The opinions expressed on the show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 650 KNR. Amy Demboski. The show starts now. Our lines are open at 907-522-0650. This is The Morning Drive on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Good morning. It is Thursday, April 3rd. Current time, 6.05 a.m. We're a little early today, Daryl. Just a wee bit. You know, we're getting a jump on the game.
You know, there's been one time where it's like we started at 6.02. I was like, oh, I was a little surprised. But, you know, usually I'm good because I'm sitting here with my headphones on anyway. So you start hearing the music and you and I both start bebopping along.
the music. Oh, absolutely. That music, I don't know why, but it's silly, but yeah, I start bouncing to it and singing along, looking over you, giving you the finger points. Yeah, I was going to say, a lot of people look at me and give me the finger. It's a great way to start the day, Amy. It really is. Hey, you know, I believe in free speech. I'm okay with it. I'm totally okay with it. Well, it is early morning today on April 3rd, and I will tell you, I'm looking at my temperatures.
41.4 right here in Palmer at my weather station. 41.4. Yep. Well, my app says Anchorage is 40. So, I mean, you guys are pretty warm, too. What did you see coming in? Well, I was going to say, I don't know which part of your app they're getting their temperature from, but I can tell you right now it's between 37 and 35 around. Downtown, 35 over here at Diamond, 37 over at Spenard, but still 41. Oh, my God. Okay, I just refreshed my app.
And now it's saying Anchorage is 41. Okay, I'm going to go look at my other thing and see where they're getting that number from because that's crazy. I know, I know. It is nice in here, though. well the daily high in anchorage is supposed to be 53 today so you guys are going to be you're going to be breaching the 50 degree mark which you know it's all downhill from there bring on the mosquitoes anchorage 40 right your tongue yeah exactly exactly
Kenai 31, Big Lake 37. Fairbanks is checking in at 33 today. You know, as we start looking around at the temperatures in South Central, it is that time of year. Just a reminder, depending on where you live, but it's probably pretty much everywhere, maybe except Fairbanks right now. But high fire danger, the Municipality of Anchorage has updated their board here to say ground-based fires are prohibited due to high fire danger.
That means campfires, burn pits, and open fires on the ground are not allowed. So what does that mean? It means you could still use your grill, but you can't have a campfire. So that's what that means. If you ever need information, if you're in Anchorage and you're thinking about, you know,
Let's just say cleaning up your grounds. Maybe this is the time of year people are out there starting to clean up their yards. Just anticipate right now you're going to be hauling away your brush. You're not going to be burning it. If you ever have a question, you can call the burn hotline in Anchorage, 267-5020. That's 267-5020. That's the burn hotline, and every day it will tell you what the burn prohibitations are or what's allowed.
Just curious, didn't they open the wood lots also? So you don't have to haul all of it to the dump, but your debris has to go to the dump. But if you have actual wood, I do believe they've opened the wood lots. That would not surprise me. That would make a lot of sense. I'm going to look at that real quick here. Yeah. I haven't looked at the woodlots yet, but...
It does say cooking fires are prohibited. So the use of barbecue grills, for example, I mean are permitted. I used the wrong word. They are permitted. So like your grill is permitted. But again, use of burn barrels in Anchorage is always prohibited. Fireworks are prohibited in the municipality of Anchorage. Open fires on the ground are not allowed right now. So just because you brought that up, I wasn't going to bring this up. But on my drive to work today, I ran into several interesting...
individuals on the sides of the road. But the main one that caught my attention, and I got to give this person kudos because they did have a ground fire. Okay, Amy, they had a fire on the sidewalk in front of one of the benches. And they actually did it, in my opinion, quasi-right, though. They had a cinder block, which they had. I don't know what the material inside the cinder block was, but they had obviously poured a flammable liquid, like an alcohol or something, so it was a blue flame.
but they were warming themselves over the cinder block that had a blue flame. So A, not allowed, it's open fire, but there you go. We need to have our police officers also kind of maybe, or those... Community patrols or whatever the homeless patrols are, letting people know that maybe not. No, you know, especially in high fight. Look, I think we've been saying this for a while. We've had very little snow this year. And so a lot of places like swamps and different places that.
usually would have quite a bit of moisture, I think are going to be very, very dry this spring. Yeah, because all that tall dry grass, brown grass. I'm looking at my yard, and my yard's pretty brown. And, you know, especially out here in the Mat-Su, you know. you have a lot of grassy areas and then if that wind kicks up a little bit, grass fires are going to be...
Nightmare. Very likely. So, again, we are entering that season. It is a high-fire danger right now. Do be careful. And, you know, make good choices. Please make good choices because your neighbors will appreciate it if you don't burn down their house. I'm just throwing that out there. And that fire, about a block and a half from where the big fire was in the woods. Just FYI. Oh, yeah. Oh, and update on weather here in Anchorage. I got to give you this, Amy. Wait a minute. He's about to say it.
I was right in a sense. I had to qualify that because in actuality, if you're up on the hillside or anywhere up near the mountains. We're looking at 41 to 47 degrees. 47? Rabbit Creek has two of them in the 47, 46 right now. Wow. But if you're anywhere in the lower ends of Anchorage, you know, down where it's more flat.
No, we're still in the low and mid-30s, man. I'm literally looking at a 10-degree difference in a half mile. Basically, maybe they averaged it. No, actually, these are from individual weather stations. No, I'm saying on my app, maybe they averaged it. That's possible. I'm just literally going, wow, this is crazy. Well, Anchorage, it is always, I'll see, look.
It happens every now and then. Every now and then. All right, well, let's get into some of our community announcements because we have a couple. So let's start with the Matu Borough. For today, Thursday, April 3rd, there is a planning board meeting in the Assembly Chambers today. one o'clock at the Nazi borough building.
Also tonight, there is a Susitna Community Council meeting at 7 p.m. That's going to be at the Upper Sioux Community and Senior Center located at 16463 East Helena Drive in Talkeena. Those are really the only meetings that I see for the Matsu borough today. If you want to follow up, if you need more information, just go to matsugov.us and you'll be able to find it there.
As far as the city of Wasilla goes, I didn't see anything on their calendar, but I did see a Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting for the city of Palmer today. That's going to be from 6 to 8 p.m. today. Of course, that's at the Palmer headquarters there. 231 West Evergreen Avenue in Palmer.
If you need more information, just go to palmerak.org. As far as the municipality of Anchorage goes for today, the only thing I see on the calendar are a couple things. They have a municipal airport advisory commission meeting. That is going to be at noon today at the English Fire Training Center, which is off of Airport Heights, Building C, as in Charlie.
And then at 1 o'clock today, there's an AMATS Technical Advisory Committee meeting. Again, that's going to be at the Community Development Center, which is 4700 Elmore Road. It's going to be in the training room. If you need more information, just go to muni.org, click on the Mayor's Tech. and then click on the Events tab. As far as the Anchorage Assembly goes, for today, April 3rd, there's a Community and Economic Development Committee meeting.
at 9 a.m. this morning. Again, that's going to be over at the Elmore Road location, the permit center. And then at 1 o'clock today, there's a Budget and Finance Committee meeting of the Anchorage Assembly. And that will be at City Hall Conference Room 155. So there you have it. That's it for the Anchorage Assembly today. If you want more information on their meetings, just go to muni.org.
