Video Clips
Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.
Cindy Ruiz
“my concern basically is just that we should continue, uh, funding these operational grants. More families are going to make difficult choices if we don't have these funds, including leaving children at home who are, you know, too young to be home really, and just relying on less stable and maybe potentially unsafe or unqualified child care centers.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Trevor Storrs
“$480,000 is basically 20% of what was available. So we're actually decreasing things by 80% in that category.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Vicki Longleather
“operational grants are the most flexible funding source available to all providers, allowing us to respond to the greatest challenges that we're facing, whether that's staffing, utilities, rent, or keeping parent fees affordable. They have the broadest impact and gives us the most flexibility. Now, capital funds are valuable, but they don't— they're not the ones that keeps the light on or retains staff or makes things more affordable for people. And as a provider, we might close due to the lack of operational dollars.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Trevor Storrs
“operational grants, were at $2.4 million, and then pilot this year was just, was at one, how many, $1.1 million. Christina? 1.25.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Trevor Storrs
“the operational was $2.4 million. Okay. So this is, uh, $765,000 divided by— it is, uh, basically a decrease of just shy of 70% of what people got.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Trevor Storrs
“I'm feeling more comfortable with 75 ASD, just has a well-set-up system. High quality, very functional, and 50% really drops the impact. And it's in Title I schools, the highest rate.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Trevor Storrs
“we will be drafting a letter, and today we're going to go through 2 scenarios. One is ASD and best beginnings remains within our budget and what that looks like and how does that play into the overall look.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Kevin Berry
“if we've got increased uncertainty in the future, if we can buy capital things, which I think of as one-time purchases, right, that make things better, that's maybe more effective if we can't actually do the operational grants in a consistent and reliable way.”Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-07-15 Meeting Recording · Jul 21, 2026
Erin Baldwin Day
“our recommendations are really led by a desire to set very realistic expectations with the community as far as what is possible and not possible as far as service delivery goes in this particular budget environment. And also the revenue or the delta that would be required to sort of sustain historical levels of service delivery.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Erin Baldwin Day
“this is also an attempt to understand perhaps with a bit more granularity, you know, how our labor and non-labor budgets relate to each other.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“let's take the fire department because you mentioned them, and we've talked about the fire department overtime here regularly. We've done presentations on it. So in the relationship where we are working on a continuation number, and that number is based on a specific wage amount, you know, if we're averaging a firefighter hour, let's say it's $50 an hour fully loaded cost. With benefits, etc., and you multiply that by the required number of hours that AFD works OT, which is 3, 4 hours every single shift because they work 56-hour weeks, and the FLSA rules mean that the last 4 hours are mandatory overtime. We do not have overtime in that time frame between 40 and 53, but the 53 through 56 is mandatory OT.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Erin Baldwin Day
“We've also asked for a pretty robust review of our position with respect to deferred maintenance. And so we're asking for that in terms of roads, our fleet, stormwater, which we heard an update on at one of the more recent IEUC meetings, which was pretty sobering. Also major maintenance and other needs on our facilities and public buildings.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Anna Brawley
“In the past, our resolutions have really focused on what we would like to see happen. This one does take a little bit different tactic. It does certainly have some of that, and we would welcome other comments on that, but really asking for information, and this is not simply chasing or trying to make the administration do a bunch of extra work, right, but these are really trying to outline and characterize what we all need to have before us to make some of these big decisions, or at least understand kind of what is coming.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“the departments who have overtime and operate on overtime time like APD and AFD have the right amount allocated for their overtime because the overtime amounts— we don't have total numbers on it yet, but they haven't been changed in I think at least 4 years, which means that the labor rates that they're calculated on are out of date. So that's part of the overtime adjustment that you'll see as part of the budget process as well.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“This is, you know, the first year that we have had the rolling confirmation that the overtime allocations are not right. And so going in there and making them correct based on, one, the actual labor cost that these departments are experiencing, but two, The, um, the, the sort of more, uh, useful is to understand what those hours are that they use on a recurring basis for overtime.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Anna Brawley
“you described, you know, the overtime budget has not been updated.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“The bill changed it so that there is a 4% controlled— this is all my understanding— for a controlled 4% sliver. So I believe what our projected deficit of $12 million— the new paradigm is $6 million as opposed to $12 million. And now we know that there is a control allocation to budget to or to look at to know that's the amount that they could offload to the municipality to a year-over-year basis, so we can plan for it. Previously, there was not necessarily the option to plan for it.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Anna Brawley
