Anchorage Assembly: MOA Fiscal Future Summit - Wrap-Up Session

Remember, if you have not already submitted a Menti response, do so now.

And we are gonna wrap a little early today, so you're gonna get some time back. Woohoo!

Cuz, uh, um, I heard nothing from Hannah. I can't imagine what she's doing.

I don't know if I told you, this is my aide Caleb. That's your aide, man? Yeah. Hey Caleb, you thought he's amazed? Since October 2023.

Mostly just does menus like this because he's a—. Oh, perfect. Like, that's great. Amazing.

All right, everybody, I am going to call you back together.

We are going to move into our wrap-up for the day. How many of you, your brain hurts a little bit after all of this? Yeah, a little? We really hope that this was beneficial, that this felt like fruitful to grapple with some of these scenarios, some of these options. Obviously, these are not exhaustive options before us, but it does give us at least a platform for conversation.

So we are going to wrap things up and get you out of here early. But before we do that, we're going to do a little bit of group reflection. We're going to do a quick Menti poll, and then we're going to tell you about the next things that we would love for you to stay tuned for and participate in. So we know that you probably still have questions. You may have more questions now than you did before.

Please continue to drop those. Like, up until we shut it down today, you can leave questions in the Menti poll. And we are going to use all of them to inform the next things that we do in terms of this fiscal future project. So even though we won't have time to answer them today, we're not going to do more Q&A before we let you out of here. We do want to know what you want to know.

But I will say, I will read our last question of the day because it is something we are about to answer, and that is, what can the average person do to help their neighbor understand these issues? So thank you for whoever planted this. We did not pay them to put that question in the bucket. Yeah, we're trying to save money, budget here. Yeah.

So our last Mentee poll for you today is actually just a reflection. We would love to know, in a word, How do you feel about our fiscal future? You can submit more than one word if you would like, but at least one word to tell how you feel. And we are going to watch a little word cloud appear in front of us. I'm going to give you about 30 seconds, maybe a little more to do that.

And all feelings are valid. If you do not have a counselor currently, we'll say that to you because you may not have heard it before. I don't. Feel great. A little bleak.

I don't feel great.

Ennui. It's a little— oh, potential. Fearful. Determined. Motivated.

Hopeful. Wow. I do see a comment about oil taxes again. I will say that is other people's decisions to make, but vote by Tuesday, November 3rd, 8:00 PM.

We will, we will, we will continue to bang that drum. Woof! Somebody put woof. I agree. But still there's hope.

Well, thank you all for giving us a little snapshot into how you're doing today. I think this is the top 4 are Really, they capture how I feel. Determined, for sure, apprehensive, motivated, and hopeful. I want to emphasize that this is not the end of the conversation. We have a lot of agency.

There's a lot that we can do to change the structure, the shape, the operations of our municipality. It's going to require a lot more of this. It's going to require a lot of work from a lot of people, but we— all is not lost. And I firmly believe that we have what we need to save ourselves. And I think other members have said this before.

No one is coming to save us, but we are a pretty great squad. We are a pretty great team. Anchorage has what it needs to create a thriving future for itself. So—. And I see one more up there.

It says, I just a baby. So— I think we all feel that way sometimes. But I also say we are not just doing this for us right now. We are doing this so that people who are in our places 40, 50 years from now maybe are starting from a different place. They are not trying to solve 50-year problems, or if they solve 50-year problems, it's because we created them and we didn't mean to, but it worked at the time.

So this isn't always an iterative thing, right? We are trying to fix what happened before us and trying to do better for the people who come after us. Yeah, someone said that the goal is for people in 10 years to be solving a different set of problems, and I take that really seriously. So raise your hand if you learned something new today. I love that.

Raise your hand if you learned something from someone else in your group. Nice. Yes, this is why we do that. How many of you met somebody you didn't know before?

Sweet. How many of you feel like you have a better handle now on what's actually happening at the muni than you did when the day started?

Excellent. How many of you feel a little better equipped to go talk to somebody else about the fiscal present of the municipality? How many of you are willing to host Fiscal Future in a Folder? I will take that, yes. If you're still here, then we are hoping you sign up.

How many of you feel ready to keep working on this issue, to keep finding common ground and hosting these conversations? Amazing. All right, thank you all. Thank you all so much for being here. Anna, what else we got?

I think we have one more Menti question, and we're already in our wrap-up, obviously. So, um, We have some choices there if you go back to Menti again. So what are— these are some ideas of what you can do with what you learned today. This is not the only list. You can see there's "I have other plans." You do not need to share your secret plans at this time.

