On Monday August 23 the Assembly has a hearing on whether to put two items on the October 5 ballot. The first is an 18.7 million dollar general obligation bond to renovate Auke Bay Elementary School and the second is an allocation of the current sales tax toward a second crossing of Gastineau Channel. Regardless of the pros and cons of each, I am strongly in favor of putting these issues before the citizens and asking for their approval or disapproval. To me – this is what democracy is all about. We have some proposals for significant spending. Do the citizens support allocating their tax dollars in this matter. What could be more democratic? Why would you not support referring this to citizens?
In future posts I will share my position on the merits of these proposals, but I will definitely vote to put them on the October ballot.
We now know who will run for the Assembly this October and it is …..interesting.
There are always three seats up. The areawide seat is held be incumbent Johan Dybdahl, and nobody filed to run against him. The downtown seat is open (Jeff Bush is stepping down) and only former school board member Mary Becker is running. The valley seat, however, has four applicants: Greg Brown, Karen Crane, Mary Anderson and Christopher Nelson. All four are newcomers to city politics. The opening Juneau Empire story gives some background. We will hear more over the next two months.
One of the candidates, Mary Anderson, has a …..er…..ahem….close relationship with yours truly. I was as surprised as anyone over her decision to run. One thing I can assure you is that she is her own person and, if our personal relationship is any indication, she may differ from me on any number of issues. :) So we shall see how this plays out.
Next Tuesday, August 24th is the State Primary Election. Please remember to get out and vote. Primaries often have low turnouts. Please VOTE! In addition to the state and federal candidates there are two propositions. Note they are on the primary election and NOT on the general election ballot.
Proposition #1 is an “Initiative Prohibiting the Use of Public Funds to Lobby or Campaign; and Prohibiting Holders of Government Contracts and Family Members from Making Political Contributions.” I strongly encourage you to vote against this measure. It would prohibit communities from lobbying the state or federal government on issues affecting them. It would also prohibit any person who is a vendor to the city or state from financially supporting any candidate for any office, nor could their spouse, children, parents or other close relatives. It is a bad initiative.
Ballot measure 2 is on the sensitive and emotional abortion issue. It would require “Notice to or Consent from Parent or Guardian or Through Judicial Bypass” for a female under the age of 18 to get an abortion. I have struggled with the abortion issue for many years. While personally opposed, I have always come down on the side of personal choice, rather than government mandate. So I will vote no on this proposition.
Tomorrow, 8/18 I head to Kodiak for the Alaska Municipal League summer legislative conference. http://www.akml.org/services/conference/summer/
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
I don’t know if you have tuned into this news, but there is growing scandal in California over municipal salaries. It was started by a revelation that the city of Bell, California – a 40,000 person community of middle to lower class individuals was paying 4 of their 5 city council members $100,000 a year, their City Manager over $800,000 and their police Chief $450,000. Other salaries were also high. You can google Bell California and find a bunch of stories. Click Here for a link to one of them
This has stimulated interest in many communities of what they are paying their representatives and professionals, so I thought I should lay out what you are paying in Juneau. The City Manager’s pay is $176K but we do not pay him PERS benefits. The Deputy City Manager receives $132K and the Police Chief receives $123K. There is a link to the 2010-2011 CBJ Budget in the right menu column of this blog. Every department listed has a final page of “Staffing” and it lists the salaries paid to different positions.
Among elected and appointed officials – Juneau pays its Mayor $30,000 a year and expects them to put in about ½ time. Other Assembly members receive $6,000 a year. School Board Members receive $3,600 and Planning Commissioners receive an $1,800 honorarium. No other Board members, including all Enterprise Board members receive any salary.
This has stimulated interest in many communities of what they are paying their representatives and professionals, so I thought I should lay out what you are paying in Juneau. The City Manager’s pay is $176K but we do not pay him PERS benefits. The Deputy City Manager receives $132K and the Police Chief receives $123K. There is a link to the 2010-2011 CBJ Budget in the right menu column of this blog. Every department listed has a final page of “Staffing” and it lists the salaries paid to different positions.
Among elected and appointed officials – Juneau pays its Mayor $30,000 a year and expects them to put in about ½ time. Other Assembly members receive $6,000 a year. School Board Members receive $3,600 and Planning Commissioners receive an $1,800 honorarium. No other Board members, including all Enterprise Board members receive any salary.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The 7/19 Assembly meeting wasn’t covered in the Empire because their city reporter resigned and has not yet been replaced. There were a few things worth noting. The Downtown Parking Management Plan was passed. Also passed was a revision of the Table of Permissible Uses – which determines what kind of buildings and land uses are allowed in a particular zone. The revision reduced the number of situations that require going to the Planning Commission. We established a Low Income Housing Fund. Eventually we will make grants to facilitate affordable housing projects. We also approved a planning and design contract for Docks and Harbors to remodel the current cruise ship docks (paid for with cruise ship passenger fee dollars).
