Property taxes will rise
to cover vehicles newly
exempt from registrations
The Anchorage Assembly passed an "opt in" ordinance to exempt trailers, not motor vehicles.
This action should not be amended to include vehicles with motors at some future date.
The burden of the registration "tax" would be shifted to property owners in the amount of approximately $6 million.
Consequently, this action should be rescinded.
Why should I subsidize, through increased property taxes, another person's desire to have a trailer or any other vehicle — especially when that person probably has a larger and more valuable piece of property than my condominium?
— Grant W. Hunter
Anchorage
Roundabouts just what the doctor ordered
Contrary to many peoples' perceptions, roundabouts actually move traffic through an intersection faster, and with less congestion on approaching roads. Roundabouts promote a continuous flow of traffic.
You don't have to wait for a green light. Traffic is not required to stop — only yield. Roundabouts contributed to an 89 percent reduction in delays, 56 percent reduction in vehicle stops.
Studies from the Insurance Institute of America have shown that roundabouts typically achieve:
• 37 percent reduction in overall collisions
• 75 percent reduction in injury collisions
• 90 percent reduction in fatality collisions
• 40 percent reduction in pedestrian collisions
Head-on and left-hand turn, or T-bone, collisions are eliminated; the few collisions that occur in roundabouts are typically minor with few injuries.
No red lights to run — roundabouts keep traffic flowing without requiring vehicles to stop — so the incentive for drivers to speed up to make it through a light is removed.
Roundabouts eliminate hardware, maintenance and electrical costs associated with traffic signals, which can cost between $5,000 and $10,000 per year.
Roundabouts continue to work like normal during power outages.
Go to alaskaroundabouts.com/ to learn more, and how to properly go through a roundabout.
— David Baldwin
Chugiak
EPA is its own worst enemy when it takes on politics
Though I risk a lightning strike from above, I would like to express gratitude for the EPA's protection of America's natural environment over the years. But as the federal "overreach" issue gains increasing displays of theatrically sincere indignation from our actors and actresses in D.C., one can only hope the EPA doesn't shoot itself in the foot.
Issues like the Cold Bay road should've had a compromise solution, but didn't, and add fuel to the anti-EPA fire. Then the EPA, lapdog-like, approves toxic herbicide mixtures of glyphosate and Agent Orange components for big GMO agro-chemical companies. Of course, lapdog voters go along since very big money is spent buying very wishy-washy minds. These actions get even me riled up. They compromise EPA's positive actions like protecting Bristol Bay and show a lack of continuity.
Though Ayn Rand's capitalistic "me-mine" society with less government interference is still the best one can hope for, let's hope a new D.C.-centered backlash against the nonprofit-making natural world doesn't steamroll out of control under a national conservative Republican banner. In Alaska, the powers-that-be are heading in a much more well-managed direction for which I am grateful and ever hopeful.
— Ken Green
Cooper Landing
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