But we welcome all of the above.

And of course, as we said, this is not the end of the conversation. The goal today was not just to get to today. It's that we are building something because we have to make these decisions in the near future.

Okay. Should we go?

Okay.

Also, the bottom right of the screen, we are feeling the love. We're all feeling the love in this room.

I didn't know that there were emojis that you could tap. This is a new feature.

And the downsides too, I get it. It's Friday, it's fine. We're almost done, so. Or thumbs down. So as we're wrapping things up, there are some thank yous that we really need to say, and that is to our incredible staff and AV team.

The Ledge Services staff made this happen. So yes, and they are over there.

They have done phenomenal work. So to Clare and Allie and Jen and Noah and Molly. We have Molly, our new budget analyst, who's incredible. Thank you all so much. This would never have come together without all of you.

So huge props to our team. They make us look like— well, they make us look good.

Anyway. And I heard there was some demand for the return of the pizza costume. So if you wanna do a quick costume change. So I'll keep it going and then Erin will be back. So yeah, thank you so much.

I think all of us at the Muni are really dedicated and committed to doing this hard work. So I also wanna thank the mayor's team who is here and a number of folks who really helped us. So Nolan Klouda, Ona Brause, a number of other folks, all of our department folks who were here earlier, We'll pass along the thank you. Yeah, clapping for them.

Because I think we all live this every day. So thank you for helping us, helping us move through these difficult decisions. So again, this is just one step in our process. So we're going to give you guys some, just to wrap up, some ways that you can continue being involved and then also about our budget. So we hope you follow along with our fiscal future work after today.

So some ways you can do that. There is the Assembly's website. It is a central repository for these materials today, our prior presentations that we've recorded, really all of the things on fiscal future are on that website. So you can point folks there or you can return to that to continue to stay involved. You can also sign up for the Assembly's newsletter, email newsletter that we send out.

That's updates on projects we're working on, not just this, but what's on our agenda, things that we have voted on that we might be voting on, other things going on in the muni. So that's a good way to stay involved generally. And speaking of things that are on our agenda, the fiscal year '27 municipal budget is on our agenda for public hearing. The next public hearing is going to be Wednesday, November 4th. So that is the day after Election Day.

We do not meet on Election Day. It is in the assembly chambers at the Lusak Library. The meeting starts at 5:00. We anticipate we will get to the budget testimony after 6:30. So you can testify in person, obviously.

Is it hard to take me seriously with pineapples on my face? No? Great. You can also sign up to get a phone call, which I think is a really underutilized tool. The clerk will actually call you from the dais, and then of course your voice gets projected into the chambers like the voice of God coming from above.

But you don't actually have to show up in the municipal— in the chambers. You can wait for a phone call. So that is another thing you can do as long as you sign up at least 24 hours in advance. That link to sign up to testify is also on the assembly website. And you can also email us your comments.

[email protected] will get your thoughts to all of us at the same time, plus the clerk who keeps track of all of that testimony as it comes in. So either way, we will be voting on the fiscal year '27 budget at our meeting on November 17th. So you have between now and then to tell us what you think. The other thing we want to let you know is that we've been kicking around doing this sort of a continuation, like a 2.0 summit in the spring, really focusing on building solutions and the structural adjustments that need to happen in order for our municipality to work its way into the future. How many of you would come back to something like that?

Amazing. How many of you would maybe tell a friend to come or bring a friend with you? Even better. Okay, amazing. We will take that under advisement as we are thinking about a spring summit.

And then obviously, again, please, please take a folder. Please share this information. Keep talking about this with people you know. If you hear misinformation circulating out in the public, please correct it. And please share what you have learned today with your spheres of influence so that more people are educated, more people can be meaningfully involved in this process.

It really is going to take all of us to work towards solutions and to build the community we dream about. So thank you again. That's all we have for you today. Thank you so much for being here, and let's build a better fiscal future for all of us. Thank you, everyone.

So I'll say to please, you can take the materials with you. Anything you don't want to take, you can leave on the table. There are still several packets up here, so if you want to have a really spicy Thanksgiving discussion with your family, you want to host a dinner party, whatever it is, if you have other ideas of how to engage, email us or talk to me and Erin, talk to our staff. And then lastly, I'll say there are some extra drinks there, Cokes and whatever else is in that tub, so feel free to grab one or two on the way out. Thank you so much.