Click on the assembly tab and it will bring you to their home landing page. I didn't see anything for the remainder of the week for the Kenai Peninsula borough. However... What I do see for the city of Kenai is there is a regular city council meeting tonight for the city of Kenai. That will be at 6 p.m. I'm just taking a gander here.
at their agenda because I'm just curious. I'm a little nosy. What can I say? I'm a little curious. All right. Well, that, of course, will be held at 210 Fidalgo Avenue in Kenai. If you need more information, all you have to do is go to Kenai.city, and you'll be able to find their agenda and all the good stuff there.
The city of Saldana has a Parks and Rec Advisory Board meeting today in the city council chambers. That's going to be at 530 tonight. If you need more information, just go to saldana.org. And that really does it for boards and commissions and public announcements for this morning. I don't see anything else. If you notice something that's going on that people should know about, I'm always happy to plug it. You know, I do want to plug this. I want to thank Al.
for sending this to me yesterday and reminding me, because another one of my friends did send it to me, but I just forgot about it. But Al reminded me, I asked if anybody knew of any public meetings that were happening, any legislative town halls. I was hoping there would be one out here in the valley because I'd love to go to it, but I don't see one in the valley. In Anchorage, Saturday, April 5th, from 2 to 4, there's going to be an Anchorage delegation legislative town hall.
It's going to be at Cuddy Hall at UAA, which is located, of course, at 3400 Seawolf Drive. And there you have it. But here's the thing, Daryl. You know what this meeting is going to be? It's going to have, I don't know what color shirts they're going to wear, but the NEA will show out in MassForce.
Because they'll be like, oh, you're hurting our children. Oh, you need to give us this huge raise. Otherwise, we're going to cut a hundred and some odd teachers. I mean, really, these legislative town halls, anytime there's a big football. especially when it comes to a school funding now we're not remember we're not talking about a cut to school funding we're talking about a 200 and some odd like 40 million dollar raise
To school funding. And that's on the low end of the one that they want. I know. I know. And this is annually. We're talking a huge raise to the BSA. Now, if the Anchorage School District. can't live within, I don't, look, I'm going to say the Anchorage School District, the Mat-Su School District, Fairbanks, Kenai, I don't care what school district you are.
You should be able to say, this is how much money we got last year. This is how much we anticipate getting. And if you get a windfall, if you get a raise, that's a bonus.
But they don't schedule like that. You know what they do? They schedule on the come, so to speak. They schedule on the what's to come versus what we have. Right? So they're going to say, Okay, we're going to plan our budget for a $1,000 BSA increase, and if we don't get it, then we're going to blame the legislature for cutting our budget. You can't blame the legislature for not giving you a bigger raise. Why don't you budget off of what you have? But that's exactly, mark my words, this will be.
over and over again this will be packed this legislative town hall in anchorage is going to be packed this saturday and it will be packed with the nea whining and whining and whining for a massive increase and don't be fooled What they will take in exchange is your PFD. And, Amy, thank you, thank you, thank you, because I have been railing about this forever in this forecasting our next year's budget by what we want. I mean, that's like saying, you know.
I want my bosses to give me $1,000 a month raise next year at work. And if they don't, well, oh my gosh, it's going to crash my family because I've already bought the new car and I put down the payment on those and I've already spent all the money. Great analogy. Great analogy. Great analogy. You know, I had another friend text me last night, and he was absolutely right. He says, 185 ASD teachers asked by the Anchorage School District, lack of competence, not failure of the state legislature.
That's how they will twist it. PFD will be gone. That's one of my friends. He texted me last night, and he's not wrong. That's how they're going to pitch it. Look, they're going to say, we have to get rid of all the sports. We have to get rid of, you know, all these programs that actually work. We're going to have to lay off all these teachers. have to this we're gonna have to that why because they're not getting a massive raise that's what it's gonna look
If they budgeted off of last year's numbers, they would be just fine. They would be just fine. But here's what they have to pay for. They have to pay for big raises. They have to pay for higher, you know, higher costs. Everything's cost. Look, Bidenomics is still impacting everybody, right? Things are higher costs. So rather than tightening their belt, what do they do? They expand their DEI program, and then they say they have to
to lay off teachers. Okay. Okay. A quick question. What does the word analyze mean? Because I always hear them, they analyze the budget. But I never see them actually do anything with the analysis. Well, that's because they don't know what they're looking at. All right, let's go ahead and take a quick break. If you'd like to call in, 522-0650. We'll be right back. Looking at your Alaska total traffic cameras on this Thursday morning. 628 Mornings on NewsRadio 650, KENI. Call now, 907-522-0650.
Welcome back. Current time 622 on this Thursday morning. We're going to go to the phones and Kelly is with us. Good morning, Kelly. All right. Good morning. I know you guys are talking a lot about the school, but one of my friends brought this up to me yesterday, and I'm not sure how it fits in with all of the school budget and all the...
BSA and stuff, but there's this thing called the Alaska Performance Scholarship Level, and they break it down into levels one, two, and three. And if a kid gets a GPA of 3.5 or higher... then it says it provides $7,000 a year. And then if it's a level two, it provides $5,250 per year with a GPA of three or higher. 3,500 with a GPA of 2.5 or higher, or if you get like an ACT or an SAT score within the parameters.
Do you know anything about this Alaska Performance Scholarship? I do. Does that have money to get back into the school? You know, it's for college. My daughter used hers for college. So it was after she graduated, she was able to use. She was awarded because she had a higher GPA, so she was awarded money, but she used it when she went to college. So does that go to each individual? Based on their performance after, like, they get a check or?
Yeah, yep. Yeah, she gets it. I don't remember if she actually took possession of it. I think you apply for it, and I think they, like, she went to UAF. So that's, but they can earn up to. For a four-year degree, they could earn up to $28,000. For a performance scholarship, sorry. So if you want more information, you can go to, there's a website. If you just Google Alaska Performance Scholarship, it's ACPE.
dot Alaska dot gov and they have a ton of information on the website about it But like I said, now my daughter graduated from high school in 2014, so it's been a little while. But it is there. And they do have a section in here that says private homeschool students only, where it talks about if your kids are private or homeschool students, how you can also receive potential benefit.
But it says here, what is the Alaska Performance Scholarship? It provides an opportunity for Alaska high school students to earn scholarships to help cover the costs of post-secondary education. Eligibility requirements include you to be an Alaska resident who graduated from an Alaska high school, public, private, or home school. You have to take rigorous curriculum, earn a minimum GPA of 2.5 or higher.
And then it says it can be used at any participating college or university in Alaska or for approved career and technical education programs in the state. So they have a ton of information on their website about it. But you have to go to a college in Alaska then to use it? I don't know. It just has to be a participating college. So you may have. Okay.
Yeah, but my recollection is I think when Kennedy went to college, that's my daughter, I don't think she got it directly. I think it went directly to the school. So I think the check went. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah, so, you know, she had a couple different scholarships, but she also had to have two different jobs because mom isn't just going to foot the bill. You know, I like to have kids have a vested interest in their future. So, yes, mom and Della.
Dad helped, but she had a couple scholarships, and she had two part-time jobs, and she took a full caseload. So, course load. So, you know, look, I... I think this is one of those little, it's not going to pay for your whole college, but it will help. Right, but it helps out a lot. Yeah, it really does. But just Google Alaska Performance Scholarship, and you'll come across their website. Again, if you want it, it's AC.
cpe.alaska.gov, and they have a ton of information on their website about the performance scholarship. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was, like, going back into the schools or if the individual got it. Yep. And a really good motivation for kids to get good grades.
