the first third night okay we're gonna go ahead and get started I now call to order this work session of the Anchorage assembly regarding candidate interviews for assembly seat h it is Friday January 6 2023 we are scheduled from 9 30 a.m until noon however it would be good if we could stop a little bit before noon so that since we have a special meeting scheduled to start at noon as well Madam clerk would you go ahead and call the roll I know we often do not call the rule for work sessions but since we're in the chambers if you would go ahead and do that that would be great thank you Miss Allard Mr salt here Mr Perez for diab here Mr Rivera present Mr crops Mr Cross will be joining shortly miss laprants here Mr constant miss salital here Miss Quinn Davidson here Mr Poland here Mr Peterson president you have a quorum thank you madam Clerk welcome everyone and especially welcome to the candidates very happy to have you here today and appreciate your interest in the position and I want to note for the record we have been joined by Mr Cross on December 20 2022 assembly member Dunbar announced his resignation effective January 3rd also on December 20th the assembly passed AR 2022-410 declaring the seat seat H vacant as of January 3rd and initiating the process to fill the vacancy of seat H which is in District 5 and represents East Anchorage by appointment applications were accepted by the municipal clerk's office from December 28 2022 until January 4 2023 and we are here today to interview the qualified candidates who timely submitted their applications for seat age in District 5 to represent East Anchorage all applicants who met the qualifications for seat H are considered nominees for appointment per AMC 2.70.020b.2 the assembly is not required to interview all applicants or to ask applicants the same questions the assembly is not required to take public testimony at any interview and an applicant May withdraw their application at any time prior to appointment this is per AMC 2.70.020b.3 we will proceed with the interviews in the order of the alphabet drawing the first candidate will be given three to five minutes to speak to the assembly about why they are interested in this position and what makes them a suitable candidate for it we will then proceed going through the queue of assembly members with questions and we will we will start we'll rotate the start and so um for example we'll begin with introductions by Mr Crawford and then when we start with questions I will take the First Assembly member question and Mr wojakowski will respond first and then we will go to Ms Morgan Mr phoner Mr sweet and then back to Mr Crawford and then the next question and then I'll go just by members in the queue we'll start with Ms Morgan and then proceed hopefully too we will have some time after we go through questions at the end for any follow-up questions we will set the timer for I believe two minutes per question and if you have a short answer um in that time and if members want to do a follow-up in that two minute period that's fine and we can also have a little bit of flexibility to adapt as we go and with that I believe we are ready to proceed we'll start with Mr Crawford and you will have five minutes three to five minutes to let us know why you applied for appointment s well good morning to everybody um I know quite a few of you and some of you I know did it not work pardon me it's working that sounds okay now okay I will restart your time here looking um a scance so I wasn't sure if I was coming across or not uh but my name's Harry Crawford um some of you know me I know most everybody here um anyway I've been uh in a part of public service for the last 25 years on the east side of Anchorage and um I've had a number of of positions over the over time to allow me to to get to know the district and and I also served in the state of five five terms in the the legislature and um it gave me a um an idea how to to um perceive problems and and solutions all across the state as well as as here in my home District so um I really believe that that I can bring something to the table here and it'll allow um all right I'm a pretty good listener and I can listen and perceive where the problems are and help find consensus to to get to Solutions we've got one of the most serious problems obviously is is our homeless situation and I know that we have to solve the immediate problem of how to get people in out of the cold but what I'd like to be able to help with is is looking at the the reasons behind homelessness whether it's mental illness or um just uh somebody's job went away and and now their their families homeless there there are a number of reasons and and I want to to get to those long-term Solutions uh to solve our homeless homelessness problem um when I was in the the legislature I spent three terms on the finance committee I have a little experience working with budgets and and taxes and and trying to uh find that that middle ground that that doesn't hurt people and doesn't uh Advantage other people uh too much I mean it's a it's a zero-sum game and if if we in I mean uh Advantage some group more than others that makes the um makes it imbalances the situation so I I believe that I'm I'm here to help and uh that's the reason why I'm running thank you thank you Mr Crawford Mr wojciechowski thank you madam chair uh sounds like you can hear me so why am I sitting here it's a probably a valid question I care about Anchorage I retired as a physician assistant in 2015 after my wife of 48 years my beautiful wife that's sitting up there was diagnosed with cancer and she got out the other side of that tunnel but that makes you really re-evaluate values and time and the importance of it so I stepped away from the physician assistant profession I was active politically when I was president of the Alaska Academy of physician assistants I put a it's on the website and I'm I was told it would be copied to all of you so you had an opportunity to read a quick synopsis of some of the things I was able to accomplish during that period politically and I'm proud of that but when I retired and stepped away from my professional career and also the political offshoot from that uh enjoying life became the focus I mean we date we dedicate a lot of our time to our fitness to our nutrition but about three years ago uh some things were going on in the municipality they got me politically active again I realized uh I needed to get involved I know I have history with most of you you've seen me in this sweater stand at that Podium I was not always kind in everything I said but I still stand behind the importance of the message I was trying to bring and we don't need to go back over that you all have memories of that just the same as I do that being said you didn't know anything about the other background that I put in the synopsis that you've had a chance to read I recently was elected president of the Basher Community Council it wasn't a position I really sought or wanted to go after I was approached by a group of residents that weren't happy with the direction that our community council had taken as as of late there were no elections since 2015. they're supposed to be held annually and I just wanted to see greater involvement in the community after I got elected and the rest of the board got elected we have stayed active there's quite a few things that we've accomplished and I say we because I'm not taking credit for what we've accomplished it's been done as a team and that team effort is important I think you know end goals end goals should be collaborative and you don't always have to totally agree to achieve those goals I think a diversity in voice is very important and that's what I would offer to this assembly I thank you again for this opportunity and frankly I thank you for the time that you put in I probably have never expressed that as well as I should have when I stood at that podium but everything that I said from that position came from my heart and I say that now the time you put in is is appreciated may not always agree with what you decide but I do appreciate the time thank you thank you Mr wojciechowski Miss Morgan thank you for taking the time to interview me today I know what a personal sacrifice it is to serve in political office and I appreciate and applaud your selflessness my name is Hilary Morgan and I would like to serve as the interim assembly woman in Forest dunbar's vacancy to answer the most pressing question you probably have why I need to tell you a little bit about me I moved from Hawaii to Anchorage in 1991 after spending six years living and working outside the country I lived in Australia for a year in the Philippines where I spent two years working in a refugee camp Thailand France most of Europe I moved to Hawaii and after my first wife passed away from cancer moved to Alaska at the age of 33 for two years on my way to Africa hear the uniqueness of my story ends as it has for hundreds before me the Alaska lore grabbed me and my two-year stint turned into 27. when my current wife Robin and I left in 2006 to move back East to care for my aging mother I thought we were saying goodbye to Alaska forever but after she passed Alaska pulled us back and we realized Alaska was home I've lived in the east side of Anchorage for the entire time I've lived in Alaska in preparation for today I looked over my resume and realized that I've spent most of my career on my way to this interview in the 2000s I was appointed to sit on mayor baggage's health and safety transition team and the housing and neighborhood development commission where the discussions and tensions around affordable housing were only slightly different than to than today's divisions on amending title 21 to accommodate adus I chaired mayor beggage's task force on homelessness in 2004 which produced anchorage's first 10-year plan on homelessness and was on mayor Ethan berkowitz's transition team and human trafficking task force in Washington DC I was appointed to Mayor fenty's human services policy team more recently I served as treasurer for the Basher Community Council from 2015 to 21 and on the Executive Board of downtown rotary from 2015 to 2018. I'm currently a member of the Basher Community Patrol as you can see from my from the sampling of my volunteer work I enjoy working to solve Community issues from a policy and systems level these experiences have given me a breadth of knowledge to address issues facing the assembly now my professional experience is closely aligned with the current needs of the assembly two of the four hot topics on your assembly web page are homelessness and housing in play are the Halton Hills development proposal and the discussion of accessory dwelling units both go to the heart of a long debate in Anchorage on density housing that requires Creative Solutions unique Partnerships and diverse collaborations by purchasing rural Cap's first aplex I launched the organization's currently thriving housing division but the creative Housing Solutions I witnessed during my tenure as a development and communications director for the largest affordable housing developer in DC opened my eyes to possibilities not yet considered in Anchorage chronic homelessness has played this city since 1976 between the years of 78 and 7 and 91 six reports were produced focused on The Chronic public inebriate in 1986 one homeless person