State Sen. Ben Stevens says Anchorage spends too much of its federal transportation money on trails and landscaping. The Anchorage Republican wants the Legislature to limit local spending on those enhancements to the absolute minimum required by federal law. His proposal is the kind of top-down government interference in local affairs that Republicans often reject.
There's no problem here that the Legislature needs to fix. The joint city-state panel that sets Anchorage's transportation priorities aims to spend 15 percent of our federal transportation funds on trails, landscaping and other enhancements. Federal law requires at least 10 percent. If Anchorage wants to spend an extra 5 percent on something besides more and bigger roads, that's a local decision.
Spending on trails and landscaping here has paid handsome dividends for our community. With 124 miles of paved trails in the Anchorage Bowl and another 20 in Chugiak-Eagle River, we have one of the best trail systems in the country. In 1996, the American Hiking Society rated 100 trail-friendly communities; Anchorage ranked second. Trails and landscaping are a huge asset here.
Roadways around town look a lot better thanks to investments in landscaping. Some of the best examples are West Northern Lights Boulevard, Spenard Road, 15th Avenue and Providence Drive. Contrast those with East Northern Lights through Rogers Park, where a nice trail runs past the neighborhood but an expansion project done on the cheap left behind an ugly asphalt median without landscaping. With good landscaping and trails or sidewalks, well-planned road projects can enhance neighborhoods instead of blighting them with barren concrete strips.
Sen. Stevens' interest in curtailing trail funds may have something to do with the controversy over the southern Coastal Trail extension through his district. A small but influential number of his constituents vociferously oppose it. By shrinking the money Anchorage could spend on trails, Sen. Stevens has better odds of killing the project. But antipathy to one particular project doesn't justify an attack on the entire system of trail funding in Anchorage.
The bill is overkill. Legislators have a lot more important things to do than dictate the portion of federal money Anchorage can choose to spend on trails.
George Sullivan was mayor of Anchorage throughout the 1970s, when the town was growing like a weed and its essential makeup was being set.
Like the Coastal Trail that bears Tony Knowles' name? Then-Mayor Knowles pushed it to completion in the mid-'80s, but he wasn't the first mayor to push for it. Thank Mr. Sullivan for incubating the idea and hiring the planner that drew the first lines on a map.
Like the relatively efficient borough-wide government that stretches from Peters Creek to Girdwood? It's got problems, but at least we don't have lots of competing jurisdictions or local government overlap. Thank Mr. Sullivan (and others) for presiding over the combination of city and borough governments in the mid-'70s and heading up both.
Mr. Sullivan grew up in Valdez, which produced a lot of leaders in the early part of the last century. (Among them the state's first governor, Bill Egan, and the top executive of one of our biggest banks, Dan Cuddy.) He drove a truck during World War II, lived for a time in Fairbanks, came to Anchorage around the time of statehood. He played politics at a time when people seemed to care more about being Alaskans than about being Republicans or Democrats. (A Republican himself, he served in the administration of Democratic Gov. Steve Cowper.) He was described perpetually as "a moon-faced Irishman," and he always seemed willing to tell stories, talk politics or even just disagree agreeably. People called him King George long before the current incumbent showed up -- and it fit him better too.
Thursday on KLEF (98.1 FM) and KUDO (1080 AM) radio, Carol and Blake Butler will honor him as somebody who improved the quality of life in our town. He deserves it.
Like the Sullivan Arena, popularly known as "The George"? Well, you know who to thank.
-- Steve Lindbeck