flowers, as long as they are trimmed and watered in the right seasons. I do agree with the President: everything in it will grow strong in due course. And there is still plenty of room in it for new trees and new flowers of all kinds.”
Lyons, Robert
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Wingnut
Candidate Statement: “I’m an honest day of hard work, fighting words and true Patriot taking back my country from the special interests at the barrel of a gun if necessary candidate — yours truly — so humble and able even when I’m goofing around with selfies or just fucking the dog.”
McCabe, Anne
Party affiliation: Nonpartisan
Quick take: R-mod
Candidate Statement: “What really motivated me to run this year is how divided our country has become. I’m really passionate about bringing people together to solve problems. Not that we can agree about what’s a problem and what isn’t. Or why, or how much or whether the world is four billion years old or 6,000. Well, have to start somewhere! Or else you will run from the room screaming!”
Melander, Mikel
Party affiliation: Republican
Quick take: Rancher without a cause
Candidate Statement: “What’s a guy who runs a bison ranch doing in the race? It’s got to be about more than run-ins with federal meat inspectors, doesn’t it? Well, not necessarily.”
Mettler, Sherry
Party affiliation: Undeclared
Quick take: Wingnut
Candidate Statement: “She really has the most amazing ability to write testimonials for herself.”
Milligan, Mike
Party affiliation: Democrat
Quick take: Road to nowhere
Candidate Statement: “I firmly believe that going into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a mistake not only for Alaska’s reputation, but will ultimately hurt our Alaskan oil industry. Saying this used to be considered political suicide in this state. Maybe it still is, but it shouldn’t be.”
Myers, J.R.
Party affiliation: Libertarian
Quick take: Libertarian’s Libertarian
Candidate Statement: “My website has it all, from a news blog of national Libertarians and other splinter party activities to a humorous, self-effacing biography with none of the misspellings, tortured writing, sophomoric ramblings that characterize wingnut sites. The anti-war stance is of course, admirable. And just when you think this all sounds reasonable, I’ll start talking about limited government and the economy and it becomes a sort of descent into madness.”
Notti, Emil
Party affiliation: Democrat
Quick take: Remarkable
Candidate Statement: “I ran against Don Young the last time Alaska had a special election for the lone congressional seat, 49 years ago and almost beat him. I should have. Sometimes life gives you second chances.”
Season-ending scrawl
September 27, 2021 at 7:17 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: 2021, loser, MLB, postseason drought, seattle mariners
Around here nearly all daily activity revolves around the MLB schedule. It is even reasonably predicitive of the weather — about half the time when I’m watching either the first game of the season (April 1st or so) or the last (October 1st) I can look to the right out the living room window and see snow coming down. Winter is either ending or just beginning. On April 1st the days are getting longer and I am looking forward to Summer. Six months later, starting to fold up and feel increasingly sorrowful — freezing in the dark — which is always compounded by there being no more baseball, except the playoffs and World Series.
The trouble is, I never really care about post-season play. I should, I tell myself. I’m a Mariners fan, you see — all the way back to the heyday of the ’90s and Ken Griffey, Jr., Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez, Jamie Moyer and all of their all-time greatest players. And the announcer, Dave Niehaus — that guy was such a scream!
I’ve been paying more attention and watching almost all the games each year since 2007 or so.
Even when they were good, winning the American League Western Division in 1995, 1997 and 2001 they still didn’t make the postseason. Every one of the 30 MLB teams except the Ms have played at least one postseason game and some of them have won the World Series dozens of times. In the past one could rationalize it — the Ms are a relatively new team and it will just take a little longer. By now that is getting tough, the current season being the 44th since the first one in 1977. There are other notable droughts by other teams. This one seems especially tragic, or is it just me?
The 2021 season has been the best one in a long time. At least since the 2014 season, which the team doesn’t talk about much since it was just before the previous management and coaching staff were fired and the new regime took charge.
The current players are an amazing group. Even Kyle Seager, the 33 year old third baseman who is the only player left from the 2012 squad has been enjoying the best performing year of his career, starting to obtain the second or third spots in many of the franchise record statistics alongside Griffey, Edgar, Jay Buhner and others. His contract is up after this year. I really hope they keep him on, although I don’t expect it.
