Alaska Statewide Teleconference

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Photo Credit: truth in american education

Every Sunday night in Alaska as the weekend comes to a close and to-do lists come back into focus, we jump on the telephone with like-minded people joining from all around the state. The Statewide Teleconference is an effort to facilitate a conversation on a variety of topics important to Alaskans with one goal in mind: restoration of The Rule of Law.

“I thought if we set aside a regular time to talk with one another about issues that are important to us we’d be able to discuss things before they get out of hand,” says Maria Rensel, founder of the group. “In May of this year a group of us got together and decided to spearhead the effort. We meet by teleconference to schedule topics ranging from nullification of unconstitutional Federal laws to drone strikes to corruption in party politics. Last week the discussion centered on the Common Core Curriculum and how it’s being implemented by the Alaska Department of Education right now.”

Michael Chambers, a member of a new group of concerned citizens, United for Liberty Alaska noted that the Sunday teleconferences are a powerful tool for communication. “Alaskans in every corner of this great state share their concerns regarding the intrusion of an oppressive government on every level. The past days of political apathy have led us to the mess we currently have. The only way out of this mess is to awaken the citizenry to action regarding what is best for their individual liberties instead of what is best for special interests.”

The group has no party affiliation and is made up of Libertarians, Republicans, Independents and Undeclared members and is firmly committed to avoiding a formal structure. It was started out as a grassroots group and will stay that way, composed of people calling in and talking. The group intends to address issues that specifically relate to individual liberty and maintaining the founding ideals of the country.

“… Building upon the knowledge of the founding principles embodied in our constitutional liberties coupled with traditional Alaskan independence encompasses the success of this venture,” quips Barbara Andersen an activist and national delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2012.

The “State Wide Teleconference” is a news sharing tool brought to you by Alaskans for Alaskans.  There is no hidden agenda.  It is direct, up front and honest.  This teleconference is a mechanism designed for concerned citizens to “get the word out” and raise awareness on topics that affect our everyday lives; directly or indirectly. 

Pamela Goode of Delta Junction notes that, “The information you receive by listening in, you will not hear or find anywhere else.  Our liberties are being lost due to lack of knowledge and action.  Counter that; do not miss one meeting.”

You can join us this coming Sunday evening at 8:00p.m. Alaska Time for a discussion by Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, FAIR, on the current state of the Amnesty Bill . Find “The State Wide Teleconference” on Facebook. Like us for updates.*

*If you don’t have a Facebook account, simply search “The State Wide Teleconference” to see the information on how to connect with us for the calls.

Man Killed in Bear Mauling in Interior Alaska

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Photo Credit: Jason Empey

A 64-year-old Fairbanks man was mauled to death by a bear at a remote lake in Alaska’s interior, authorities said Friday.

The man and a family member were at a cabin at George Lake, about 110 miles southeast of Fairbanks, when the attack occurred Thursday evening.

The family member sought shelter inside the cabin and called authorities, Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said…

Responders found the man’s body outside the cabin, and the traumatized family member inside. The victim was identified as Robert Weaver, Peters said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Statewide Silent March in Respect and Appreciation for Katie John

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On Saturday, June 8th, 2013 at 1:00 pm, communities across Alaska are invited to remember a great Alaskan leader, Katie John.

In rural communities you are encouraged to meet at your local tribal offices. In Anchorage people will begin assembling downtown on the park strip near the Veterans Memorial at 12:30 pm.

Promptly at 1:00 pm, the Anchorage march will commence and the destination will be the city square across from the Egan Convention Center.

If you are unable to locate a march in your community organize one or just take time out with friends and family to remember Katie John.

For questions or more information call (907) 412-2004 or (907) 244-8165.

A Blast of a Find: 12 New Alaskan Volcanoes

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Photo Credit: James Baichtal

In Alaska, scores of volcanoes and strange lava flows have escaped scrutiny for decades, shrouded by lush forests and hidden under bobbing coastlines.

In the past three years, 12 new volcanoes have been discovered in Southeast Alaska, and 25 known volcanic vents and lava flows re-evaluated, thanks to dogged work by geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Forest Service. Sprinkled across hundreds of islands and fjords, most of the volcanic piles are tiny cones compared to the super-duper stratovolcanoes that parade off to the west, in the Aleutian Range.

But the Southeast’s volcanoes are in a class by themselves, the researchers found. A chemical signature in the lava flows links them to a massive volcanic field in Canada. Unusual patterns in the lava also point to eruptions under, over and alongside glaciers, which could help scientists pinpoint the size of Alaska’s mountain glaciers during past climate swings.