Exactly, exactly. Well, and, you know, especially, look, college is expensive, and, you know, not every family is going to be able to afford it, but I do like the fact that they also include technical schools. So if somebody wants to be...
an electrician, if somebody wants to be a carpenter, if they want to go to some, you know, a technical education school, they still have the opportunity to participate, too. It's not just for kids who want to go to college. It's for kids that want to do other things, too. College isn't for everybody. That's exactly right.
We all got to pay our bills. Amen, sister. I got you. Yeah, I'm totally with you. That's awesome. Yeah. Keep fighting a good fight on getting the cost down in the school because it's really aggravating as a... as a parent to pay all of these taxes and have very minimal to show for and then just keep hearing ads about how they're going to lay all these people off when really I think they need to cut all of this administrative. type positions in ASC and keep the teachers teaching.
I agree with you 100%. You know, I start looking at this, and I think most parents, look, when you send your kids to school, you want to make sure they get a good education. They should be able to read and write and do math when they get out of college. And it's actually shocking the number. having a conversation with a couple different UAA professors and
It's shocking how many kids out of the Anchorage School District have to take remedial math classes when they first get into college because they can't take their basic math. You can't just walk into algebra. Most people have to take remedial math. before coming out of ASD, before they can even jump into the college curriculum. I mean, what does that tell you? They just don't do a good job of holding kids back. They just keep pushing, and, you know, I mean, there's got to be some reevaluation.
And that not every kid is, you know, has got it. And if they have to get held back a year, then that's really got to be a conversation for parents. And unfortunately, it's not. They just keep shoving these kids out. It's terrible.
Yeah, because I don't think it does the kid's service, and it certainly is going to, you know, when they get to college, if that's where they're going, then they're going to end up taking remedial classes, which means it's going to cost the family that much more money because there are extra classes now that they have to take.
It's just, to me, deal with the issue when the issue presents itself, and then you're setting the kid up for success. That's my opinion. I agree. Yeah, and then build the child's confidence there, and even if they have to. retake the grade, but now they feel more confident going into the next grade, that's really what you want. Exactly. Yeah, you are spot on. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for the call this morning. I enjoyed the conversation.
You're awesome. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. All right. Well, I will tell you. See, this is my point. Our listeners are so smart. They are tuned in, and this is why I encourage people, if you're available on Saturday and you're in Anchorage and you have the chance to go to this legislative town hall, I
would encourage you to do so. If nothing else, to watch and see what happens. Because this is what happens every time with these town halls. You're going to have the NEA flood the zone. They're going to all show up with the same color T-shirt, right? Everybody will be wearing red or whatever color they're doing this year. I have no idea. Whatever T-shirt was. Yeah, whatever color they're doing this year. I don't know. But they'll show up. They'll have.
their little signs, they'll have their shirts, they'll all be wearing the same color, and they're going to get up there and talk about how the legislature's failing and all these teachers are going to get cut and it's all the legislature's fault. I want to remind everyone. That it is the school board who sets the budget. It is the school board that prioritizes where the spending goes. The school board knew how much money they had last year. They knew what they were going to be facing this year.
And instead of cutting back costs, instead of consolidating schools that are at, you know, not even, you know, 70% capacity, 60% capacity, some of these schools are at 50% capacity. Rather than cutting actual costs, again, they go the lazy route and then they just start lobbying the legislature saying if you don't give us a thousand dollars per student more in the base student allocation we're going to have to cut all these teachers
We're going to have to cut all these programs. It's the Washington Monument argument, right? You find the thing. This is what they do in politics all the time. You find the thing that's going to cause the most outrage.
irritation among the voting population and that's what you cut right that's what they're gonna do right they're gonna they're gonna cut all the popular programs they're gonna cut sports they're gonna say look If the legislature doesn't give us this massive raise, which they won't call it a massive raise, if they don't adequately fund education, it's really if they don't give us a huge raise and effectively take your PFD, then we're going to have to make all these.
massive cuts. No, they don't. As Kelly pointed out, they could cut administrative costs. You know, when we look statewide, Why in the world do we have like 47? I could be exaggerating on the number. It could be 45. I can't remember. It's in the 40s. Why do we have like 45, 47 school districts? You know, Representative McKay pointed out in one island here in Alaska, we have like four school districts to serve like less than 2,000 kids.
With every new school district, what do you get? With every new school district, you get a superintendent. You get administrative costs. And why does this matter statewide? Well, it matters statewide because in these rural areas, a hundred percent in a lot of these rural areas a hundred percent of the school cost is paid by the state yep here in anchorage you know half of your property taxes is going to the schools right but
But in some of these places, you know, they really are no skin in the game besides the PFD that's being taken from them. But the state is paying 100% of the bill. So what is the incentive for them to consolidate and bring down costs among schools? There isn't any. Not for the school district itself. The state has to force it, right? And legislators don't have the political will to do it.
That's the bottom line. And so when they come to you and they say, oh, we're going to cut all these programs and school sports are going away because these mean Republicans just won't vote to adequately fund education, what they're really saying is the Republicans Republicans are saying we need to have actual measurable policy changes that are going to improve education.
before we hand over a ton of cash, because cash clearly isn't the answer, and before I'm willing to take my neighbor's PFD. That's what they're really saying. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Sign stuff and listen now. Reach out to Amy now. 907-522-0650. That's 907-522-0650. It's Amy Devosky on NewsRadio 650. Welcome back. Well, it is 638 on this Thursday morning. And, you know, Daryl, every time I see these headlines, it's just a sad thing. But, you know, look.
It's not surprising considering some of the movements that the Anchorage Assembly have taken, but ADN has an article up. A man was killed in Midtown. He was hit by not one but two trucks. A male pedestrian and a dog were struck and killed Tuesday morning during heavy traffic in Midtown. This was in the morning commute.
APD responded to Benson and Seward just after 6.20 after a report of a person being hit by a vehicle. The preliminary investigation indicated the man was standing in a crosswalk looking at a dog that had been hit. when he was struck by two pickups southbound on the highway. The trucks, one was a Ford F-150, the other Chevy Silverado, had a green light at the time. Police said both drivers stayed at the scene and are cooperating with the investigation.
Traffic cameras in the area showed the man looking at a deceased dog when he was hit, according to police spokesmen. The dog had been hit by a vehicle, he said. It wasn't immediately clear whether the dog belonged to the man or not. I mean, look, especially this type of day, I mean, look, it's just now, it's 640 now, it's just now starting to look a little bit light out there, like it's starting to lighten up.
but a lot of times especially in anchorage it's not like they're wearing blaze orange safety yellow or orange you know a lot of times you'll see people walking around these streets and they're in dark clothing it's dark you're on the highway And they have a green light. I mean, nobody's thinking somebody's going to be standing in the middle of the road.
Probably a bad idea. I agree. I mean, this morning, as I was telling you, this morning, I had somebody completely all in black. I mean, literally complete in black. I did not see them. until i was within probably 30 feet of them and they were stepping off of a curb in the middle of the intersection i had a green light going through and they were going to step off the curve directly in front of me and literally i and they gave me a dirty look because i didn't slow
my speed as I went by them, but I did not see them. Literally, they looked like they were part of the streetlight or the signs that were right there, not the light, but the signs that were in the middle of the meridian. And they have no care about it. He was literally going to step off, and when I didn't slow...
the dirty look I got, it was just like, wow, really? I know. I had a friend of mine a couple weeks ago tell me that he had to pull over because he came so close to hitting somebody. It really shraddled him. It just scared me. It's, you know, he was, you know, he had the right of way, everything, and somebody stepped out in front of him and he was able to miss him. But, you know, it's, look, you know, when you have an assembly who has the perspective.