In this and in many other ways — it never seems to matter who is running this team or who is playing for it — what one can always count on, as sure as Summer begins and ends with the baseball season is that if the Ms get close to a next-level performance they find a way to sabotage it. It must be endemic to Seattle, its history of hostile takeovers — logging, Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon in succession all doing their best to ruin whatever advantages the city’s residents had — and epitomized by the Loser-dom of its ’90s Grunge music.
As I write, the Ms are 4th in line for two AL Wild Card playoff positions, two games behind the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox and one game behind the Toronto Blue Jays. There are six games remaining, three vs. Oakland (we just swept them in a four-game series) and the Angels, who we just won two out of three.
The inevitable announcement is coming that the Ms have been eliminated from playoff contention. I will expect this in the next couple of days. And the world will go on. The playoffs will ensue and the ten contenders will be winnowed down to two. The World Series will be won by the Yankees or the Giants or the Red Sox — or perhaps, the Cardinals? The snow will finish its run down the Chugach Mountains and overlay the Anchorage landscape continuously until finally, the last few snowstorms (those late ones that are so ridiculous one can’t possibly take them seriously) taper out leaving sunshine, blue skies and new hopes and dreams.
The leaves don’t even come on the trees until the beginning of the second month of baseball. By then we are starting to get a feel for the new composition of our team and its division opponents. For years I have had very modest expectations. For awhile the team seemed to specialize in giving weird, problem players who had been rejected by all the other teams a home in Seattle — perhaps, seeing worthiness and potential that nobody else could see. The caliber of players is much better now. The coaching is sometimes that way. The Mariners was the first team for which Scott Servais has been the General Manager. It still seems a lot of the time that he doesn’t know when to pull a pitcher, or how to really strategize lineup changes, pinch hitters, pitch sequences and the like, despite gradual improvement. I go back to 2014 — then General Manager, Lloyd McClendon did more with a lot less to work with.
As the years wear on, this Groundhog Day-type routine gets less and less endearing. Many relatives and friends have given up on this team long ago, but one wouldn’t know that from watching — the stands are always a lot more full than at many other home games around the MLB. Oakland always amazes me — never seen more than 9,000 there and in 2021 around 4,000 to 5,000. Not sure if that’s any opponent or just the Ms?
In May, Oakland starting pitcher Cole Irvin, after getting hit around by the Ms, declared (on Twitter), “A team like that shouldn’t be putting up 10 hits against me or anyone.” The Ms responded by beating Irvin in each successive matchup, including the most recent on September 23rd that closed the four-game series sweep. I desperately hope Irvin pitches in one of the three remaining games vs the As, just so we can bring the hammer down on him once more! If not we’ll just have to settle for finishing ahead of them at the end of the season (or not — TBD). Irvin takes the Ms about as seriously as anybody else, which is to say, not seriously. As much as that can make me mad and disappointed, in the end the critics are usually right about the Ms odds. One way that Irvin was dead wrong — there are no other teams like the Mariners. I thought everybody knew that!
Stalking 1960s Anchorage
December 27, 2020 at 5:51 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: alaska, anchorage, history, ralph alley
One of my projects in 2020 has been recording podcasts with retired Anchorage architect Ralph Alley. I’ve been a fan of his work for a long time and for me it’s been like speaking to a childhood hero. Society in general has gone through some transformations in the 61 years since Ralph’s first arrival in Anchorage — then a much smaller city.
Today I walked around downtown and nearby on the same streets and sidewalks Ralph frequented decades before, and revisited some places that figure in the 11 podcast episodes we’ve recorded thus far.
Seen on a bike ride
July 28, 2020 at 7:10 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Love this '60s jewel box church on Boniface [except for the beige color].
First bike journey in many months. Not sure why I stopped going. Will have to start getting out there again.
Evening bike-around: Anchorage remnants
May 8, 2018 at 7:35 am | Posted in alaska, anchorage, photo du jour, Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: abandoned, anchorage, reflections, tour
One gets busy with work and life and forgets to stop and smell the abandoned buildings. Tonight for a couple hours I got back out there and checked on the condition of the less celebrated parts of the city.