“It’s giving us this serendipitous window on the history of climate in Southeast Alaska for the last 1 million years,” said Susan Karl, a research geologist with the USGS in Anchorage and the project’s leader.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska May Events from Space

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Following an April which was the coldest on record in many locations (including Fairbanks), May was a month with more record events. Anchorage saw it’s second latest measurable snowfall on May 18th which made the 2012-2013 snow season on record. The record cold also delayed the river breakup, which set the stage for the severe ice jam flooding in Circle and Galena.

The MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the aerial extent of the flooding in Galena from space. Below is the extent of the Yukon River last year on May 27, and the second picture is the widespread flooding behind the ice Jam on May 28th of this year.

Photo Credit: NASA images courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response. Caption by Adam Voiland.



Photo Credit: NASA images courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response. Caption by Adam Voiland.

Above is the Yukon River flooding Galena May 28, 2013.

More information and images can be found HERE.

While erupting volcanoes along the Aleutian Range are not uncommon, there were some views of Pavlof Volcano taken from the International Space Station (ISS) that are worth a look.

Photo Credit: ISSA Crew, NASA

Above is the erupting Pavlof Volcano on May 18, 2013 taken from the ISS. It is located between Sand Point and Cold Bay on the Alaska Peninsula. The Volcano just to the right of Pavlof is Pavlof’s Sister, and is also a volcano.

A summary of the recent Pavlof eruption with a few more ISS photos can be found HERE.

This most recent eruption of Pavlof Volcano was downgraded by the Alaska Volcano Observatory on May 28th as activity subsided.

Nenana Borough and Taxes

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Photo Credit: peptic_ulcer

There is a study being done to provide information about options for a borough in the unincorporated area encompassing Nenana and many villages in the interior. There are four borough options that have been set out as talking points.

The two of them that would involve being annexed into other large boroughs could probably be dismissed because of the lack of services that would be provided, especially the Fairbanks North Star Borough option which would implement a sizable property tax burden on the residents.

The other two options on the table are the “Greater” Nenana Area Borough, which would basically be Nenana, the portion of the Parks Highway that isn’t already in a borough, and the immediately surrounding areas, and the Middle Tanana-Yukon Borough which would be the “Greater” Nenana Area and also a large section of rural Alaska which would include Tanana, Rampart, Minto, and other villages.

Note that it includes the Livengood area north of Fairbanks that is outside the current FNSB boundary. Of those two options, the Middle Tanana-Yukon Borough seems to have the most traction with supporters of a borough forming, because of the possibility of taxing the portion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline that runs through it. I wanted to point out some items that the proponents of the Borough might want to consider:

You cannot just do a property tax for a specific segment, like industrial uses.

If you implement a property tax, you have to apply it to all residential, commercial and industrial property. There are exemptions that can be applied, up to $50,000 in valuation for residential, a senior exemption, and some others, but you will still have the tax, and you will be taxed on all the non-exempted property.

You will then always face the possibility of having your land taken from you if you can’t pay the tax, as happens every year to property owners in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. There are no exemptions allowed for commercial use, so businesses will be hit hard, and have to pass those taxes onto the consumers if they can (mostly local residents). The only tax allowed on the pipeline is a property tax, so to tax the pipeline, you will have to tax the residents.

The owners of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline have been in court with the taxing boroughs since 2006 on the valuation of the pipeline, disputing that it is worth as much as the State says it is. All the money that has been collected since then is still encumbered, and some portion may need to be paid back when the final court decision has been rendered. To date, the Fairbanks North Star Borough has put out approximately $6 million fighting the legal battle in court.

One other point that applies to both the large and small borough concepts is that a borough has to pay a minimum amount of the funding for their schools. If you have the right industries you may be able to come up with an alternate form of taxation like the Denali Borough did to avoid having property taxes, but you will have to have some kind of tax to pay that minimum amount. This in turn will lower the amount of money that the School District receives from the State, as the current school funding formula penalizes the organized boroughs.

This article has been written to specifically discuss funding issues, but there is also plenty to talk about in regards to planning, land use regulation and the cost of the bureaucracy that will be required. Borough formation is a major decision that should not be taken lightly; hopefully everyone involved will do the necessary research to make good decisions.

The website for the Nenana Borough Study is: www.SheinbergAssociates.com/NenanaStudy.

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Lance Roberts is a Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly member who is also the Alaska Republican Party District 5 Chair.

Alaska is Bringing Common Core Through the Back Door

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Photo Credit: truth in american education

After former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said no to the Race to the Top money it looks like Alaska may end up with the Common Core State Standards anyway.