That people have every right to be in the roads, you know, with cars. I mean, first of all, it's stupid. Let's be honest. Look. A car and a person sharing a roadway is never going to be a great thing. It has to be in a controlled manner. That's why we have sidewalks. That's why we have crossing areas.
Overpasses. Overpasses. I mean, you have mechanisms, engineering controls, in order to limit the conflict because, you know, a person's never going to win against a car. Let's just be real. So there you have it.
But it's just, you know, we'll see what happens. I know there's been some Assembly members that have brought this up, and I know the mayor had wanted to repeal that law that the Assembly passed, but I don't know if they ever did. Did they ever repeal it? They did not. They put it on hold. Oh, look, a man on hold who probably could tell us all about it. Assemblymember from South Anchorage, Mr. Randy Solt. Good morning, sir. Good morning, Amy. How are you? I am fantastic. How are you? Well...
Wait, let me ask you. Is Keith replacing you on the assembly? Yes, Keith is going to replace me. We have a good one in Keith, and I'm really looking forward to having him step in. Oh, well, you know. Of course, you're on the Anchorage Assembly now, but I'm sure you're calling on your own behalf and not on behalf of the Assembly. Is that right? Yeah, a little bit. You know, I've been meeting the call. Just wanted to thank you for what you do.
Thank all the citizens for putting up with me for three years on the assembly. But the other, just to vent a little bit on the election, you know, we passed a lot of bonds and probably the ones that... didn't pass, probably should have, like the APD levied or replaced vehicles. That fleet is so old, it's actually costing us more money by maintaining it. We're no longer replacing light bulbs.
fuses, replacing transmissions and engines. And it just goes to show where Anchorage is headed. We complain about our police, enforcement about the lawlessness in town, but we're not willing to support them. And we're getting what we deserve. You know, I'm looking at some of them now, and as I'm going through some of the lists of bonds, you know, the school bonds look like they passed. The roads bonds look like they passed. The parks and rec bonds look like they passed.
The police service area bond looks like it passed, but the area-wide public safety bond looks like a yes. I'm trying to look at, see what else we see here. It was pretty much everything but the APD levy, which was to replace the vehicles. Oh, there is, yeah. And then the other one that probably should have passed was Gerdwood's proposition. A lot of people...
Don't realize that Girdwood pays for that. And they just need the municipality to say, yes, you can go borrow money and you can pay it back. But it never passes anyway. Proposition 8 looks like it's failing right now. Proposition 11... The Anchorage Metro Police Service Area Special Tax Levy looks like that's failing by a wide margin. I mean, right now it's nine points down, so that's pretty significant. Yeah.
So, Subursa is failing, too. So, the Chugat-Birchwood-Eagle River Rural Road Service Area Mill Rate Adjustment, that one's failing as well. So, what I... I see it. I see it. That one's Prop 12. So I'm looking at right now, what I'm seeing is people, anything that said this is going to be a new tax or increased taxes directly, they said no.
But they said yes to bonds, which still does what? Increase taxes. I'm just trying to figure out the Chugiak State Park. How did that go? Wait, wait. Hang on, Daryl. I missed you. What did you say? I was just trying to figure out the Chugiak State Park one. And I don't understand how that can pass, but the police one doesn't. Well, to Randy's point, people are more interested in supporting parks than supporting police, it looks like.
Yeah, and then we complain about the lawlessness in the town and why our police are leaving. You know, the other thing, too, is if you read the proposition, certain ones are above the tax cap and certain ones are within the tax cap. So I always pay attention to that because above the tax cap is going to be a property tax increase. And it only goes... to the property owners in Anchorage. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's a good point. I always try to point people back to the bond language because it's always helpful to start. But all in all, I looked at this election. There was no surprises for me really in this election. heard good things about Keith in District 6, and Bob Griffin had called and told us that's the guy. He'd be great. And then Jared Gerker will be a good addition from Chuyak Eagle River. So, you know, we got a couple good ones, but...
You know, I don't know. With the school district, with the spending, I mean, I don't know when Anchorage is going to turn the corner. But there's got to come a point where people start asking, what am I really getting? for my money. Yeah, and I've been doing a bunch of straw polls because I've been hearing this a lot from my friends. I meet more and more friends, lifelong Anchorage residents that grew up here.
that are moving. They're all saying, it's time, I'm going to move. And their philosophy is, I'm not going to wait 10, 15 years for Anchorage to turn around. I'm just going to go somewhere else that already has this figured out. Yeah, it's sad to see because, look, both of my kids, well, one of them's in the military, so that doesn't really count, but he just got moved to Louisiana. But my daughter has, you know, she moved to Utah, and she's like, yeah, I don't think I'm moving back.
And it's just sad to see a lot of people, you know, take that, you know. And you look at what's happening at the statewide level, Randy, and you start seeing their spending. You start seeing, you know, them talking about new taxes, all this kind of stuff. For a lot of people.
on fixed incomes, especially after they retire, they're looking at their homes saying, I don't know if I can afford to stay here in retirement. It's a sad thing. Yeah, we need to let the state, and I was suggesting it to some of the... representatives, they need to look at what Florida did and how they tried to pass legislation so you basically can't get taxed out of your home and limit escalation on your property.
Yeah, I think that would be great. I know there's a couple states that are trying to find ways to eliminate property taxes altogether. Obviously, you're going to have to find a way to still fund government, but I think what it does is it makes the conversation around how big... should government be and how do we prioritize those dollars that we get so all good all good things well sir i know your time is coming to a close on the anchorage assembly i want to thank you for your service
Oh, you're welcome. And thank you for everything you and Daryl do. It's much appreciated. And keep fighting the good fight. All right, we will do it. That's Randy Solt. He currently represents South Anchorage on the Anchorage Assembly until the election is certified, and then it will be in another's hands, but we want to thank him for his service on the Anchorage Assembly. We're going to go ahead and take a quick break. We'll be right back.
Looking at your Alaska total traffic cameras on this Thursday morning. Now back. to the boss, Amy Demboski. Call 907-522-0650 and be a part of the show on News Radio 650. KENI. Welcome back. Current time, 6.52. Well, the results haven't really changed in the Anchorage election. I'm just going to give you a quick rundown. Assembly District 1, seat L, the leading candidate right now is Daniel Volan with 57% of the vote.
He's likely going to win that race. District 2, seat A. Jared Gerker is ahead 50.75%. He's going to win that race. Assembly District 3. Cameron Perez-Verdia has 60% of the vote. He's going to win that race. You can't see my tears. District 4, Aaron Baldwin-Day is ahead with 59.99%. So that one's...
Not going to change. Assembly District 5. This race is a little closer, but not close enough. Yarrow Silvers is going to win that race. She currently has 48% of the vote. District 6. which is the seat currently held by Randy Solt, Keith McCormick. has 82% of the vote in that race. So he's going to be there. And then, of course, both of the incumbents on the Anchorage School Board have retained both of their seats, Kelly Lessons and Margo Bellamy. All right, let's go to the phones.
with us. Good morning, sir. Hey, morning, Amy. Morning, Daryl. Before I get to what I got to get to, I got to tell you the joke my son told me the other day. Oh, I love it. Go for it. Yeah. So why did the banker Come up and quit his job. Oh, I don't know why. He lost interest. Great dad joke. That's a winner winner. That's a good one. I have to come up with a joke. I always find all these jokes, like, before the show. If I don't write them down, I forget them. So I will come up with a joke.
All right, what's on your mind this morning? Since you're kind of talking about local stuff, and we're always talking about the GOP and getting out ahead, must read Alaska at a poll there of who should be the next governor. And it looked pretty well that people kind of like Bernadette Wilson a whole lot. And I know she probably listens to the show, and I've talked to her a few times.
