Video Clips
Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.
Speaker A
“when we give any kind of preference, a local preference, a veterans preference, other communities have disadvantaged business entity preferences, disabled preferences, you are willing to pay more in the ITB context to advance that policy goal. In the RFP context, you're willing to go with not your preferred best option, but to the second or third place option, depending on who gets the preference, again, to advance that policy goal.”Worksession re AO 2026-40(S-1), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 7.10.010... · May 27, 2026
Speaker A
“Invitation to bid context, when you're evaluating bids, you would give a 5% bid preference not to exceed $50,000. Likewise, in the request for proposal context, you would then give a 5% preference on the available evaluation points when that's plausible.”Worksession re AO 2026-40(S-1), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 7.10.010... · May 27, 2026
Speaker B
“the S2 would reduce the preference by 60% for veterans.”Worksession re AO 2026-40(S-1), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 7.10.010... · May 27, 2026
Speaker A
“At present, we take the best financial expert to send to the RCA for AWU and the bond counsel that we think will serve us the best, whether they're local or in Seattle. And we could change that, but I do think that is a, a big bite to take.”Worksession re AO 2026-40(S-1), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 7.10.010... · May 27, 2026
Speaker A
“the way the current drafts before the S2 version are written, the veterans preference is tied solely to veteran status and not connected to Alaska at all. So if in the earlier scenario South Central Foundation, or whatever that company was, South Central Construction, was owned by someone who had served in Virginia Beach and had never been to Alaska before, they would get a preference.”Worksession re AO 2026-40(S-1), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 7.10.010... · May 27, 2026
Speaker A
“What we have on the books now is only one kind of preference. We have only a local preference for invitations to bid only. And right now, it is based on a sliding scale. We give a 5% bid preference capped at $5,000 on purchases up to $166,000. We go to 3% if you're not to exceed $10,000 on purchases in the next rung, and then finally it caps out at a 2% preference not to exceed $20,000 on purchases over half a million.”Worksession re AO 2026-40(S-1), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 7.10.010... · May 27, 2026
Speaker B
“the withdrawal from Afghanistan occurred in August of 2021 and the last combat troops left Iraq in December of 2021. And as I don't know if we have any history buffs in the room, but, uh, prior to that, uh, those, those dates, if you next slide, there is a significant amount of fighting that happened in those countries. Uh, and so the 5-year, the 5-year thing could exclude combat veterans.”Worksession re AO 2026-40(S-1), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 7.10.010... · May 27, 2026
Bert Stedman
“we'll have to wait until there's gas, first sale of gas, to know the price, or when do you— when does the department think they may know the price of this? Gas.”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Bert Stedman
“we concluded after that meeting that the Department of Revenue and Natural Resources on the state level needs to put together an integrated financial model. And we had— we being LB&A had dialogue with administration and consultation with how the model works.”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Dan Stickel
“the core purpose of the legislation is to create a policy framework for replacing certain state and municipal property taxes with an alternative volumetric tax.”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Dan Stickel
“our official spring revenue forecast conservatively does not include any revenue from the AK LNG project or related development. And so what we do here is we show If the project were to proceed without tax modifications under our baseline set of assumptions around the project, which include a $46.2 billion real 2026 capital cost”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Bert Stedman
“The gas price of $1.50, I don't know what the gas price is, but we have a net tax system. I don't think that's gonna change.”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Bert Stedman
“The construction cost, Mr. Chairman, is highly— well, I think— Speculative. Speculative is a polite way of putting it.”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Bert Stedman
“the model that's the question or the operators of it. It's the inputs. Inputs and the lack of inputs where the discussion is, needs to be put on the table.”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Jesse Kiehl
“Capacity is a good read on the question. Wasn't my intended question, so I'll clarify. Assuming the Department of Revenue and/or DNR's fiscal analyst, commercial analyst folks have the brainpower you need, legally and practically, will you have access to all of that information?”SFIN-260529-0900 · May 29, 2026