When I stopped to take this photo of this small multiplex on San Roberto Ave., three kids playing in the yard next door shyly asked why I was photographing the building. “I like how it looks, with those concrete block walls, wooden bars, metal fencing and pavement. The things we do for cars, eh? How to wreck the front yard?” They laughed a little and probably wondered how long ago I had lost my mind.
Community Park Loop, a street near East High School. It was installed in the mid-1980s and was planned as the future home of a variety of social service institutions and agencies. It entered into an ownership dispute of some sort involving the Alaska Mental Health Trust. I don’t know the details and they don’t matter so much to me. The net result is an interesting juxtaposition of a finished street and sidewalk running through a pristine forested tract of land, an experience increasingly rare.
This little house fronts E. Dowling Road just east of the New Seward Highway. Property tax records show it has 1,035 square feet, two bedrooms and one bath and was built in 1950. The property is owned by the State of Alaska DOT/PF — assuming it was acquired for a future expansion of the roadway interchange. The six lane elevated highway bridge a block away contributes a dull roar and there’s a lot of traffic on Dowling during the day, but not so much when stopped to look. There’s a piece of the residential neighborhood still extant on a couple streets north of this house. Along Dowling, a couple other houses can still be seen integrated into sites of auto repair shops, warehouses and storage lockers. In 1950 Dowling was part of a winding route leading out of Anchorage to the south. The outbound road had only been open a couple years and was rough and partially complete. It must have been quite an expedition, especially in winter to get from this house to the nearest grocery store downtown. It was probably quiet and peaceful most of the time, which is difficult to imagine now.
This building next to the 1950 vintage house was a busy gas station convenience store in the ’90s.
Ten Commandments banner and front of this tidy little church on E. International Airport Rd., directly across the street from the Great Alaska Bush Co. Show Club, a strip bar. Churches are doing a little better than bars at this moment in time. Either this building, or another nearby [can’t remember for sure] was the longtime location of Hansen’s Hubcaps. I must have a photo of it someplace in my film archives. Someday I will organize it. There must be some gems in there!
Part of the street facade of the old Sears Mall Carrs grocery store, opened 1968 and closed 2015. Recently Safeway [owner of Carrs since 2000] announced they will build a new Carrs at the other end of this same mall in the space just vacated by the closing of the Sears store. The mall owner has plans to redevelop the former Carrs for a new anchor tenant to be determined. The new scheme is really nice looking, and updates the exterior while somewhat paying homage to the original gold and dark brown scheme here. Safeway remodeled all the other Carrs locations to a greater or lesser degree, but this one when it closed still looked just like it always had.
Renewal of faith in city planning? Maybe?
July 30, 2015 at 5:46 am | Posted in anchorage, politics | 7 CommentsTags: alaska, anchorage, andrew halcro, mayor ethan berkowitz, planning, politics, smart growth, sprawl
I guess I grew cynical over the last several election cycles, and was surprised and unprepared when Ethan Berkowitz won the Mayoral race earlier this year. Berkowitz, a Democrat [the Municipal elections are ostensibly non-partisan] has now teamed up with Andrew Halcro, one of his Republican opponents in the primary and since taking office earlier this month completed a transition plan that identifies several course changes for the city.
Like new Alaska Governor Bill Walker, Berkowitz reached out to the public for ideas on how to deliver government services more efficiently. I wrote to both of them.
To Walker, I suggested cancelling the five largest transportation projects now in the planning stages [including the Knik Arm Bridge; the Anchorage Highway to Highway project; and the Bragaw St. extension], and at the same time implementing sweeping changes in Statewide and Regional Transportation Planning processes, in order to prevent such ill-conceived debacles from coming to the forefront in the future. While he hasn’t been able to halt any of them, at least the climate has changed enough that policymakers are questioning the party line and how priorities are established. Tiny steps!
In the letter to Berkowitz I suggested that Anchorage’s failure to change its dominant development pattern [despite an effort to move that way, evidenced by the Anchorage 2020 Comprehensive Plan and early efforts to rewrite the Title 21 Land Use Code, before it was co-opted by the Dan Sullivan administration beginning in 2009] is having an ill effect overall, and if left unchecked will destroy what is great about the city.
