We recently experienced record snowfalls. Many of us were inconvenienced.
Remember what a record is. It’s an extremely rare occurrence. The adage applies: “Don’t build the church for Easter Sunday.” It’s more expensive to build and maintain, so we don’t do it. Of course, it’s inconvenient at Easter when you’ve got folding chairs crowded everywhere, but we’ll endure it because it’s worth it.
Same with a lot of things, including dealing with record snowfall. To be prepared for it, we’d need excess staff and equipment. Added annual expenses for that would result in much higher taxes. That’s to have idle equipment and excess staff with not much to do on standby, waiting for that big snowfall. As taxpayers, we expect our political leaders to be responsible and do the right thing for us. We’re Alaskans, so we’ll endure the inconvenience.
Our mayor, Dave Bronson, has done the right thing from the beginning with staff and equipment. Sure, we were inconvenienced during record snowfalls. But it’s worth it for the annual savings to us.
Again, we’re Alaskans, and we’ll endure a few days of inconvenience for thousands in savings.
We assume snow and cold when we live in Alaska. So give Bronson credit.
This gives us a good example of why we should be very careful about those who wish to replace him. If political leaders have complained about the mayor’s handling of the snowfall, we can assume that they would do it differently. They would prefer to have idle staff sitting around, waiting years for something to do. And they would purchase millions of dollars in excess equipment that would sit idle.
I think I’ll pass on all the wannabes and re-elect Bronson. We don’t need political leaders who distort facts to further their agenda or those who are simply too ignorant to understand effective government.
— Burt Bomhoff
Former Anchorage Assembly member
Anchorage
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