Alaska News

Letters to the editor (3/18/09)

Bond to support major systems in School District structures

The six leading candidates for mayor have all said they support School Bond 1, the completion of Service High School. All but one candidate also support Bond 2, for system renewals. I thank each candidate for their support, and offer this clarification concerning Bond 2 and the district's maintenance program.

ASD's annual budget includes more than $20 million for maintenance. These funds are used for repair and replacement of items that fail throughout the district's 93 facilities. The maintenance department does a great job of replacing broken windows, repairing leaks in roofs, replacing plumbing fixtures that fail, and maintaining heating and air systems, to name just a few of the thousands of work orders that are completed each year.

Bond 2 is not about ongoing maintenance; it is major system renewals. Bond 2 covers roof replacements, sprinkler system installations, electrical system upgrades, and the list goes on. Maintenance is performed by district employees. System renewals, which tend to be larger in scale, are put to bid to the contracting community.

A similar analogy is to consider the family car. You maintain the car with regular oil changes and tire rotations. But if the engine or transmission systems fail, you don't discard the entire vehicle; you have the failed system replaced and extend the useful life of the automobile.

-- Steve Pifer

Chugiak

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It was all downhill from there

So was Lisa skiing with Democrats or Republicans?

-- Lauren Moss

Girdwood

A little fear could cure capitalism

Thank you, Mr. Beltrami and Mr. Sweeney, for your dose of fear mongering ("New union organizing law would offset corporate greed," March 16). I think that dose prescribed twice a day for the next few years should be sufficient in curing this case of capitalism that has plagued our country for more than 230 years.

-- Justin Tuomi

Wasilla

Monegan already showed mettle

In little more than a month, the voters of Anchorage will vote on the person who will be the next chief executive of the municipality.

I've now come to see the tremendous importance of selecting our municipal officials.

It is for this reason that I'm supporting Walt Monegan for our next Anchorage mayor. Walt has a stellar record of public service, having served Anchorage for more than 30 years with the Anchorage Police Department, five of which were as our chief of police. In addition, he served our state with distinction as commissioner of public safety. His actions during the "Troopergate' controversy clearly demonstrated the courage and integrity necessary for the new challenges our city faces.

I have been particularly impressed with the thoroughness with which he has addressed some of the most critical issues facing our city, including his ideas to address the municipality's budget shortfall. He has demonstrated leadership by example with his promise to take a 10 percent cut in salary and demand the same of his personal staff.

It is time to eschew partisan rancor and place our confidence in a mayor concerned with results, not partisan posturing.

-- Heath E. Hilyard

Monegan's deputy campaign treasurer

Anchorage

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Article brought support for dogs

We would like to thank the Anchorage Daily News for printing Debra McKinney's article "Animal advocates fight neglect in the Bush." She wrote the best true news story we could have ever hoped for. We would also like to give special thanks to all of the readers for the generous financial support we have received. It is inspiring to know how many people truly believe in improving the lives of dogs we care for.

It was great news to know others in small villages were fighting the awful truth of domestic abuse of animals in the Bush. If it was not for another article Debra wrote about the worst death of an Anchorage dog, we might never have contacted her. Keep up the good work, ADN.

To the family of the Rottweiler, our deepest sympathy. This should never have happened. Cruelty like that should be punished to the full extent of the law.

The response we have received has been wonderfully overwhelming. We have heard from people as far away as Connecticut the first day in print!

It helps us just to know there are so many people in our world who really care so much. It has staggered us and has formed a much firmer foundation in our convictions to keep fighting here in the Bush for tougher laws and enforceable ordinances in our small community.

-- Bev LeMaster, Sue Luchsinger and Kathy Sweeney of Canine Comfort

Aniak

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Costello merits seat on board

I appreciate people who are willing to give their time as public servants, and I think it is wonderful that we have so many people in Anchorage who are willing to serve on the Board of Education for the Anchorage School District. I have worked in public education for 33 years and I know the importance of having committed people making decisions that affect the education and the future of our children and youths.

I want to give my support to Mia Costello in her bid for a seat on the board. I have known Mia since we moved to Anchorage 27 years ago and she was our next-door neighbor. Mia was an excellent student and athlete at West, setting region and state records in swimming. After she graduated from Harvard, I was very pleased that she chose teaching as a profession. She has had experience teaching in Juneau and in Anchorage, and I'm excited that she is running for the Board of Education and has received the endorsement of AEA.

-- Sue Holway

Anchorage

UA fails to support faculty who are critical of industry

I fully endorse the views of my fellow Scot, Jonathan Wills, in his March 14 Compass piece "Controversial UA professor deserves support of state," which was responding to the March 8 article "UA professor in danger of losing federal funding."

In 1994, in my capacity as British honorary consul for Alaska, I was approached by the World Wildlife Fund to set up briefings in Anchorage on the long-term impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill for their then-president, HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. I called on the expertise of my UA colleague Rick Steiner, who set up a superb forum bringing together all the best scientific understanding and projections.

I have followed his presentations and publications ever since and know him to be a scientist of unquestioned integrity, but it is typical of the University of Alaska system under its current leadership not to support its faculty if their views are critical of industry.

This was most recently clearly illustrated by UA President Mark Hamilton's response to Rep. Anna Fairclough during the Finance Committee's hearings on the University of Alaska budget, when he sought to reassure her that the faculty was "the most conservative anywhere" and that UA students "would mature" -- presumably to conservative views.

As a long-time member of the UAA faculty, I was outraged to have President Hamilton falsely vouch for my political views and those of my faculty colleagues. Whatever happened to academic freedom? Do we want the University of Alaska system to just finish up as a vocational college, obediently training technicians for identified industry slots, and with every publicly funded university structure bearing the name of companies or donors?

Certainly Rick Steiner represents the finest progressive conservationist thinking that will lead to sustainable development. He does not need to have President Hamilton for reasons of expediency apologizing for his views before the Legislature, nor have his dean for similar reasons cutting him off from grant funding. Such behavior only prostitutes the university to corrupt political and corporate interests.

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It is a new day in Washington, D.C. Let us hope it soon dawns in the University of Alaska system and in Juneau.

-- Diddy R.M. Hitchins,

professor emerita, UAA

Voters need to keep eyes on unchecked business executives

The pursuit of a burgeoning plutocracy, covertly moored within a corrupted democracy kindled by the supply-side scam of Reaganomics, has nowhere been made more evident than with the taxpayer bailouts that enable contracted bonuses to go to failed executives at AIG, Bank of America, GM, etc.

I have close friends whose savings and pensions have been vaporized when employers filed for bankruptcy. The plutocratic injustice is unveiled when top management, while sustaining its affluent lifestyle, reorganizes management, then reopens without any obligation to its prior, now pauperized, employees.

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If power corrupts and unchecked power corrupts absolutely, where is democratic capitalism's economy in monopolized industry? It's time we get some of the trust back in business "trust" through a liberally educated electorate, not one sharp for the game, that can keep tabs on those who think they're "unchecked." Remind them we all are planted on Earth!

-- John S. Sonin

Juneau

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