Or seen her speak a few times. I like what she has to say, especially when she was on your show about a week or so ago. Yep, yep. She sounded very gubernatorial, didn't she? Yeah. You know, she's a firecracker. She'll definitely tell you what's on her mind. And I think that's what people are starving for, actual leadership that we don't have right now in the state.
You know, we've said this. There's a lot of conversations going on, as you know, behind the scene about who's running for governor. There's a number of people that are reaching out. They're saying, hey, I'm going to run. I'm interested in running. I mean, I've had these conversations. I know you and I have talked about it. And look, the field is starting to solidify. You know, we expect 100%. Look.
We know Click Bishop's running, right, from Fairbanks. He's told people out loud he's running. That's why he didn't run for re-election to the State Senate. I fully expect Peter Machicki from the Kenai is going to be running. That's all the buzz. But the names that are on this list are also names that I've heard are likely running. Mary Peltola, Adam Crum.
Bernadette Wilson, Treg Taylor, Nancy Dahlstrom. But you know who I think is going to rise to the top? It's the Trump-esque, who can motivate the base for the right? Who is the person that's going to motivate and... electrify the base because Alaskans overwhelmingly voted for Trump. They want somebody to come in, support the Trump agenda, somebody who's going to be no-nonsense and direct.
I got to be honest with you, you know, when you start looking at this, you know, the ticket's going to matter. But I have to be honest, those that connect with the base, I think, whoever that is, I think is going to be the one that rises to the top. 100% correct. I agree with your analysis, as always. You guys have a good day, Amy. You too. All right, don't work too hard. Well, you know, it'll be interesting, too, to see who gets the Trump endorsement here in Alaska.
Because I think that potentially could carry a lot of weight. I'm not a huge fan on necessarily endorsements. I don't think endorsements always matter. But it will unlock potential money to come into the state to help. So that's where it will be real key. This is an interesting conversation. All right, let's take a quick break. If you'd like to call in, 522-0650.
The opinions expressed on the show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 650 KENI. Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio on News Radio 650 KENI.
Welcome back to Hour 2 of the Amy Dobosky Show, broadcasting live and local every weekday morning from 6 to 8 a.m. You can listen to us live on the radio. We're on 6.50 a.m. Or you can listen to us streaming. You can go to... website 650keni.iheart.com or you could just download the iheart media app and on that iheart media app you want to make sure you get those presets in there i found a new thing about the presets yesterday when i was playing with the app and that is
It's unlimited. You can have as many presets on there as you want. You just got to scroll down the line because I was going through a re-erasion of a couple of mine that I accidentally clicked on some. And like I said, all of a sudden I found out it's unlimited. So those presets are the way to go on that app.
Well, you know, and the podcast, too. I mean, a lot of people really like the podcast. I will have people that will text me during the day. You know, it will be 10 o'clock in the morning or 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and they'll text me a question about something I was talking about on the show. So I can always tell which one of my friends. listens to the podcast.
But Daryl, right after the show, he tends to upload the podcast. So it goes into the iHeartMedia system, and then it pops out. But you can find the podcast on the website or on the iHeartMedia app. So we appreciate everybody who listens, whether you listen by podcast. or you listen live. We appreciate everybody who listens. All right, let's go to the phones. And Emery is with us. Good morning, Emery. Good morning. Hey, how are you doing this morning? What's on your mind?
I just wanted to let people know they put the flasher signs out for the Kinnick River Bridge construction. They're going to start working on it on Monday. And then the detour that is going to be put in place. starts on the 23rd of the month. Oh, I am not looking forward to that. They're resurfacing the bridges, right? Is that what they're doing? Yeah.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think they're doing a lot of actual work on the bridges, too. Those are older bridges, so they need to make sure that they obviously stay functioning. Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, there's a lot of traffic that commutes in every single day. That will definitely, people should plan accordingly. That is a good reminder. So the flashers are up. The detours start on the 23rd of this month. That means I'm going to have to leave for work a little early, I guess. Yeah.
That would be a good suggestion. Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, and it's the nighttime commute because I'm a little more patient in the morning than I am at nighttime because at nighttime I'm just ready to be home. You know, it's like a long day. I'm ready to be home. All right, so that's going to cross the Kinnick River bridges. We do expect that. I'll look up DOT's information about it, too, and see if they haven't. Do you know how long they're planning on being out? Do you have any idea?
If I had to take a guess, I'd say it would be a good chunk of the summer. Well, I can let you know a little bit here, Emery and Amy. I'm looking now at DOT's site on it. I finally got to the main site on it. And it looks like they're going to go for 30 days on the northbound bridge. It's going to be closed down. And then they're going to be 30 days on the...
The southbound bridge is going to be closed down. So I'd figure probably an extra 15 days on each of those. So, yeah, that's okay. We will deal with it because at the end of the day, we won't have those massive ruts in the middle of the bridges. So it'll be okay. It'll be okay. Emery, thank you for this. I don't want to say I'm excited about it, but I do appreciate the information. Very helpful. Yeah. From everyone I've talked to, it's like all the articles are like, oh, it's.
gonna start in april i'm like that helps nobody exactly exactly now we know april 23rd is the date for the detour but they're gonna be out there starting monday so Okay, so they'll be out there starting Monday. The detour will start the 23rd. All right, none of us are looking forward to it. The only thing we're looking forward to is it being done. Right.
All right, thank you so much for the call this morning. I appreciate the update. Yep, not a problem. All right, bye-bye. All right, let's go to Gary. Good morning, Gary. Good morning. You know what? The fastest, quickest, easiest way to turn Alaska into a blue state is to endanger the king salmon. And fish and game... has made that statement. They're looking to endanger the king's salmon. Yeah, that would not be a good thing. If I look at the fish and game, that's an...
That's a confession that they are a total failure in conserving our salmon and fish. They've totally failed in that area. Well, I will have to look into that because I haven't heard them make that statement. But, you know, look at the amount of runs and the closures that we've had over the past, you know, five, ten years. And, I mean, you can see it in the run.
So, look, there's a real issue with king salmon and fish and management here in Alaska. There's no doubt about it. And I think it's a very important topic, but that's a topic that we'll have to...
We'll have to dive into. Maybe I'll get somebody from Fish and Game on, see if I can get somebody to call in and talk to us a little bit about that, because I haven't heard them make that statement, but I will look into it. Thank you so much for the call, Gary. I appreciate it. All right, let's go to Carl. Good morning, sir. Good morning, Carl. Well, good morning. It's a wonderful day. It is a glorious day. It's a Thursday.
We don't have Alaska breakup, which is also referred to as construction season. That's not happening yet. But as Emery told us, wait until next week. It's about to start. Well, it's going to. It's going to, no doubt. No doubt. Now, Liz, I was listening to your comment this morning or the comments this morning about how the University of Alaska has to send children.
to remedial classes for math and probably other subjects as well. And I think I have a cure for that. What's that? That is every child, at least from Alaska, every child that has to take those remedial classes.
send the bill for those remedial classes back to the school district that educated them. I like that. I've got to be honest, that's a great idea. I like that idea. Because at the end of the day, when they graduate and they get that diploma, it's saying they're proficient, right? It's saying they've met these standards.