It doesn’t sound like a budget issue on the face of it, but bear with me. The more one looks into it, the more apparent it becomes that there are costs to sprawl development that are not being accounted for. In the big picture, it’s obvious what is happening — there are not walk-able commercial blocks outside of Downtown, so in order to shop, go to an appointment with a service provider or go out to restaurants and nightclubs all but the most ambitious [and blessed with the most free time] are forced into their cars [since there is also not a robust system of Public Transit]. Thus, the traffic is more congested, with all of the associated drawbacks [danger, noise, pollution, frustration, devaluing of property alongside major roadways] — not to mention loss of habitat/open space.
Sprawl — if you want a more specific term with local relevance, let’s call it suburban strip development — accommodates population growth, but in the least efficient manner possible. Left that way [lacking incentives or directives for anything else], its low density mat will spread far and wide, and unless the city’s boundaries expand with it, the tax base will remain flat. In Anchorage’s case it has led to the siren song of developers, that Anchorage is “out of develop-able land” [and thus we need to throw that bridge over to Pt. McKenzie and build more of the same over there]. To paraphrase the American Legion motto: all of that Free Parking is NOT FREE!!
The presentation of an alternative scenario will be built on the following basic tenet [courtesy Occupy Wall St.]:
Communities in other parts of the country and in other nations figured out long ago that sprawl is not the way to go. Sometimes this epiphany came after decades going down the wrong path. Anchorage is far enough down that path to come to its collective senses and turn around. Mayor Berkowitz said in a Chamber of Commerce speech this week, “There are times when we should care how they do it Outside.”
We also should stop making policy based on the opinions and public positions of those with an axe to grind, and rely more on sound planning and proven principles than on local folklore. We’ve got to get past the current mentality, where long term goals are routinely sacrificed for short term gain, without a firm grasp on true consequences.
Planners, urbanists and academics for more than six decades have argued that a more complex, less segregated pattern [with people living in all areas of a town, in random mixture of income level and cultural identity] is a healthier environment that results in more supervision and fewer rampant social ills. We have some of the ingredients but none of the purpose and vision, and the results are becoming a catastrophe, with Anchorage bubbling near the top on several lists of The Most Dangerous Cities in the USA. I’d argue that the lousy development pattern is a major contributing factor — for all the reasons Jane Jacobs would cite — and, conversely if you give a place vibrance, purpose and meaning the required sense of ownership and protection of people and assets naturally follows.
Anchorage has been successful in some important ways — there’s a great network of non-motorized trails; wilderness access is still first-rate; and there’s mostly a lack of the most egregious sorts of visual pollution such as billboards and 200 ft tall signs. There are great parks, playgrounds and recreational facilities.
In order to build on this and provide for future generations, at this point we should embrace Smart Growth principles; Complete Streets; and reconsider long- and short-term planning goals in regards to protecting and enhancing existing established neighborhoods.
The blow-back is inevitable and will be strong. Home builders already publicly state that any new regulations that don’t exist will add to the already high cost of housing [when actually, prices are always set by what the market will bear]. Quasi-public agencies like housing authorities will come down on the side of less regulation too — they see it as something they should control and direct. [In the letter to Mayor Berkowitz, I suggested part of the problem in Anchorage is that major players such as the Alaska Railroad, the State Dept of Transportation and Public Facilities, the Ted Stevens International Airport, the School District and others now operate largely autonomously, are guided by an internal culture and consider themselves affiliated with but not accountable to Anchorage.]
In most other U.S. cities the size of Anchorage, there are numerous commercial centers in neighborhoods outside of town where one can, on a single block find small shops of all kinds, restaurants and bars and other sorts of venues in a dense arrangement, with apartments mixed in on second and third floors, and minimal or no on-site parking available. Many of these are fantastic, desirable destinations. There are cars and traffic, but not overwhelming… big trees, sidewalk tables, vibrant scenes with a mixture of culture and socio-economic status. We do not have anything like this here — but we have many blocks, in many parts of town where a redevelopment pattern like this could be incubated.
