Muniversity Lunch and Learn with Senator Mark Begich, 09/03/2025

Who is the only Catholic in American history?

Is Melinda Taylor chair? It turns out I know nothing about who was chair of the assembly. I'm just going to continue to move in. I know nothing about who— Oh, you said the only one, right? Okay, so yeah.

Okay, the mic is off. You will turn us on when Mark arrives.

I think this is a category in which I will lose. I really— I know nothing. Like, if this were a Jeopardy category, like past chairs of the Anchorage Assembly, I am— I know only two. The only mother-son assembly. Oh, the Flints.

Yeah, that's a good one. But that we had a good reminder this week when they both arrived. So I got a question. You two are too young.

Oh yeah, that makes sense. I thought about that. That was why there was no—. Yeah, you know what the eastern boundary of the city was? It's better to buy— what?

Campbell? No, further.

So it's doing a screen share, so it's showing this screen on top of— oh, we're supposed to be showing this. Can you see this? Oh, okay. That's also one of the questions. Who's the longest serving assembly member?

19+ Years. I need to go this way. Yeah, I need to go this way. So it's 2 rounds or 3 rounds? Was it 2 rounds or 3 rounds that he served?

3. Like rounds, because he took time off in between, right? He was appointed in the early '90s. And he's filled 2 different seats. Oh, so that was the first technicality.

And then he didn't take a term off and come back? I'll go check it. Okay, let me know. Father-son. Father-son.

The Sullivan. Yeah, yeah, it's right here. It's over there. Okay, let me check. We're going to do What is happening on Friday?

Oh, is this at the event? There's going to be trivia? Good. It feels like there's an incentive to get it wrong.

That's something I have to do on the Friday. On the Friday. Yeah, I'll ask again, or Emily or Barrett, to see if there's something I'm supposed to say. Yeah, I know I have on there. Can I lead a dance, Mom?

I feel like I'm We'll save that though for Halloween when we do the pumpkin. Everyone on like a team. I think for our— I'm going to be calling it— statue feature that we're working on so far, we should do like a Chorus Line of Wild About Anchorage figures where people can get up there and then— That's right, that's fantastic. Hey, what year was the city established? Not the borough.

The city? The city. Um, when was it established? 1920. Oh, I think I knew that.

It's vaguely— if I was looking at the list, it was right before— there were only two borough mayors, right? Yeah. So wasn't it like in the '60s? So that's one of the questions. They want to know.

And so the borough was established in '65. So Jack died. There were only two asked for the borough. The third of the borough and the other borough captain. Yeah, I thought they were celebrating.

So that's the other question. The actual date that the municipality Oh, that we became unified? I have no idea. Why was it the 16th? The vote was on the 9th, I think.

It was one week later. I think it's one week after the vote. Bill would know that, I don't. I feel like this is going to be a, um, there's like Bill Paulsey is inevitably going to win by competition. Like there is no way that anyone else is going to win this trivia competition.

Bill's always looking for local Good deal. Exactly. There are like 4 legitimate competitors in this competition, and one of them is you. If you're the MC, then it's you, Bill, maybe Brendan Gabb. I wrote the questions.

You might have to have Bill be a judge or something. Yeah, that's an unfair advantage. Well, then he'll be the judge. Or he can be the scholar. He can be like Vanna White and hand out the prizes.

If there's a tie, I don't know. We're just going to pick people, we ask them. Oh, you're going to poll and vote randomly? It's like the Kiss camera, but so much worse. That's why we have two microphones.

Trivia gauntlet.

If they get a cookie, they get the question wrong. Yeah, we're going to tell them at the end. We don't want to tell them at the beginning. How cute are the shirts? We've got like 50 shirts.

Okay, good. I like mine. We might get the mayor out there and ask the mayor who the first to go through with the shirt. Do you have a cannon? What about a cannon?

Cannon? We need to go ask the Golden Arena folks there. Yeah, we need to shoot them over the back. We might have an injured couple at the museum. I was sitting on this side and people can't see, so I was going to move it.

Are you making fun of my two slides? She said they've never seen them Oh, but then not after that. It's just a mini sleepover. My parents were— my lives were expecting me. Yeah, but yeah, so I was told that was part of the assignment.

I did a mediocre job, but I did do it. Yeah, I think so, as long as Becky can see it. Oh, there's her. See you. See you.

Hello, sir. How are you doing? Oh, well, we've got 5 minutes if you want to grab a pizza.

Something that's on your—. Yeah, take a, take a little breather and go from every day. Why he's here is because he—. I'm all in. There we go.

I'm sorry, Mayor, I didn't get the thing typed for you. No, that's okay. I know they cannot be here. Should we—. Hey, Mark, does Becky's presentation look familiar?

It's good. I like it. It's kind of—. My picture is kind of hidden behind there.

Oh, I know. You want to— can you move those little— these buttons, these things there so that people can see the slide? Is that okay? Do you need me to unmute or anything? I'm good to go.

All right, we'll go whenever you think they're ready. It's the real presenters.

Unmuted, right? Okay, that'd be great. So we can start at any time. Okay. Okay.

All right, is that me? No, that was me. Okay, we won't say who. Hello everyone, my name is Marie Hiza, and I thank you all so much for being here for our last in a series of 4 Lunch and Learns commemorating the 50-year 50th anniversary of our unification. So hopefully you all know what that term means by now.

So great, I will turn it over now to our mayor, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, to kick it off. Thank you so much, Marie. And I want to give a special thank you to Marie and Diana here and all the others in the team who have put these Lunch and Learns together.

So, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for being here today. I would like to start by first thanking our municipal manager, Becky Wynn Pearson, for facilitating, and also to our guest, extend a warm welcome to former mayor and Senator Mark Bengich.

So it is a privilege to gather here and reflect on the achievements of the 2000s and what they continue to mean for Anchorage and for our entire community. And a really good example, I think, is the Dena'ina Center, which is so much more than just a building. It represents vision. It represents courage. And a deep commitment to investing in our community's future.

It told the world that Anchorage was ready to host, that we were ready to connect, and ready to grow. And today it remains a cornerstone of our civic and cultural life. I think it's pretty much full, I mean, every day over there, and that's something so close to City Hall we can see. And as mayor, I am reminded daily that leadership is a continuum. Each administration builds upon the work of the prior administration and those who came before.