I had a minor success that was interesting. There was a resolution in the consent agenda to allow the Police Department to apply for federal stimulus dollars “to purchase equipment that will aid police officers with traffic enforcement and counterterrorism efforts.” I read that and went “huh?” So I found out that the “counterterrorism” grant was for a license plate reader to be installed at the ferry terminal. It would collect the license plate numbers of everyone coming and going on the ferry. That disturbed me a bit. I have no problem with the police monitoring the terminal for an investigation – but to collect and store everyone’s movements is one step closer to the surveillance state that we want to avoid. I expressed my concerns to the Manager and the Police Chief and they removed that request and replaced it with a grant request for their domestic violence program. That was a nice substitution.
The situation regarding solid waste has moved a bit. In order to be involved in the process we had planned to buy Arrow Refuse’s permit and contract back to them, but they wanted millions of dollars. Then we discovered that we could apply for our own permit (to collect garbage) and decided to go that route. If we get it we’ll put out an RFP for private contractors. Arrow could bid on that, but so could anyone else. On Monday August 2nd the Committee of the Whole will meet to talk on this more and hear a presentation from Waste Management (the ones who own the landfill) on what they can do. This continues to be a very complex issue. More information at http://www.juneau.org/pubworks/projects/SWMS/index.php
You may have read that Juneau is in the midst of applying to host the Arctic Winter Games for 2014. This is something that would be nice and bring lots of business into Juneau – but……. it also costs a bunch. The feds and state may help, but the Borough ultimately would be responsible and probably would have to commit several million dollars, even with state and federal support. We introduced an ordinance authorizing $50K to prepare the application. That will be up for hearing at our next meeting August 9th. I have some serious reservations about our financial ability to do this.
You may have read about a proposal to put a North Douglas Crossing measure on the ballot this October. I really support this because it finally puts this very specifically before the voters. We have said for years (decades?) that we want it – but have waited for the feds to pay. This proposal says we will pay for it ourselves. I like this process because over the next few months people (including me) will write about it and lay out the issues and then the voters will decide. That’s the way it should be.
On Wednesday August 4 we have a Finance Committee meeting to decide whether the North Douglas Crossing will be on the ballot. We will also decide what school bond issues we will put on the ballot. The school district wants Auke Bay Elementary and Marie Drake. The fall ballot will lay out how much each project would cost and how much it would add to property taxes. Then the voters decide.
August 6-16 is the candidate filing period for this year’s October 5th elections. Three Assembly and two School Board positions are up. Let me know if you are interested in learning more.
I had a minor success that was interesting. There was a resolution in the consent agenda to allow the Police Department to apply for federal stimulus dollars “to purchase equipment that will aid police officers with traffic enforcement and counterterrorism efforts.” I read that and went “huh?” So I found out that the “counterterrorism” grant was for a license plate reader to be installed at the ferry terminal. It would collect the license plate numbers of everyone coming and going on the ferry. That disturbed me a bit. I have no problem with the police monitoring the terminal for an investigation – but to collect and store everyone’s movements is one step closer to the surveillance state that we want to avoid. I expressed my concerns to the Manager and the Police Chief and they removed that request and replaced it with a grant request for their domestic violence program. That was a nice substitution.
The situation regarding solid waste has moved a bit. In order to be involved in the process we had planned to buy Arrow Refuse’s permit and contract back to them, but they wanted millions of dollars. Then we discovered that we could apply for our own permit (to collect garbage) and decided to go that route. If we get it we’ll put out an RFP for private contractors. Arrow could bid on that, but so could anyone else. On Monday August 2nd the Committee of the Whole will meet to talk on this more and hear a presentation from Waste Management (the ones who own the landfill) on what they can do. This continues to be a very complex issue. More information at http://www.juneau.org/pubworks/projects/SWMS/index.php
You may have read that Juneau is in the midst of applying to host the Arctic Winter Games for 2014. This is something that would be nice and bring lots of business into Juneau – but……. it also costs a bunch. The feds and state may help, but the Borough ultimately would be responsible and probably would have to commit several million dollars, even with state and federal support. We introduced an ordinance authorizing $50K to prepare the application. That will be up for hearing at our next meeting August 9th. I have some serious reservations about our financial ability to do this.
You may have read about a proposal to put a North Douglas Crossing measure on the ballot this October. I really support this because it finally puts this very specifically before the voters. We have said for years (decades?) that we want it – but have waited for the feds to pay. This proposal says we will pay for it ourselves. I like this process because over the next few months people (including me) will write about it and lay out the issues and then the voters will decide. That’s the way it should be.