There would be numerous advantages gained. Let’s say you’re an entrepreneur with a food cart or a food truck, and want to make the jump to a restaurant. It’s easier downtown, but rents are prohibitively high and availability limited. Outside of downtown, you are almost surely stuck in a strip mall [that also may not be affordable] if you want any advantage of a shared endeavor [parking and the presence of spillover customers who came there for other reasons]. With just a few tables, you will need parking for several cars — more expensive than it sounds, because it has to include the dimensions of the parking spaces, access aisles and driveways, drainage infrastructure, landscaping, lighting and so forth; and all this has to be reviewed and permitted by the city, and maintained. It’s a huge and unnecessary burden.
The stores in a typical mid-sized strip mall could be placed on a city block in less than 1/3 the total area, and have a floor or two of apartments above, with parking provided on-street instead of on-site [or, in larger developments also in multi-level garages and in other ways including diagonal back-out stalls on internal collector roads]. There’s every advantage to the small independent business owner, the general public and the city at large [drastically increased tax base combined with greater availability of adjacent land for other uses].
We have lots of need for housing, and more of it of a specialized sort — housing for seniors; for artists; for chronically homeless, addicted or mentally ill.
The Millennial generation is quickly abandoning the car in favor of walking and transit, and the rest of us should support this trend. Anchorage has a long tradition of advocacy, by several prominent locals including Suzan Nightingale [1950-96], Ruth Moulton [1931-2006], Laine Fleischer, Walt Parker [1926-2014] and many others. Cheryl Richardson and Anchorage Citizens Coalition are doing great work in recent years to keep the issues I’ve been writing about here at the forefront, and helping to educate the public.
We have, in Mayor Berkowitz a sympathetic ear [evidenced by his appointment of Halcro as head of the Municipal Development Authority and Chris Schutte as Community and Economic Development Director] and the time is now to voice your concerns to your Municipal and State elected officials! Tell them what you would like to see, and why. Developers and major landholders always have the ear of any administration — it’s more rare that the general population has a chance to be heard, too.
Stalking Cysewski, Part II
April 5, 2015 at 8:55 pm | Posted in anchorage | 2 CommentsTags: 1970s, anchorage, cysewski, documentary photos, now and then, stephen cysewski
Yesterday I continued my strange quest walking in the decades old steps of master documentary photographer Stephen Cysewski.
As in the first expedition last week, the results were mixed but the journey was fascinating.
Let’s begin in Muldoon. At the far NE corner of Anchorage, in the old days it seemed like a strange outpost, a seedy/sketchy last stop before cobbling together a road trip to points north. Even today, the commercial property along Muldoon Rd. looks pretty awful. It didn’t make we want to linger and document it, at least not on a cloudy/dreary Spring afternoon. [I might go back soon, though!]
Cysewski’s shot is in a parking lot on the north end of Muldoon Rd., just south of the Glenn Highway. The quarter cloverleaf NB Muldoon off ramp is visible in the background. That same ramp is still there, but maybe not for much longer [a badly needed new interchange will be built to serve the new mall off Muldoon north of the highway]. Typical Anchorage strip development — pole signs, asphalt parking and asphalt paved street separated by a concrete curb, and nothing else. I found the current situation at the same spot only slightly improved — the same parking lot light poles, different pole signs [and more of them]. Today one does not see liquor store signs featuring cartoon drunken hillbillies [at least, not around these parts]. And chicken buckets are behind us, also. The parking lot now has a really pathetic landscape strip, with small trees unable to grow out of the hard packed gravelly soil; yellow wheel stops, a little concrete landscape fence separating the parking from the pedestrians [there actually were a few!] along Muldoon [that has three more traffic lanes than in the ’70s].
Kava’s Pancake House is where KFC used to be. Another pole sign there reads, Alaskan Sweet Thing’s. Not the first [or likely, last] in our longstanding local taste for vagueness and misplaced apostrophes, as we shall see. [Click the image to see a larger version, if you can stand it.]
Moving now to the opposite side of Muldoon, a couple blocks south and looking the other way [SW]. In the ’70s Cysewski was in front of Proctor’s Grocery, an old time Alaska business that had five stores in Anchorage and some in other places, including Homer where the last remaining one closed in the late ’80s. Now there’s a gas station at the Muldoon store site. The gigantic church in the background looks the same today, except the steeple is a little different — the old one blew off the building in a wind storm. Cysewski has a neat aerial of the church on his site, also.