Amy Williams
“That does not put money into R&R, but in order to do the projects that we have scheduled, we have enough money in that fund to cover that.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Amy Williams
“there are every variety of, um, alternate scenario that you can imagine by putting in any number that you can think of into facilities maintenance that will change the mill rate.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Scott Smiley
“We need that cash to lower the mill rate a little bit and to make sure we're doing MAPTR the right way.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Amy Williams
“The numbers that are in front of you once again do include adding the, um, staff, um, cost of living raise that would take place on July 1st.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Amy Williams
“For a mill rate, our current mill rate in the borough is 8.91. As the budget stands right now, without using any facilities fund interest, we are about at a 9.36.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Amy Williams
“your total that was Approved last week was $13,779,556”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Amy Williams
“by adding those now, that's in the MAPTR limit, and it helps us fully fund MAPTR and takes it out of the need to do a budget amendment.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Bo Whiteside
“if we were to keep the mill rate static, that doesn't mean people's Property taxes do not go up. Assessments go up. That means you are paying more.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Scott Smiley
“I think the more important issue here is the amount that we're directed towards MAPTR for next year. We really hamstring ourselves at $16.665, whereas at $17.290, we're doing a lot better for next year.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Amy Williams
“When we put money into facility or into R&R, it causes us to collect, it doesn't affect the mill rate in a positive way. It makes it go up.”Assembly Special Meeting of May 28, 2026 · May 29, 2026
Joe
“Susan, don't get too patient. You know, that's how things lag, and that's not what Alaska needs right now. So keep, keep pushing hard.”05.21.26 RDC Breakfast Forum: Huna Totem Corporation · May 21, 2026
Speaker A
“Oak Landing, a development in downtown Juneau. I've been impatient, and as I stand here next to my friend Joe and think about the 15 years that it took to get your development timeline, I maybe need to take a breath and be a little more patient. But this Cruise ship dock and waterfront development in downtown Juneau will be the 5th dock in a community that has a 5-ship limit, but only 4 local docks in the downtown area.”05.21.26 RDC Breakfast Forum: Huna Totem Corporation · May 21, 2026
Speaker A
“we're increasing downtown parking, we're increasing the public event space. Maritime Festival just happened. Brew Fest is something— is a popular annual event that would like to use this site.”05.21.26 RDC Breakfast Forum: Huna Totem Corporation · May 21, 2026
Speaker A
“We've been working very carefully with them to be sure that their anticipated pier that will accommodate the icebreaker Storis and any future vessels are compatible with our plans and positioning of the dock.”05.21.26 RDC Breakfast Forum: Huna Totem Corporation · May 21, 2026
Speaker A
“unlike other docks in Juneau and more similar to our development in Hoonah, there'll be some waterfront dining, waterfront retail, extension of the sea— very popular with residents and visitors— seawalk around the perimeter of the site.”05.21.26 RDC Breakfast Forum: Huna Totem Corporation · May 21, 2026
Speaker A
“In April, we signed the tideland lease with the City and Borough of Juneau. The conditional use permits were actually issued in 2023. So this has been— we've had, we've, we've had to exercise patience, but as we sign that lease, reconfirm our preferential use commitments with cruise lines, and shore up our financing, we are really excited about digging dirt, driving pilings, and getting this project to completion.”05.21.26 RDC Breakfast Forum: Huna Totem Corporation · May 21, 2026
Matt Kissinger
“this is a contractual option, but it's not an obligation. This is very different than the model under the producers back when the state was a 25% payer. The state would have been subject to cash calls going forward, would have been subject to default provisions should they not pay into those cash calls. We don't have any of that structured into this.”House Finance, 5/28/26, 1:30pm · May 28, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“The spur line also has a defined timeline in this language, which is very important. So we're not waiting a decade further, but we wanted to make sure that we, uh, or rather, we agreed with Glenn Farn that we don't want to necessarily constrain construction— define that we— the spur line must be built in order to get the tax by the time the main line— the tax break by the time the main line is turned on. So with that, we're working on permitting language.”House Finance, 5/28/26, 1:30pm · May 28, 2026