Looking ahead, we face challenges and opportunities, lots of opportunities. And events like this remind us that when we act with vision and when we act with purpose, our efforts leave a legacy that outlasts us all. And so today, as we celebrate 50 years of community in the 2000s, let's also commit ourselves to building a future worthy of the foundation that has been laid for us. So thank you all, and thank you, um, Becky and Mark. I look forward to hearing from you, Senator Begich, and for sharing this reflection with all of you.

So with that, I will turn it over to our Municipal Manager. Thank you, Mayor, and again, thank you all for coming today to the fourth and final installation of the University Weekly Lunch and Learn Wednesdays in honor of the 50th anniversary of the unification of the Municipality of Anchorage. As the Mayor noted, for those who don't know me, I'm Becky Wimpierson. I'm the Municipal Manager. You might remember me from previous acts, including Municipal Attorney, which which I served in from 2017 to 2020.

And again, we're fortunate today to be joined by Senator Mark Begich, who served as the mayor of the Unified Municipality of Anchorage from 2003 to 2009. I think Senator Begich goes without introduction for most of us, but I will provide one nonetheless. A businessman since age 14 and a public servant with decades of experience, Mark Begich has built an impressive record of accomplishments Bagich and his business partner Sheldon Fisher most recently formed MASH LLC with the goal of revitalizing downtown Anchorage through property management consulting and development projects. In addition to owning and operating consulting, retail, real estate, and hospitality businesses in Alaska and the lower 48, Bagich has an accomplished record of public service. Before serving Alaska in the U.S.

Senate from 2009 to 2015, um, Bagich was the mayor of Anchorage for 6 years and served on the Anchorage Assembly for 10 years. In both business and public service, Mark Bagich has earned the reputation of a hardworking, pragmatic a great problem solver, was willing to work with anyone to get things done. So, to start us off before I turn it to Sandra Begich, for those of you who, like me, might feel like 2003 was actually last year and have a hard time remembering that it was 22 years ago—. I think it was last year. It feels like it was last year.

I think it definitely was. Just a quick reminder of what was setting the stage, what was happening in those years in Anchorage and in Alaska. These were years of relative prosperity for our municipality and for our state. The average annual Alaska North Slope crude prices tripled between 2003 and 2008. Our state capital fund spending was strong.

The population of Anchorage and Alaska grew almost continuously during these years, outpacing national population growth by 1 to 2 percentage points. Anchorage added almost 20,000 new residents in this period and more than 9,000 new jobs. These were also years of notable national interest in Alaskan politics. In Juneau, the FBI was in a room at the Baranoff Hotel investigating several Alaskan political leaders in concert with the Department of Justice and the IRS. Sarah Palin was our governor in these years, stepped into the role of candidate for vice president.

At the municipal level, these were years— my one slide, if I can see if I can get it to it, uh-oh.

Ah, there we go. Of big projects and big dreams. So not just the Denaina Center, but these are some unfortunately slightly poor resolution, but images from the final report of the Negahtch administration highlighting some of these big projects, including new libraries in Girdwood, in Eagle River, in Mountain View, notable road projects that have changed road circulation in the municipality, including MLK Boulevard, Raspberry, the Raspberry Connector, Elmore Road, um, Cuddy Family Midtown Park, the Ship Creek Trail. Not pictured but also notable voter support for a massive expansion of the Anchorage Museum. And then clearly last but certainly not least, the Dena'ina Center, which opened— I looked at the press coverage from 2008 in October— opened in October of 2008 on time, under budget, with a ballroom big enough to seat 5,000 and a dishwasher that cleans 15,700 plates an hour.

And with that, I will turn it to Senator Biggum to talk to us more about some of these big, big dreams and big projects. Thank you, Becky. Actually, the dishwasher, uh, was important because the facility can operate as an emergency center, and there's a question of how many people can we get in there in an emergency and move the plates and the ware quick enough to feed a lot of people in case of emergency. So we, the dishwasher, it's a funny statistic, but it is an important statistic in a lot of ways. It's an interesting building because it has multiple uses.

I think I should just stop with that introduction, just leave, between you and the mayor. You know, it was an interesting time. There was a little, Slight challenge. When I came in the office, we were facing about a $33 million deficit and a hole in the budget, and it was growing at a rapid pace. By the time we got to the end of the year, it was about $40 million.

So we had a lot to do. I can't remember the exact number of the full budget. It might have been around $300 million. So it was a, it was a big hurt. And I love hearing about the library because the first thing I had to do was fire everybody at the library.

And I remember the headline. The headline was big above the fold when there was actually newspapers above the fold on the top in like, if people remember the We Are In headline when the state became that big type style. Fires 22 librarians. He didn't tell the full story, but I remember we had to make some dramatic shifts and changes, and it was not going to be fun. And we actually call it the duct tape approach.

If you've ever made the mistake and had duct.

Paper on your arm because you're thinking you save a piece and do a few things and you forgot, you got to pull it off. It's very painful. And I remember we had to do that and everyone had to be part of it. It meant everyone from the person who delivered the mail from the mailroom to the person sitting up here in these offices. And it was not going to be comfortable.

It was going to be very uncomfortable. And we had great libraries. By the Walter Reed system because we had people who were high-priced librarians who had incredible certification stocking shelves. Because the way the system worked, when you had to lay off people, the first people on were people who didn't have a lot of seniority, which would be the lower end paid. And so they kept getting sliced, and next thing you knew, you have people making a lot of money just shelving books, which is not what they wanted to do, but they had to do.

And the system was kind of collapsing under its own weight. We had to deal with the unions. And I remember, unbeknownst to my communication director, which made us— not advice I'd give you, uh, because it would not sit well with them. But I remember it was a Friday afternoon, I was driving down Tudor Road, uh, Channel 2 Studios was there, uh, and I had to go to, uh, out of town for the weekend. And I remember calling my Channel 2 reporter, because that is one thing people will tell you, this cell, this cell number, Jim knows this, others in this room, it's the same number I've had from the day they invented cell phones, has not changed.

And sad news is every press person has it. And so, so, but I have theirs. So I called Channel 2 and I said, I'd like to meet you in the back door, which is where you came in, and I got a story for you. Now I got the mayor calling, yeah, what, what news person's not going to say Oh, please, I'll be waiting for you. So they were patiently waiting.

I came in and I made a kind of a proclamation statement, a statement that if I can't get labor concessions from the labor unions, we're just going to close the city between Christmas Day and New Year's because most people are on vacation anyway and just leave essential. I then got in my car, called my communications director and said, hey, you should watch the news tonight because there is a story. And the story ended up top of the news. By Monday, I was back in negotiations with unions, and we had to give freezes and we had to give givebacks in order to keep the city running. And it was tough, but we sat down, we negotiated, we ended up with a balanced budget at the end of the year, and it moved us to some prosperity in many ways.