Now let’s enter the morass that is Midtown. Cysewski’s stark ’70s view of an unremarkable strip mall was taken looking west across the Seward Highway just south of Benson Blvd. I’m not certain that the current Ashley store is the same building? But it seems likely. It was extensively remodeled in the early ’90s, as I recall.
I slept on a waterbed as a teenager in my basement bedroom. So many people had them back then. Today I have a memory foam mattress.
Of all the Cysewski photo sites I visited thus far, this place has changed the least in four decades. Old Seward Highway between Huffman and Klatt Roads. The Train Shop appears to no longer be there, and not sure if it’s still Pacific Auction — there’s only a sign that says Family Flea Market — but it appears to be the same type of business. The site has a bunch of cool/decrepit old cars and miscellaneous used equipment. And Ward Realty is still there in the green building on the left. The road is wider and so there’s no signs or parking in front of the buildings now. In the ’70s businesses like this were the norm, now this looks out of place.
It might have taken me longer to place this one, if not for the helpful street sign — definitely the same building, a modest size place that probably started off as a house. The large hands are strange, especially paired with the name Action. In the ’80s through the early 2000s this was the Greek Corner Restaurant. Now it is Maxine’s, a fairly high end bistro [despite outward appearances].
It was better looking in the ’70s.
Earlier in Muldoon I started to get a little sidetracked. It was almost as if I was channeling Cysewski! That sounds flaky, I know — there’s just something about wandering around with no set plan, and finding certain images that beckon. I used to do a lot of that — focus has shifted to detail shots and nature lately but I still enjoy urban clutter and oddball quirkiness. I shot this near the place where I took the shot of the big church.
Back downtown for the rest of today’s tour. [We all know that downtown is the greatest part of every town, right?]
Cysewski photo of Char’s Thing’s [natch] on E. 5th Ave. and Denali St. in the ’70s. I don’t remember this place, but there were places like it from one end of the city to the other, with proprietors with large personalities and grandiose visions. There’s very little of that left, but it can still be found here and there. Char’s house is no longer there, but the similar one next door still is.
The McKinley Tower behind [built 1951] was abandoned around the time the ’70s photo was taken, and sat for many years in an advanced state of decay until finally being reoccupied around 15 years ago. It has fewer windows and is no longer pink.
When I arrived at this scene and was about to take the shot, a large pickup towing a 30 ft box trailer pulled into a street parking spot and blocked my view. I showed him Cysewski’s photo, told him what I was doing. We talked for awhile and he generously offered to back up his rig so I could get the shot.
The Edes House at 610 W. 2nd Ave. at the corner of Christensen Dr. Edes was the head of the Alaska Engineering Commission that built the Alaska Railroad, and this house on a prominent corner site overlooking the rail yards and Ship Creek was one of the nicest in town. Here’s a couple photos of it taken in 1918.
Many uncomplimentary words have been written about the transformation of this place that took place in the 1960s and continues today. The insensitive addition that destroyed the original covered porch, the transformation of the yard from a beautiful garden to a dirt parking lot. But, hey! At least it is still there. I keep thinking that somebody with some money is going to see this place for what it really could be and launch a full renovation that restores it. We’ll see. The randomness of survival of historic buildings fascinates me — some are well cared for, some are not; it doesn’t seem to dovetail with whether they remain or not. Sometimes the sites they occupy are needed for something newer and grander. Sometimes they just run out of luck.
Cysewski took this shot of the west wall of J.C. Penney’s building, looking NE from W. 6th Ave. and E St. in the ’70s. In 1994 Wyland painted a whale mural on the wall, the first of 12 murals he did all down the west coast beginning here and ending in San Diego. I remember going down there in the summer after it was finished [it took less than a week] and hearing a fantastic performance by surf guitar legend Dick Dale [who was then enjoying renewed interest thanks to college radio]. The mural is still extant, if a little sunburned 21 years on.
Cysewski frame looking north at W. 4th Ave. and F St. Fur Rondy Parade, and a float with a stuffed grizzly bear and bottle of Prinz Brau.