On Wednesday August 4 we have a Finance Committee meeting to decide whether the North Douglas Crossing will be on the ballot. We will also decide what school bond issues we will put on the ballot. The school district wants Auke Bay Elementary and Marie Drake. The fall ballot will lay out how much each project would cost and how much it would add to property taxes. Then the voters decide.
August 6-16 is the candidate filing period for this year’s October 5th elections. Three Assembly and two School Board positions are up. Let me know if you are interested in learning more.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Things are a bit slow at the moment. The budget is done as are the vetos. Juneau did well, even if we did get a few things reduced.
I had an interesting experience with DOT. They have a process of rating transportation projects which they call the STIP or Statewide Transportation Improvement Projects. Many communities complain that DOT ignores them while they respond that they just follow their scoring criteria for projects. Of course there is the rub – what is the scoring criteria. Every few years they ask for public comment on these criteria and here is where communities can try and get them to alter those. That happened recently, and I submitted my comment calling on them to make the process more democratic. I browbeat CBJ to submit a comment. Bottom line was there were a total of 3 comments from the whole state. Sigh. You can view the comments and criteria HERE Yes, it is a bit “wonky” but this is how things actually happen. If you don’t respond to requests for comment, it’s hard to justify complaints – sort of like voting.
Monday night 6/28 is our regular Assembly meeting. I don’t see anything too controversial, although I encourage your review. There is a link to agendas on the right column of this page. One of the things on the agenda is art for Harborview School. We have a law that says 1% of a project’s cost must be allocated to some form of art for the building. We renovated Harborview a year ago and are just getting around to finalizing the art awards. See them HERE (big file)
I have been really interested in the 1% for art process for the downtown transportation center. So many people complained that they didn’t want another concrete box. Now I am really interested in seeing how this process turns out. We always appoint a citizen’s committee to select the art projects and the committee for the transportation center consisted of Paul Voelkers, Barbara Craver, Jane Lindsey, Donald Gregory, Ken Alper and Nancy Waterman. The projects looked great on paper, but I am anxious to see the final results. I also am interested in the final results of the park to be created on the top of the hill. I will follow up.
We finally made a decision about managing the new aquatics center. Through a series of 5-4 votes we decided to make it simply an advisory board. Lots of time and energy spent on something that doesn’t seem that big a deal.
There is continued concern with the organizational culture at Bartlett Hospital. I attended several Board meetings and subcommittee meetings. The Board hired the Foraker Group to assess the situation and they have just given their preliminary results. Now it is up to the Board to decide what they will do.
I will attend Monday evening’s meeting by phone from Hawaii. Isn’t that dedication!!
Happy solstice, summer, Independence Day and all that.
And the election season is just beginning......
I had an interesting experience with DOT. They have a process of rating transportation projects which they call the STIP or Statewide Transportation Improvement Projects. Many communities complain that DOT ignores them while they respond that they just follow their scoring criteria for projects. Of course there is the rub – what is the scoring criteria. Every few years they ask for public comment on these criteria and here is where communities can try and get them to alter those. That happened recently, and I submitted my comment calling on them to make the process more democratic. I browbeat CBJ to submit a comment. Bottom line was there were a total of 3 comments from the whole state. Sigh. You can view the comments and criteria HERE Yes, it is a bit “wonky” but this is how things actually happen. If you don’t respond to requests for comment, it’s hard to justify complaints – sort of like voting.
Monday night 6/28 is our regular Assembly meeting. I don’t see anything too controversial, although I encourage your review. There is a link to agendas on the right column of this page. One of the things on the agenda is art for Harborview School. We have a law that says 1% of a project’s cost must be allocated to some form of art for the building. We renovated Harborview a year ago and are just getting around to finalizing the art awards. See them HERE (big file)
I have been really interested in the 1% for art process for the downtown transportation center. So many people complained that they didn’t want another concrete box. Now I am really interested in seeing how this process turns out. We always appoint a citizen’s committee to select the art projects and the committee for the transportation center consisted of Paul Voelkers, Barbara Craver, Jane Lindsey, Donald Gregory, Ken Alper and Nancy Waterman. The projects looked great on paper, but I am anxious to see the final results. I also am interested in the final results of the park to be created on the top of the hill. I will follow up.
We finally made a decision about managing the new aquatics center. Through a series of 5-4 votes we decided to make it simply an advisory board. Lots of time and energy spent on something that doesn’t seem that big a deal.
There is continued concern with the organizational culture at Bartlett Hospital. I attended several Board meetings and subcommittee meetings. The Board hired the Foraker Group to assess the situation and they have just given their preliminary results. Now it is up to the Board to decide what they will do.
I will attend Monday evening’s meeting by phone from Hawaii. Isn’t that dedication!!
Happy solstice, summer, Independence Day and all that.
And the election season is just beginning......
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