As detailed here, the library is a great example. Um, the library system was collapsing And then result is, you know, Mountain View hadn't had a library in 20-plus years. Girdwood's was very marginal at best, and we were able to revamp those. Eagle River didn't really have what they needed, and now they have a beautiful library. So you had to kind of pull back to grow, and that's always hard because the people that make that happen are people in this room that are city employees, people who are out working every day.

But we made an effort I remember meeting with the librarians. I don't know if anyone was around during that, but it was at the— there we go. I was over at the Morrison Library and I had to explain to all of them, which was somewhat of a hostile environment, I will say, and I had to say, just bear with us because we're going to have a vision of where Anchorage needs to be and we're going to do it. We're gonna do it fast. And when you say that, usually you get people that say, fast, what does that really mean in city government or in any government?

And, but we came in loaded, ready to go. We had a great team of this level. We kept people from the past administration. We had new people we brought in. Some people came outta the private sector that were making a lot more money, but had a vision or believed in what we were trying to do.

Denaina was another example. You know, the year before it failed by a little over 65 or 70%, almost 70% of the voters said no to the convention center. A lot of people forget that. They all think it was just happy-go-lucky, it's going, everyone wanted it. Well, no, they voted no.

But I sat down with our team and I remember bringing Visit Anchorage over at that time as Anchorage Visitors Bureau blah, blah, blah, longer. And I said, you know, do we need it? And the answer was clearly yes, we needed that exhibit hall space because the Egan Center had reached its capacity. So we were not attracting these big exhibits. And then I remember this gentleman, Buster, Buster Upholstery, right behind Taco Bell over here, used to be right off of 5th and 6th Avenue.

He comes to me and he says, baggage. I didn't vote for you, but I have an idea. And I said, okay, you gotta get the convention center because the boat show needs it. He was in charge of the boat show. Everyone went to the boat show, it was outside in the winter.

Made no sense. He said, I need a place to drive in these boats and have a big boat show where they'd steal Northway Mall and jam them in there or whatever. And I said, Buster, I'll do that, but you gotta be a partner in this. Because who would want— why wouldn't you want a guy named Buster selling at conventions? That's just such a— you couldn't, you couldn't market better than that.

And I remember he went out to groups and just, he didn't wait for them to ask questions, he just told them what had to happen because he knew so many people in the business, or people who wanted their boat or get it upholstered or whatever. But we put together kind of an interesting group, and then we went out there and explained it to the community. Y was needed. And not just us, but it was a community effort. It was people from every walks of life, not just the visitor industry, but everyone who cared about the growth and the future of the city.

And I remember in the last 2 weeks of the campaign, we were about maybe 2 points down. Same year we had the museum on there, the expansion to the museum. A lot of people don't realize those were in the same year. And, uh, I remember sitting, and Mike Baccaro was doing some of our media, and I said, Mike, you know, what are we gonna do here? And a couple people, we talked, and, uh, and I knew Scotty Gomez, and he was at his peak.

I think it was with the Rangers, and I remember, right? And, uh, I said, uh, he's an incredible hockey player, but he grew up here at Airport Heights. A lot of people didn't realize that until, of course, you're someone who saw him rise to fame. And he says, we should have Scotty do a commercial. He's very popular based on all the points.

Okay. What are we putting ice in the Nenana Center? No, but people will like them. And if you remember the commercial, it was Scotty Gomez skating on ice and then stopping short, all this ice, snow blue in the sky. And he said, you gotta vote for whatever prop number it was.

Makes it better for us. It makes it better for us in Anchorage. He sold the dream of the future. And it passed by 52%. Most people thought today, "Oh, big success and everything else." No, it barely passed.

And today it is a huge economic engine. When the downturn in the economy occurred in '08, '09, where across the country there were those 600,000, 700,000 jobs a month, this convention, Senator Daines, only lost one convention. They continued to move. And it's now, as these guys know and many of you might know, that they have a lot of resource over there because we set it up for not only being able to survive this future, but multiple generations to come. And then we moved on.

You know, the pack roof over there used to be— matter of fact, I remember in my mayor's office, I looked over, there's trees growing on it. And I said, oh, this must be an urban landscape. I actually thought, you know, because I had a group down here right next to this wall, it all these young guys, they were in this— I call it the cave— and they were coming up with ideas all day long, and some were about climate change. And I remember this, I thought, did they do a project that I'm not real familiar with? And so I found out, no, it's leaking.

Water was accumulating, and so it was growing weeds and trees up there. And I remember we asked them, do you want this roof fixed? Absolutely. And you know, the roof is to this day. You know, when you mention the road projects, Lake Otis and Tudor, it was the best corner for any past politicians in here.

Uh, it was the best corner to shake hands at and meet people in drive time. Why? Because you'd be stuck in that corner for 3, 4 lights, so you could literally, you know, talk to them while they're waiting for the light and the traffic, because it was so bad. It was like the best corner. So we figured out how to get it done.

And the biggest complaint I got after— before, besides it became one of the most convenient intersections afterwards, and you see a lot of pedestrian stuff there we added— was some of my friends in the political arena were mad because it was the best street corner. You could meet people and put signs up and wave signs. But again, it wasn't a question of if it— You know, does— did it need to be done? Everyone said it needed to be done. And we push the limits all the time.

For example, ACDA, which is next door to— or over there now— Anchorage Community Development Authority. We just created that out of thin air. So we're gonna have a development authority. Every great city has a development authority.

Created an effort for this to move forward. When we heard from the Federal Highway Administration, we had to go through this long extensive plan for Lake Otis and Cedar because there was right-of-way. What I did was I sent out two private real estate agents who could not disclose their city was the client, and they could bid against each other, I didn't care, to buy up all the corners. Except the church, because no one's touched the church, otherwise you'll be striked down by lightning, and no one wanted to deal with that. But we bought all those corners because the way the Federal Highways works is you can't buy any right-of-way until you go through the whole process of an EA or an EIS study.

So when the federal government asks us, well, you bought all this right-of-way, said no, no, no, no, no, no, the development authority bought it. For future development. They're not building— they don't build roads, they do economic development. So I don't know what you're talking about. So we finished the plan, then the city bought that land from the development authority to build the road, and then we sold off a chunk of it to Walgreens that paid for all the right-of-way acquisition, and we got it for below market.