Francis Trader died on the street creating public outrage in 2022 24 homeless people have died on the streets Anchorage residents are exhausted and frustrated with this long-standing issue and deserve effective long-term Solutions I've worked in the fields of Housing and homelessness for 22 years aside from my professional experience in Anchorage at the brother Francis shelter in home and bound mentioned in my letter to you I helped designed and Implement a housing first program in New York City targeting the long-term chronic homeless individuals that resulted in an 85 percent housing stability success rate I have concluded that the only solution to homelessness is permanent housing or permanent Supportive Housing my career in the nonprofit sector required me to work with a cross-section of community members with varying political affiliations socioeconomic backgrounds and cultural heritages as a non-profit CEO I understand budgets fiscal management and how to navigate to solution all skills critical to being a successful assembly person even for a short time and finally my life circumstances are perfect for me providing intensive Talent intense attention and diligence to this task I moved from full-time non-profit Management in 2018 to part-time Consulting I have total control over my schedule if selected for this position I will prioritize the next three months to fully focus on assembly issues meetings work sessions and anything else that the position requires that I do not yet know in addition I have no interest of holding the seat beyond the April election no offense to those of you here who have gallantly given your full commitment to this position thank you thank you Ms Morgan Mr foner good morning my name is Rich foner I'm 71 retired for about seven years now I originally came to the decision to apply for this position because I have absolutely no idea what the assembly does and how they do it and thought the easiest way to find out would be to sit for a few months like Hillary I have no intentions of going Beyond April um yeah you may notice I'm the only person in here wearing a mask I have um idiopathic interstitial lung fibrosis which is a terminal condition caused by well that's idiopathic means they don't know what caused it but I've got a few years left that I'd like to spend a couple of them doing something for the public I understand there are a lot of different things that are going on in Anchorage that a lot of different people don't really care for and uh we need to make some kind of a an arrangement where everybody can be seen and heard and taken care of the homeless problem of course is one of the biggest problems we have here but I think we also have a problem with snow removal because there doesn't seem to have been very much if any excuse me let's see to give you a little personal background I was born in a log cabin that I helped my father to build um I was a bottle baby until I was four and then the bottle broke and I got out and when I was seven I ran away with the circus and when I was nine they caught me and made me give it back I would really like to serve on this position if for no other reason to inject a little bit of levity into uh your meetings and like I said to learn a little bit about what it is the assembly does and how they do it and that's pretty much all thank you very much thank you Mr foner Mr sweet good morning thank you for having me my name is Joey sweet I live at Florina Street just off of Tudor Road in the lower Southwest most portion of the district where I've lived now for about six going on seven years what brought me here primarily to the district that is was UAA where I was fortunately able to attain not only a great education in the form of a bachelor's in political science but my master's degree in public administration my interest in this position stems largely from my interest in public administration currently I work as you saw as an office admin at the South Side Anchorage Cemetery obviously it's it operates as a non-profit I enjoy my work I enjoy getting to help people but it's not exactly something that I'm particularly passionate about not in the same way that I am about public administration it feels good to make a difference in people's lives but it's not necessarily what I am passionate about during my time at UAA Governor Walker appointed me to the University Board of Regents where I served from 2017 to 2019. so should I get this position I already have experience not just in making big impactful decisions but doing so on a short time frame when I was appointed in the spring of 2017 it was a very very quick turnaround from being just another student to now being one of the people who decides the direction that the entire University takes I was appointed on a Monday and as referenced in the correspondence I sent I was voting on very unpopular very controversial issues that Wednesday the very first vote that I took as a region was whether or not to close the school of Economics at uaf given the short time frame that I had for that decision I chose to abstain for lack of familiarity with the subject should I get this position I will dedicate myself to it entirely I've already worked with my supervisor on a plan for a leave of absence I will dedicate myself to this essentially as a full-time job I've tried not to get ahead of myself but I also want to be prepared I've reached out and spoken to an individual who I hope would consider Service as my assembly Aid I've also reached out and talked to a group of anti-poverty and homelessness activists a group I'm a part of called results I've reached out and talked to a lawyer who's trained on issues of homelessness and said you know what these circumstances look like and I've told him if I get this position I want us to sort of sit down and I don't want to pick your brain about issues of homelessness what are solutions that other cities and other municipalities around the country and around the world have used and how do we adapt whatever those policies have looked like historically and adapt them for Anchorage considering the uniqueness of our climate and things like that likewise I would also like to make use of my degree in so far as My Capstone project was focused on the application of facial recognition I know it's a little bit of a niche issue it's sort of specific but the more I researched it I spent about a year year and a half of my degree researching it the more interested in it I became and should I get this position I would also like to focus my efforts on a Prohibition against the use of facial recognition by the municipality so it's not just something that I'm sort of chasing after I have real goals real objectives that I would like to accomplish even if it is only for about a hundred or so days thank you for your consideration thank you Mr sweet we will go ahead and adjust the timer for two minutes and members may go ahead and put themselves in the queue with any questions okay and we will start first with Mr wojciechowski Miss Quinn Davidson go ahead with your question thank you um I was just wondering for those of you who didn't address it which I think is everyone but Hillary and Joey are you currently working and if so how much are you working and how would you pair this work with what you're currently doing am I to answer that okay I misunderstood I am not working I'm I retired um I think it's going on nine years now other than dedicating the time that my position as president of the Alaska or I'm sorry president of the Basher Community Council um most of my time commitment is self-driven towards as I said My Fitness Nutrition so I have uh I have time available if that's the Gestalt of the the question the answer would be yes I can dedicate time to the position thank you and now I remember you actually did say that before so I apologize but I think Harry and um is it rich I can't see the name tags or two okay I'm currently retired I'm actually going to be retired for the rest of my life so I have lots of time to dedicate to learning what we do and how to do it I came to Alaska to work on the Alaska pipeline and I am no longer an iron worker I'm too old for that but I am retired but I have some rental properties that I I work on in my spare time which I have a lot of right now and for the next four months if I were appointed I will spend all of my time on this job great thank you thank you Ms Quinn Davidson we'll go next to Mr Rivera and Ms Morgan if our Mr wijakowski if you'd pass the mic to Ms Morgan and you can answer first go ahead Mr Rivera great thank you madam chair um so I'll just ask one of my questions and then I'll put myself back in the queue so um I think for those of you who have followed the assembly you will know that the assembly business is a train that never stops it's always moving um and there's always a big issue coming up and um two of them that I had on my list have already been highlighted accessory dwelling units and the Holton Hills um there's a third one that I suspect will come up uh during whoever's selected your tenure which is the navigation Center I will wait to ask specific question about that but for now I want to understand given the nature of the business that we have that it is constantly moving we have a whole host of different issues that are all of them intricate detailed and complicated I just want to understand a little bit about your decision-making process and your ability to work with others thank you so as I mentioned I have spent most of my career in the nonprofit sector in either leadership positions or executive management as a CEO um so I'm very well versed in the juggling of 25 million things at the same time and short decision making time periods I basically my the process that I use is to keep my eye on the ball on on all of the balls that are juggling and then just dive into each each thing as as it comes up and and address it and try to find Solutions across all lines of difference because I think in the in the nonprofit sector when you're going for a mission um and you're trying to achieve an end result like in homelessness you there there's no one answer and there's no uh there's no way to do anything by yourself so you have to work with everyone so I believe strongly in collaboration and in the making collaboration work so that you get to solution and if if there's a if there's a stumbling blocks you just keep moving forward until you get to solution does that answer your question foreign for the same question yes can you repeat it because and it got lost following Hillary here sure so the question is uh sort of twofold I won't repeat all the other things that I said I want to understand your decision-making process and your ability to work with others thanks my last position before I retired I was a management assistant with the U.S army at actually what it was was executive assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Fort Richardson I had to work with all kinds of different people and I had no real problem working with them it's a matter of listening to what people say and trying to fold that into how you deal with them as far as my decision making process is concerned it's a little different I tend to use my back brain a little bit more than most people do it's much easier for me to make a decision if I have just a little bit of time to sleep on it or ruminate about it without