“in terms of our budget process, so members got, and it's on the calendar now, multiple work sessions on our budget. Those are our typical work sessions that happen in starting in October, moving into November. And so we are really early in our part of the budget cycle.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Sydney Scout
“I'm curious, just for comparison's sake, as we think about— we have two scenarios presented that are within the text. Tax cap, and I don't mean to propose that we would take any major action on the tax cap this budget cycle, but I wonder if we could also take a look at what our budget would look like without that in place.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“one of the things that happened this last legislative cycle was, I think it's HB 28, that controls the amount of room that is allowed to accrue year over year between how much state funding we get and how much city funding is required. And that number has never been constrained. It's never been an issue before. But because we're seeing these wild swings in assessments, which changes the BSA— or not the BSA formula, it changes the contribution formula for the municipality.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“the fire department's everyday operations function with a very high number of OT hours. And that number that is currently in the budget, to my understanding and the calculations that I have seen, is the number of OT hours that they work regular shifts plus a little tiny cushion. But because the wages have changed over a number of years and the allocation of those overtime hours, either through secondary callouts where we're assisting the state or the feds for other problems that they may have, and we send firefighters that way and we backfill with OT.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“that's exactly what the reason or the outcome of a continuation budget is. If, you know, we're working from a base budget of about 2010, and if the 2010 overtime number was never adjusted, then that would be the number we are working with every single year.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Anna Brawley
“we keep uncovering billion-dollar deferred maintenance liabilities, so I think at some point we are attempting to put a number, even if that number is rough, on what our problems are and trying to characterize those.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“when it comes to how long do we wait to watch the actuals be different, the answer is depending on the category, anywhere between 3 and 5 years. And so, because we roll averages, if there is a 1-year spike in a spend, we're not gonna change the budget. We're going to recognize how and why that spike happens, try to control to it. If we know that it is an ongoing change, then we would have to address that budgetary change.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Anna Brawley
“the intent is to bring this to our July 21st meeting. And of course, what we have before us is still a draft. And so part of the discussion today is to help inform that draft.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“the wages have changed dramatically, and so that that blended average, that $50, we think is now— these are numbers we're working on— we think are now closer to $60 an hour, which means that this OT amount would have to be recalibrated even for their regular accepted approved overtime that's in their operating budget. So those are the kinds of calibrations that we have to make.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“The police department is a slightly different situation because the reason their overtime is so hot is because of their vacancies. So the amount of overtime that the, that the police department runs is particularly hot because they are missing 70 police officers. And so they're running shifts and people in voluntary overtime as much as needs to happen. And then that means that the labor amounts that are spent on the natural operating labor side are being spent in the overtime category.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Anna Brawley
“typically every year the Assembly passes a policy priorities resolution at some point in the budget process. We're trying to do it earlier than we did last year, and really, you know, not, not to necessarily to the level of put, you know, $300,000 in this particular line, but really broadly giving direction to the administration as they are actively in the budget process themselves with departments, you know, of what we would like to see, either asking for more information and/or, you know, putting forward some broad priorities or requests.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Erin Baldwin Day
“the tax cap is not the only structural limitation or constraint that we have or the only place where we can consider how to better fund services and infrastructure in Anchorage. And I mean, I think there are other things that are in motion that do provide different structural options in terms of how we pay for things. And I think we need to have a— we as a body need to have more conversations about what those tradeoffs look like.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“that's what we're doing as part of this budget cycle, partially because the Assembly has requested that analysis, but also because we ourselves, you know, I'm now in the 3-year range where we have stabilized the budget enough to know and compare across pre-pandemic operations and post-pandemic operations what those OT numbers have been and whether or not the, um, the spikes in the OT are attributable to cost increases or they're attributable to operational changes that we have to adjust for.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Erin Baldwin Day
“if in fact we have some unused FTEs that are being used to fund non-labor items, then let's understand what that's actually looking like and what the departmental needs are, what the true departmental needs are, so that we can respond to those appropriately.”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Ona Brouse
“we had a whole day of training workshops with directors and for directors on Monday about budget and how do we interact with the budget, what is our budget process”Anchorage Assembly: Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting · Jul 16, 2026