And if they haven't really, I mean, I was surprised. Like I said, I've talked to a couple different university professors, and they said it's a big issue, especially kids coming out of ASD, the number of remedial classes that they have to take before they're actually coming. college ready for especially math and I'm sure there's English in there too but you know math is where I was having the conversations but
Again, you know, look, this is just my example. So when my son was in fourth grade, so I remember the end of the year, And we go through, and I have all the parent-teacher conferences with his teachers. And we say, how's he doing? Oh, he's doing great. He's getting all, you know. S pluses and Os, and he's doing really, really well. Well, then I got his about three weeks later. You know, it's the very end of the school year.
I check the mail, and I get his test results back. And my son, who was just finishing fourth grade, was testing at a second grade level in math. And I had just gone through all the parent-teacher conferences. I was an engaged parent. We were sitting down. We were doing all his homework. I didn't even drive home. I immediately drove him to Kumon, and I enrolled him in a private program for the next year.
to get him back up to where he needed to be. Now, not everybody has that ability, but how does a parent Go through and be engaged. Talk to the teachers. The teacher's like, oh, he's doing great. Oh, yeah, he's doing everything. Yep, he's doing great. And then I get his test results, and he's testing two years behind where he should be. Now, you know, we course corrected immediately. I mean, I'd...
Literally didn't even drive home. I drove straight to Kumon. And I enrolled him. But not everybody has that ability. But to your point. You know. look, the problem here is what is coming out of the school district. And I put that squarely on school district's shoulders, personally.
Well, yeah, and you can blame the teachers, and I think there's some blame that belongs there, but I think the majority of the blame belongs to the school board. The school board is the one that approves the curriculum. And when you have teachers telling them, oh, this is the best curriculum in the world, well, then they're just being lazy and they don't want to teach the children.
So some blame needs to be to the teachers, but most of the blame needs to go to the school board because they're the ones that make the final decision. They do, and I think this leads into the conversation between the governor and the legislature, right? The governor is saying we need to actually have policies and we need to have accountability measures to make sure we are improving the outcome.
of our students. And the legislature is just saying, no, we want more money into the school district. Not even saying the money has to get into the classroom. They're not saying the money has to be directed at this program or that program. What they're saying is,
No, not necessarily in charter schools, not necessarily in home schools, but we want to make sure the school districts get more money. I don't know how that's going to improve outcomes. I don't think it is, because I think history has shown the more money they're throwing at schools, districts actually our results are actually going down so over and i'm talking over a 30-year period yeah now a school district is like a boat it's a hole in the water that you throw money into
and it doesn't always pan out because the ideas that you have for your boat don't always work out, and so you're just wasting money. And I think that a lot of it, a lot of the money that the state is giving to the schools is being absolutely wasted. And I don't know what to do about it. I don't have any ideas other than send the bill back to the school district and let the school district solve the problem.
You know, I think that is, to me, see, I think that would help because they're so focused on money. If it actually started costing them more money for turning out less than proficient students.
I think that might get their attention. I like that out-of-the-box thinking, Carl. Well, we have a man on hold. I've got to take a break, but we have a man on hold who may be able to answer some of our questions because it's school board member Dave Donnelly, so we will talk to him next. I like that. Have a good one. day thank you sir i appreciate it all right we're going to take a quick break when we come back dave donnelly will be joining the show stay with us
You're listening to live, local, and always insightful Morning Drive Radio with Amy Demboski on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Get on the show now by calling 907-5220. Welcome back, Current Time 721. Well, I want to follow up on Emery's update for us on the Glen Highway project. So the flash of signs are up today. We're going to start seeing speed restrictions next week.
And then the 23rd, they're supposed to start with the northbound bridge will be closed for 30 days. So I have a quick update here. So the work on the projects includes the following. Repairing potholes. in the concrete decks, installing polyester concrete overlay to waterproof the bridges and reduce corrosion, replacing the approach slabs to improve the driving service,
Replacing the expansion joints, damaged drainage hardware, and guard rail as needed. Upgrading signs and pavement markings. Working on utilities as needed. And here's the timeline. April 7th, crews will arrive on site and start mobilizing equipment and setting up signs. The week of April 14th, a 45 mile per hour speed restriction will be put in place. for the preliminary paving activities and some rumble strip removal. April 23rd, the northbound bridge will be closed for 30 days.
And then it says summer 2025, the southbound bridge will be closed for 30 days. Construction on both Kinnick River bridges is anticipated to be completed before the Alaska State Fair in August. So Daryl, to your point, you said an extra 15 days after what they said. Clearly they're going out to the end of August.
So they're giving themselves a wide berth. They're giving themselves. If you want more information, you can go to dot.alaska.gov and just click on the central region, and you'll be able to find it. That's how I found it. All right, so now let's go to our friend Dave Donnelly. He is a member of the Anchorage School Board. And my friend, would you like to start with your disclosure?
Yes, I would, Amy. I am speaking only for myself and not on behalf of the Anchorage School Board or the Anchorage School District. But I thought I'd just check in with you because of something that's happening. You know, it's very certain the district's going to be closing more neighborhood schools in upcoming years. Even if we close 10 schools, the projection would only get the occupancy rate up to 90% in our elementary schools. So we've got...
a huge amount of excess capacity right now, which is very expensive to maintain. And, you know, we're building a brand new Inlet View School right now. The total cost of that new school didn't show up on the ballot, but including the planning and design, it was over $50 million that had been approved for that.
When we had this last ballot proposition, not the one this last week, but the year before, I moved that the ballot also indicate the full cost, not just the additional bonding cost to build that school. But no one else on the board supported that. So the amount on the ballot was about $27 million. The ASD administration is now estimating that once the new school is completed,
They'll have room for about an extra additional 100 students there. So, as you know... Oh, we lost him. There we go. We lost him. And I'm not sure what happened. I'm going to go ahead and put them on hold. I'm going to put them on hold. But I don't have. Daryl, my phones are going crazy. I can't put them on hold. Can you do that for me? All right. Well, we're having a little bit of technical issues. And here's Dave right here. Do we got him? Can you hear me?
There we go. We got you. We got you. Okay, so we were talking about InLiveU, and you're saying that the amount of the bond that people saw was $27 million, but the cost is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million when they're all said and done? Yeah, that was the total anticipated cost. And it's got excess capacity now. It had plenty of room for the kids that were actually...
from that neighborhood, but there was a large amount of parents were dropping kids off there from other neighborhoods too. So that's why the school was getting full. But there's going to be room for about another 100 students there when it's completed, is the most recent estimate I heard from the administration.
But on the 8th, it's coming up April 8th meeting on the non-action calendar. There's a memorandum number 48 now that's going to authorize another $1,173,000 for construction of the school. That money is going to be transferred or it proposes to transfer that money from other unused bond money from past years that were for other projects. So the cost is going up again. And I just wanted to let people know that.
You know what's so crazy? It's crazy. It's crazy. Just listening to your commentary this morning, when you say if we look at capacity and if we were to end up closing 10 neighborhood schools, we would still only be about 90% capacity in some of these. elementary schools and then we turn around and we're building this Big new school, which, I mean, frankly, I mean, there's an argument to be made. If you have such low capacity in your other schools, you probably didn't need to build a new school.
So that's another thing. But then the fact that the school board wouldn't put the full cost of the project in front of the voters, to me it's just disingenuous. Well, I don't think it was very transparent at all. I mean, if I was a voter, a typical voter, I'd just say, oh, okay, 27 million, maybe that's not so bad for a new elementary school.
But there were already sources of funds for a lot more than that. And so I don't think it was the wisest expenditure of those funds at that time. I supported you. Let me ask you, I know you've been a real, you've been very, like a dog on a bone when it comes to some of our programs and trying to preserve some of our programs, you know, whether it's the Ignite program or some of the different sports. When we start looking at this budget, And we started talking about...