actually thinking about it and that's how I make most of my decisions you gather as much information as possible and then let it percolate and that seems to have worked for me for most of my life I hope that answers your question thank you so I think a good example comes from my time as a region kind of towards the tail end in terms of how I work with others how I sort of conduct myself as it relates to decision making I served from 2017 to 2019 which means I serve during the height of the metoo movement and the university began to receive more complaints than it had historically about allegations of sexual misconduct even from years and years ago so as a result we sought guidance from the education department the federal education department what sort of guidelines does the federal government have about how universities should respond to these kinds of allegations how can they if they're from years ago it's you know it's a university it's not a punitive institution what what's sort of the direction and we never heard anything back so the president of the University decided we're not going to wait we're going to charge forward and create our own policy and so the policy ultimately that was created was to prioritize reports of incidents that happened within the past three years but still direct investigative resources towards those that have happened even from decades and decades ago that was The Proposal that came to us and ultimately I agreed and I voted for it with the three years as opposed to four or five or ten because my decision making in that case was this was the policy created by lawyers the lawyers no far more than I do about these kinds of issues just because I'm the Regent and I'm the decision maker doesn't make me smarter than the people who are actually studying these things full-time I I think you know that's the correct way to go about it is to kind of put ego aside a little bit and say you're the expert on this if this is what you think is best it's my job to listen to you get out of your way and give you the resources you need to do your job so I think that explains a little bit about my decision making and work with others thank you thank you can you hear me well I have some experience with working with other people I had 60 of my very best friends in the legislature and and a governor that I had to deal with over over my five terms and the I developed some some pretty good listening skills and um it educated me in so many things that I had no idea about before but um the people that I well uh they're about 12 000 voters in my district and I tried to see every one of them that I could uh every every campaign I'd go to six to eight thousand doors and listen to what they had to say and tried to take that back with me to the floor of the house and that's the way I would treat things if I were in this position for the next four months um it's all about getting along with people and I I have worked on that skill over time thank you thank you when it says mute it's off just to the first part of the question um risk versus benefit um in my medical career you're trained to always think that way every decision a person makes as an individual every decision a group ends up making hasn't intended and a lot of times unintended consequences so the way I approach a problem is exactly that initially we have a tendency to think well we should do this to solve that but a lot of times we forget to look at what is going to happen with that decision that maybe we're not thinking about and I think that's important and sometimes neglected as to the second part of the question if you read uh what I offered in writing about my background it's fairly obvious I think that in order to get that or be part of getting that voting seat on the State Medical Board I had to work very closely with Democratic senator Donnie Olson I had an advantage I knew Donnie because he was also a physician and I worked with him in Dillingham so we had a personal connection but he was willing because of the time that we had spent together and the face that I I and two other colleagues put on my profession he was willing as a freshman Senator to step up and and Foster and put forth that bill and it went through committee and passed we now have a voting member and have had for a while all voting member that's a physician assistant on the State Medical Board which is very important and it helps bring other PAs to this state and that's I think probably the best example of my ability to work with others I have three seconds uh real quickly I'm from Philly so sometimes I may not look like I get along with people thank you we'll go to the next question and we'll hear first from Mr foner the next member in the queue is Mr Peterson go ahead thank you madam chair first of all I want to thank my neighbors and constituents from East Anchorage for applying for this position and I think it's fair to say we have a pretty deep bench in East Anchorage and fairly impressed with with all the candidates today and my question is the same for all of you if you're are you planning to run for the two-year seat the remaining two years of Mr dunbar's seed or are you just up for the for the four month nomination thank you I am not planning to run for the two-year position uh like I said before I really just wanted to get an idea what we do here what you do here how it's done and I think four months will be about as much of assembly work as I could take no I'm I'm going to go ahead and pass this on to Joey let him answer the question thank you uh no no I would not I would be here only for the interim period from today's appointment through I believe April 23rd that would be all that I would be looking at thank you thank you Pete no um I try to help out wherever I can in public service but they're they're very good candidates that are intending to run for for this the the more permanent seat and I'm happy for them uh I may figure this thing out eventually it's either on or off uh Pete I appreciate that question I really do and I'm not going to evade the answer but um at this point I could not say definitively yes or no um part of it is I never sat up there where you are so it would require me to have maybe a little taste of that pie to see whether or not it's got a bitter taste or it's something that I feel is rewarding I know there's a lot of moving parts to running a campaign and that's the other reason I feel I can't honestly answer that yes I would uh I would determine that if I were appointed that I would then decide to run for the remainder of the of the two years my wife and I did discuss this because I mentioned early on I mean we're both retired we love our lives and this is a huge time commitment I fully understand that so again I'm not trying to be invade evasive but I really can't definitively say yes or no uh no absolutely not and I agree with Harry that there are some really good candidates who have put their names in the ring already for that for the permanent seat and I'm happy to support them thank you thank you madam chair thank you Mr Peterson okay for this next question we will start with Mr sweet Mr Perez freudia go ahead thank you and thank you all of you for for putting your names forward um you some of you spoke a little bit about um your concerns or your priorities and your opening statements but you know one of the things that I've learned about this this role is that you can't you can't do it all you really have to find out what you're going to spend your energy on and focus on that and um and it's a short period of time all of you most of you have have confirmed that you're not going to be in this position for very long so it's an opportunity for you to do something and do something important in that period of time so what what is that thing or those two things or those few things that you are going to absolutely Focus your energy on and try to get done in a period of a few few months what is your priority uh well great question as referenced a little bit in my opening remark I would focus my efforts on a sort of two-pronged approach uh the first is to continue the work that the assembly is already doing on uh homelessness certainly that's going to be a priority for these next few months it's still the winter the position will move into the spring but obviously that as a priority is not going anywhere in terms of something that I might bring a bit more uniquely as referenced I would like to try and Champion a Prohibition against the use of facial recognition by the municipality it's unfortunately a much longer answer than I could ever do in two minutes but there's not only just a growing movement against it at the national level but according to publicly available reports the municipality does or has used it in the past there was a leaked report from a firm that operates on facial recognition a bunch of their clients were leaked about a year and a half ago and there were five different uh law enforcement entities throughout the state of Alaska that were on that leaked list the reporters who got a hold of that reached out to every single one on the list and APD was on it and APD when reached out by the reporters did not respond so I don't personally know if that means they used it extensively if they dabbled in it and got out of it do they still have they they must have previously but what that looks like we don't really know I don't really know I reached out to elected officials before here and there to kind of get their feedback on it but because it's such a sort of specific thing there's there's not a whole lot out there about it I think that there's room uh politically to try and get it done I like the idea of only having a couple of months to try and Champion something like this I've reached out to friends and activists who I think may be interested on sort of partnering together with this and I would be ready to hit the ground running on championing something like that thank you Mr sweet Mr Crawford thank you um I have a number of issues that I'd love to weighed into but probably the most important one that um that I had something to do with in the the legislature uh was the the red stripe law um my wife was hit by a drunk driver on Christmas Eve night of of 2004 and I came very close to to dying and when she was there in the emergency room we didn't know whether she was going to live or die and people kept asking me if had they caught the guy that did it and I said I don't know and I really don't care about him at this point because he's already done his damage and um I want to work on on something that that would prevent that from happening rather than just punishment after the fact so if I could I'd like to make the red stripe law um foreign so that that no businesses and no no uh package stores could uh not look at at uh driver's license because several of them do and um I'd like to to uh make that that permanent and that way 85 percent of the people that are in in our jails and prisons around Alaska were there because of a alcohol-related offense and we need to get the the alcohol out of the hands of the people that have proven that they can't handle the alcohol so that would be my focus thank you Mr Crawford Mr Roy Jackowski thank you that's a really interesting question I don't know that I particularly have an agenda you know the tooth you said what are the two things I think my first part of that answer