Remember THAT kid back in grade school? Remember coming to school and sharing the excitement of how you got the remote control car you wanted for Christmas? THAT kid would talk about his brand new remote control F-15 jet…life-sized. Or, you’d very proudly reveal the balsa wood car you’d carved yourself and painted red to [...]

Back when the Anchorage Assembly Chair was Dan Sullivan, he presided over a “meeting-before-the-meeting” of the Assembly. This is a meeting they have before their regular Tuesday Assembly meeting to basically get the organizational flotsam and jetsam out of the way…present amendments, new ordinances, etc…so that time isn’t eaten up on Tuesdays with “making the [...]

There are actually 6 seats up for election on the Anchorage Assembly. However, we are going to focus on three of them for two very good reasons… 1) The incumbents are under attack from Mayor Sullivan, 2) and under attack from corporations and big-monied businesses. The attack-ees are Harriet Drummond, West Anchorage: Elvi Gray-Jackson, Midtown: [...]

Post and Photos By Carl Johnson I have lived in two rather large metropolitan areas: the Twin Cities, with its two million people, and Los Angeles, with, well, way too many people.  I chose to move to Anchorage eleven years ago not because I was looking for urban, but because I was looking for wild [...]

I remember back to August/September of 2008 when then-Governor Sarah Palin was the VP pick of John McCain. I was watching the news and Jason Moore of KTUU was covering the Republican National Convention. My jaw dropped when I saw State of Alaska employee, the Governor’s Communications Director Bill McAllister* chatting with Jason Moore about [...]

Last week, a friend Patti Greene emailed me an article that she had written. She wanted to submit it in to the Anchorage Daily News as a “Compass” editorial piece and was asking for my opinion first. As you can see, it was an excellent article about the public inebriate problem in Fairview. In our conversation, I was extremely curious [...]

Whew!  Tuesday Night at the Fights (aka the Anchorage Assembly Meeting) was quite the event. It may not have seemed so to the casual observer, but as we all know, you dear Mudflatters are certainly not casual observers. You know that tonight there were two resolutions on the floor dealing with Mayor Dan Sullivan’s failure [...]

So, we know at this point that Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan just can’t bring himself to fully fund the Anchorage Fire Department. $150,000 is just too darn much money to spend on saving people that fall through the ice, or get lost in the back country, or stuck in the mud, or whatever horrible thing [...]

Hooray! Our fair city has maintained the highest possible bond rating! Woo-hoo! Yeah, baby!  Hip hip….. Hey, what’s the matter over there? (We look quizzically at the sad, sad star). Turn that frown upside down Mr. Star!  This is great!  It means we all have to pay less money for things than we would if the city [...]

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Chris Jenkins for a long time. He was one of those kids that you talked to and thought to yourself, “That kid has a busy busy brain. I’ll be interested to see where he ends up…” Now he’s in high school, and his busy brain seems to be turned [...]

New Mayor Dan Sullivan is working his magic on Anchorage. Yes, he’s all sunshine and light, breezing in to the Chamber of Commerce meeting with a strong message of hope, radiating enthusiasm as he celebrated Anchorage’s successes and looked to the future with strength and optimism. And yes, I’m being completely sarcastic. St. Elias was [...]

Lots of good stuff floating around the internets.  Here’s a little smorgasbord of tasty treats you may have missed. POP! Gubernatorial candidate Bob Poe wrote an excellent compass piece for the Anchorage Daily News that begins like this: I support equal rights for all people. And I support banning discrimination in Anchorage due solely to [...]

All Anchorage residents, please take a minute to call Mayor Dan Sullivan’s office to voice your support of Ordinance 64, which will add the words “sexual orientation” to the city’s non-discrimination policy. The phone number is 343-7100 and the email is mayor@muni.org. The “red shirts” who are affiliated with the Anchorage Baptist Temple and other [...]

Today, new developments arise in the matter of controversial Assembly ordinance #64.  The ordinance would add the words “sexual orientation” to the city’s non-discrimination law.  Those two little words have drawn battle lines, and made Assembly meetings look like a weird hybrid of football game, church revival and street fair.   Walking into the Loussac [...]

Thom Hartmann is in town! He’s the guest of honor at a dinner tonight in Anchorage, and is broadcasting live from KUDO 1080am this morning. I just listened to him in the car on the way to work. He spoke with both Acting Mayor Matt Claman, and Mayor Elect Dan Sullivan. The latter was an [...]