| April 7, 2005 Editor’s Desk by Aaron Selbig Apparently, the citizens of Anchorage are feeling spendy: $1,250,000 to maintain an expanded and renovated Anchorage Museum plus $44,500,000 in bonds to pay for road and drainage maintenance plus $1,930,000 to improve the public transportation system plus $480,000 in bonds to improve ambulance service equals $48,160,000 approved by voters on April 5th to improve our city Forty-eight MILLION dollars? Amazing. This has got to set a record for the biggest pile of cash Anchorage has ever shelled out in one election cycle. A traditionally stingy populace that has stiffed public transportation, UAA, and pretty much anything to do with Eagle River time and time again has suddenly found some extra money hidden under the mattress. Congratulations, Anchorage, your newfound sense of civic foresight may yet lead our town out of the Dark Ages of haphazard architecture, shitty roads, and a community “culture” that consists of bingo and Chuck E. Cheese. Now ... about that fancy convention center. I suppose congratulations are also in order for the ivory-towered elitist power brokers who spent a fortune advertising their latest pet project in the weeks leading up to the election. Good for you, I’m sure Scotty Gomez will love the new convention center. You can quit leaving messages on our machine now, okay? Over here at Insurgent Headquarters, we’re still not convinced. Don’t get me wrong, we’re all for squeezing the tourists for every dime they’re worth and a 4% bed tax sounds like a good start. It’s just that no one, with the exception of Beth Bragg at the ADN, seemed to take the time to ask what else that bed tax could be spent on. A few ideas just off the top of my head: - a
‘Pike’s Place’ type of open-air fish market down by
the water
- a real skatepark for those troubled teenagers - a bridge from here to Kodiak Island - somewhere to freaking PARK downtown - Tech-9 submachine guns and full body armor for the downtown Security Ambassadors Also, at any of the high level, behind-closed-doors meetings that all of you real estate developers and hotel owners had with the Boy Mayor, did anyone mention the troubling fact that we already have a convention center? You know, the one that sits empty several nights of the year? Oh yeah, I almost forgot, there are oodles of conventions just aching to come to Anchorage in January, its just that the Egan Center is too small to hold them. Right. Pretend, for a moment, that you’re the person responsible for planning the January 2006 Southwestern Idaho Bookbinders Association Convention. You’re choices are Miami Beach, Vegas, or .... uh .... Anchorage, Alaska. What would you do? This convention center will very likely end up like the behemoth ASI seafood processing plant in Jewel Lake ... huge, empty, and bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of millions of dollars. If it does, I’ll be here to say I told you so. If it doesn’t, I do hereby promise to run down 4th Avenue wearing only a “Begich For Re-election” Speedo. Until then, good luck with the construction and could you maybe throw in an extra skybridge to Insurgent Headquarters? Thanks. -Aaron Selbig Editor, Insurgent Media AK |
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| Copyright 2005 Insurgent Media.
All rights reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
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