would be rather vague and it's that maybe to prove that people who on the outside look like maybe they couldn't work together or don't agree with each other can actually work together and part of that again would fall back on that unintended consequences that I was talking about being the voice that represents that but as I was thinking there actually is one item and an agenda or it would be in it on the agenda for me and that is representing the community I live in we are the number one Wildfire danger community in the Anchorage Bowl it's documented and we're not thinking of that right now we have tons of snow that's keeping us from getting to work and getting the places we want to get to so Wildfire danger is is kind of off of everyone's radar it's never off of mine We Are One fire one wind direction away from stuck again Heights disappearing I've worked very hard during my short tenure as president of the Basha Community Council to address that issue and I would probably carry that goal forward if I were sitting on the assembly thank you thank you Ms Morgan probably my my two concerns fortunately are the things that you're working on right now which is the housing and homelessness and the the biggest thing having having worked in homelessness starting with a brother Francis shelter or actually a family shelter before that is that over the last probably 10 or 15 years the the field of homelessness has really moved in a direction towards a solution rather than Band-Aid approaches which is creating more shelters or more temporary housing situations and really trying to move people directly from the streets or from their homeless position into housing into permanent housing and if they need supports to keep them there to really make sure that the supports are provided so I I would be you know I've been I've been watching the the homeless situation in Anchorage sort of devolve and I I would it it would really break my heart to see us move backwards in such a radical um uh direction as it seems like we're going with that navigation Center which is um it has a nice name but it's basically a large low barrier Warehouse shelter and we have lots of shelters in town that that have existed for a long time that um that have been using navigation services so it's it's not that we don't have navigation Services is that we don't have the housing and the and the Creative Solutions for making sure that that folks can use that housing and can stay in there so those two issues housing and homelessness would be my primary um uh attention Seekers Grabbers thank you thank you Mr phoner I think something that's really important that doesn't seem to be a priority is how are we going to cope with the changing climate you can see outside now we've got a ton of snow out there and I think it's going to continue I don't think we're going to go back to nice mild Winters and sunny Summers the climate is changing and as the people who are running the city basically we need to at least take into account how that climate change is going to affect things like snow removal homelessness and all the other different things that are happening in our town so I think that would be my main focus would be to try to learn more about and instruct and teach more about how the climate is going to change or at least how scientists tell us the climate is going to change and how that's going to affect us thank you thank you so Mr Crawford will start first with responses on this next question which will be from Mr salt thank you and uh thank you chair and appreciate everyone putting your names in the Hat so my question is as an assembly member for the seat you'd expect to represent your District so what I want you to do is just tell me what you know about your District show me that you understand your district and that you will represent that District Mr sultan my district is basically a bedroom district there are only a very few businesses there um it it's a place where we live and work and one of the things that I realized about my district early on is that we don't have any youth ball fields there um they're all over on the the west side of town it's hard for parents to get their their kids over to uh soccer or uh t-ball and all of those things um I wanted to change the 22 and a half acres next to the totem theater to to youth ball fields I got one built but then I ran for Congress and um that my uh representative that that took my place didn't continue that that so there those 22 and a half acres are still there I still like to to turn that into youth ball fields and possibly some Community Gardens and um it um it's basically a place where where we live so um that's snow removal is probably the biggest issue that we have there if you went through our district right now uh people would tell you I'd like to get get my my road widened out wider than one lane it's it's a great place to live and I want to continue to live there for the rest of my life and I I know a lot of people in the in the district from all those years of going door to door and I like them and I'd say most of them like me thank you thank you I think it's a great question District Five is is very diverse if you look at it geographically I mean you've got stuck again Heights and obviously living there for the last 22 years I'm very familiar with stuck again but you have to drive three miles through a park to leave stuck again we those of us that live up there are almost constantly jokingly say we live near Anchorage and not in Anchorage but if you look at the district boundaries you know you go down Tudor you go down to Piper up Piper through what looks like a green belt down the Turpin up to the Glen over and then down covering both sides of Muldoon I think they're uh there's a huge amount of businesses in there I'm going to have to disagree you know with with Harry on that one um there's also a very diverse socioeconomic grouping in that district and I I think that and I'll be the first to admit do I interact with folks that live in the trailer park along Muldoon no I've had no opportunity to do that and frankly no reason at this point to do that would I be able to oh yeah I frankly I can I can communicate with anyone you know on any level so it would be a challenge but it would be a good challenge thank you I I also love East Anchorage I lived on off of Baxter by the uh by the Baxter bog there for about 15 or 20 years before I moved up to sucking Heights and um you know with the the new boundary um you know we we definitely have some businesses there but but it is pretty much a place where people live and uh sometimes work or drive to other parts of town we kind of like that because the traffic is not nearly as bad as living on the hillside but you get kind of the benefits of living on the hillside because we so close to the mountains um but I think that probably the the biggest concern right now is snow removal I mean that that part of town has a lot of um uh sort of denser housing in the in the with cul-de-sacs and stuff and there's just no place to move if the snow isn't isn't removed I um feel like I can represent everyone there mainly because my work in Social Services has created you know Partnerships with lots of people who are are in the area as well as people that are outside of the area thank you great question Northeast is it's kind of funny my experience with it I've lived there all since I've been up here in 77. I've been on the east side with the very short exceptions a long time ago but what happens with us my wife sells things on eBay and on different selling sites and invariably maybe 80 percent of the time when someone calls her and wants to purchase something you have to tell them where you live and when you tell them I live on the east side either the phone gets hung up or you just never hear from them again they say okay thank you and that's it goodbye and I would like to change that for some reason the east side of town which includes Muldoon and Mountain View has just got this reputation for people don't want to be there and yet there's so many people there so I'd like to see if we could change to change Fairview too even though that's not part of the district because they've got the same kind of reputation and that's that's not right the neighborhoods are not like that thanks thank you so it's kind of funny where I live um although it's within certainly the boundaries of this particular Assembly District for this state legislature my exact address is considered Midtown and it didn't end up working out but I was going to staff for someone representing Midtown in the legislature so for the past several months primarily what I've been looking at is more Midtown rather than east side in preparation for this role I've reached out to a handful of folks who I know are more actively engaged on what is actually East Side more so than I am and I've been kind of picking their brains I know for example uh about the bus barn right off of Tudor Road I actually live within walking distance from it I spoke with someone yesterday who talked to me a bit about some of the concerns that Community like local families have that live right next to that barn and the pollution that it causes the idea brought forward and it's just an idea it's not sketched out or anything but the idea is with regards to possibly moving it we could sort of circumvent that entire issue just by trying to transition away from traditional Vehicles into trying to have an electric school bus fleet that way you could sort of solve the problem of the pollution uh and not necessarily have to contend with an issue like where should it the Bus Barn location be exactly because that's the heart of the problem is the pollution that it causes so while I haven't been necessarily as involved as I would like to have been in the east side give if I should receive this position of course I will dedicate myself to it 24 7 for the next hundred days absolutely thank you thank you so we will start with Mr wojakowski to respond to this next question which will be from MS zealotel thank you madam chair so my question is what do you understand the role of the assembly to be within the balance of power within the municipality so we have an executive branch which is the administration and we have the legislative branch which is the assembly what is your understanding of the role of the assembly and how it works in that balance of power that's an excellent that's an excellent question thank you um ICD assembly is the law making side of that balance of power I see the administration as as the name States administering the uh kind of like running the business I guess is the way to look at it the manager of the business whereas the assembly is the board of directors it's trying to figure out where the funding's coming from how the funding gets distributed uh passing ordinances for the benefit of the community in general and that's you know a fairly broad answer to that question I'm not sure if it's specific enough for what you're looking for but that's that's how I see it thank you sort of the same thing that that the um I see the assembly is the oversight group or board for the the city and the and the the mayor and and his folks are are the the folks that are managing the city um and the assembly gives them the authority to do that but that the the the checks and balances are that uh it's the assembly's