Jeff Raun
“I go back to what problems the proposal is trying to solve. Clearly, the will of the Commission with respect to discouraging car-centered uses was already spoken to. This element of encouraging more housing and more flexibility, I stand firm on and believe that a conversion from permitted use to conditional use, again, does not take the use off the table. If the development makes sense, there's a pathway for it to move forward.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Radhika Krishna
“maybe it's just been the self-storage facilities and storage yards I've encountered in Anchorage, but I don't see them as being primarily street frontage and, um, uses that are oriented towards the street and offer pedestrians direct access, or, um, I, I see them as being potentially more appropriate for more industrial types of land.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Jeff Raun
“this is a companion ordinance intended to incentivize, um, development in the B-3 district in a way that is more flexible to help achieve Anchorage's housing goals.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Andres Spinelli
“I think they prevent development. They prevent people from purchasing the land to get to the point where they would apply for the conditional use. They stop projects in their tracks before they're started, even though there is a way forward. Often landowners don't want to wait 6 months while a proposed developer figures out if conditional use can be approved.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Radhika Krishna
“I would like to go ahead and propose an amendment to omit the parking lot or structure conditional use requirement.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Jeff Raun
“I acknowledge the intent of this as an improvement to hold space for housing in the B-3 district, noting that an overwhelming body of evidence has shown B-3 district as um, apparently ideal for residential development in our community. And the competing uses and potential for uses at play here, I think, are balanced by not disallowing something that has existed but changing the way in which it could be allowed in the future.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Edith McKee
“I'm a little concerned that delaying somebody's development process by 6 months in Alaska, where we have limited construction season, could be a little bit inconvenient, but there is a path forward, so I do also intend to support the motion.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Radhika Krishna
“This has been my biggest concern with this is just the scale of the uncertainty and that we might be— that this might result in for retail businesses who I think firmly fit in with the intent of B-3.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Andres Spinelli
“I do not intend to support the motion as written. I'm happy with all the work in the purpose statement. I like it. I don't like conditional use situations.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Edith McKee
“if it were a conditional use permit, and let's say a developer had multiple parcels and they were building buildings, and one of their parcels they're using for parking, how much time would going through a conditional use permitting process add to them being able to develop multiple parcels?”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 13, 2026 - 2026-07-13 18:30:00 · Jul 14, 2026
Scott Pulice
“I intend to support the motion. And as a finding of fact, you know, we heard no public opposition, and the replat will resolve DOT's comments on the rezone.”Anchorage Assembly: Planning and Zoning Commission - July 6, 2026 - 2026-07-06 18:30:00 · Jul 6, 2026
Anna Brawley
“I know obviously you've been in a different role, the Chief Administrative Officer. There was a reorganization to create or recreate that position. And so maybe speaking a little bit to the distinction between those two roles, if at all, and more generally, you know, how you— if that position position is not going to be filled, then kind of what— how is that workload going to be absorbed?”Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re Confirmation Hearing of William Falsey, Municipal Manager · Jul 1, 2026
William Falsey
“our proposal is that we are likely to reorganize the municipality in a slightly different way now, where we would return to a form that has been present in the past, where I would continue to have HR, IT, and purchasing, and then blend that into the municipal manager's role while offloading finance, which would report directly to the mayor, and then merging most of the Tudor Elmore functions into the community economic director function so that the workload remains balanced.”Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re Confirmation Hearing of William Falsey, Municipal Manager · Jul 1, 2026
Jared Goecker
“does that signal a shift? I mean, obviously with departments reporting directly to the mayor, you know, you like to have— and maybe you don't matter, Mayor, I don't know— but in administrations I've seen and worked in and been a part of, there's usually a buffer between departments and the mayor. So does this indicate a shift in priorities in what you're doing internally within the administration, or is this just a workflow thing that works a little bit better?”Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re Confirmation Hearing of William Falsey, Municipal Manager · Jul 1, 2026
William Falsey
“In some ways, this is a return to a model that is most familiar to me. In the previous go-round, I think it was exactly the same setup, with the only difference being that the particular— and the particular departments that reported to the municipal manager and the then community economic director were a little bit different underneath.”Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re Confirmation Hearing of William Falsey, Municipal Manager · Jul 1, 2026
William Falsey
“in order to literally change the way the budget works in the system, we'd have to adopt a whole new budget. And OMB has sort of thrown itself in front of the train and said, please don't make us do an extra budget in 2026, which is entirely reasonable.”Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re Confirmation Hearing of William Falsey, Municipal Manager · Jul 1, 2026