And so it was a very— you know, to do projects, sometimes you have to push the envelope, and it means that everyone has to be part of that. I remember when Howard Holton was living, he was in charge of property facility management. And if you've ever gone over the Artique— not the Artique, but the, uh, Benny's Taco Wagon on Vincent— there's a little art store that used to be located next to the hobby shop on Northern Lights and Spinnard. They wanted to move, but in order to turn around, if you turn on Spinnard Road and went down Benson You have to go all the way down to Arctic and there, yeah, Arctic, and then come back around. So it was a long loop.

So traffic was a problem. So I said, why don't we just cut a road through? Oh, it's state right away, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, yeah, but this is a contaminated site the city owns. This group would like to buy it, thank God.

Put a little art store in there. Why wouldn't we want to do that? Plus, we'll solve a traffic problem. Well, you know, this is— and I remember calling Howard, and I said, Howard— and I think Lance Willer was traffic engineer at that time— I said, let's just cut the road through. Do we have the equipment here to do a strip pave on it and cut the curbs and be done?

Yeah, but DOT, they're going to be really mad if we don't get their permits, and that will take several months. Yeah, yeah, don't worry about that. 'Can we do it? Like, can we get like 60% of this done if we started on a Friday by Monday?' And they looked at me and they had trust in each other. I had trust in them and they had trust in me.

So what did we do? We did it. We just cut the curb, strip paved it very quickly, DOT called them Monday as anticipated, uh, screaming at them. And I told them before that, call to me. And when we were all done, everyone was fine.

But the point was, we wanted to get the project done. It was a small project, but for the betterment of the city, it was an important project because it straightened out circulation, but it also took a piece of property that the city was stuck with put it in economic development, took an art building or building that sold art supplies that people always went to, continues to thrive to this day. So you have to, you know, we think of all these projects, always these great stories. I mean, Suzanne Fleek, who works for you now, the library, I was telling this to Becky yesterday. I saw Suzanne Fleek, I didn't know her.

She was over at the Egan Center doing some conference and she knows this. And I remember seeing her at the conference running this great conference. I thought, man, that person's a good artist. Worker. And so we invited her over to Mayor's office.

She came to talk to me about climate change, I think she thought. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, I'd like to hire you to work with Mary Jane Michael in our development office to revitalize our libraries. And the response was— I'm summarizing the response— uh, what do I know about that? I said, you got kids? Yeah.

You use libraries? Yeah. Good. You're hired. And she led the charge on Mountain View and Baldun and Girdwood and Eagle River.

The redevelopment of those libraries stand today. Mountain View is an example of a neighborhood that desperately needed these kind of facilities, and we had neglected it. And now that sits there today. It was a Parks and Rec building. It was like, well, they can move anywhere.

But a library for the community is critical. I remember Bernie Godstein, the original owner of Carr's, and JB Godstein, when he was living, I remember talking to him and he's a big believer in education. And I said, what we need to do is make sure there's a multilingual library out there. So we donated, I think it was a quarter million dollars to make sure we could buy books that had multiple languages because it's not a question of, uh, it has to be in English. It's a question of people— young people need to read any language.

It will improve their abilities to achieve. There's no two ways about it. So he did that. I remember sitting next to BP's fundraiser at the trash day. Have you been to that where you go and they got the trash bag on the back seat and you take your trash bag with you and everyone's getting ready to clean up the city?

I was sitting there and And I think his name was, I wanna say it was Phil, but I may be wrong about that, from BP. They sponsored the education awards, teachers, excellence in education, and awarded teachers and so forth. I remember sitting next to him, I said, you know, BP, BP, you gotta remember back then BP was a big player, big player. I mean, the BP building that's now empty, I mean, they built that thing for the amount of money they've made in this state. They were just massive.

Big employer. And I remember leaving over and said, yeah, man, those awards you give, those aren't really legacy for a company your size. You need to think something bigger. And they kind of looked at me like, what are you talking about? So, well, you know, we have these libraries we're trying to revitalize, and, you know, you guys could put some money in this.

And of course, you never go and ask someone if you don't know the amount you're going to ask them for, because they're going to ask that. And if they don't ask it, you got to tell them, because they don't want to ask you is because they don't want to know. And so you've got to— so I said, you know, each one of these, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand each, maybe a million dollars. And he looked at me, I thought he was going to fall out of his seat. You know, he's paid $1,000 for his table there because he thought that was a good contribution and does the awards and does a little dinner.

I'm thinking, no, this is legacy. About libraries. And I think when we were all done, I think they ended up contributing about $750,000 to help make the libraries what they are today. What's important is a lot of these ideas did not come from me. They came from people who worked in the city who said, what about fill in the blank?

Or a Board and Commission, you know, that said to me, hey, what about this? And it's incumbent upon people who in the elected office to use their tools in the maximum ability to make these things happen. It makes sense. And all these things made sense to us. Simple things.

Midtown Park. People may again not remember. I remember our son was at that point now 2, I think, and I was walking in the Midtown Park. And I remember this on a weekend. It was like What is this place?

There's nothing there. The equipment was halfway underwater. There's a little playground equipment. So I literally put my son on the piece of equipment with all the water, took a photo of it, and then we had an executive meeting every Monday. We always do.

And I hand out the photo and I said, what does this look like to you? And they said, oh, bad placement for the park equipment. I said, No, the Burke Room was in the right place at one time. This seems like a drainage ditch for all of Midtown. And none really knew that.

Howard Holden did over in BPA. He said, "Yeah, it's a drainage ditch." And I said, "So what are we doing here?" And we accelerated that project at a very high speed to do things to make it partially what it is today. I mean, that lake out there is actually a drainage ditch. It actually is for Midtown, but we didn't design it like a drainage ditch. We designed it like a lake, and we used drainage money to do it.

And garden out there, Dan Cuddy, had to squeeze some money out of him to do that. But at the end of the day, again, these were ideas that materialized by people who worked in the city or people I met on the street or, you know, so a lot of times elected officials We're conduits. Comes in and we disperse it and galvanize people that are within the city because this is the workforce that turns the dial, that makes it happen every single day. So those are a few stories. I'll be happy to take questions or whatever, but I can tell on all these— there's all kinds of stories that we had, that we had to push the envelope in order for things to happen.

I will say one thing on Lakota Institute or two. Every candidate would complain about Lakota Institute and then do nothing about it, both legislatively.

And other assembly and so forth, and mayor. And I remember when I got elected, all these legislators had done this, you know, oh, Lake Crescent City, we're gonna fix that road, and that, so I sent out a card, a commitment card to every single legislator. They were furious because it said, do you support Lake Crescent City? Do you intend to fund it? You campaigned on it.