responsibility to make sure that um what is sort of best for the people is done by the administration and if there is a point of contention to make sure that there's uh that they find a way to either work with the administration or make the administration work with them to come to some kind of solution around that thank you but right now the between the assembly and the administration it kind of reminds me of the WWE there's just there's nothing seemed to be going on except fighting back and forth and I don't know how to change that but I would like to try to be part of a change to where we all work together just a little bit better that's it thank you great question my background is having attained a master's in public administration and part of what we talked about in pretty much every class I ever took on the subject was about the really fundamental elements of public administration which means things like oversight accountability Equity things like that and I see that as largely being the function of the assembly I would like to if I should receive this position I'm not going to come into it with any kind of you know preconceived notions I'm going to check ego at the door I'm going to check everything else at the door and get off to what I hope would be a good start with the mayor I believe in good government I'm not going to come in I'm going to come in with a clean slate and try to work with the administration to the best of my ability I know there are certain divisions between the administration the executive branch and the legislative branch right now do I believe that I can single-handedly solve them in the next hundred days no but I'll pardon I'll borrow the phrasing I would like to be a part of the solution there yes but that doesn't mean I give up any sort of notion of oversight or accountability certainly those are the building blocks of democracy and I believe in them thank you thank you I believe that the mayor is there to implement the vision and the ways and the means of the assembly the assembly uh are the people that are are in connection with with the residents of their districts they listen and and get input every day whether you go to the Costco or um to The Car Store or whatever you you hear from your your constituents and uh you're to take those those comments and suggestions from your your uh constituents back to the um assembly and then give that that Vision to the the mayor to carry it out so that's what I believe is the the reason for the the assembly you're the people that are closest to the people to to represent them thank you so for this next question we'll start with Ms Morgan and I'm going to go through um the queue but go to members who haven't asked a question yet so next will be Mr Cross followed by Mr volan go ahead Mr Cross thank you I appreciate you guys being here this morning um you know the assembly most of what we do is it's a meat grinder of uh you know interrogating reality and trying to figure out what's at the heart of what matters that we can make wise decisions and in quarter in in order to do that effectively we have to remain curious and out of judgment for as long as possible until we have to uh vote on something so um can you tell me a situation where maybe you went into a situation with a very held uh hard opinion in something but under further analysis realized perhaps you were either mistaken or something changed your mind and a little bit about that process because I think how we resolve problems here is an important attribute on doing the business of the city so thank you uh yes I I use a work uh situation when I I ran Homeward Bound which was a program for homeless Street alcoholics a transitional housing program and I um have personally not been homeless and I have not been an alcoholic and so I was there were some rules to this program that I was running that the residents didn't like and I decided to basically sit down with them and say uh and and one of the rules that I had instituted was that that that if they wanted to drink in the building that they could because I felt that they had to learn how to be able to drink in their own Apartments when they left my program they all came to me and said that that was a stupid Rule and that they really thought that I should change it so I um basically changed the way I did things and I said that I will have everyone have an equal vote in how we run the program but I get 51 when it comes to health and safety so when they came to me and they asked me to change the rule to not allow drinking in the building I was not for it at all but I said all right I got outvoted and we tried it and of course they were absolutely right and I ended up changing the policy and then from that day forward every policy that I that that we wanted to to put into place in the program we had sort of this this consensus building and I got outvoted a lot of times and nine times out of ten the residents were more insightful than I had been thank you I really can't think of a time when I had a preconceived notion of anything that got changed by later facts I have tried all my life to not have preconceived notions my parents taught me to start with that prejudice was wrong regardless of what kind of prejudice it is or what you're prejudiced against and that's been a guiding principle for me not to have a preconceived notion about anything until at least you've done some research some serious research and study not just a little bit of time on YouTube I spent too much time on YouTube anyway but some serious research on a subject then you can have an idea of what you want to do about it but preconceived notions are just not a part of my makeup so I guess I'm perfect as far as that's concerned so unless of course you take my relationship with my wife she's right about just about everything regardless of what I think thank you so I actually have a really specific example it comes from my time as a regent I served in in the last six months which would have been the start of 2019 the very first week of the year we found out that uaa's school of education had lost its accreditation uh so immediately my thought my preconceived notion was well we've lost it Let's uh pursue it again and let's let's try and get it back and that was what I told some of the members of student government that my position was and things like that unfortunately as more facts came to light about why the school came up short and it's reaccreditation and what the reaccreditation process would entail I did have to change my mind and you know I had to vote to close the school of education to not pursue reaccreditation the reason I did that is because as more facts came to light there were two that stuck out to me the first is we had lost it not by a little it was not a scenario where we needed an 80 score and we got 79.9 there were five different categories the school was graded on and they only passed one the second was that it was going to cost a minimum of five hundred thousand dollars and you know a big reason as to why they lost it in the first place was because of years and years of budget cuts what used to be a staff of you know 30 is now a staff of 20 and they're still doing the work of 30 or 40 really and so as more facts came to light I did have to change my mind and then let go of that preconceived in hindsight simplistic notion of well we lost it let's just get it back there was more to it than simply get it back it was also going to be a three-year process et cetera Etc and so when upon receiving more information I I did have to change my mind even if it was a very unfortunate set of circumstances thank you during my time in the legislature I wrote a number of bills and I would get input from the public and I would learn about on unintended consequences of of what my bills would do and I would rewrite and rewrite and sometimes even amend it all the way through the process till we came up with some sort of consensus that the bill could pass or or fail I I have had a lot of of amendments to my bills because it um you just learn more from people that are coming at that um situation or or issue from a different perspective and I try to to listen and take into account their perspectives and and make the best decision that I can on the bills and the laws that that I um authored or or put forward thank you that's a really good question in medicine you operate under the auspices of the differential diagnosis you come and see me for a problem I list I take a medical history and that's really where the the rubber meets the road that's frankly where you're going to probably learn the right answer you can do all the lab tests you want to verify what you feel at the end of that history but the fact of the matter is sometimes you're not right and you have to be able to Pivot and move to the next item on that differential diagnosis and admit to yourself you know what my gut feeling wasn't right on this one so that's that's a maybe a vague answer for you but I'll give you a very specific one when I first got elected as president of community council I was kind of gung-ho very much so about the fire danger and I wanted to call a supplemental meeting of the council and we were unable to get our normal Elementary School room and our vice president was able to get a room behind the Anchorage Baptist Temple so I put out the community update said hey we're going to have a meeting about Wildfire danger it's going to be at this location in this room unbelievable uh the the emails that I got in in the beginning were intolerant hateful anyone that goes at that church is homophobic they're anti-Semitic and what the people that were calling the folks there intolerant didn't realize was there's a lot of people who live in stuck again to go to that church and you know that that in and of itself is an intolerant statement I finally realized there was no way I was going to bring these factions together and I canceled the meeting I had to make a decision and a pivot and it was the ultimate case of unintended consequences thank you so Mr phoner will be the first um responder to this next question which will be from Mr voland go ahead Mr volun thank you madam chair can you hear me yes thank you um you know the WWF or or WWE character tour of the assembly our relationship with the administration is sad and interesting and perhaps partially based in reality however I believe there is interest in bettering that relationship among members of both branches and in having more timely communication also believe it or not there is some there are some recent areas of cooperation and collaboration between the assembly and the administration for instance funding a path forward to Pilot both the mobile crisis team and mobile intervention team to have 24 7 operations um you know that said if we're going to have that better relationship one of the applicants mentioned that they have provided testimony that was perhaps unkind in the past as part of the assembly's job we have to listen to very passionate testimony and respond with professionalism and kindness in my opinion whether it's in medical practice or in public service stability is important and I just wonder if the applicants could comment on their take on the necessity of Civility in public service thank you thank you Mr volan and um just to restate your question you would like the candidates to comment on the necessity of