The November election is just over five weeks away. Absentee and early voting starts in just over three weeks on October 21. Governor Mike Dunleavy (R – Alaska) endorsed Representative Ben Carpenter (R – Nikiski) in his bid to unseat Senator Jesse Bjorkman (R – Nikiski). The LaFrance administration continues to put out messaging that they will tolerate those who choose to camp on public lands. The Native Village of Eklutna is taking steps to have a questionable casino built in Birchwood. And Mayor Suzanne LaFrance has been silent on the Anchorage Police officer and two off-duty Department of Corrections officers that were shot on Monday.
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I am excited to announce that we are bringing Election Central back! Join us on Tuesday, November 5 at the Egan Center for what is sure to be a great party. Here is a radio spot for the event.
Dunleavy Endorses Carpenter
Following his endorsement of Republican Jared Goecker over Senator Kelly Merrick (R – Eagle River), Governor Dunleavy endorsed Representative Ben Carpenter over Senator Jesse Bjorkman. Endorsing Republican challengers over Republican incumbents is not without risk. But Dunleavy knows that there will be another coalition majority in the Senate next year. If Merrick and/or Bjorkman are defeated, the odds of an actual Republican minority increase. Right now the three-member Republican Senate minority are two members short of being a recognized minority. This means they are not guaranteed and seats on committees and have no ability to maneuver procedurally.
.@GovDunleavy has endorsed Rep. Ben Carpenter in his bid to unseat Sen. Jesse “BJ” Bjorkman. #akleg pic.twitter.com/1D5CsZOzLt
— The Alaska Landmine (@alaskalandmine) September 24, 2024
Weird Messaging from Mayor LaFrance
In a bizarre and revealing interview this week by the Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage homelessness coordinator Farina Brown stated that it was a “strongly held misconception” that some people are homeless by choice, and then immediately afterward stated that “not everyone wants to be sheltered” and that the city will “[acknowledge] that there will be some people that [make that] choice.”
Brown said the city believes about 300 campers will not seek shelter this winter. Brown also told ADN that the LaFrance administration wants to be respectful toward neighborhoods who are “hosting our unhoused neighbors.” Brown acknowledged that camps endanger children and make Anchorage residents feel “unsafe in their own neighborhoods.”
Last week, Brown told the Landmine that the city will “honor and respect” the choice by homeless individuals to reject shelter and continue camping on public land. It is becoming increasingly clear that the LaFrance administration does not intend to enforce camping laws in Anchorage, which prohibit camping, fires, construction, tree cutting, and similar widespread behaviors in public parks.
LaFrance even posted the article on Twitter with quotes from Brown.
“The other, I think, very strongly held misconception is that individuals that are homeless are there by choice.”
(1of3)https://t.co/4bCNjiMDEx— Mayor LaFrance (@MayorLaFrance) September 26, 2024
Other Happenings
Joe Kemp, the Northern Region director for the Department of Transportation (DOT), is no longer in that role. I received a tip that he was no longer working for DOT, which I was able to confirm. No explanation has been given why he left. Katherine Keith is now listed as the Acting Northern Region director.
The Native Village of Eklutna is taking steps to build a casino in Birchwood. In July, the Alaska Beacon did a story about a reversal of a decades old federal policy that prohibited casinos on Alaska Native trust land. You can listen to this recent episode of Landmine Radio with Anchorage attorney Don Mitchell (start at 54 minutes), who is an expert on Indian gaming and former lawyer for the Alaska Federation of Natives, to better understand this issue. I am all for gaming. In fact I think the state should just legalize it. But it is clear that the legal authority for this casino is at best shaky. It will open up a Pandora’s box in Alaska when it comes to Native land, which would lead to a messy patchwork of new rules and laws. The state should look at this very closely.