Another sidebar — a photo I took that I can imagine Cysewski taking. Looking NW at W. 7th Ave. and E St.
Cysewski took this from inside a McDonald’s at 4th and E [looking SW]. McD’s isn’t there anymore. The space is a coffee shop but was closed when I went by, so I stood outside the same window. The bank building on the corner is now the Hard Rock Cafe. Historical factoid: the Alaska Treasure Shop next door in the ’70s [Mad Hatter today] dates to 1916 and Sydney Laurence’s photo studio was there.
The Fourth Ave. Building and its anchor business, Legal Pizza as captured by Cysewski in the ’70s. H Street facade, view looking west. This was an early mixed use building built in 1915 [I think?] and was Austin Lathrop’s first Anchorage building [the final one being the 4th Ave. Theater]. In the ’50s the ornamental trim and cornice was removed, the siding covered with asbestos shingles and the large windows on 4th were covered up. In 1994 it was torn down and today the Alaska Court System building and its parking garage occupies the entire block.
On the same block at 4th and I there was an old corner gas station, with the corner of the building cut off at an angle for the driveway — classic design and the only one in Anchorage like it. Don’t remember when it was torn down, but think it made it to the early ’80s and was still operating as a Chevron station. Couldn’t find a photo of it.
From a block that changed a lot to one that is still the same — the entrance to J.C. Penney’s parking garage, by Cyseski in the ’70s and myself today.
Cysewski took this shot from inside the Penney’s garage, looking NW at the block bounded by 6th, 5th, E and F. In the mid-’80s all of the buildings on this block and the next one to the west except the Kimball Bldg. at 5th and E were removed to make way for the Town Square Park and Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. I tried a composite and it sort of works — except looking at it now and the relative size of the cars, it now looks like Cysewski was a floor above — so I will go back and re-do this one.
Oh my god! That’s quite enough for now! I am spent!
There’s quite a few more of these to do, at some future date.
Updating Cysewski
March 29, 2015 at 3:46 am | Posted in anchorage, art, Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: 1970s, alaska, cysewski, now and then, photo documentation, stephen cysewski
This was an idea of Jon Lang’s — a longtime friend who has come into his own as an independent Producer/Director of art films lately. [He and I have talked about joint ventures on art projects before but I’ve never followed through.]
Stephen Cysewski has been getting lots of buzz for a long time about his 1970s photos of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Seattle, Tacoma and other places. Jon’s idea was that he and his wife, local photographer Jamie Lang and I would go around and take contemporary photos matching Cysewski’s four decades old ones — and be able to observe how much the physical settings had changed, or had not.
Some of the locations of the vintage shots are easy to spot, others not so much. But we enjoy a challenge!
Today I got the ball rolling. First I picked out some shots from Cysewski’s site and printed them at approx. 3×5. On the way back home, I stopped at a few of the sites. Prints in hand, I tried to recreate the shot from the same angle, as closely as possible. Some were more successful than others.
Maybe we’ll work on this some more, refine the approach and technique? But this seems like a decent start! Kind of fun, isn’t it?
This was easy to place because there’s another photo of it on Cysewski’s site of a sign in the front yard that includes the address [cropped out of this view]. There was a fortune teller in here when Cysewski wandered by [on W. 6th Ave. between H and I Streets] back in the ’70s. This little house and the one to the left of it are now gone, but the one on the right [at 825 W. 6th] is still there and in recent years was a Chinese restaurant, though it now appears to be closed. The front yard was decreased by a widening of 6th Ave.
Same location today.
This one was easy to composite, by matching the Capt. Cook Hotel tower in the background, and the dormer on the house that’s still there.
This scene has hardly changed at all. For a long time in the ’80s and ’90s the tile was covered up with beige paint, but later they had the sense to strip it off. The building is owned by the Catholic Archdiocese. The owner of the tile business was Elmer Eller, as I recall. He moved it out of downtown in the early 1980s, and then went out of business.
The first Denali Tower, at 2600 Denali St. The business development of Midtown was just getting a head of steam, and when this tower was completed in 1977 it looked out of place among small houses and low-key side streets. Cysewski’s view is from Cordova St. looking east.