I think it's really a bad idea for legislators, I don't care what level you're on, to base your budget on, hey, I hope I get a massive raise. What am I missing when it comes to the income? rich school district's budget. What am I missing? Is it fair of me to have that perspective? Well, that is exactly what the final budget reflected by an amendment that was done on the last night it was considered that would anticipate
If an additional $1,000 per student was added to the BSA, here's a list of things we're going to add back to the budget. But the list wasn't prioritized. If there's not exactly $1,000 extra in the BSA, which it doesn't look like is going to happen right now, the list is just illusory because there's no prioritization. So that goes away, and we're going to be back to the budgeting process again to try to figure out what...
what to include back in if we do get additional more money. I think that's really discouraging and going to be very difficult. Well, and I just think it's bad budgeting, frankly, to bet on a raise you haven't gotten yet. I mean, to me, it makes no sense why school districts, and I don't care if it's the Mat-Su, Anchorage, Fairbanks. I don't care what school district we're talking about. You know how much money you got last year. Based on last year's formula, you know how much money you got.
At the baseline, what you were going to get, I think the budgeting should have been done to the baseline. But I know you're always outvoted on this board, so I'm not blaming you. But there's a great deal of frustration among... among a lot of taxpayers because the argument now is now trying to blame the legislature for the cuts that the Anchorage School District has chosen to make. Well, it...
It could be interpreted as a political strategy, that's true. But last year was the first year this was done. It had never been done before that I know in the history of the school district that anticipated additional revenue. And so it was done last year, and now it's in the budget this year. It's crazy. Let me ask you about the conversation we've been talking about a little bit earlier in the show.
I've seen the debate in the legislature between the governor and the legislature where the governor has really pushed for reforms and different policy changes to really effectuate outcomes. really say with with any bit of certainty that Anchorage School District is going to improve outcomes by just getting more money or do we actually need to have
real changes, policy changes, maybe expanding charter schools, maybe putting money into places that are already successful. I mean, if we just give the Anchorage School District more money, is it going to produce better outcomes? I think it could possibly produce better outcomes, but I don't think it's the most efficient way to produce better outcomes. The most efficient way would be have better curriculum.
We should have stronger phonetically-based reading courses. All you've got to do is look at our schools that are using Spalding Reading and see the huge differences in our reading scores. I've been advocating that for eight years. And then we should go back to a more traditional math curriculum that's proven successful in some of our charter schools and alternative schools, Saxon math.
used to be what this district used, and our scores were dramatically higher than they are now with this hard Common Core math. And by the way, the district should not have a policy, which they do right now, of mandating that everything has to be super common core, national common core compliant. It ought to be.
to the Alaska standards, which are similar to Common Core, but not exactly the same. But at least we ought to be using Alaska standards as our basis and not the National Common Core. Frankly, I think it conflicts with Alaska law. Oh, interesting. See, now this is something I'm going to have to look into a little bit more. All right. So I know we're running just a little bit short on time, but I do have a question from a caller for you. And he wants to know if school property could be sold to...
private business for things such as manufacturing and other things. So if we're talking about surplus schools, is there a way that the Anchorage School District could actually, you know, turn a liability into a profit here? No, because the school district doesn't own the schools. The municipality of Anchorage does, and they only are with the school district's control while they're used for educational purposes.
Good answer. All right, well, thank you for calling in this morning. It's always educational whenever I talk to you, Dave. I really appreciate your willingness to jump on the radio and answer some questions and kind of keep us updated on what's going on. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. I'm so glad there's a voice on local radio here. We're really blessed to have local news radio. Well, we try. We try.
We try to be a little informative, sometimes entertaining, and sometimes, you know, we miss the mark, but we try. Thank you, Amy. All right, thanks, Dave. That's Dave Donnelly. He is the gem we have on the Anchorage School Board, so I want to thank him for his time. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Current time, 740.
Well, we've kind of just rolled with it this morning. I've got to tell you, Daryl, I think my favorite shows are when people call in and they spark conversations that interest me that I'm like, oh, this is way better than anything I had planned. Oh, absolutely.
I saw my show prep lineup for today. He saw my outline. He's like, oh, my gosh, because I have like a dozen different stories. And I will over prepare because then I decide, you know, we'll just see where the conversation goes. But I think this conversation. about education is really important and it's helpful because I expect this is going to be the massive part of the town hall that the legislators are going to have on Saturday. So there is a legislative town hall in Anchorage this Saturday.
And it is going to be from 2 to 4 p.m. at Cuddy Hall at UAA. Do they say they're going to be there? Well, typically it's the Anchorage legislators. So anybody from Anchorage. So anybody who's an Anchorage legislator typically is there, usually both sides. But they're having it at Cuddy Hall at UAA. That's a big one. My guess is this is going to be packed with NEA people saying basically, again,
Republicans are the devil because they're not giving us a raise and they're the reason that they're going to end up cutting sports and they're going to cut up. No, they're not. No, they're not. Let's be honest. If you look at education funding over the past 30 years here in Anchorage, in Alaska, and then you watch performance results, performance results do not track with levels of spending.
going up. In fact, I would argue we've gotten worse. You're not seeing this correlation between they spend more money, our results go up. That just isn't there. It's not there. And so whatever they say, again, that's why I always go back to, what are we going to do? And Dave actually had solutions. He's like, we need to change our curriculum because we need to get, especially in math, we need to get away from common core. Look, one plus one is two. One plus one is not about three.
You're 100% right. And it's so crazy because it's basic math, what we always called basic math. Oh, I know. I know. Another topic that came up earlier in the show today that I thought was very interesting, and Bruce hit upon it. So this is the time of year. I'm telling you right now, this is what's happening in the legislature too. This is all a prep for a 2026 election cycle. Because they're trying to make Republicans bad guys. And they're banning on the floor of the House.
You're not allowed to say spending this much more on education is going to cut the PFD. They've banned it. They're not allowing you to say that, right? Because it's not in the bill. No, because they're not really telling you how they're going to fund it at all. But we all know.
Because if you listen to the show, I've kind of laid out what the argument is going to be, right? This is all about getting into the Constitutional Budget Reserve, and it's all about taking your PFD. That's how they're planning on paying for this, right? So they are effectively deficit spending because they're going to be...
pulling from savings, their expenses exceed their revenue. That is the definition of deficit spending. So you could put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig, as Sarah Palin would say. But the reality is this is the argument, and they've set up the argument to make it inflict the most amount of pain and get the most amount of outrage so parents will put pressure on the legislature to give them a huge BSA increase.
that's effectively going to cost you about $245 million a year. Like they're saying in three years, just three years with this increase to the BSA, we're talking about $1.4 billion increase to the state's budget. And this will be in perpetuity. And they want to tie it to inflation, which means it's only going to go up. So, I mean, this is a level of fiscal irresponsibility that I never actually believed even the Alaska legislature was capable of.
But that's where we are. That's where we are. And so the conversation that Bruce brought up is very interesting to me. Because right now, I told you, the political moves we're seeing right now in the legislature is this set up for the 2020s. election cycle, right? They're going to try to pick off a couple Republicans, and so they can solidify their majorities.
Because right now the majority in the House is very slim. They have two Republicans, Stutes and Copp, that have joined with the Democrats to give the Democrats the majority. Because I want to remind everyone that we've elected more Republicans to the Alaska legislature than Democrats. In both houses, the Senate and the House, Democrats are in control because we need Republicans.