So it looks like the Native Village of Eklutna has cleared the land in Birchwood for their proposed casino, funded by Vegas based Marnell Gaming. There’s been little to no public awareness on this. It’s located a mile off the North Birchwood exit just before the railroad tracks. pic.twitter.com/mxZuL3Wn4Q
— The Alaska Landmine (@alaskalandmine) September 28, 2024
It’s odd that Mayor LaFrance has been silent on the shooting that took place on Monday (9/23/2024) that resulted in two off-duty Corrections officers and an APD officer being shot. The alleged shooter, Jalen Baker, has a history of criminal behavior. Recall in August that LaFrance announced new policies for APD following the fatal officer involved shooting of a 16-year-old. LaFrance did make a statement about that and other offices involved shootings. Baker’s mother did an interview with KTUU following the shooting after he barricaded himself in a trailer. In the interview she said she was worried the police would shoot her son because “we’ve seen all you guys post on the news and newspaper that cops are killing people.” Baker was not shot and taken into custody. But imagine that your son just tried to murder three people in cold blood and you use the opportunity to criticize the police. Here’s a concept: DON’T SHOOT PEOPLE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO GET SHOT BY POLICE.
This Week’s Loose Unit
This week’s designee was an easy one. This week’s Loose Unit is Anchorage Assembly member Daniel Volland. Following 13 pedestrian related deaths this year, the Anchorage Assembly passed a resolution this week urging state and local governments to take action to reduce the number of pedestrians killed by drivers. Recall a year ago that Volland introduced and passed a resolution that eliminated penalties for jaywalking.
Volland told Alaska Public Media that he did not think that was related to the pedestrian related deaths. That alone is classic Loose Unit behavior. But it gets way looser. Volland actually said the reason to stop enforcing jaywalking was because it “wasn’t being done equitably.” Looking beyond the absurdity of that statement, very few jaywalking citations were even being issued. And they definitely weren’t tracking the ethnicities of the people that were cited.
It’s obvious the message being sent by the Assembly is that you can camp and live wherever you want in Anchorage and you won’t get in any trouble, and you also won’t get in any trouble for walking or riding your bike into traffic. The whole thing is just crazy. I wonder if Volland is looking into the 13 people that were killed to make sure their deaths were equitable? Maximum loose.
If you have a nomination for this week’s Loose Unit, or if you have any political news, stories or gossip (or any old pics of politicians or public officials) please email me at jeff@alaskalandmine.com.
Let us assume the city of Anchorage has no legal concerns jailing Anchorage’s homeless population (as I assume is the suggested solution is to Anchorage’s homeless/mental health crisis? A “penalty” for sleeping on public/private property). What would it cost to jail/house/treat/feed Anchorage’s homeless population? Would additional jails beds/medical facilities be needed? What would the cost be? Who would pay for it? Maybe interview someone from Alaska’s jail system? Get some fiscal information on this house/treat Anchorage’s homeless in jails plan. Is it $100 million a year? More? Less? Interview someone from legal…Is jailing homeless a viable solution? Why is jailing/treating… Read more »
Almost nobody thinks homeless people should just be jailed. However, “we have appropriate shelter space available for you, you can either move into the shelter or move somewhere else, but you cannot continue camping in our parks and playgrounds or you will be arrested,” is completely reasonable. People need to be provided a path out of homelessness, but they should not have the option of rejecting help so they can continue squatting on public property.
Residents of Anchorage have a right to enjoy public spaces. Nobody has a right to choose to squat on them forever.
Unhoused Anchorageites are, like those of us living in houses, residents of Anchorage. They just don’t reside in a house/apartment/mobile home. When Trump said, “They’re eating the pets of the people who live there,” he made the same mistake you did, Heath. The Haitians live in Springfield, too. If you live in a city, you’re a resident of that city, regardless of whether you live in a tent or a house.
Most people would not have an issue with the homeless people if they were respectful of public property. It is hard to have empathy for those unhoused folks when they are cutting trees in public spaces. When they are leaving their trash or human waste everywhere. When they make it unsafe for the rest of us to use public spaces. When they steal from homes/yards/stores. The fact that one cant walk their dog in most parks in this town without finding human waste or used needles is a pretty sad indictment of how we have dealt with this problem. Now,… Read more »
So….How much would it cost to jail the litters?
Who is going to pay for it? All viable/thought out solutions come with a fiscal note.
We are currently spending tens of millions of dollars and the problems have not improved, only gotten worse.
