Video Clips

Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.

Herper Kushner

“This is a district-wide concern. I'm hearing similar concerns from gen ed and resource classrooms. Different schools, different student needs, and the same struggle. Educators are stretched thin and struggling to sustain the work.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Paul McDonogh “So some of the changes at the federal level have really impacted student eligibility. As there were some changes to the SNAP programs, to TANF, to Medicaid program. All of those do provide some automatic eligibility for National School Lunch Program and being able to access free or reduced reimbursable meals.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Paul McDonogh “This memorandum, it, it has a very large price tag, so I think for the benefit of the record, could I ask the superintendent to describe the— we, we did receive a presentation earlier today on the student nutrition But the basis of the revenue needs for the Alaska Middle College and whether that was for this school year or a previous school year”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “we don't know what those trade-offs may or may not be because we don't know yet what that total dollar amount will be, um, when we're looking at the FY28 budget. But essentially, if we are to try to feed the kids that need to be fed, we will have to take from elsewhere.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Kelly Lessens “I move to approve ASD Memorandum 059 to approve a $11,832,499 transfer to cover lower than anticipated student nutrition revenue, additional contracted services costs for Alaska Middle College, and to transfer FEMA funds to capital projects for FY 2025-26.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Herper Kushner

“I don't blame either of them for leaving, but we should be asking why dedicated people are reaching a point where leaving feels like the best option. And this is not happening just at my school. This is— not just an intensive behavior classroom problem.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “Since you referenced that you didn't know what the bill is going to be until after you got the final bill, are you planning on moving to a different budgeting methodology for Alaska Middle College funds? Kind of feels like there are some parallels to the student nutrition issue that we just discussed. Is there any sort of conversation about moving to a projection-based budgeting model versus looking at the actuals to figure that out?”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Carl Jacobs “ASD memorandum number 059 is approved by a vote of 7 to 0.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Herper Kushner

“I love this profession. I believe in our students, but at some point we have to stop asking educators to prove how much they can endure and start asking why enduring these conditions we've created has become a requirement of the job. Our students deserve educators who can stay, and our educators deserve a district that gives them a reason to.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Carl Jacobs “Thank you for your testimony. That concludes public comment this evening.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “there was a very, very steady uptick and growth over time of the meal production, but the revenue tells a different story.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “the student nutrition revenue shortfall really was the cause of the deficit in that fund. The expenditures were about on par with what was projected, but the revenue fell far short.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “On tonight's board agenda, you have an action item. It's, uh, Memorandum, uh, 59, and that includes a transfer request to close out FY26 for, uh, student nutrition fund and some other transfers.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “one of the things that we are in the process of doing for FY28 is to shift from that revenue actuals model where you look back at what's happened to plan for the future to a predictive forecasting model so that you're using more up-to-date data and then forecasting that out.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “we immediately identified the need to hire a student nutrition accountant and to have a dedicated person who is working on our side of the house in finance and accounting to be able to facilitate a lot of the work that needs to be done. And then, as I had mentioned, we reached out to some third-party reviewers to be able to validate a lot of the findings that we saw.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “wanting to make sure that we're really having an appropriate conversation about the true cost of what's needed so we aren't potentially in a situation like this in the future would be great”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “we're asking for a transfer for FY27 that covers the deficit that was experienced in that fund at the end of the year.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “The system that Student Nutrition uses, it's actually a state system to submit their claims for reimbursement and track what is paid by the state does not speak with our accounting system. So all of that work has to be done manually in adjustments that are entered into our accounting system.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “So our next steps, again, budget transfer in the short term. We are going to be taking a closer look at revisiting the CEP groupings. So that was one of the areas where we identified a challenge and a loss of revenue.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “Thank you for this presentation. It is super disheartening and depressing, um, that we're talking about a lack of funding to feed kids”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Margo Bellamy “Barring a significant change at the federal government, student nutrition deficits are going to be like the transportation deficit. It's just going to be a real thing every year.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “I think we just have to be open and honest that there are things you can do that save expenses, but there are real costs to doing that.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Katie Parrott “we did engage with BDO, who knows us very well, as you know, to provide recommendations for implementation of some changes and adjustments adjustments that we're working on implementing.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Jim Anderson “If you cut breakfast, you can reduce FTE, or you can cut benefits from staff. But as soon as you cut benefits, they're going to quit, and now you're going to have, you know, 15 or 20 schools without a cafeteria manager again.”

