Letters to the editor

Reader addresses borough library controversy

To the editor:

According to the Borough Assembly, it is impossible to hire competent library staff. While Ordinance 24-039 says it’s designed “to allow library staff to focus on their job of providing resources to the community,” in fact it effectively strips them of that job, replacing them with the mayor’s handpicked seven substitutes.

While keeping the library staff employed, the spectacular seven will take over the job of reviewing as many books as Jackie and her back up banshees care to complain about, effectively giving them complete control of all the collections of borough libraries.

Wow.

Those seven people must be really amazing! They will do the job of all the Borough library staff. You might think they had some qualifications to do that, right? But no, the ordinance doesn’t say they have to have any library experience; in fact, they don’t even have to read the books they evaluate. What are their qualifications? According to the ordinance, they “know their community.” So none of the borough librarians knows their community? Even though they live in the community, work in the community, raise their families in the community, and go to church and school in the community, somehow they don’t know the community, not like the mayor’s spectacular seven know it.

And because they know the community so well, what do the spectacular seven get? The right to make a recommendation. And where does that recommendation go? To the Borough Library Director, but he doesn’t get to decide anything either; instead all decisions are made by the Director of Community Development, who is also under no obligation to have read a book. Why not just cut to the chase and have the Director of Community Development buy all the books in the libraries?

Of course, that’s too big a job for a single person, especially one who already has a full time job, so maybe he can get the library workers to help him; they’re going to have a lot of time on their hands.

If all this sounds bizarre, here’s an alternative: Maybe Jackie and the banshees have been wrong all this time they’ve been screaming. Maybe the Borough Library Board has been doing its job just fine, and maybe the out of control meeting was orchestrated in order to set up this ridiculous committee so the mayor can hand pick her friends to control the libraries’ contents.

Prudence McKenney,

Wasilla

BLM public hearings on Alaska Long Trail

To the editor:

Thanks to Senator Murkowski’s leadership Congress passed legislation to start and fund the federal process to designate the Alaska Long Trail as a National Scenic Trail. Next week the Bureau of Land Management will be conducting a series of public meetings in Alaska to explain the process and get feedback from Alaskans about the project.

The Alaska Long Trail was initiated a couple of years ago by Alaska Trails, a non-profit organization headed by Steve Cleary, working with longtime trail advocates. It would be a 500 mile overland trail from Fairbanks to Seward passing through lands the vast majority of which are owned and managed by local, state, and federal governments. Many parts of this route already have existing trails. If it is designated by Congress as a National Scenic Trail, it would join the eleven acclaimed National Scenic Trail icons such as the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail,

This designation and support of Congress and all federal agencies could be a key to developing the Alaska Long Trail and would be a sustainable economic stimulus for Alaska. Other National Scenic Trails have up to a million new users a year. Our Alaska Long Trail would give all users a new and unique opportunity to experience an exciting healthy adventure with unequaled natural wild-lands, North America’s tallest mountains, ocean and sea-life, wild rivers, and unique wildlife of bears, wolves, moose, lynx (and yes, mosquitos). Alaska residents would doubly benefit not only from using the trail but also from the many new sustainable year around business and employment opportunities it would create.

I would encourage Alaskans to support this extraordinary project. Please contact Alaska Trails at alaska-trails.org to find out more about the Alaska Long Trail and the schedule and location of the BLM hearings. Please come and join the team!

Valley BLM hearings: April 10th 3:30-5:30pm, Wasilla Public Library; April 11th 5pm - 7pm, Cantwell School Gym.

Tony Knowles,

Governor (1994-2002)

Chair, National Park System Advisory Board (2009-2017)