Civility in public discourse is that correct yes ma'am thank you thank you well I think civility is necessary in everything if if you're not going to be civil about stuff you're not going to get anything done except maybe a fight so sometimes you have to swallow what you're thinking at least that's the case for me I've had to swallow things that are initially going to come pouring out of my mouth in order to think about it for a few seconds to be civil because it's it's just easier everything is easier if there's a modicum of Civility and gee I know my answers are short but they're also civil thank you so this gets back kind of to what I had mentioned before in an earlier response about um just sort of believing in the fundamentals of public administration and good governance I referenced before about accountability and oversight but certainly civility is one of those key principles as well I did not attend any of the meetings that featured the more raucous testimony I was sort of dissuaded I think like a lot of Anchorage citizens from attending during that time for that reason and I would like to be a part of the solution in moving forward towards restoring some of that order and things like that my time is Regent was very controversial I already mentioned about voting against the school of education we got obviously a lot of pushback against that but to even speak on it outside of that context I interned in the state legislature for then Senator Berta Gardner there was a proposal brought forward for the University essentially to purchase Mount Edgecombe High School and operate it uh as a another Vestige of the University members of The Joint education committees I think sort of assumed that the university had already reached out to mount Edgecombe and the community and done their sort of due diligence but that was not the case this proposal was actually a surprise to the folks who attend Mount Edgecombe and their families and as somebody who was on the education committee at the time my boss in turn got a lot of uh emails and phone calls about the proposal and they were very racially charged they were livid at the notion I won't repeat or get into the particulars but I think the way that the senator handled it was full of grace and something that I would point to as an example of how I would behave myself should I get this position and should civility continue to be sort of an issue thank you thank you so in my time in the the legislature and I keep going back to that because it was 10 years of my My Life um I realized that that uh people that I agreed with on on some things were absolutely opposed to those I mean to other issues and people that I had disagreements with sometimes were my best allies in the in another issue uh there was a senator from from Fairbanks that he and I uh clashed on on many issues throughout our time in the in the legislature and uh then the issue of of going to for-profit gambling in Alaska came up and it amazed both of us that we were sitting in the the witness chair in front of the the finance committee both advocating not to to go to um for-profit gambling and and to have casinos in in Alaska and um we were able to stop that by one vote and if he hadn't been there and if I hadn't been there we wouldn't have been able to bring both sides together and and stop that I that's one of the things that I'm most proud of there are only two states in in the United States that don't have uh for-profit gambling in casinos and all and one of them is Alaska and the other one is Utah and uh I'm I'm originally from Louisiana I saw the the ills that that for-profit gambling brought to my hometown and I don't want it for Anchorage or Alaska [Music] thank you I think civility has many degrees um when everyone agrees about something and everything is Kumbaya that's obviously civility perhaps the next step away from that is a discussion that leads to disagreement yet you can still be civil perhaps The Next Step Beyond that is debate and debate can go however Direction you wanted to there's no reason for the debate to be uh hostile and then there's always the ability to agree to disagree so I think there's lots of different levels in the description or definition of Civility but I think it's important to always realize that there's nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree thank you thank you when I was elected president of the student Senate in college that was my first lesson that being a public having a public position was very very different than being a private citizen and I've seen that in all the all of the positions that I have been in since then as CEO of a nonprofit or in as a representative of a particular platform you know particular um uh group like when I was running the YWCA and I think that when you become a uh when you're in the public and you take a a public position like being on the assembly that your job is to not only be civil but that you know when people come up and stand on the podium and yell and scream and do things that we've seen in the past couple of years here unfortunately that's part of the job of being a public servant and you have to listen to that and try to figure out where they're coming from and why they're so angry and then figure out how to respond to that and I believe that civility should be happening a lot more just in general across all sort of human interaction and communication but I believe firmly that as a as a person in a public position that you are bound by an even higher uh you know level of responsibility for being civil and and being civil with the your constituents and also with each other thank you so for this next question we'll start with Mr sweet go ahead Mr constant thank you I'm going to ask a follow-up question to that over the last three years we've had quite a parade of perspectives that came through this room and all manner of Fabrications pretty much outright lies about how our process worked and how people participated up here and made decisions I served formally within a very honorable person John weddleton and he and I disagreed a lot we disagreed a lot but what we agreed on was how we were going to make decisions so my question to you is what do you think is the process to making decisions that people can disagree and yet at the end of the day still work together well it's a really good question um I think the first thing that comes to my mind is as a member of the assembly it it gets back to how you as an individual conduct yourself right if you uh treat others with respect they will show it back hopefully and that's with regards to your fellow members that's with regards to members of the General Public it's it's a 24 7 job right it's it's not like I can post silly offensive things on Facebook and then still come in here and expect to get things done right it's going to alienate people uh it's gonna set a bad example things like that so I think when it comes to the actual function of still being able to get things done and still function quite frankly uh it all comes down to yourself and how you set that standard I think I did that as Regent I took it very seriously I I think in two years I I held myself to a very high standard I never even with my friends would you know we were all college undergrads if they would joke about you know oh that's Mr Regent he's going to defund us if we if we do XYZ I would I would stop the conversation and I would say no that's not I don't care if we're goofing off and having fun that's that's not we don't cross a line like that and I think that's the kind of mentality that I would bring to this position thank you well I think education educating myself on on any issue is is really the key to knowing what's right and wrong I you know I was raised by my parents to know the difference between what's right and wrong but then you have to know the the points of of any issue that you're you're called on to deal with so um I think once you you feel very comfortable with with um the the um the um the sides of the issue then you can make a decision that you're comfortable with and um I I know John weddleton and I I understand how you can be civil and and work together but disagree um and that that happened many times in in the legislature and um I um I've felt comfortable with with my decisions in the legislature and I would feel comfortable I'm sure once I I delve into the issues that we'll be faced with thank you thanks for that question and thank you for mentioning John whittleton in the I don't know what the length of time was well over a year email exchanges that I've had with this entire body um Whenever I send emails to the assembly I send it sent them to everybody and John weddleton was by far the best communicator on this on on that list he wasn't in my district he didn't have to respond to me but we had some delightful discussions on the topics that you know the main topic obviously at that point in time was coveted and covered mitigation and the use of the cares act money um so you know to the to your point I understand what you what you're saying Chris about you know maybe not this or maybe not agreeing with them uh he was able to change my mind on a couple instances and I was able to maybe guide him in a different direction because of those emails and I also really need to give credit to Pete uh Pete did not respond as much as John uh no one responded as much as John but I called you to task for something that you said at a meeting and we don't need to go into specifics about that but you responded immediately and you said you know Jim you're absolutely right I shouldn't have said that uh you probably remember what it was and we all say things that we would like to take back I'm sure when the send button happens you know a lot of us are going well I wish I could get that back uh but John was a great communicator I wish I could be anywhere near as good as he is thank you in my personal experience I found for me what works best is to remain really curious about why why the other person thinks the way they think how they got to how they took the same facts that I'm looking at and got to such a different um in my mind like a different rapidly different decision and so that that has worked over time it's not new to me it's in the difficult conversations Harvard negotiation project um books but it's it's it has really helped me to to to find that thing that you can both agree on to begin the conversation to then figure out how to resolve whatever the particular issue is that you're talking about and I think that uh coming from that position at all times allows you to be able to as Jim said respond regardless of what is coming at you because instead of instead of getting angry and seeing it just from your perspective uh for me finding out why they think that way how they got to that um how they got to such a different conclusion than I did has been really helpful thank you civility is a a dying art apparently and it's good that bodies like the assembly the legislature you know the Senate they all have rules that require civility unfortunately those rules never extend to the members of the public who come up to talk to us or to you but you still have to be civil in order to maintain that the illusion but in order to maintain your objectivity as soon as you start losing your civility you start losing your objectivity you start losing your objectivity and you