Video Clips

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

Clips from Mat-Su BoroughClear

Edna DeVries

“we are on Ordinance 26095, an ord— an ordinance amending MSB 3.04.077A to lower the area-wide real property tax from 9.5 mills to 7 mills.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:03

Edna DeVries

“Madam Mayor, it passed with Assemblymember Bowles and Nowers opposed.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:39

Edna DeVries

“if you're looking at this memo that I wrote, we subtract out the revenue— subtract expenditures from the revenues generated. It generated a loss of $21 million... in fiscal year '27, if we capped at 7 mils there would be a $22,032,955 expected reduction that would have to happen through expenditures to balance the budget.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:47

Edna DeVries

“We've given you a binder of facts about why the Zero Lake site is such a poor location, starting with it's located right next to properties owned, actively used, and being developed into full-time homes.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:29

Edna DeVries

“So whereas I have always supported the folks that testified, I still do, but I think you're going to be safer, um, with something that's going to corral some of these yahoos”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:36

Edna DeVries

“As you all know, my cabin sits less than a quarter mile, or about 1,000 feet, feet downrange from the proposed site.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:32

Edna DeVries

“We are here again to keep alive our strong concerns about the borough reclassifying the Zero Lake parcel to allow for a future shooting range.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:29

Edna DeVries

“In summary, please vote this ordinance down about 0 Lake Road turning into a shooting range in the future.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:25

Edna DeVries

“If this is approved, it tells every property owner in the borough that a public shooting range can be placed next to someone's home simply because government-owned land is available.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:48

Edna DeVries

“this is just— I think the way to do it is to actually make the cuts, not just set an artificial cap.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting August 18, 2026 · Aug 18, 2026

0:26

“Personally, I, personally, I support both routes, but as a business owner, the southern run is the only one that makes sense. The borough can't afford $30 million, much more than they can't afford $9 million, but if we're going to take a hit, let's take a $9 million hit instead of a $30 million hit.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:16

“We feel like it's the best overall balance of connectivity, resilience, access, future growth, and public support for this project. It offers similar transportation benefits to Northern Route 2, but at a lower cost with a few— with fewer impacts.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:36

“My wife Patricia's family owns the property along 1.5 miles of the North Route. This land is homesteaded by Patty's grandfather in 1915 and is being used and developed for agriculture and wildlife habitat uses.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:18

“On behalf of both community councils and the thousands of Burroughs and Engstrom commuters that drive through that area, we're asking you to replace Resolution 2613 with a resolution supporting the southern route.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:05

“Seeing and hearing no objections, Resolution 26-18 has been adopted.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:11

“The main motion has failed with Commissioners McCabe, Glenn, Scoggin, Fonoff, Carpenter, and Allen opposed.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:37

“The south route costs $13 million less than north route, provides greater benefits to the Engstrom traffic issues, can be constructed sooner, does not take land from unwilling property owners.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:30

“I have expressed, uh, my willingness to— not only, uh, the Kircher family and myself have both worked with the state and the borough in the past to sell right-of-way. As you can hear, the Lohmann-Olson family is not at all interested in selling anything, and I'd respect that 100%.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:07

“Our preferred route recommendation is Northern Route 1, as labeled on the proposed resolution to you guys.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:22

“The southern route significantly improves safety on the most dangerous section of Bogart, which is not a collector.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:17

“Borough estimates show the minor collector, as you pointed out, is only about 40% of what a northern route would be.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:36

“We and the Fish Hook Council strongly support timely construction of a southern route minor collector road between Engstrom and Trunk, and it should have been built years ago.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

0:14

“It's, it's nearly double that of the southern route at a little bit over 1,300 vehicles per day versus around 740 for the southern alignment. So there is a higher projected traffic volume use on the northern route.”

Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting - August 3rd, 2026 · Aug 3, 2026

1:15

Stephanie Nowers

“if you don't do anything, if you don't adjust the mill rate, uh, somebody in Sutton, the far-flung areas that are playing paying 16— Sutton, up the, up the Susitna area, who are paying 16 mills, they're going to see like an over $1,000 break on their taxes. But if you adjust the mill rate for the FSA and RSA to bring the revenues— what the manager is talking about— if you adjust the mill rates for the, the FSA and the RSA, they're still going to get the break on their area-wide taxes.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:41

Maxwell Sumner

“without the sales tax All that it is is a tax transfer. If you're still spending the same amount of money, you know, because, I mean, we set our— as a body, we are setting our mill rate to cover our revenue requirement. If you're spending the same amount of money, then doing a residential property tax exemption just transfers the tax burden from property owners, these property owners to other property owners. And that would be adversarial to rentals, be adversarial to commercial buildings.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:30

Stephanie Nowers

“if there's a $75,000 exemption on your property, you're getting about a $700 a year break. So that's what you'll be voting on.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:23

Bill Gamble

“Can you tell me how this $75,000 reduction in residential property tax is going to affect the fire service areas, the road service areas, and any other non-area-wide?”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:48

Maxwell Sumner

“with the 1% sales tax being passed, we would have additional revenue coming in. So you wouldn't have to offset the revenue loss to the area-wide, for example, for example, by increasing the mill rate to spread the tax burden. So this would, you know, basically you'd be transferring— it'd be a property tax reduction for owner-occupied houses, and it would be a small sales tax.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:22

Mike Brown

“this does not solve a problem of high property taxes at all. Um, what this does is bring in another tax on top of the taxes we already have. So this does not solve a problem, this creates a new problem, a new tax that, um, I know is going to cause us to pay more money.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:36

Mike Brown

“We just We as a body just moved something to the ballot that will increase our taxes if the voters vote for this. This is how it started in Anchorage, and I vowed— I vowed when I ran for this position that I would do everything possible to be a brick wall against the things that are happening in Anchorage bleeding out here, and we just allowed something to happen here that's happening in Anchorage. So I'm kind of disgusted by this, honestly.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:35

Stephanie Nowers

“this is the only proposal that we've had before us that ensures the benefit of reduced property taxes only accrues to people who live here. Every other proposal we've talked about would benefit large outside corporations who do business here and will not pass the savings on to us. This is the only one that ensures the full benefit of a $75,000 property tax exemption would go to only people that live here.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:33

Dmitri Fonov

“we want it to be fair across the board. There's a lot of Matsuburo piece for schools that are within the, um, city limits a lot of people go who are outside of the city limits to shop in the city. So to make it fair, why is— most of the Three Bears, I think, are outside of the city limits. So therefore, why would we punish them?”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026

0:17

Dee McKee

“I know that the voters have made it very clear that they don't want us taking more of their money. I'm not sure we accomplished that tonight. Maybe with the outside revenue coming in in taxes, that might help a little bit. It's an experiment.”

Mat-Su Borough: Assembly Meeting - July 21. 2026 · Jul 21, 2026