Yes or no? And several called unhappy that I would put them on the spot. I thought, well, you don't get to say you're going to do it and then never do it. My best ally on that was Congressman Don Young.

Called me right after I got elected. He says, the city never gives the federal government a list of projects. I'll work on that. Sent him a list. There's a half a billion dollar list.

Calls me up. And if you didn't know Don Young, he didn't always speak in the most kindest terms. And he said a few words and I said, well, Congressman, and I've known him, I knew him for a long time and we were friends. And I said, Congressman, you said and you say you're the congressman for all of Alaska. So Anchorage is 43%.

So I just figured it was about 43%. Of all that money you can bring us. By the end of the day, he did get us $5 million for that project. And I'll never forget it. We did a press conference.

He didn't have a great rapport with the press. Let's just say that, especially the Daily News. That did not work out so well with them. And I will tell you the suicide thing because no one's really listening. You're all just friends here.

So we're at the press conference. I had Lloyd Garrison, tutor. And it's when, again, the day when press actually existed. And so all the TV with their cameras, and there's like 2 or 3 daily news reporters. Like, that's a lot of reporters for a road project.

And I leaned over to— we were literally at the podium, they're all getting set up. I lean over and I say, Don, only you get this many daily news reports, so you got to catch every word you say. Maybe they send one baby. And he literally did it. I could not believe it.

He took his hand, he rubbed his head, there's only one finger showing, and I said, oh my God, and I'm looking at the camera people, weren't ready, and they were busy getting their equipment all together, and he says, that's what I think. I said, thank you very much, Don, we got a press conference to do now. But it was, you know, you, every one of these projects has incredible stories about them and how they happened. And, you know, the city of Anchorage, municipality, is an incredible community in many ways. It's the most diverse in the nation, or the most diverse really.

It has so much capacity, continues to have capacity. I think today we're in this new renewal of the city again. Every 20 years this happens about where you got to kind of figure out what you're going to do next and pick its vision. The vision won't be perfect. You know, I, I proposed a tax on fire hydrants.

That was a dumb idea. Someone should have shot me before I even proposed that thing. Uh, but you, you, you see a city always as a transition. And a city is not just the outskirts, it's a core too. A downtown is critical to the rest of the city, and the rest of the city is critical downtown.

So how the city develops in the next few years will set its course for the next 20 and 30. That's what happens. Sullivan and Knowles' days, George Sullivan, it was Project 80s. During our time just coming out of the Bystrum era and a little bit of George Wirtz era, we were about redeveloping the city, creating the city for the future. That was 20 years after the Sullivan-Knowles time, and it's about that time again.

And you're starting to hear that from this administration and others that they see the future. We just got to believe it. That's the trick. You got to believe what's possible in the city, and there is so much that is possible. Now, so that's called Senate-itis— talk too much.

Thank you. I have a number of questions, but I think I'll open up first for others, anyone in the audience who might want to raise a question. Are we able to take questions online as well, or? No. Okay.

All right. We'll take from live audio. There we are. Question. Question is remark.

I've known this young entrepreneur since he had a nightclub at 814. And in the lobby, he had a credenza full of jewelry he'd made. Yeah. But over the years, you've known everybody. I think one of the reasons you've been successful is you talk to everybody.

There were no aisles. Anybody that had something that needed something, you reached out to them. And I think you've taken this entrepreneurial spirit through the municipal government when you were Senator, and certainly now redeveloping Anchorage. So, my statement is that the reason you were successful is you didn't close anybody out. Everybody got to contribute their ideas, and I'm hoping that this administration is redeveloping that mindset in the community.

But thank you. Thank you. You know, it is a really— people ask at times, what's my philosophy? My philosophy is not that complicated. I wake up and I'm breathing, my wife and son are there, it's a great day.

Everything else can be fixed. And it can be. And never take anything personal. I mean, I, you know, the Senate was probably the toughest because healthcare and others, I mean, I had to do a, a town hall meeting on healthcare out, I think it was Barlett High, if I remember right, might have been East. And, you know, we had death threats.

I had probably 12 or 15 undercover police officers in the building. We had U.S. Marshals.

You have to always remember people are passionate about their ideas, may they, may you like them or not. As an elected official, your job is to find the common ground and move forward, whatever that is. If your objective is to just fight, don't serve in public office, because really the objective should be, how do you bring these people together? Because when you look at the core of what we all talk about, there are similarities beyond what you see on the surface, and we have to figure out how to grab into that, pull it out, and not be afraid with Someone calls you names and I got plenty of them. I can write the book on that and call them back up and say, hey, you know, why not?

Why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? You know, but thank you. That's, thank you for the comment. Dale.

Well, I don't have a question, but I'm looking at the photo from the transition report from September 10th, 2008, almost 17 years ago. And I remember that was a very emotional event for a lot of people in the community. The longest street sign in the city, and there were dozens of people who posed for pictures under that sign. Yeah. And it brought a lot of closure to a lot of people in the community.

I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about naming that street, how it happened. Um, the Martin Luther King Drive one? Yeah. Yeah. So in politics, you sometimes get delivered things when you get elected that you don't want.

Not because you may not believe in it, but because the way it was handed to you. And, uh, I remember when I got elected— this happened twice, Jim, you might remember this from Don Smith days when they— I think it was 9th Avenue was Martin Luther King Drive— they attempted and it turned into a political mess. Well, my predecessor left me a gift, and it was I get which street, I want to say it might have been 9th again, but to name a street, Martin Luther King Drive, being told that Minister Alliance here that it was going to be happening. Well, he had no plan for it. He just left it for me to figure out.

And I used, I don't know if it's your conference room still, but the city manager conference room. I remember I had to meet in the city, brought all the pastors together, had them in a room. And I said, I got good news and bad news, and we're going to start with the bad news. I'm not naming anything right now for Martin Luther King Drive because the way this was delivered didn't involve the community, didn't do a lot of things. They were not happy.

Reverend Patterson of Shiloh, very powerful pastor, said to me, you know, we helped you get elected and this and that, and he was always a good friend. I said, I understand that. Well, we're going to do this the right way, and we're going to do it so it's long-term legacy. And I said, but you got to trust me and bear with me. That was the good news.