Today the houses are gone and their lots are part of an expanded parking lot. A second Denali Tower with 13 stories was finished next door at 2550 Denali St. in 1983.
This place just seems like the archetypal Pipeline era establishment [at E. Fireweed Lane and Fairbanks St.]. In the ’80s it was a branch of El Toro Restaurant [they had a bigger one in Wasilla] and later it was Steve’s Sports Bar. Recently it’s been vacant. Last year somebody stripped the exterior and began renovations that have since stalled.
This place on E. 4th Ave. just west of Gambell St. was suffering a lot of deferred maintenance issues but nonetheless seemed to be some sort of State offices, judging from the Chevy Nova staff cars with State of Alaska seals on the doors.
It looks quite a bit better now, and it and the larger building to the right are a seedy residential hotel [but it’s better than living on the streets].
Used car lot where a boxy low rise state office building now sits [it’s just a little newer than this photo] and a fast food place, Malay’s Sandwiches that today is Burger Jim. Looking east at 4th and Gambell.
This was the hardest one to create a composite from the two images. The original was taken with an SLR from inside a car, the one today with an iPhone 6 standing in the street. I was able to sort of line up the mountains, but the rest of it looks a bit unconvincing.
Side note on this one: The large building-mounted sign on the sandwich place in the old photo was only recently removed. I took its photo in 2009.
The last stops on today’s tour will be Mt. View. Here’s Cysewski’s candid looking east from Mt. View Dr. and Bragaw St. in the ’70s. He was probably standing right where I was, at a short section of solid wall next to large plate glass south facing windows of a laundromat. The gas station that’s just cropped out of the view was torn down in 2009 in favor of the Credit Union 1.
This one includes what was then Alaska State Bank and is now McKinley Services in the foreground and Jamico’s Pizza [that is still there, remarkably] beyond. Mt. View Dr. just east of Bragaw, view looking SW.
Anchorage Mayoral race hits the fan
March 17, 2015 at 5:36 am | Posted in alaska, anchorage, politics | Leave a commentTags: anchorage, berkowitz, coffey, demboski, halcro, local, mayoral race, politics
It’s not as much of a clown show as six years ago, when 15 candidates [some of ’em completely crazy] were cleanly outdistanced by Dan Sullivan. Sullivan coasted to a victory again in 2012 and is now termed out.
A somewhat crowded field going into this year’s contest, with the usual fringe oriented also-rans vying for attention along with the front runners. In ’09, fresh from two terms of Mayor Mark Begich [almost — he had to leave a few months early to succeed Ted Stevens in the US Senate] and shortly after President Obama started his first term, the mayor’s race was crowded with left leaning candidates. Today three of the leading four are trying to out-Republican each other, leaving Ethan Berkowitz the sole representative of the left. Berkowitz and Halcro are both veteran campaigners who served in the AK State House and haven’t had much luck running for Governor or in other tries.
Rounding out the Republican front runner field are Amy Demboski and Dan Coffey.
Demboski seems to be in trouble early on, having trouble spinning a story and coddling the far right too literally.
I predict Coffey will nail it after a runoff. He is the kind of pro-business, go along to get along, not much personality, dull enough to fit in, enough acumen to play the game, dead fish kind of a candidate the majority of us [not including this writer] always prefer. He comes off as a used car salesman, in a way perfect for the task at hand. Halcro is the sort of one in a million Republican for whom I would be tempted to vote for — but there’s no way he makes it to the runoff. And then I recall that even though he’s the smartest one in the group by far, he’s still in it for business interests over regular people, the same as the other two. They’re like a casino where the house always wins. Or like 35 years of Lynne Curry columns, where in 1,000 hypothetical employer-employee disputes, management prevails in all but three.
Predictably, Koch Brothers money is infiltrating the race with anti-Berkowitz ads. The people likely to vote for him are the least likely to be influenced by PAC attack ads, ironically.
The Sullivan administration is still running the election, so who knows if it will be immune from problems, intentional or not? We’ll find out soon enough — and whether or not more than 20% of the eligible voters will even bother to show up for this. If they only would — how different the results could be!
Dream on, brothers and sisters.
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