Right? So the reality is, unless we get our own house in order as Republicans, this kind of crap keeps happening. And in my opinion, we have very weak leadership. So there we have it. But the interesting part about this conversation, and these are the conversations that are happening behind the scenes, who's going to be running for governor?
Right. There's a lot of names that are floated out there. Mustard Alaska has a poll that's going to be closing probably any minute now, probably the next 15 minutes. But it says of these choices, who would you like most like to see run for governor? Mary Peltola, Adam Crum, Bernadette Wilson, Treg Taylor, Nancy Dahlstrom. So for those that don't know, Adam Crum.
was the health department commissioner for Dunleavy during COVID. So I think that's going to be his biggest challenge, right? I honestly think he's too tied to Anzinc, but now he's the revenue commissioner. He lives out here in Palmer. Great guy. His family owns Northern Industrial Training. I know he had to do some stuff when he came to the state because he couldn't have an interest.
Well, I won't get into that. But the reality is Adam Crum is a very smart guy. There's no doubt about that. But I think he's going to struggle with the base because of his time as a health department commissioner during COVID and some of the things that came out. Bernadette Wilson, which you look.
I am not going to hide this, not one bit. I'm a friend of Bernadette's. She's one of the only people that I trust to fill in on my show when I'm gone. And I don't take very much time off, but when I take a time off, Bernadette... is one of the people, she's probably one of three people that I would call to ask to fill in on the show, because I'd much rather there be a live guest or a live guest host than a repeat. So Bernadette, she helped run one of my campaigns.
that I trust absolutely implicitly. And look, she called into the show last week when I was talking about weak leadership. And, you know, she put it straight on the governor's shoulder and said in most other states, the governor is the head of the party. The governor is the highest elected official in the state. Where's the governor?
I mean, if you listened to her talk last week, I said it on the show when she called in, I said, it sounds like we might have, you know, Governor Wilson signs coming up. And she just, you know, inverted that fashion, just kind of laughed and didn't answer. me. But she is one that many are speculating may be ranting for governor. Trang Taylor. Trang Taylor is the current Attorney General.
He's a great guy. I remember when I helped him on his campaign a little bit when he ran for assembly many, many years ago. There's probably, gosh, it was probably back in 2014 maybe. He's the current Attorney General. He's been very aggressive on a federal level, going after the feds to protect state rights.
ability to be independent and to, you know, be self-determining. No question in my mind he is a staunch conservative. And then Nancy Goldstrom, she's obviously the, but going back to Treg, one of the challenges he'll have is he He doesn't have a lot of name ID. So not a lot of people, yes, he's the attorney general for the state, but not a lot of people know exactly who he is or they haven't had a lot of interaction with him personally.
So he has to introduce himself to people, and he has to, I mean, that's just what he has to do. Nancy Dahlstrom now on the other hand is our current lieutenant governor. Her biggest challenge. Her biggest challenge is going to be, people are going to ask her, what did you do to clean up the voter rolls? What did you do to secure Alaska elections? That is going to be her biggest challenge.
And so, you know, of those people, I will tell you, it's not surprising to me that Bernadette Wilson is leading this poll because she is probably the most direct Trump-esque type of person that's in this lineup. And right now, with all that's going on in the legislature and what's going on nationally, I've got to tell you, I think Alaskans are looking for somebody they believe is going to stand arm in arm with a chump.
So we will see. Time will tell. But look, once the legislature gets out of session, as the summer starts to go on, towards mid-summer, late, early fall, you'll start to see people declaring for governor. because the gubernatorial race is coming up quick. They have to raise a ton of money. They have to get out there throughout Alaska, get their name out there. And so it will be a very interesting race. So we'll see. Nobody has officially declared yet.
But those are some of the names that are floating around, so we shall see. We shall see. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Looking at your Alaska total traffic cameras on this Thursday. Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Welcome back. Current time is 7.52. We're going to go to the phones and Dr. Farr is with us. Good morning, ma'am.
Hey, good morning. So I think anybody that was associated with the very bad COVID response we had here in Alaska is going to have difficulty getting elected, especially given the fact that, I mean, I remember getting on the radio and may have... and telling the governor we should open up. And then I talked about, you know, the things that we could do that would have saved a lot of lives, multiple different types of treatment programs, and then, you know, the vaccines that are...
We managed to get off for a little while off the immunization schedule, and now they're back on. The number of cancers and side effects and everything else I'm seeing from that vaccine is just horrendous. So I personally think anybody that's associated with this administration is going to have difficulty getting elected because of...
you know, all the side effects and all the things that were done during COVID. So that's my two cents on it. But I wanted to let people know there's an Alaska homestead.
Expo coming up this weekend out at the Menard Center. It basically starts at 9 o'clock on Friday, Saturday, and then 10 o'clock on Sunday. And so people can go to Alaska Homestead Expo and look at all the different options there are and there is a cost to that so I'll let people look at that and decide but a lot of interesting kind of fun topics for people oh great I appreciate that I had missed that one so I appreciate that one that sounds like something I would be interested in
It is. There's going to be a lot of fun topics. I'm speaking there on food preserving and, you know, talking about planting different fruit trees and different bushes, berries. So anyway, I'm on Saturday morning at 9, but there's a lot of other topics on cheese making and just farming. There's going to be other people from the fruit grower talking about planting trees and orchards and things like that. Anyway, it should be a really good fun time for a lot of people.
No, it sounds great. I think I'm going to drag my dad to it. He has an apple orchard that he has planted and done quite successful at it, by the way. But this sounds like something that would be a good father-daughter bonding day. I love it. Well, thank you for sharing. We have about a minute left, Dr. Farr, so I'll let you just finish up. The actual, okay, drug take-back day is going to be April 26th, so people can take their old drugs, get them out of the house.
risk of, you know, children getting into them or dogs using old, you know, chewing up old meds. So anyway, that's a really important program, too, and I'll get you more information about where those spots are going to be that people can turn in their old meds. Perfect. We appreciate the update. Thank you so much for calling in this morning. Okay. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye.
All right, Daryl, you get to close this out. You said you had a comment you wanted to make. Go for it. I'm going to try to get this in. So my comment is I've just got this issue with everybody screaming about this BSA and how we need all this money for these kids and we don't have enough money. And yet.
Almost every school district around fudges the numbers, and I said fudge, the numbers of students they have actually in their school. I'm looking at Anchorage's school district budget for last year, and they had on... bodies in school 42,000 students and yet when it comes to their adjusted ADM which is the number of students in school they've got 72,000 they
push these numbers through different means. They have a seven step formula to add to their BSA numbers. And one of them is special needs kids. They get 13 times the BSA. So basically one special needs student. qualifies as 13 students on their books. I'm sorry. So they are using their multipliers in order to bump up what it looks like the number of students is, is what you're saying.
That's how it's built in. That's how the formula is built in. Well, that's what I'm saying. This is going to be a tremendous cost to Alaskans. And if we have a conversation about increasing costs, you always have to say the very first question is, where are you going to get the money?
And they're refusing to have that real conversation in the house because we know the answer to that. They're going to take it from your PFD. I want to remind you, your PFD this year should be almost $3,900. And right now... They're quibbling between $1,400 and $1,000. I'm going to say that again. This year, your PFD should be $3,900. And it looks like maybe best case scenario, it might be $1,000 this year. Ridiculous.
I know. All right. Well, that does it for us today. I want to thank everybody for calling in and participating, being part of the conversation. It makes my morning go. so much better when I get to have these conversations, so I truly appreciate it. Daryl and I will be back with you tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Until then, stay safe. God bless.