Instead of spending the money the way it currently is being spent, maybe spend some of those funds on enforcement.
Enforce the laws. I would get a ticket for littering if a cop saw me toss my trash out the window of my truck or a bag of trash blows out of the bed, but nothing is done about these disgusting camps around.
I hear ya…but 10’s of millions ain’t gonna got it. Do the math
What impact would the potential of a littering fine have on the behavior choices of a broke homeless person?
Let’s think a little.
You cant just throw them in jail because they are homeless, but you can hold them accountable for their actions.
Currently, we are just letting the homeless dictate what is going on in our public spaces. Something has to change.
I don’t see you putting forth any ideas
Well let’s be fair and give Anchorage’s speeding dangerous drivers tickets too…
Please see my response to you above. You apparently think the problem is selective enforcement. The problem is weak enforcement, whether you litter or an unhoused person litters. Maybe, if a cop saw you throw a bag of trash out of the window of your truck, she would ticket you. But what are the chances a cop would see you litter? Drivers run red lights citywide, 24/7/365 and do so with impunity because Anchorage enjoys precious little traffic law enforcement, even less littering enforcement. In principle, though, I agree: All litterers should be ticketed, whether they live in a tent… Read more »
“We are currently spending tens of millions of dollars and the problems have not improved, only gotten worse.”
-Pablo
?
The number of homeless in Anchorage dropped 16% from July to August.
Just one data point. But it suggest homelessness has improved of late.
You absolutely would not get a ticket for littering, any more than the APD gives out speeding tickets to the 99% of drivers who go 10-20 miles over the speed limit on Northern Lights and Benson.
I absolutely have an issue with homeless people camping in public land when they have shelter to go to. You will never, never ever find a camp without lots of problems nearby. That’s why… you don’t find any camps in Anchorage that don’t cause problems. This belief that camps are inherently OK is a type of civic Stockholm Syndrome.
We all should be able to use our public spaces however we please so long as we don’t destroy them for others.
That should include RESPONSIBLE camping.
You cant go to a campground and make a huge mess, why should we allow the homeless to not abide by the same rules?
If the homeless kept clean camps, you wouldn’t even know the camps were there unless you stumbled into one
“If the homeless kept clean camps…” Well, they could but they don’t, anywhere. So talking this way is about as productive as arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Public land is not open for free public camping, wherever and whenever a camper wants to use it that way. Can you camp out in Town Square Park? How about the Park Strip? How about in the little lawn next to City Hall? The campers are wrecking public land for everyone else, period. The solution is removing all of the camps and enforcing our prohibition… Read more »
I don’t know how it has evolved recently, but prior to Grants Pass (6 years ago…) Anchorage was abating clean and dirty camps alike.
I don’t know what we should do about public camping. But it’s not true that all public campers are slobs – and Anchorage was doing little to encourage good behavior among the homeless. Then, Grants Pass turned it into a free for all and first Berkowitz and then Bronson gave up.
But how could anyone possibly keep a clean camp unless they had sanitation facilities, garbage disposal, some way to cook food without starting a fire in the woods, and access to showers. Is the city supposed to distribute these services to wherever the current encampments are? It’s just an unrealistic expectation. All this discussion just leads to two possibilities: organized camping area with those facilities and strong police presence, or camp abatement if shelter is refused, effectively chasing encampments around the city until they cause the next big problem, which is what we are doing now. Maybe we should ask… Read more »
You are an articulate clear thinker, Lisa. I agree with all you wrote.
“You cant go to a campground and make a huge mess”
-Pablo
Of course you can.
But you’ll be fined.
A fine to a homeless person is like a bucycle to a fish.
As a Kenai Peninsula resident, I can provide ample evidence that you can go to a public campground and leave a huge mess and will never get fined.
It’s humorous to read complaints from Anchorage about people littering and leaving their trash and human waste on public property. Sounds like every campground on the Kenai Peninsula after the Anchorage mobs have descended on weekends!