you lose your ability to make the most correct decision lots of different degrees of correctness in any decision that in a body like the assembly would make but civility will guide you to the most or a more correct decision than incivility because incivility you're just throwing rocks and wow this is the longest one of my answers has taken so I'm done thank you thank you before we go to a second round of questions which will be kicked off by Mr Rivera I'm just gonna jump in with the yes no question and actually Mr foner you got to something that I've been thinking about and that is our rules of procedure our Tuesday meetings are for getting the business of the municipality done their work meetings they're not Town Halls though we often do get passionate testimony from folks but the reality is um the lack of Civility and sometimes the refusal of folks whether here on the diocese or members of the public to follow rules affects our ability to do the work and sometimes we don't get all our work done and that's costly and inefficient so my yes or no show of hands question is um and this is not a deal breaker question do you have familiarity with Robert's Rules and um are you my second question are you willing to follow the rules of the body yes I'm sorry I guess I could have specified that um raising a hand means yes we don't have paddles I didn't think about having the like speed round I'm sorry apologies so everyone raised their hand as far as willingness to follow the rules of the body and if just really quick too I know sometimes you know it looks really silly what we do up here with our procedures as far as like amending amendments and I know members of the public it can be hard to follow but we do that for civility and the formality right we use last names for each other to promote Civility and help us get our work done so with that we will thank you all we'll move on to the second round of questions and at this point you know if members want to direct the question to everyone I guess we would start with this next round with Mr Crawford or if there's just particular follow-up questions you have for individuals that's fine so go ahead Mr Rivera thank you madam chair this might be a really quick second round I might be the only one but um so during this first round we asked a lot of very uh generic questions to try to get a better understanding of how you would be in this position on this side of the dice but I do have a specific issue-based question that I feel needs to be asked and responded to and that is around homelessness and there's two reasons that I'm going to be bringing up this issue-based question one is you are all here to fill a seat and that seat is Mr dunbar's seat and Mr Dunbar left a very strong Legacy with regard to championing East Anchorage when it comes to homelessness um second part of the reason why I'm asking this is that homelessness will be a top if not the top subject during your tenure uh we're going to be talking about it a lot over the next several months so be ready for that whoever gets chosen so my question comes in three parts first is what do you see as the assembly's role in homelessness two and I'll repeat this twice how would you work with the executive on homelessness little caveat there for those who qualify for this especially if you disagree with the executive third what are your thoughts on the Tudor in Illinois navigation Center specifically so I'm going to repeat that one more time one what do you see as your assemblies role in homelessness to how would you work with the executive on homelessness special caveat for those that it applies especially if you disagree and three what are your thoughts on the tutor in elbow navigation Center specifically thanks so we'll start with Mr Crawford and it is the big issue uh for right now um there's there's no doubt and um I think it's the assemblies uh Mr Crawford could you bring the mic closer to your oh okay is that that better okay um let me get back to my train of thought here um it's the Sim assemblies uh duty to to come up with Solutions and to fund it and uh you know give a way to to get the job done it's the mayor's job to implement that vision of the assembly um and the second part was um yeah how would you work with the executive and then tutor in Elmore navigation Center yeah and um so I was I was getting into the second part Without Really realizing it but it is the job of the the mayor to implement that vision of the the assembly and as far as the um the navigation Center I don't want to see us put up a temporary building that's going to cost a lot and it's like Hillary said a low barrier uh place that um just gives you a cut I would like to see more permanent housing and we have some buildings that that would lend itself to to um more favorable housing situation and I'd like to see those put in into use thank you I hope I understand the three parts to this but I'll do my best here and if if you need to get more specific feel free the assemblies roll I I think that's multifaceted I think that you have and I hate to do this but my mind works in medical terms you have the acute problem and boy do we have an acute problem okay but we also have a chronic problem and our are handling of that I think we have to be very careful in trying to treat that problem and not grow the problem by doing it you have to find a way to turn that faucet off I mean what is contributing to the homelessness issue and that's complex there's lots of reasons that people are homeless and I am not an expert on this by any means this is my outside view looking in so I think that's the assembly's role in that as far as working with the administration it would I mean that would be wonderful right I mean it would be great if everybody was on the same page there was a simple answer everybody agreed on it but that's probably not the case and probably maybe never going to be the case and is the third part of your question about the navigation Center okay um I was opposed to the concept of the Giant 1 000 bed structure not from a NIMBY standpoint of living and stuck again but from a cost standpoint again that case of unintended consequences uh build it they will come and I'm not that's the turning off the faucet side I mean how do you how do you handle that it's a tightrope that you're walking down you don't want to grow the Homeless Problem by making I guess it in delicate way making it easier to be homeless [Music] thank you I think it's the I think it's the role of the assembly to get as gather as much information as possible about the issue and then direct the administration to Implement a solution or to find a solution and then implement it I think that uh it the the the thing that might have that might be lacking now is the transparency piece of this issue and I believe that to your second part of the question Mr Rivera the the how how do you work within with an Administration that maybe you you totally disagree with or that you're having issues with um I think transparency is the way to do that to find out with the navigation Center in particular uh clearly there's a problem perhaps the the original intent of the navigation Center was a good one but there was no clear plan of how exactly that was going to work who was going to run it how the the some of the kinds some of the of the conversation about well we're going to move people from the navigation Center to permanent housing or to to uh other other living situations but when asked sort of how that was going to happen who was going to facilitate that some of the details the the there was no answer to that and so I believe that with this particular navigation Center as I said in my opening remarks that that is just in the field of homelessness that is such a move backwards and then in five more years or three more years we're going to be sitting here with the exact same conversation about okay now what do we do with these 100 people 300 people 400 people in the navigation Center to get them into permanent housing thank you well I'm going to go with part three first the navigation Center I I don't think a navigation Center is a good idea personally I'm willing to to debate to listen to other ideas but if you're going to take all the homeless people or all the unhoused people in in Anchorage or in a particular area and put them in one place that's not a solution the solution is housing affordable housing all over the city not just on the east side not just on the west side not just in Midtown but everywhere so people can have some choices and it seems to me that what's being done now is not really affordable housing for someone who's in a situation like the homeless people find themselves in those houses are expensive that's like calling my house an affordable house and it's not not for someone who's not been working or who's having different kinds of problems there's the part three part one what the assembly is supposed to do in my mind is gather the opinion of the populace we're the folks who go to the store and wind up talking to different people to lots of people so we're supposed to get a snapshot of what everybody in town is thinking and I know that's really difficult to do but I think that's what's supposed to happen so in working with the municipality or with the executive branch it can be difficult but depending upon who's in the executive branch it can be more or less difficult but civility still counts civility enhances understanding of someone else's viewpoint and I think that that's the way that particular problem has to be approached we need to be civil even if the other person or other entity isn't being civil you counter incivility with more civility um kill them with kindness I've seen that work too many times but being uncivil towards someone who's uncivil to you is not the answer it just makes it worse I hope I answered the question it was a good one long thank you so to the first part on what I view the role as uh it would be primarily as a liaison because I Would by no means claim to be an expert on poverty or homelessness it's something I'm passionate about but I I wouldn't say I have some kind of specialized knowledge on it and so for me I'm going to really dedicate my time to outreach I mentioned before about reaching out already to some anti-poverty activists and lawyers and I have if if I should get this position I'm really going to dedicate myself to just being a sponge and learning as much as I possibly can likewise I also see the role as being one of public Outreach and raising awareness about the actions that the body is taking because for as much attention as this issue is getting right now I think a lot of people are where I'm at which is this is something that matters to me but it's not necessarily something I'm going to be super familiar with already I think most people just sort of want to see something happen in terms of working with the administration I would as referenced a little bit ago check ego at the door I'm if I get it I'm only here for 100 days I want to try and get something done and that sort of leads into the third question about the navigation Center uh I'm pragmatic I want something over nothing I understand the controversy I understand uh the nimbyism and things like that but at the end of the day I think getting something done and explaining it to constituents uh explaining your decision making as long as you can do