Governor needs to step up too
Gov. Parnell says in an article on Aug. 21 that it is now time for the oil industry to put the money where their mouths were as SB21 was pushed out of the Legislature and then challenged by voters. Good idea, but I would add that it is way past time that he also put the actions where the mouth is by honoring his promise to the Legislature and Alaskan citizens to release the state-commissioned report by Gaffney/Cline that would have given us a truer understanding of how ACES stacked up against SB21.
By not allowing them to testify to the Legislature, promising to release them once SB21 was signed but still not putting that promise into action he is withholding critical information that could be used by the Legislature going forward. The election may be over, and it appears the no repeal voters won, but that does not mean the state should not continue to fine-tune the oil tax now that so much was revealed by the yes on one campaign.
It's almost as if the governor did not want the citizens to be fully informed when they voted. The governor can say it isn't true by releasing Gaffney/Cline finally to tell us what they could not because he has kept them under state contract.
-- Bob Atkinson
Seward
Polls: Annoying or informing?
I noticed that Ivan Moore polls are frequently mentioned in the Anchorage Daily News. After my experience with calls from Ivan Moore research I would question their validity. We have been receiving two to three calls every evening from Ivan Moore Research. No one is ever there when we answer, even if we wait until the line automatically hangs up. In trying to resolve this annoying situation I found numerous complaints from other Alaskans about the same type of calls.
I have tried to reach the research company by phone and email with no luck. I have filed complaints with the BBB and FCC, as I hope many others have. Are their pollsters really talking to Alaskans or just annoying them?
-- Harriet McClain
Sitka
Bikers, make eye contact
I am a bicycle commuter and am aware I must get eye contact with drivers -- even when I have the right of way. I was riding the bike trail next to C Street a block north of 36th. I approached this intersection, and a woman was stopped just before the bike path. She was on her phone using the ear to my side and looking the other way (toward the oncoming traffic). I came to a complete stop just before the road and started ringing my bell -- a person in the car across C Street was blowing the horn to try and get her attention. She was oblivious to what was happening around her.
She pulled out to enter C Street and I yelled to her get off the phone and pay attention. She rolled down her window and proceeded to cuss me out saying I should bike somewhere else. I was on a bike path. Just another reminder: Get eye contact or these people will kill you. If I would have taken my right of way she would have run me over.
-- James Toussaint
Anchorage
Use president pay for AQR
As a retired faculty member of UAA and an active and avid reader of the AQR, I strongly urge diversion of a portion of the proposed president's bonus to the cause of saving that very rich and valuable university treasure, The Alaska Quarterly Review, for future generations of readers.
-- Hal Post
Anchorage
Reflect on campaign spending
With such a close outcome, one can only speculate on the outcome of Ballot Measure 1 if the vote yes campaign had been outspent by only 50 to 1.
Parties on both sides should reflect. Our democracy deserves this to be considered.
-- Peter Montesano
Anchorage
Take a lesson from Norway
Just read an article in World Oil headlined, "Norway politics could make investments riskier." Norway risks discouraging investments in its oil industry with repeated surprise tax increases and political meddling in projects, according to the report.
Norway's energy industry is analogous to Alaska's energy industry in many ways. Perhaps we should take a lesson from them.
Once we finally, if ever, make the business climate acceptable to risk it, start building a gas line from the massive gas resources on the Slope to an LNG plant at tidewater, it will be most beneficial for politicians to stick to politics and not put forth any changes to tax structures and environmental rules that will block the project.
However, it seems we have some of the most fickle politicians who will institute laws and state and federal governmental agencies that initiate crushing regulations such that industry can be and is becoming paralyzed.
If anything, our elected officials should be making thoughtful decisions with regard to stimulating growth both in energy production while at the same time progressing the "green" agenda.
-- GM Hefley
Anchorage
Encountering racial injustice
In response to World War II racial injustice (August Cisar), I am glad that he is proud to be an Alaskan. I would hope as I type this at 3:39 a.m. that more of your fellow Alaskans would have that same pride, especially out in Mat-Su.
I have lived here for the last five years, dragging my wife and kids out here to get away from city life to be able to breathe. Instead I have become more on edge as I have lived in Palmer, where my wife and I (she's white, and I'm black) were constantly the recipients of cold, hard stares and less than stellar customer service at Fred Meyer, to recently entertaining family at our apartment only to get into an argument where my upstairs neighbor and her sister screamed a racial slur about me (even after 400 years that's still the best the ignorant have to use as an insult).
I was actually told by this same person at a "friendlier," more cordial encounter that black people out in the Valley were referred to as "sightings," and if there were two or more that it was a "gang." Then I and one of my guests, who is also black, were told by my neighbor and her sister that they were going to have some people come lynch us. And of course my wife was poor white trash and deserved to die. All this in front of our 3-year-old twin baby girls.
Oh, and by the way, my neighbor just happens to be a flagger making decent money working on those same roads built by Negro hands. How ironic.
-- Sean Dabney
Wasilla
Tell government to stop
Putin invades Crimea; O says "get out!" North Korea develops missile that may reach Alaska. China building fighter jet that matches U.S. F-35 (close encounter with U.S. fighter in China sea). India building antisub ship to thwart Chinese subs. Iran developing nuke bomb. Terrorists launching attacks all over globe.
Sure glad the Cold War is over.
Had enough? Tell your government to stop spending 57 percent of the U.S. budget on war. (Next closest is Russia: 27 percent.) U.S. spending is driving others to up the ante. We are not merely following, we are leading the war machine march.
And your attention to all this is being diverted by Israel-Palestine. Wake up.
-- Fil Pierce
Anchorage
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