Anchorage School Board: 11/2/2026: School Board Work Session · Nov 2, 2026

Chief Heineken (Fire Chief, City of North Pole)

“I believe when we ran the numbers, there was, um, out of the cash payers— that's truly the citizens paying for it— there was 8 of those documented for that year in which we received zero payment from, from any of those 8. So it would have very, very little effect on, on the revenue side is what I believe.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Santa Claus “I was able to read the new version of the ordinance where it creates a utility on-call leave bank, and we accrue 1 hour per leave for each calendar day on call, which I completely support this idea. It seems like a fair compensation for us for being restricted and staying available to respond to utility emergencies.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “Can I ask, um, Chief, how would that discount work. So if, if I was to take an ambulance ride, how would I receive that discount as an insured person?”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “Leaving it at the full 1 hour Um, would cost the city around $24,000, and something is better than nothing.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Santa Claus “I think it's excellent that we can offer, uh, this discount to our residents here.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “I would like to move to amend line 44 to state an accrual balance of 91 hours.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “7-0. Thank you, sir. That moves us on to 12B”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “this would still provide each employee 45 and a half hours of leave time addition, in addition to the 261 or 263 hours of leave time that they get in the year.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Santa Claus “this particular ordinance is asking for a discount for North Pole City residents, and it does not change essentially the fees that are currently being charged North Pole City residents while the rest of the borough fees have gone up. So we're basically not going along with the rest of the borough's increase”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Jordan Schuster

“if other departments or other area— other organizations that they could go work for are doing it, it's something that we should offer as a benefit. Not only that, just, you know, overall quality of life and, and home-work-life balance, I think, is becoming more and more critical today than it was when maybe they signed on 15 years ago.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “If your ambulance service picks a resident of the city up at Down Badger Road and hauls them in, that's not covered then with the 25% discount that we have. I read the code here on line A that it says the city hereby finds that North Pole city residents who use the city ambulance and EMS services. It doesn't say anything about where they pick you up at.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “I would like to make a motion, um, in the proposed substitute to change 1 hour to 1/2 hour.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Rolfe (Council Member, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem, Borough Representative, City of North Pole)

“I had to provide information that showed that my residence was the address I got picked up from or was within city limits, uh, and I think I just took my driver's license down because it's got my home address on it, uh, to show that I did in fact live there, uh, and so the discount didn't apply until I proved it.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Chief Heineken (Fire Chief, City of North Pole)

“the 25%, um, it, it does is what Santa was trying to describe there, um, the in-the-city residents wouldn't see an increase if they did have an ambulance occurrence.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “that would be the end of line 26. City hereby finds the North Pole City residents who use city ambulance EMS services within city limits and are economically justified in receiving up to a 25% discount, correct?”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “7-0. Thank you. Any further discussion on this?”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Chief Heineken (Fire Chief, City of North Pole)

“So it's one of those legal terminologies that it is indeed a City of North Pole provided ambulance. It is not within our, our jurisdiction, it's within the borough's jurisdiction.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “Motion fails 2-5.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Larry Terch “that is a year's worth of on-call leave time. 80 Hours doesn't make a lot of sense to me before they have to clear that out, and 91 hours is what they will earn if this proposal passes for the entire year, which makes more sense to me than an 80-hour random number put in there.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

Chief Heineken (Fire Chief, City of North Pole)

“outside of the city, um, this entity isn't the billing agency. Um, it is the Fairbanks North Star Borough that would have to grant that 10%, 25%. Um, and that would be something probably difficult to get them to do. Um, so So that probably would be great clarification at this point to add that language in there that it had to be within city limits that the citizen was picked up.”

North Pole: Regular City Council Meeting November 2, 2026 · Nov 2, 2026

John Diumenti

“the way that the city would equitably— the right way to do it would be to have a— would be to advertise it for proposals and open it up for proposals, probably for 3 months or, or however many. Give somebody some time to put together a proposal and evaluate the proposals. We could have some guidelines in that proposal, how we're going to— we need to tell people how we're going to evaluate it.”

Palmer: Oct. 22, 2026, Airport Advisory · Nov 2, 2026

John Diumenti

“Is the golf course closed? The golf course is closed for the season.”

Palmer: Oct. 22, 2026, Airport Advisory · Nov 2, 2026

John Diumenti

“it's, I think, step one right now is getting, getting the permission from the FAA to do this and getting a timeline put together of when we want to do it. Because, you know, the other part of it is, is there are folks that are occupying that piece of land that we need to give adequate notice to.”

Palmer: Oct. 22, 2026, Airport Advisory · Nov 2, 2026

John Diumenti

“They were paying $15,000, $100 an acre. So this new proposal is again, $114,000 is 1.8 cents per square foot.”

Palmer: Oct. 22, 2026, Airport Advisory · Nov 2, 2026

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