And so time progressed, and actually it was Lagos and Tudor that pivoted this opportunity, because what they did not know— because the legislators were so mad at me, they came up with their own plan how to solve Tudor Road traffic. And it was a build that road that comes off of Boniface because there was no name for that, came off of Boniface, came all the way down to Sugul, parallel to Tudor, tie in the Dowling and continue out. What they didn't know was we did that design, that draft, but we didn't disclose it when we talked about Lakehurst and Tudor because you always got to give your opponent something to talk about. And you'll see how all these connect. So I hear, at that time it was Senator Ben Stevens, speaker, senator of the Senate, president of the Senate, was holding a press conference out there at Bagraw near the village, say,.

I'm down at the Library Association explaining how I fired a whole bunch of people, and it was at the Hilton, and how, have faith, things are going to be great. Then I get in the van, it's Julia Askin, this woman, Heather Rauschler, Julia's my communication, she said, "Oh, by the way, we're taking a little detour. We're going out to this press conference that a bunch of these senators are having out there behind building safety." They're like, What are you talking about? So we drive out there, I stand by the cameras, they're doing their things, but they cannot get their eyes off the fact that I'm there. I did position myself appropriately, right, with the cameras here facing them, and I'm behind there with the reports.

They gotta look at me. So they're getting just steaming mad. They got some charts showing this new road and all this, that. Then come over and yell at me. Well, what do you think the media covered?

Them yelling at me. And so by the end of the day, Kevin Meyer was co-chair of finance. They funded $75 million for that extension at Bagraw— or not Bagraw, but Dowling Extension, unnamed road. And I remember when they did that, I just smiled and I said, called Pastor— the pastor's up— said, oh, do I have a road for you. It's going to be exactly core Martin Luther King, your education, your government services, your quality, your healthcare, your parks and rec.

All this connectivity, what surrounds that road, is a component of what Martin Luther King stood for. And I— and there's one power the mayor has, they get to name any road in the city. And guess what we named it? That's what it is today. And I could not be there the day they dedicated it.

Ellie Gray Jackson was there to do it, but it was the best deal I ever got because the road got funded without any engineering plans. They were just so mad. $75 Million prefunded and built the road. To what? If you went back and looked at our drawings, it showed that road, but we didn't show it in our press conference on Lake Otis and Tudor.

So it's a great end result. The pastor participated, the community participated, and it was a great dedication of what Martin Luther King stood for. When you think of the connection, you know, crime lab, which investigates unsolved crimes and all kinds of stuff, and then you had Parks and Rec over here, medical facilities, neighborhoods. I mean, it really was a great— and the public transportation, right? Public transportation is symbolic.

Yeah, it's very symbolic in many ways. I couldn't believe it when that came out at all. This will be a dream to me. Thank you. Yeah, that was great.

Like I said, someday I'm going to write these stories down because it's just— it's a better feeling going there than at the library I've been prior, I will tell you that. Other questions that folks might have? Easy, girls. Jim? Explain what you did to get the money to do the second vote on the convention center.

Dinahina. For the conventions. Yeah. So for Dinahina, there's some great— Dinahina is a beautiful facility. You know, when you think about it, you know, we're fortunate to have it.

I think one of the things we had to do, we had to go to the hotel motel industry and say, oh, by the way, we'd like to go from 8% to 12%. And, you know, there was a little friction, but at the end of the day, they understood the value of it. And then we created another organization to kind of campaign for it. So we grabbed people from all over the community and said, okay, you gotta be the— can't be elected official, it needs to be the community who needs this for the long-term health of the community. And so we were able to put that team together.

Then we had to raise money for the campaign. 'Cause no campaign survives on nothing. You gotta raise money. And I remember, made a lot of calls, but others did too. And we raised enough to really inform the community about the value of this facility and what it would mean in the long term.

And I said it earlier, the hardest part, people ask me all the time, what's the hardest part when you're, like when I was mayor or senator in a public office, when you're trying to get people to think of things to do. And it's getting the community to believe in itself because that is the hardest part. Because negative information is easier to absorb even though you don't want it, you absorb it quicker. Positive stuff isn't, you know, you don't read the news about positive things. It's all negative stuff until you get to the last 3 minutes and there's some kid did some great things and raised a whole bunch of money for somebody.

But getting the community to believe— we did quarterly polling right outside, so here in the mayor's office, we did polling every quarter. We always checked how people felt about the direction of the city. And when I was first elected, the direction of the city, people felt it was going the wrong direction. It's right direction, wrong direction, 60+ percent wrong direction. Within the first two quarters, by the first two quarters, it was almost 70% right direction.

So we knew at that moment, because we were starting to do a few things, being very straightforward with the public, that they, they believed in what's possible. Once that occurs, you can do many things. But if they don't believe in themselves as a community, then why would you invest in that community? You know, you're not going to do it. So we had to move that the right direction.

Jim, did you have something? I just wanted to get a general comment from you, Mark, about relationship with state government? Because, you know, they used to be the funders. Yeah, a lot of things. Yeah, those days were over, certainly in the near future.

Yeah, just your observation of how you interacted with them, you were here, and what are you seeing and feeling now about the city's pretty much on its own? Yeah, find ways that we're not going to do a lot of stay for a while. One of the first philosophies we had, and, uh, Becky, this is an interesting note, we made a decision never to use one-time money for operational. That was the first thing we did. That was painful because that meant you couldn't use one-time money.

Maybe you got a grant. Fire department was a great example. I had to tell a fire department one day when they won a grant, I said, you can't have it. You're going to win it, but you're not going to get it. Because it was operational money with no next funding.

I had to cancel the Health and Human Services building because it was a great idea, but there was no money to operate it. So, so we made some decisions back then because we saw on the horizon the lack of state commitment to their local communities was going to grow, meaning they were going to do less and less. Um, but back then Sarah Palin was governor And, you know, she's former mayor, you think she'd get it, but no, they cut municipal assistance revenue share. Now, I did do a few things once we got some money back from that area. I made sure the property tax bill had listed on there your state municipal funding source, you know, where it came from.

So if they cut it, then you were going to know there's no more money for them. That's why your taxes went up. Not because we did it, they did it. Now they didn't like that too much, but they had no control over the Treasury Department of the city, only the mayor does. So we could deal with that.

But we had to do some things that were pretty tough. I remember John Williams, mayor of Kenai Borough, old school politician, man. He's the kind of guy you'd see in a movie from Boston. I mean, rough and tumble, said what he said. You may like it, you may not, but he knew what he wanted to do.

And he was the president of the conference and we were going down to Juneau, a whole bunch of us to make our case about municipal system revenue sharing. And he said he got a call from the governor's office, Sarah Palin says, "You can do that. Would you like to use the governor's conference room?" I'm scratching my head, I said, "John, she's cutting us." Yes, we'll take it. You betcha, we'll do it in her conference room. And so then he gets another call and she says to him, can I come?

