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Video Clips

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

Clips from Municipality of AnchorageClear
0:10

Craig Sanders

“happy to report we have draft chapters of the inventory and forecast available.”

Anchorage Assembly: Energy, Enterprise, & Utilities Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Committee ·

0:18

Craig Sanders

“part of Merrill Field sits on a landfill. And so we are looking at how that impacts future development.”

Anchorage Assembly: Energy, Enterprise, & Utilities Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Committee ·

0:08
Earl Malpass“We're here today to discuss the 20-year Airport Master Plan that's required by the FAA.”

Anchorage Assembly: Energy, Enterprise, & Utilities Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Committee ·

0:50

Craig Sanders

“it helps support air taxi, commuter air service, air ambulance with a connection to Alaska Regional Hospital”

Anchorage Assembly: Energy, Enterprise, & Utilities Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Committee ·

0:27
Ona Brause“I think that's— I mean, that's the service area model, if you will. If there's a service you would like, then you sort of have to pay into the kitty for the service you want. I don't know the legal structure of how that would have to work out because police service area versus the actual downtown district you might be talking about. I don't know if that's within the DID or any— I don't know how we work that out, but that's an option.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:44
Ona Brause“the downtown foot patrol was enabled because of the additional funding from the TIPS appropriation, and it was specifically applied on an overtime basis because we don't have enough sworn officers to do regular, regular time foot patrol. So that's one of the layers of the challenge of how we are sort of patching these needs. There was one-time funding available from TIP specifically to do an enhanced downtown foot patrol, but that additional appropriation doesn't exist in 2027. So we either need to find some other revenue source to fund the OT cost associated with that operation.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:35

Brian Boss

“We also had frozen water main last year. We haven't experienced frozen water main in my time at the utility, so that was very unique. So it changed the complexity of the dig and we pushed off a lot of work to the summer.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:18

Brian Boss

“The most complicated one was the one in South Anchorage, and that was also the first one we dealt with. It took us over a week to resolve, from March 31st to April 9th.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:17

Brian Boss

“The very last one we had to defrost took us the longest. And again, it was backlogged because of the other two delays. It took us over 3 weeks to resolve. It was a commercial customer. This was the John Deere dealership, Craig Taylor Equipment.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:24
David Persinger“One of the things that exacerbated the problem here within the municipality was that the Matanuska-Susitna Borough was in the same predicament with frozen septic and wells. So, there was— resources were spread throughout all of Southcentral, not just Anchorage.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:25

Brian Boss

“In my 20 years here at the utility, we've experienced frozen hydrant legs, but as far as frozen water main that serves multiple customers, I've heard of it, but I've never seen it myself. We had 3 last winter. What was odd is they all occurred within a couple of days of each other, right around the end of March.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:05

Brian Boss

“So, I mean, it's well over 3 times what we normally get. As far as frozen services.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:33

Brian Boss

“I went to a job site and I was talking to some of the people and they were so cold they couldn't talk straight. So, it was really just keeping people and equipment warm was a huge, huge deal. We broke an excavator claw because we were trying to dig through hard ground and, you know, those things are solid steel and it broke.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:38

Brian Boss

“if we tried to thaw every service right now, we couldn't respond to breaks or other bigger emergencies, and it would be a problem.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:45

Brian Boss

“What was different about the winter of 2025 and 2026 is we had to do it 2 times a week instead of 1 time a week. And so what that did is committed 2 out of 3 of our crews to this icing route, which gave us less flexibility to respond to other emergencies”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:29

Brian Boss

“So this particular main was 11 feet deep, so it was very deep. The ground froze very deep in that area.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:25

Brian Boss

“So, frostbite, hypothermia, that type of thing, and equipment malfunctions were paramount to address. So, what are the lessons we learned? We need to do a lot more customer education and develop a lot more customer education materials.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:13
Erin Baldwin Day“thank you all very much for your work and please stay warm this winter.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:22
Erin Baldwin Day“you mentioned in your lessons learned consideration of potentially tariff modification for emergencies. Is that something that requires Assembly action?”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:26

Brian Boss

“When I reflect on the winter of 2025 and 2026, I think of it as a prolonged natural disaster response.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:28

Brian Boss

“I personally think O&M is understaffed and we need to staff up more to address these emergencies. That costs money, affects our budget.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:33

Brian Boss

“Normal winters, that process of thawing takes private industry hours to a day to to do. Last winter, because of the volume of freezing services we had, it was more like days to weeks, and we had people reporting with a month out of water.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:31

Brian Boss

“last winter was unusual that the frost was getting down to 11 feet deep in those areas. Normal winters, that doesn't happen. Like I said, we've never experienced in my 20 years here frozen water main in the right-of-way like I showed you. But last winter, it happened 3 times, all within a couple of days of each other”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:38

Brian Boss

“Last winter, we received calls and reports from our customers of about 250, 240 frozen services. That dwarfs the number of calls we got in the previous years of the data I just showed you in the winter. I mean, if you go back to 2019, 2020, which is one of the bigger records I found, they were a little less than 100.”

