OPINION: All jokes aside, Anchorage’s ‘bathroom bond’ is a good idea

In a column that ran few weeks ago in ADN, Elise Patkotak expressed general support for the idea of more and better public restrooms in Anchorage, but only tentative support for the $5 million bond that is actually on the ballot for April 2, in the form of Proposition 8. She said that she did not feel there had been much public discussion and raised a lot of fairly specific questions about how exactly the bond money is to be spent.

No answer came.

Three sponsors for the municipal ordinance put the bond, AO 2023-114, on the ballot, and I think the final vote on the ordinance, as amended twice, was 9-3. The members who voted for the ordinance might be expected to answer some questions. But apparently, assembly members are prohibited from using any resources to advocate for the passage of a bond proposition, once it is approved for the ballot. So who now will speak for the unrelieved?

I volunteer, until someone more knowledgeable and articulate comes along. (And they had better come along pretty soon: The election is only six weeks away, as I write this.)

Fortunately, there is already a fair amount of information available online, just from ADN and the municipal website. There is an ADN article dated Oct. 24, 2023, describing the proposed ordinance and the idea behind it. There is another ADN article dated Jan. 6, 2024, giving details from a public informational meeting held the day before on this topic. And there are memoranda on the municipal website giving background on AO 2023-114.

One thing I know for certain, looking over these materials: It’s more complicated than you think. The bond itself does not appear to obligate the municipality to purchase any particular number of public restrooms or commit to any particular vendor. When the measure was first introduced, it called for a $12 million bond to be used for somewhere between 20 and 30 restrooms. The vendor being considered, whose product is called the Portland Loo, quoted a price of around $150,000 per unit, depending on the exact model, and not including installation. (Of course, the price per unit would presumably be higher now, with fewer units to be purchased.) Operation and maintenance costs will be significant, as can be seen from the way the bond itself is to be structured: As I read the ballot proposition, the total real property tax increase would be $1.80 per $100,000 of assessed value, but only $1.01 of that is for purchase of the units.

Anchorage already pays for portable toilets – around $450,000 in 2023, according to Assembly chair Chris Constant — but we need a much better plan, because the cost to the municipality of those products is going to rise rapidly, and they don’t even stand up very well to public use.

The Portland Loo is being used in 34 cities. It has its own Wikipedia page. The municipal materials link to a 41-page report done in 2019 based on a survey of cities that purchased Portland Loos. If you don’t like thinking about Portland for some reason, you can call them by the name of one of the other 33 cities: the Missoula Loo, for example, or maybe the Galveston Loo. And, as mentioned above, the bond does not even obligate the municipality to use the Portland Loo. A 2021 article in the MIT Technology Review compared the Portland Loo to a model developed and used in Montreal. Competition: C’est bon!

Where to put these restrooms is a fair question. But it is one that people have already been thinking about. The Portland Loo comes with particular recommendations for placement, and, according to the Jan. 6 ADN article, potential sites are already being identified and evaluated (using separate funding that was set aside for this purpose). According to member Meg Zalatel, if voters approve the bond on April 2, “the city will have site data ready.”

Finally, let’s just consider one response we have heard from a lot of people, including Patkotak: “$500,000 is more than my house is worth!” It’s an understandable reaction. But let’s get serious. As explained above, the actual cost per unit may be lower than that in the end, and that figure includes operation and maintenance. And no offense, but your house is probably not up to the job. Even if your house could be magically moved to a good spot for a public restroom, picture for a moment how that would play out. There are a lot of things that could go very, very wrong if a typical house is used. These public restrooms that the city is considering have been engineered to work much, much better than a typical house, for this specific purpose. It’s apples and oranges. But if you think you can come up with a better design than the Portland Loo, with all these practical problems in mind, go for it. Do some research. Look at the specs for the available products. Send your ideas to the municipality.

So that’s the bottom line. Don’t just wash your hands of the whole thing and turn away. I mean yes, wash your hands, but only after you have taken care of business. To me, Proposition 8 is great, And before you vote against it, investigate.

Doug Miller has lived in Anchorage for more than 20 years and is a regular user of restrooms.

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