A reader emailed me to let me know that the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development recently announced that they have joined the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium after adopting new standards. Below is their press release from April 19, 2013:

Alaska Joins Multi-State Assessment Consortium

JUNEAU – Following a recent adoption of new student standards, Alaska has chosen to join the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), a state-led consortium developing assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Because Alaska’s new standards in English/language arts and mathematics have been vetted as college-ready and career-ready, and are sufficiently similar to the Common Core, the SBAC assessments will provide valid and reliable results for Alaska.

“The Smarter Balanced assessment will allow us to compare our students more closely with those around the country and confirm the rigor of Alaska’s standards compared to the Common Core,” said Alaska Education Commissioner Mike Hanley.

SBAC will produce assessments for implementation by the 2014-2015 school year for grades 3 through 8 and 11. These grades meet the current testing requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. SBAC also will provide formative assessments that may be used during the year to better prepare students and guide teachers in their instruction.

SBAC also will determine the assessment scores that indicate levels of achievement such as advanced, proficient, below proficient, and far below proficient. For the 11th grade assessment, SBAC will work with higher education to define benchmark scores that indicate whether a student is on track to be college-ready, meaning that students should not need remedial courses in English and math in postsecondary institutions.

Students in SBAC states will take year-end assessments on computers in the spring. The assessments will be adaptive, meaning they are individualized to each student by basing questions on the student’s response to previous questions. This method produces a more accurate understanding of each student’s achievement.

As with Alaska’s current standards and assessments, the use of SBAC assessments does not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. Standards and assessments present a goal. School districts retain their authority to decide how to reach this goal.

The Alaska State Board of Education announced they adopted new standards on June 11, 2012, but made no mention of alignment with the Common Core State Standards or how the standards were developed. The state board announced on December 19, 2011 a public comment period for the new standards that would go through May 12, 2012, but again no mention of the Common Core State Standards or how these standards were developed.

As with other states there was not a vote by the Alaska State Legislature.

If you look at Alaska’s math standards you can see they are aligned with the Common Core Math Standards. Now compare the Alaska ELA standards with the Common Core ELA Standards. Yet there is no recognition from the Common Core State Standards Initiative that Alaska has signed an MOU.

I’m curious who authorized them to do this? The larger question is after fighting centralization off why would they give in, and then do it under the radar?

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Originally published at Truth In American Education. Republished in full with permission.

Alaska Loses An Icon: Katie John Dead at 97

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Katie John, Athabascan Elder and famed plaintiff in the monumental court decision that restored subsistence fishing rights to the Alaska Native peoples, passed away on Friday. She was reportedly 97.

Restoring Liberty Publisher Joe Miller had the honor of meeting John during his time as a State Magistrate in Tok. “She is an historic figure in Alaska, one whose significance to the Alaska Native peoples cannot be overstated,” said Miller. “Her role in the Native community should be celebrated by all Alaskans because her self-reliance and willingness to stand up for her rights exemplifies the independent spirit of Alaska.”

We at Restoring Liberty extend our condolences to the John family in their time of loss.

Joe Miller Moves Forward With Senate Bid, Appears on Cavuto (+video)

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Tea party favorite Joe Miller has filed Federal Election Commission papers to challenge incumbent Sen. Mark Begich, one of several sitting Democrats seen as vulnerable by the GOP.

“Support from the grass roots has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are moving forward within those guidelines organizing, fundraising, and coordinating with our volunteer base,” Mr. Miller said in a statement when Politico.com broke the news Tuesday.

Miller is best known for challenging incumbent Republican US Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2010. With the backing of national tea party groups and Sarah Palin, he beat Senator Murkowski in the GOP primary by 2,006 votes out of 109,750 cast.

But Murkowski, a moderate Republican, came back to wage a write-in campaign backed by native corporations, political action committees, and some unions, dashing Miller’s hopes and holding onto her seat – the first time in more than 50 years that a US Senate candidate had won a write-in campaign.

Miller did not go down without a fight, however, challenging the election results up the Alaska state court system until a federal judge finally dismissed Miller’s suit and Murkowski was certified as the winner two months later.

Read more from this story HERE.

Waters Continue to Rise in Galena Flooding

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State emergency officials say more than 300 people have been evacuated out of Galena, or left on their own after Yukon River flooding hit the community hard.

Wednesday afternoon, river forecasters with the National Weather Service said chunks of ice along a small portion of the ice jam — which spans about 30 miles — broke free and released some floodwaters.

Pre-Flood:

Photo Credit: NASA


Post-Flood:

Photo Credit: NASA

Read more from this story HERE.