Empower female homeowners
On Thursday I read Jan Sosnowski's letter "Home builders group stuck in the 50s" (March 26). I am a female owner of a residential remodeling company, so I know quite a bit about women maintaining their homes.
As a member of the Anchorage Home Builders Association Home Show Committee, I thought it would be great to turn the event into empowering women to maintain their own homes. How better than the Anchorage Home Builders Association to do this. We propose to educate women by supplying them with free tools and seminars focused on women maintaining their own homes. By making the toolboxes pink we thought it would focus the needs of women having their own tools, instead of borrowing someone else's.
So instead of saying we are still back in the 1950s, I think Jan needs to come down to the Home Show and find out that we are not at all stuck in the 1950s. We are interested in helping women become homeowners and understand how to care for their own homes. We will be at the Sullivan Arena on Friday, Saturday and Sunday handing out pink toolboxes full of tools to the first 100 women each day. We will have seminars on maintaining your home all day Saturday and Sunday. Please come down and enjoy.
— Stacey Dean
Anchorage
Stand for Alaskans interests
I don't send my legislators to Juneau to simply vote a party line. I vote for my legislators trusting them to do what is best for my district and the citizens of Alaska.
— Thomas Eley
Anchorage
Check out TBA production
Last night I had the pleasure of seeing William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium on UAA's campus. This is possibly the best "Midsummer Night" you will ever see! Filled with a cast and crew that are packed with talent, great directing and costuming, the only thing missing is more audience members.
So I write to you now, asking why the Alaska Dispatch News covers so many other local performances and theatres, but appears to ignore TBA Theatre? It's sad to not have reviews of another jewel in our artistic community of Anchorage, and fair coverage is missed by many. For those of you who don't want to miss it, you have your chance this coming weekend.
— Lucy M. Conner
Anchorage
Coffey reveals true colors
So let me get this straight. Dan Coffey butt-dialed a political strategy chat with his buddy Bill Starr in 2008. It got recorded on Allan Tesche's phone. That recording was played on a radio station, with permission, by the owner. In this election year, Dan Coffey put the transcripts of that butt dial online to be viewed by voters, along with his other transgressions, so we can see what a great guy he would be as mayor.
Now his attorney threatens to sue any station that plays the butt-dialed conversation. If that is the case, how about if the station reads the transcript, on the air, that he has so thoughtfully provided? Mr. Coffey has revealed his true colors to the voters. He makes threats to get his way. We need to elect Ethan Berkowitz.
— Anita Thorne
Anchorage
Expand Medicaid in Alaska
It was a pleasure to read Gov. Bill Walker's column, "Medicaid expansion is the right thing to do" (March 20). It was an effective, lucid description on why Alaska should expand Medicaid. A simple summary of his column is that Alaskans who make $9.60 an hour or less will qualify for health insurance. Like many other programs, the federal government will provide 100 percent of the costs for the first year and 90 percent in later years.
I'm puzzled as to why some Republican legislators oppose Medicaid expansion. If for no other reason, why not vote for it because Gov. Walker campaigned on expanding Medicaid and the public voted for him? More important, as Walker concluded, "My administration's Medicaid's proposal will save money and save lives. It's the right thing to do."
— Amy Bollenbach
Homer
Transfer federal lands
In "House leaders push land bill despite legal issues" (ADN, March 24), state attorneys say Alaska legislators don't have the power to transfer federal lands to state ownership.
Let's turn the page to Constitution 101. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize the feds to own ANWR or any other land in the state except "for the erection of forts, magazines, dockyards and other needful buildings." Therefore, the state of Alaska is the constitutionally recognized owner of ANWR and all other unconstitutional federal lands in Alaska (BLM, Forest Service, National Parks, etc.) as the Founding Fathers intended.
So the state House needs to pass Chenault's bill to transfer all unconstitutional federal land in Alaska to state ownership. Abolishing unconstitutional federal law is the duty of state legislators.
— Jim Dore
Anchorage
Which future matters more
Which future sounds more appealing? A future where our children are well educated in an adequate school system, or a future where your politicians are swimming in a pool of your money on a yacht? If you chose future No. 1, you're in trouble. Several programs and scholarship like the Alaska Performance Scholarship and WWAMI are being cut due to budget issues. Yet somehow our lawmakers deem it important enough to spend millions of our dollars to renovate our legislative office building.
I don't know about you, but this just doesn't seem right. So how about we spend our money on what matters, and not on automatic trash cans in the government building.
— Sutton Kowalski
Anchorage
Citizenship now meaningless
With millions of illegal aliens having poured across our borders, Democrats have admitted that they have no plan to prevent these illegal aliens from voting in U.S. elections. This means that U.S. citizenship has been rendered meaningless while our "sacred" right to vote becomes an empty farce.
By condoning illegal immigration for perceived political gain, the Democrats and their bottom-feeder allies in Hollywood have shown that they are the serpent's tongue of treason and hypocrisy.
— August Cisar
Seward
Is Dan Sullivan joking?
Since when can this Congress agree on anything enough to "weigh in." How arrogant! Congress is the last entity that we need "weighing in" on our country's foreign relations. Thank you, Bob Madigan, for the concise letter.