that and justify your decision to the people you represent I think that's the important part I'm a pragmatist you know I just want to see something over nothing thank you thank you the next question will be from Ms zellatel and we will start with and mizellatel if you want everyone to answer we'll start with Mr wojakowski and I just want to call attention to the time it's 11 25 and we are hoping to wrap up by 11 45. go ahead missalotel Matt I'm chair just one one question before we sure go ahead do we want to make sure that there's an opportunity for closing comments for each that's a great point we'll go ahead and at 11 40 have a one minute closing comment thank you thanks thank you madam chair so this is intended to be a short answer but when I came on the body my predecessor was Dick trainee and he gave me a tour of the diocese the meeting before I was sworn in and he says you have two choices on this diets you can either be a potted plant or an active member which do you think you would be if you were selected thanks uh I'd say that I would be an active member very active member very active member who likes potted plants likewise I I would try very hard to be as active as I possibly can when it comes to I think a position like this I think though that at the same time you do want to be very active but it's not just here I think as Regent I really prioritized reaching out to as many student groups as would listen to me despite being based out of Anchorage full-time I I went to Fairbanks I went to Southeast I conference called in and things like that to other student groups and try to make myself available to them so I think everybody's probably going to be in agreement that they want to be pretty active but I don't think being active just looks like trying to talk and things like that here during the meetings I I think my definition of active is outside of just that scope right it's to involve myself with the community councils talk to members of the community things like that as well thank you I think my record speaks for itself for those of you that know me you know it's it's hard to shut me up and for those that don't know me I'm um I I will take a position and then I will work hard for it thank you thank you the next question will be from Mr Cross and Mr Cross if you want everyone to answer we'll start then with Ms Morgan anybody who's willing I appreciate it we spoke a lot about homelessness and addressing that issue all those things come with a price tag those things are paid for by businesses so can you tell me a little about private business experience and what how you see the assembly helping Private Business grow because those individuals will need jobs they need employment we need a a bustling economy in order to pay for these things how do you see us as an assembly or what are your opinions on things we can do to improve business environment and as kind of relay that back to your business experience thank you so my business I I own a Consulting business now and then when I lived in New York City I worked on Wall Street so um money is usually is usually Paramount in pretty much everything I do every non-profit I ran the the economic side of it was always one of the primary issues that that I dealt with mainly because if you don't have money you don't you can't do anything right and I think that uh the the the crossover between business and the issue around affordable housing and homelessness here is is critical because it's very difficult to have a business where if you go downtown uh your customers are frightened away because there are people wandering around or Midtown um if you're if you're trying to bring tourists into the City and they have a bad experience they're not going to come back so I think that dealing with the issues that make this city look good and profitable are are one in the same and they both have to be dealt with because I I I firmly believe that if we don't make the city a thriving place to be then the businesses are not gonna are not going to be able to thrive thank you I don't have a lot of personally a lot of business experience in my lifetime my wife owned a secondhand store and we ran it for about seven years for about as long as our money held out then we had to close it because we just couldn't afford to run it anymore as far as what we do on the assembly to encourage businesses I would have to do some studying I'd have to learn up on that because I really as I said I don't have a lot of experience but I agree that we need to do things that make the city more attractive to visitors and to businesses thank you primarily my background is outside of Private Business I mean I have worked in non-profits I I currently do and I in my position now at the cemetery I have been able to really learn a lot about operating a business even you know as a non-profit and I'm certainly not the general manager but I've picked his brain about making payroll running invoices I recognize my lack of familiarity and I tried to improve upon it uh I it's to my understanding that the assembly will be voting on property taxes very soon uh in preparation doing my homework for this position uh I went to work the next day and I sat down somebody who's kind of a mentor to me in the office and I said tell me everything I should know about property taxes and we spend the next 30 40 minutes just talking back and forth about the history how they're assessed things like that I I think if there's something that I recognize that I am not familiar with that I'm not fluent in then I try to seek out some level of Greater fluency and greater level of understanding I recognize the decisions that we have to make are very important for businesses we've seen the population decline uh technically it ticked up by I think two or three hundred this last year but you're not going to keep people in the state of Alaska you're not going to attract people to Anchorage if the business Community is not there for them pretty much everyone I knew my freshman year at UAA has left this state and they left it because the business Community yeah it's it's not thriving they look at young people look around and they don't see a future for themselves here anymore and it's heartbreaking and I want to try and be a part of the solution that turns that problem around thank you no I have to uh face the fact that uh over the next four months the the revenue side the income side is not going to change you know whatever is done on the homelessness issue it's going to have to be done with the um resources that we have right now and it's going to be a matter of setting setting priorities with with the resources that that you have presently that's going to be a very difficult choice because every time you you take something away from other uh issues or or then to to put it to work towards homelessness then the constituents for that other uh issue are going to be in your face as well so it's a difficult problem and and the long-term solution is to make uh Anchorage a more attractive Place uh and a growing economy and that that has to be the the um driving force behind what you do is to make this an attractive place to live work and and play so um it's about the best I can do for this next four months thank you I hate to say it again but great question having owned a restaurant at the age of 24 I can tell you that the number one thing that a business would love is less regulation um we're presently going to build a shop slash Adu on our property and in the last year that process has been unbelievably convoluted you're in a real estate business from what I understand so you probably understand this all I hear from my Builder endlessly is how difficult it is to try to keep current with the changes in permitting it and that that hurts a business it's difficult you don't want your goal post moving all the time so if you want to Foster business not at the cost of Public Safety but make things simpler on the businessman thank you so I don't have any other members in the queue okay we'll go ahead then and go to a closing statement we actually do have time for two minutes since we have 10 minutes left but um a one-minute statement is fine too and we will start with Mr foner well let's be a quick statement my statements generally are quick I don't like to waste time don't have enough I would really like to have this position as I said in the beginning I'd like to learn more about what the assembly actually does and the easiest way to do that or the best way to do that would be as being a part of it and it's a nice looking group of people here I would uh would not mind being associated with you guys thank you so I think to conclude uh I think there are probably two qualities that I feel I bring that I would want to highlight and that's dedication and seriousness I've already reached out to experts on various issues that I recognize I'm not an expert on even just in preparation I I take this very very seriously this is not some flippant ladder climbing or anything like that I view this as a job I would treat it as a full-time job for the entire duration of these next several months it to paraphrase what was referenced before I I do want to be active I don't want to be a potted plant I I want to get something done even if it's going to be a more limited amount of time uh than a traditional three-year term so in conclusion I would say that I'm very dedicated to this I'm going to treat it very seriously and I thank you all for your consideration thank you thank you what you do is very very important in what you do affects people's lives um I'd I'd really like to be a part of it and help wherever I can and and bring any any expertise that I might have to the job I would very much appreciate your vote and your support it's it's public service is a wonderful thing um some of the the best moments that I've had in my life were times when I was able to do something good uh for the for my my friends and constituents thank you thank you I very much would like to thank the assembly for this opportunity I'm sitting here at a table with some remarkable individuals this has been just an awesome experience wherever it leads if it leads nowhere it's been fulfilling just to be part of this for for full disclosure um yes I did say I'm willing to put the time in and I am I would have to be absent for one assembly meeting in that time frame we have a trip that I booked a year and a half ago and it's a we're gonna have to go on it so I just wanted to point that out for full disclosure thank you again for this opportunity thank you thank you very much for this opportunity as well and I feel that the it's interesting that the timing of this vacancy and my particular experience uh professional experience is seems well matched I think that I could offer Great Value at this time and some insight and education and I hope to learn a huge amount from the assembly members who are sitting here and also from the process thank you and thank you to all of you who are candidates very much appreciate not just your time today but your concern and care for our community and your willingness to serve in this role so thank you very much and thank you to the members too for your thoughtful questions and for being here I don't have anyone else in the queue so we will adjourn and then we will reconvene here for our special meeting at noon thank you again we are adjourned