Anchorage Assembly: Infrastructure, Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting ·

0:20
Robert Doehl“Our permit management system now is the equivalent of carbon paper and multiple copies that don't talk to each other. It was an over-customized system that they continued to over-customize after they brought it online in 2005. It is unwieldy. It's clunky.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:19
Tyler Robinson“Obviously, not having to do these things is a big deal. It saves cost. It saves a ton of time. We have two developments right now that are underway because a process requirement has been suspended.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:13
Tyler Robinson“So right now it's paused. It could come back in 2028.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:14
Shaun Debenham“this is Raspberry Townhomes. It's a development we're doing in South Anchorage. It's It's a $20 million project, 58 townhomes.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:54
Robert Doehl“That cost them hundreds of— actually, thousands of dollars and a 3-month delay in construction. That's why we are going forward to address where— to give the Director the authority to just deal with these de minimis variances rather than tie up the cost, the delay, the risk of missing a building season”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:21
Shaun Debenham“in Anchorage, we have a very short little window for construction. And when it extends an extra even 3 months and it takes you past the ability to get in the ground and put a foundation in, then we've got serious issues when a permit is taking so much long. And it's easily resolvable.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:10
Shaun Debenham“Took me 9 months to go through and get a permit. 9 Months! Like, this is crazy.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:21
Shaun Debenham“We need to outsource it, right? This is not a hard thing. If we outsource a review, If we outsource our inspections, we have very talented people here in Anchorage that are more than capable of doing this and doing it well and quickly and under the time constraints that we currently have.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:43
Shaun Debenham“we need a comprehensive setback analysis of our Title 21 code that's 1,000 pages.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:34
Robert Doehl“They said— we looked at all the appendices we could adopt. So if you wanted to do something that is not normal construction, we will already have in place, if the International Code folks have looked at it, the code path you can expect. So you have predictability when you show up for your permit on how that looks.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:19
Shaun Debenham“the fire code has got to be changed. Okay, this is Raspberry Townhomes. All right, a normal driveway is 25 feet.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:30
Shaun Debenham“that represents 30% lot coverage ratio. 30%. Now, that's interesting because R-3, which is the zone that I'm in, allows 40%, right? So I missed out by 30%. I could have increased the number of units if I had actually been able to get to 40% just simply because of existing Title 21 setbacks and other types of regulations that they have.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:18
Robert Doehl“So where do we as a municipality lower the cost going forward? There's basically 4 areas we look at. First one, cut red tape.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:44
Shaun Debenham“a hotel has no design standards requirement, right? But if I want to do multifamily, I have to increase my cost by 15% in order to achieve those design standards. And so why do we have design standards for multifamily, and we really desperately need multifamily, but no design standards for hotels”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:27
Robert Doehl“what really excites me is what we're doing now, rolling out first quarter of next year, which is a new permit management system.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

0:44
Shaun Debenham“here we have 44 feet of asphalt, and that's because of the fire code on our south side. And on our north side, we have a 38-foot drive aisle All asphalt, all extremely ugly because of our fire code. Now I ask the question, why is a fire truck dictating housing policy in Anchorage, Alaska? So that fire lane access represents 7,520 square feet, which is 15 units, just because of our fire code policy.”

Alaska's Housing Shortage: The Factors That Cause It & The Levers We Control - 8/27/26 ·

1:04
Ona Brause“So we are about 58% through the year as of this report, through the end of July. And if you look on the lower right-hand side of the first page, you see that the municipality is about 51% spent. So we are underspent.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

0:37
Ona Brause“part of that has to do with the fact that the overtime amounts have not been adjusted within the last few years to accommodate increased salaries. But overall their year-over-year spend is better than it was the prior year.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

0:10
Ona Brause“Alcohol tax, 107% spent. Yay!”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

0:27
Loren Crawford“Building safety actually is running hot, and we're probably going to end up something more like the 2025 actuals in the, in the $7 million area.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

0:27
Anna Brawley“I was curious on, in particular, public transit. I see, and I'm guessing, I don't know if that's due to vacancies, just wondering, because it is higher, but I know we need folks to run the buses.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

0:05
Loren Crawford“We've realized 75.8% of our revenue for the year, which is tracking on par.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

0:16
Erin Baldwin Day“So how— so if we were going to pay attention to what has actually gone out the door, we would be looking at the expenditures column itself.”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

0:18
Erin Baldwin Day“So recognizing that, you know, with building safety, we're getting to the end of the building season, do we anticipate additional revenue in September and October from—”

Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance committee-of-the-whole ·

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