— Lynn Godden
Anchorage
Change Fish Board structure
There has been quite a bit of discussion in recent weeks about Gov. Walker's actions in changing the membership of the Alaska Board of Fish. He is to be commended for viewing this as an important aspect of his job as our new governor.
I believe it is time to change the entire structure of this body. In the past, there have been seven members: three representing commercial fishing, three representing sport fishing, and a single member representing subsistence and personal use fishing. I believe that a new structure should be built around two members representing commercial fishing interests, two members representing sport fishing interests, two members representing subsistence and personal use, and a chair who will be a qualified biologist who represents no political or user position, but who will only be responsible for seeing to the health of the resource.
It is time to reorganize and create a healthy Alaska Board of Fish that actually represents both the end users and the resource.
— Michael Craig
Homer
Time to put fish first
As an Alaskan resident, I ask our Department of Natural Resources to keep water in streams to protect salmon, the community and our ecosystems as a whole. Negative impacts from the proposed Chuitna coal strip mine spread far and wide. PacRim's strip mining proposal will remove coal from underneath over a dozen miles of salmon streams, draining critical groundwater and disrupting the balance essential for salmon spawning and the survival of this beautiful area of the Cook Inlet.
You cannot rebuild a salmon stream and ensure that the salmon, rainbow trout and Dolly Varden will return. These negative effects are long-lasting. Coal does not benefit locals or the state taxpayers enough to trade away salmon, a renewable source of food and huge part of our economy.
Join me in supporting the instream flow water rights for the Chuitna Citizens Coalition. I wouldn't trade the rivers I fish in for a coal mine and it's time for Gov. Walker to stand up for Alaskans and put fish first. Comments are due April 9. Submit yours by emailing DNR (kimberly.sager@alaska.gov) and Gov. Bill Walker (bill.walker@alaska.gov).
— Sammie Ellsworth
Anchorage
WWAMI boosts states future
Alaska currently has a shortage of physicians. It is estimated that at least 59 M.D.'s should be recruited each year to meet workforce needs. It is imperative that Alaska continues to provide medical educational opportunities to develop its own physicians through this well-known and well-respected program. The WWAMI program is arguably one of the most cost-effective and successful higher education programs in the state. This partnership that began with the University of Washington over 44 years ago has graduated over 414 Alaskan residents and 61 percent of Alaska WWAMI graduates chose primary care careers.
Currently, out of the 20 students that Alaska sends through the program yearly, roughly 17 of them return to practice medicine in Alaska, and those who do not must pay back in full the state's subsidy on their education. This is a fiscal safety net to guard Alaska's investment. Without a state subsidy for medical education, most of Alaska WWAMI students could not afford out-of-state tuition and come back as primary care physicians to work in Alaska. As the WWAMI program has shown, physician retention is found in physician education — providing opportunities for the future healers of Alaska to stay and train in Alaska is a sound investment and one that should not be cut from public funding.
— Alex Foster
Anchorage
Re-appropriate funds
Thanks to the ADN for highlighting the challenge our state budget is facing (March 22). Now is the right time for our lawmakers to really evaluate which projects we can pause, or retire completely, to help our state budget. We are facing the largest budget deficit in the history of Alaska, and funding allocated to megaprojects should be thoroughly reviewed and re-appropriated accordingly.
We have a new administration, and new priorities, and our budget should reflect this. Just because money was appropriated in past sessions, does not mean it is in the best interest of our state. Under Parnell, the status quo was that expired appropriations were given back to the exact same project that didn't use them — it's time to move these kind of appropriations to the general fund.
Specifically for expensive megaprojects like the Susitna Dam, we should pay for all work done to date, and then fully stop the projects (like the governor requested back in December) and move the remaining funds back to the general fund to help solve our budget problem.
— Heather Glidden
Anchorage
Medicaid expansion worth it
For the good of all, the Legislature needs to act now, this session, to approve Medicaid expansion.
Many Alaskans have seen how an infusion of new money spreads through the economy to benefit businesses, large and small, employees and their families. The annual Permanent Fund dividend is a clear example of this ripple effect.
The benefits of new money circulating in the Alaskan economy from expansion of Medicaid funding would not be as immediate or as large as the Permanent Fund Dividend, but Medicaid expansion would give an additional boost to the economy at a time when it is much needed. Happening now, Medicaid expansion would help counteract effects of the decline in oil prices.
A second, and even better, reason for action now was expressed by the group who traveled to Juneau from Anchorage Faith and Action Congregations Together. Speaking for their congregations — collectively over 10,000 people — they gave legislators the simple message that Medicaid expansion is the right thing to do for all of us as human beings.
— Janet McCabe
Anchorage
Americans have quit listening
I don't know why President Barack Obama's message to the Iranian people is so controversial. Why shouldn't he talk to the Iranian people? After all, the American people have quit listening.
— Jack Morris
Wasilla
The views expressed here are the writers' own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a letter for consideration, email letters@alaskadispatch.com, or click here to submit via any web browser. Submitting a letter to the editor constitutes granting permission for it to be edited for clarity, accuracy and brevity. Send longer works of opinion to commentary@alaskadispatch.com.