When Did You Go to Your Last Community Council Meeting?
It's been a while for us, but J suggested that we go tonight and I was reminded of this relatively unique feature of the Anchorage Charter. All, or almost all, neighborhoods, as I understand it, are part of a community council. This is where neighborhood issues are addressed. Zoning changes, liquor licenses, new street lights, etc. need to be passed by the community council before coming into law. It doesn't mean the council has to approve, but their input needs to be part of the proposal. 
(I'm winging this from memory so assume this is a general accounting.)
In many cases, relatively few people go to CC meetings. Trouble in the area brings our more people. When the community council opposes something an assembly member wants, the assembly people have been known to downplay their significance by saying just a few people go to the meetings so they don't represent the neighborhood. But given the low turnouts for Assembly races, the same thing could be said for assembly members.
One of our assembly members - Elvi Gray (standing in the picture above right) - was there and talked about efforts to have public hearings before making his proposed budget cuts. She also talked about TBOP (Take Back Our Parks) a group set up by someone in our neighboring community council to address problems caused by homeless camps in park areas. It was making me realize how out of touch I've been just reading the ADN. There is also going to be a traffic light finally put in at McInnis and 36th. Something I'm not excited about. It appears that the light cycle for people on McInnis will be longer than they generally have to wait now and traffic on 36th will have one more light to deal with.
Our state legislators both had staff members at the meeting. Noah Henson was there from Rep. Berta Gardner's office and Max was there from Sen. Ellis' office. They also talked about homeless issues. I learned there is a camp somewhere around Post and Reeve called Veterans Ridge and some people have lived there for years. Some sort of task force made up of people from the police and various other departments is looking at the possibility of an urban state campground sort of place where people could legally pay for their space that would be monitored for illegal behavior. The Clitheroe Treatment Center has been reopened at Pt. Woronzov. I think Max said that they've calculated that $4 million was spent for the top 100 inebriates in the city - with all the repeat offenses, etc. That averages $40,000 each. The methadone program is so full the only people who can get in are pregnant women. Do you think there are women who get pregnant so they can get treatment for their heroin addiction?
Our CC chair Sheli Dodson reported on her trip to NUSA - Neighborhood USA - an organization of neighborhood organizations like community councils. She clearly was excited about all she learned in Spokane - four people went from Anchorage - and brought back lots of brochures and ideas. Anchorage's attendance is important because the conference will be in Anchorage in 2011. A committee is forming to do all the planning and get community sponsors to help out.
You can see a map of Anchorage Community Councils and if you're not already on your local Community Council's mailing list you can get that done at their main page.
It's late and I've been reading up on things to do before installing Snow Leopard on my Macbook. I'm following advice which means I've been getting rid of unnecessary files and backing up the disk. It's taking way more time than I probably need to take, but I know having a bootable back up is a good idea anyway. So, don't count the typos in this. One of the coolest features in Snow Leopard - at least as described to me - is the ability to draw Chinese characters with your finger on the trackpad. It would be nice if they had Thai, but there are a lot more people who write Chinese, so they get it first. Plus Thai uses an alphabet, not characters, which are much more complicated on a keyboard.
(I'm winging this from memory so assume this is a general accounting.)In many cases, relatively few people go to CC meetings. Trouble in the area brings our more people. When the community council opposes something an assembly member wants, the assembly people have been known to downplay their significance by saying just a few people go to the meetings so they don't represent the neighborhood. But given the low turnouts for Assembly races, the same thing could be said for assembly members.
One of our assembly members - Elvi Gray (standing in the picture above right) - was there and talked about efforts to have public hearings before making his proposed budget cuts. She also talked about TBOP (Take Back Our Parks) a group set up by someone in our neighboring community council to address problems caused by homeless camps in park areas. It was making me realize how out of touch I've been just reading the ADN. There is also going to be a traffic light finally put in at McInnis and 36th. Something I'm not excited about. It appears that the light cycle for people on McInnis will be longer than they generally have to wait now and traffic on 36th will have one more light to deal with.
Our state legislators both had staff members at the meeting. Noah Henson was there from Rep. Berta Gardner's office and Max was there from Sen. Ellis' office. They also talked about homeless issues. I learned there is a camp somewhere around Post and Reeve called Veterans Ridge and some people have lived there for years. Some sort of task force made up of people from the police and various other departments is looking at the possibility of an urban state campground sort of place where people could legally pay for their space that would be monitored for illegal behavior. The Clitheroe Treatment Center has been reopened at Pt. Woronzov. I think Max said that they've calculated that $4 million was spent for the top 100 inebriates in the city - with all the repeat offenses, etc. That averages $40,000 each. The methadone program is so full the only people who can get in are pregnant women. Do you think there are women who get pregnant so they can get treatment for their heroin addiction?
Our CC chair Sheli Dodson reported on her trip to NUSA - Neighborhood USA - an organization of neighborhood organizations like community councils. She clearly was excited about all she learned in Spokane - four people went from Anchorage - and brought back lots of brochures and ideas. Anchorage's attendance is important because the conference will be in Anchorage in 2011. A committee is forming to do all the planning and get community sponsors to help out.
You can see a map of Anchorage Community Councils and if you're not already on your local Community Council's mailing list you can get that done at their main page.
It's late and I've been reading up on things to do before installing Snow Leopard on my Macbook. I'm following advice which means I've been getting rid of unnecessary files and backing up the disk. It's taking way more time than I probably need to take, but I know having a bootable back up is a good idea anyway. So, don't count the typos in this. One of the coolest features in Snow Leopard - at least as described to me - is the ability to draw Chinese characters with your finger on the trackpad. It would be nice if they had Thai, but there are a lot more people who write Chinese, so they get it first. Plus Thai uses an alphabet, not characters, which are much more complicated on a keyboard.