You make some good points. I agree about the litter, needles, poop, etc. But I reckon you’re overstating when you say one can’t walk a dog in most parks. We’ve got a huge park acreage. Our unhoused huddle in a few–not most–of them. And, as for enforcement, many laws go unenforced in our fair city, e.g., traffic laws. That’s more a problem of staffing–a longstanding inability to maintain a full police force–than it is any municipal administration’s unwillingness to enforce.
I think our parks are significantly degraded and the semantics past that are less important. In laws visited and wanted to go for a walk and I was arming them with bear spray, telling them where to avoid, preferring that they go together. It’s a sad state of a city that is otherwise a jewel.
I’ve been to many parks and green spaces in this city and have found most of them to be contaminated by some sort of human waste or drug paraphernalia. From the east side of town to the south side of town and everywhere in between.
Maybe it’s because my dog has a nose for shit, or maybe it’s because there is shit all over the place. I don’t know
Maybe your dog or other dogs are part of that? When I visit Anchorage, I see loose dogs everywhere and lots of dog poop on trails and in parks.
Nope, my dog stays on leash and I pick up his shit.
Also, I don’t think the large piles of shit come from dogs or other animals. Pretty sure they are related to the large mess of other detritus left behind by those homeless camps that are all over the green spaces in Anchorage
Nobody, and I mean nobody, gives a rat’s ass about whether jaywalking is a crime or not. Nobody. It was never enforced and people are going to cross where they want to. PC people want to lay blame on drivers or the fact that we have roads. From my experience, I’m surprised only 12 pedestrians have been killed by vehicles. There are people that just walk out into the road, sometimes they look, sometimes they don’t, and you are smashing the brake pedal to avoid hitting them.
People walk right in front of me while I’m driving at least a couple times a week. It’s worst at the major intersections, like Northern Lights/Benson and the Seward Highway. It’s also bad along Fireweed, and A and C streets. They would rather jump in front of traffic than wait at a crosswalk 20 feet away. Let’s face it, that’s still illegal but nobody is writing them tickets, mostly because the people doing this are homeless people living in roadside camps. The issue isn’t the laws on the books as much as the laws just not being enforced anywhere and… Read more »
Please don’t assume that the people who wander into traffic–they’re everywhere, lots of them–are necessarily homeless folks, living in camps. The pedestrians on (not beside) Spenard Road between Minnesota and the railroad tracks aren’t mostly unhoused campers. Agreed: It’s not the lack of laws; it’s the lack of enforcement. As others, above, have noted, enforcement is expensive. If you want full enforcement, retirement benefits and salaries for cops will have to increase…a lot, with a commensurate increase in your property taxes.
Let’s call it like it is, the LaFrance administration is engaging in abusive gaslighting when it comes to the homelessness issue. They are telling us that we’re crazy and imagining things when we say that some homeless people are choosing to be homeless, then turning right around and saying “300 homeless people are CHOOSING to stay out of shelters this winter and we will respect that CHOICE.”
Call it like it is, Jeff. It’s gaslighting at its most brazen.
Laws are often not perfect, but enforcing laws against camping in neighborhood parks would reduce – not eliminate – camping in neighborhood parks.
Volland is probably right that the jaywalking law wasn’t enforced and wasn’t effective. The real LOOSE UNIT should be DOT and our city planners, who hate multifamily housing that allows people to live in neighborhoods where they can walk around, but love putting racetrack-like speedways all over the city. The whole pattern of this city is designed for vehicles to travel as fast as possible, and until that is fixed the city will at minimum be extremely unfriendly and hostile to pedestrians.
I believe the jaywalking law was more effective than not having one. Now everyone knows there is no law against jaywalking,, so more people now jaywalk. I see it several times a week.
Tell us about the time you saw a cracked-out street zombie stand mid-block on a sidewalk along a busy thoroughfare, contemplate how to cross, and then opt to shamble a quarter mile to the closest crosswalk?
Because they were clearly thinking about jaywalking laws.
Was there a thought-bubble over their head, with a citation to the Anchorage code?
Friend, this is ridiculous. None of these deaths happened because that law changed.
But why let logic and reason stop a smear against our Assembly.