And I'm like, okay, I'm not sure what's happening here, but, but yes, John, tell her yes. So we get to the conference room. The governor's conference room is a little more narrow than this. It's about as long, it seems. And we're all up there, about 15, 20 mayors, and here's the governor.

And she's standing right next to me. I knew Sarah Palin from the days when she was mayor. I was on the assembly. Actually, I had to do a crazy talk calling radio Shock Jock, uh, 106.5. And she showed up there.

My sister played basketball with her. I mean, I, you know, had a little history. So she's standing next to me and John's talking. He's like a pounding table guy, like, you know, really robust. And the legislature— and as he never says the governor because he's awkward, like, she's right here, by the way.

And then she leans over to me and says, anything I should say? I said, you should say what he's saying. That's why I think you should say it. She gets up there, Jim, and she says it. She says, I can't believe the legislature's cutting revenue sharing for the small assistants.

I'm like— and John is behind her, and.

Never really caught it all, but his facial expressions were like, what is going on here? Then we did get money, and that's when I ran the thing that said, compliments of the legislature, this is why I'm the governor, you know, in that thing. Today it's different. I think they have, they have capacity, they don't have priorities. You know, city governments deliver the services.

You know, this is the end of the line. You know, federal jams into the state, state jams into the city, then city has to clean up everything, you know, doesn't matter if it's the street to the crime to just every piece of the puzzle. So they do have an obligation and they should fulfill it, you know, and they're doing it now finally on education at a much better level, you know, over a lot of hurdles. But municipal government and city governments are just as important in many ways because a bus isn't getting to the schools unless the streets are plowed, as we know, right? So you, you have to— and I don't think that's going to change.

They're not going to— I think the cities are going to have to be more and more on their own. And that's a sad commentary when we have one of the richest states in the nation. And if you read the article yesterday, maybe the day before, on the Pitcairn— Pitcairn, yeah— and its new oil discovery, it will add about $200 million to the state's coffers. Now the argument is, well, you lose some money over on the other side, but at the end of the day, they're getting more. Now they got a lot of needs too.

You know, I think one of the, you know, we did, to this day, I think there's still money in the budget that funds two intake officers at McLaughlin Youth Center because the state has no capacity. We got a lot of young people that need to go through the process of youth court and these other judicial processes, but we can't wait for the state, you know? I think there's a lot more room. I can tell you some more stories about Sarah Palin, but another day.

Another day. Yeah, yeah, good question here. The, uh, you, you mentioned a little bit about some of the difficult times, budget cuts, AAB budget, hurdles that you had to, to overcome coming into office. You don't, you don't, you don't see that in your legacy. The things we see up here is more Action, activity, progress.

Maybe tell us a little bit about the— I recall days on the 8th floor was just a frenetic pace up here. Tell us about the team, how you empowered people to get stuff done. There's a lot of stuff happening. Yeah, I will tell you, jogged memory, because I'm saying this for Becky's opportunity here as City Manager. You know, I want to do 2-year budgets.

Because it's such a waste of time. You spend 7, 8 months cranking through the same stuff, variations maybe 2, 3%, you know. And I remember I brought an ordinance in the city to want somebody to want to do it, and I told them, doesn't matter, I'm giving you a 2-year budget. And you look back in the documents, you'll see there are 2-year intervals. And I did it anyway because it helped get that off the pressure of all the people in the departments of recreating the same paper mill then to focus on the work ahead of us.

But we came in, you know, the team, someone I didn't know, you know, Dennis LeBlanc was working for George W. Bush. He was OMB with Sheryl Frasca. And they came in to present to me at the transition office. And I'm listening. They give me the budget transition.

I'm listening. So it was great. You know, Sheryl Frasca was very political and there was no way we were going to keep her. She knew that. But then she left and turned to my future chief of staff, David Ramsey, and said, we're hiring Dennis LeBlanc.

He's our city manager. And they said, you know, you have different mixes of people in your office. You have some that are very political. If you're not on this side, you're on that side. And David said, why would we hire him?

I said, because he's actually competent. And, you know, I like that he had some ideas and he wasn't afraid to be in that meeting and tell me that. He preferred to be the fire chief. How'd you know? But I hired him.

Heather Handyside was working for George Wirtz. And I remember interviewing her and I said, geez, she's dynamic. She came from the chamber in Washington State. That's where she was at one point. And I said, I didn't know her.

And I said, I'm going to keep her. You know, she seemed— So it was really about always keeping your eyes open for the talent. And then talent was excited about this election, my first election. I mean, I couldn't get out of the Performing Arts Center where we did the swearing-in. I had actually— we had to have security move my son out because he was at that point just a little 1 or 2 right in there, and get my wife out there because it was just— it was insane because people were excited.

And the key in elected position, when you feel that excitement, you have to tap into it and the talent will come up. But always keep your eyes open for talent. The example I gave about Suzanne was looking at talent. Or the woman who I put on the arts board. One day I was at United Way, she's talking about this experience as a young mother and all the— I'm just watching her, incredibly poised.

And I thought, man, I don't care, she needs to be one of our boards or commissions. I remember the one over at the Marriott, they had a big auction dinner, 14, I didn't know how old she was, but she was a teenager. She's speaking and she was supporting, I'll try to remember here the name of the group, but it was for people who are disabled riding horses and rehabilitation program. It will come to me in a second, but she's speaking, incredible grasping of the audience. I was amazed, and I turned to Diane DeSanto, who worked for me, and I said, Diane, whatever board or commission she wants to be on, she's on.

She comes back, and we're at the dinner. She leans over, you know, she's only— she's 14. I look at— is there an issue? I had my first business at 14. Go back.

And so then Older gentleman comes over and says, I'm her dad, and do you understand how old she is? And I said, yes, she'd be great on Parks and Rec, for example. Kids use Parks and Rec more than anybody. And I put her on that commission. And then— and people know Dick Traini, super good friend of mine, his wife Sandy was chair of the board— I get a call from Dick.

Oh, you got to solve this problem. Sandy's really upset. About what? You put this 14-year-old, da da da da. So they both came to meet with me.

He was chair of the assembly at that time. And they're sitting in my office. And to this day, incredible friends still. And she starts saying, you know, we have to just take time to read everything and this and this, that, this, the meetings go longer. And I looked right at Sandy.