You got to be fucking kidding me Heath. Roads built like racetracks. Uh roads are for cars dumbshit not pedestrian. We have sidewalks for walking somewhere. Maybe in you universe you can teleport or fly somewhere but I this world you drive, or bike or walk. It’s like playing Frogger every day here now
Roads are supposed to help cars travel efficiently. Speed is good. Walking in the middle of the road is bad.
IMO Loki Toben’s comments about this were looser than Volland’s comments. Volland was almost certainly correct – seems very unlikely that people living in public parks were also modifying their behavior based on a jaywalking ordinance (or that they would have done so if they were even aware of it). In all the articles about this, I’ve seen no mention of plowing sidewalks in winter. I suppose that would require immediate work from a progressive administration… much more fun to navel gaze about car culture and threaten drivers with lower speed limits… Every homeless death is a tragedy, and homeless… Read more »
“In all the articles about this, I’ve seen no mention of plowing sidewalks in winter.“
-E G
Probably because people don’t cross streets on sidewalks?
You don’t seem to know what jaywalking is.
“You don’t seem to know what jaywalking is” – Dan Fatass
No sidewalks in winter = pedestrians walking in the roadway. Pedestrian deaths include but are not necessarily limited to “jaywalking”
The subject is jaywalking.
Not walking on sidewalks.
Jaywalking.
Different thing.
Jeff Landfield shared some of his thoughts about it.
In writing.
In The Alaska Landmine.
Above.
You are correct Dan: Volland’s comments did include the word jaywalking. But they were made in the context of a larger story about pedestrian deaths. In fact, Volland rightly pointed out that changes in the jaywalking law probably had nothing to do with those deaths.
So what did cause them? Well, the most dangerous (and easily preventable) instances of pedestrians walking in the road that I’ve personally witnessed were the result of unplowed sidewalks. Hence their mention in my comment.
Catch up!
Nope.
Jaywalking.
Above.
“Recall a year ago that Volland introduced and passed a resolution that eliminated penalties for jaywalking.” “Volland told Alaska Public Media that he did not think that was related to the pedestrian related deaths. That alone is classic Loose Unit behavior.” -Jeff Landfield Jeff Landfield’s position is stupid. Not one of Anchorage’s idiotic, black-clad, sidewalk zombies contemplating a midnight stroll across four lanes of blacktop without benefit of a crosswalk ever paused to consider whether the Assembly had yet decriminalized jaywalking. That has NEVER happened. Beyond ridiculous to think that the jaywalking ordinance played any role in this carnage. Which is to say it’s obviously… Read more »
Anchorage has 223 parks neighborhood, community, special use, and natural resource parks.
Have 5 of those 223 parks been destroyed by homeless?
3?
Any?
Which?
I agree that the number should be zero.
But can we also agree that this problem is hardly as society-destroying dire as the we-don’t even-use-the-parks-anyway whiners keep crying about?
The Chester creek greenbelt, the Campbell creek greenbelt, the Coastal trail. Three gems. All three overrun with homeless camps. If you can’t see that then your head is stuck somewhere.
Lol. None of them are destroyed.
Sure, there are filthy camps alongside each. Camps that should be evicted and remediated.
Destroyed? Hardly.
Vote no on all parks and rec bonds until the camps are gone or the Muni designates one area for sanctioned camping.
Yes, the way to make problems better is by making them worse.
Makes perfect sense.
Nowhere did I say defund the police or fire department. Put a bond on the ballot for parks and rec to provide toilets and dumpsters in a sanctioned campground, for those who refuse help. Davis park would work or bird creek or wherever. If it passes great, if not property owners have had enough. I’m all for a sanctioned campground for those who refuse help. If those who refuse shelter (vagrants) then arrest them,
“Vote no on all parks and rec bonds until the camps are gone or the Muni designates one area for sanctioned camping.”
-Tucker
Yes, the way to make problems better is by making them worse.
Makes perfect sense.
At >$100,000 a year per arrest-jail housing that is going to be a big bill…who gonna pay?
Jeff Landfield is my “loose unit” this week as he misquoted Farina Brown to reflect his bias. What she actually said is correct, nothing “bizarre” about it.