And I said, good, maybe you'll make better decisions because you have to actually pay attention to what you got there. Then Dick is being a good husband to introduce an ordinance to disallow people under 18 to serve on boards and commissions. Okay, that was a mistake. I remember he was down in the city manager's office. I walked down there because I knew he was there, and I did what they call an LBJ move.

He comes out, I put my arm around him, said, Dick, I don't know about this ordinance. I'd be careful if I were you, but hey man, it's your political life. Shows up, the room is packed with not just kids, but who? Parents. Because every parent believes their kids are great, and why not?

And so that item was like item, you know, whatever, B, you know, A, B, C, D, 7B, or whatever public hearings. It's It suddenly moved to the bottom and then by 11 at night, 10:30 at night, table indefinitely. Boom, off the agenda. So I always kept my eye out for talent. Always looked for people that had interest.

I was fortunate. I had an incredible team. I mean, they were Anderson. Mary Jane Michael ran the Department of Economic Development. I called her up, she was running the neighborhood housing.

I said, Mary Jane, I don't know what I need. 'But I want to hire you.' She says, 'For what?' 'I don't know, but you have what I need.' When I was down at Girdwood, I saw Rosie Fletcher speaking after she won her bronze, I think. It was a year— and look at this 20— I don't know how old she was at that point. I mean, man, a person that has that much ability, we need her to help us with Girdwood. Because if you remember, we had water issues down there, we had a golf course that no one wanted, and people are pissed off, and You know, I went through the list.

He said, I need someone who has the wherewithal, the focus. So we hired her. She helped us work the Girdwood. So it's always keeping your eyes open for talent and not being afraid to tell. Rob Hune, Chief of Police, he was a sergeant.

I broke all the rules. And I said, he called me up, or I called him up and said, I remember this to this day. I was in my basement sitting in a chair. I called him up and said, Rob, You've been bitching and moaning. He was the head of the union.

And I said, you're bitching and moaning all the time about unions don't get this, members don't get this. Good, here's the plan. You're going to be deputy chief and 2, 3 years after that, you're going to be chief. So now you get to deliver for whatever you said you think they should have. He became a great chief, US Marshal to this day.

And he was a great chief. But I think he was surprised and so were the leadership. But they liked Rob. Because he was open, fair. So that's how—.

I mean, it was really— it was fun. I had someone, Celeste, used to complain all the time about minority issues. So, good, you're going to go work in the OEO office. You'll be the head of it.

And I said, you know, you don't get the bitch from the side, you get to come in and help fix it. And if you're going to keep bitching on the side, don't call me anymore. You're going to get a chance to be at the table to change the deck. And they did training programs over at Fleet Farm and other places. So it's keeping the eye out and not being afraid to take— you know, most of them, you know, I didn't know Dennis was a Republican.

I didn't know. I didn't care. I said he had the talent that I needed. And people were going to be— they had to be straightforward with me because sooner or later I'm going to know. Because my style was always reaching deep down in the ranks.

You know how others do that. I'd reach down and say, what do you think of this? So it was always being informed about what was going on, but always giving a lot of latitude to my teams. I didn't run the police department. I didn't run the fire department.

You know, but I— but I— gave my input and listened, and then we all moved together. But it was fun. It was a fun time because we were going to do things. We weren't going to just push paper. And they also figured out after about 6 months that I pushed some paper, but sometimes I might just get past it because we got to get it done and we'll worry about the rest later.

So, well, I'll ask one last question to wrap us up since we're about at the hour mark. Um, Senator, thank you again for being here with us and sharing so much about your term. Uh, as Mayor, my last question is really as a long-term public and private sector leader in Anchorage, what do you think is next for us? What do you hope the next 50 years brings for the municipality as we stand here celebrating our last 50? Well, there's a question for you.

You know, I think we, you know, we think of the small challenges, but really our big challenges are a couple things that we have to overcome. Again, I said it earlier a couple times, we got to think about and believe in what we can do and believe in ourselves even when we know the odds are against us. That's what Alaska is built on. I think we have to think of the things that will entice and get young people who we know want to be here, but they don't see the opportunities anymore. You know, our fastest dropping population is between that 25 and 45, which is not a place we want to see as a growing thing.

So we have to think about that. I think, you know, there's no better place for a person in that age group to come and live in this world we live in today where you can access your information from anywhere, do your work a lot of ways remotely, and being in a place, as I like to describe, you can walk down 2 blocks here, put your hip waders on, and go fishing. In a creek, and actually you can eat the fish. It's not toxic. It's actually real good fish.

And then walk 2 more blocks back, you go see an incredible play, and you still wear your hip waders if you wanted to be okay. Um, but you could do that in a city like this, and then within 20 minutes or less, you can be in the wilderness right outside your doorstep. The cities around the country clamor for this. And we, we, we have it just kind of sitting right here. We just got to believe in ourselves and think about what's possible, put our feet to the, to the metal and go.

And not have people— I never— one last rule was, don't come in and tell me how much it's going to cost. Tell me what it means, and then we got to prioritize. When they told me I needed 100 new police officers, You know, you know the cost of that, nothing cheap. And I said, uh, is that what we need? That's what we need.

When we needed to build some fire stations— Station 6, I think it was out in East Anchorage— Channel— Station 11 had to be revamped because they were getting all the leftover equipment, or GERD would get the leftover equipment. We said no. What is it going to cost after I understand what is the value? Once we know the value, We prioritize, and that's what we did. And so that's the— I think in the future of Anchorage, I think there is incredible opportunity here.

I think we are still being polished every day, you know, trying to figure out what's the angle, what's the piece that's going to make a difference. So I think we have a great future. I wouldn't spend the time I'm doing like this. I just believe it, but we got to do it, not sit around and talk about it. Complain about it and find the 3 things out of the 10 that are bad and don't focus on the other 7 that are good.

That's what we got to do and go play the law of averages. There we go. More philosophy than you want. No, that'd be fabulous. Holy crap.

It's great. It's fantastic. Thank you so much for everything you do, and thank you for sharing your time with us today. And thank you all for being here. I hope you continue to participate in the events we have upcoming in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the unification of the municipality.

We'll close with a round of applause for Senator.

I have a special gift for you, I understand, if you're able to read it. Oh, lunch! Excellent. Look at that. Thank you guys very much.

Yeah, thank you for being here. Yeah. Almost had a heart attack. Oh man.

Good show. Amazing. I really, I had a great time reading your, uh, uh, 'cause he gave me this copy of your 5 books. And I was like, all right, I know. These are the years.

This is when Ivan Penagrigia decided to do the bit that I want to hear later. Thank you.