Volunteer Community
Dear Editor: Happy New Year Sitka! I trust this finds everyone busy and looking forward to making 2017 the best year of our lives! I hope everyone made it home safely from their holiday travels.
For those of us who do not travel for the holidays, the Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp 1 and the Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 4 have been hosting our community holiday dinners for over 40 years. Over 30 volunteers gave up their Christmas holiday to make sure it was special for their neighbors here in Sitka. Over 100 agencies, commercial retail businesses, and the fine people of Sitka made donations to make sure the Community Christmas Dinner was a success.
If I listed everyone who supported this wonderful Sitka tradition,we would have to fill all the pages of the Daily Sitka Sentinel. However, I do think it is important to list the major players for which I am deeply grateful. Both the holiday dinners were a success due to the volunteer time that executive chef Gary May committed to doing continuously in November and December. On both occasions, he was in the ANS kitchen working five days before the events. Gary May’s attention to detail and his amazing organizational skills made both dinners a joy to work at and be a part of. The atmosphere in the kitchen was a jubilant one with no tension.
Also, Marcia Strand, the ANS Kitchen Manager, was in the hall days and days from morning to evening, tearing turkey and ham meat off the bone, doing major kitchen troubleshooting and keeping things running on the dining floor. Marcia’s professionalism and her willingness to do what it takes to get the job done astounds me on a daily basis.Thank you Marcia!
ANS president Jean Arnold was our go-to gal doing the go-getting for all those last minute things. Thank you Jean!
Tom and Lanelle Bacon did one thing all day: garbage control! They did this with smiles all around and again made everything on the main floor work smoothly.
Rev. Julie and Lloyd Platson of St. Peter’s by-the-Sea did the shopping for both dinners. This is a major undertaking and they spent hours taking inventory, going over shopping lists and several days doing the final shopping.
Wilbur Brown, president of the Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp 1, and his beautiful wife Natalie, thrilled the children as Santa and Mrs. Clause. Thank you Wilbur and Natalie!
Helen Sachsenmaier was Santa’s elf who handed out the toys. Also, the ANB Brothers donated bags with fruit and candy for all the children.
The Salvation Army donated four boxes of toys so that all the children would have a Christmas present from ANB and ANS. Seamart, AC Lakeside and so many others donated to make our dinner a success.
Forgive me for not mentioning you all. Among others who gave were Sitka Tlingit and Haida, Shee Atika, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, Sitka Co-op, Whites Inc., Duke and Mae Dunsing and Lanelle and Tom Bacon. John and Sharyn Ferrick put up an enchanting backdrop to make the stage look festive. The American Legion left their Christmas decorations up for us all to enjoy! Thank you Margaret! Many people worked hard all day long on Christmas day, smiling and serving their community.
I am deeply grateful for all these wonderful volunteers. We all know that we are blessed to live the island life here in Sitka. It is important to point out that the camaraderie and philanthropic heart that thrives in this beautiful place is what makes each day a joy to live here. I am always amazed and in awe of how this incredible community works together with a can do attitude and gets things done!
As the 1st vice president and chaplain of ANS, I would like to remind everyone that the ANB and ANS is a Christian organization. We strive to serve God and our community by educating people about our Tlingit culture, subsistence and our Native way of life. When you donate to a fundraiser to either of these organizations, you are paying it forward for us to serve our community better!
Keep your eyes and ears open for news on our next special event, which will be our Elizabeth Peratrovich Celebration the week of February 16.
I am always at your service and in your debt Sitka. Many thanks.
Debe K. Brincefield
Holiday Dinners
Chairperson
Snow Obstacle
Dear Editor: My name is Misty Warren. I’ve lived in Sitka since 2001 and due to my cerebral palsy my main mode of transportation is my electric wheelchair. I like to get out into the community and remain independent, but when it snows my ability to maintain my independence is greatly hindered due to the lack of sufficient snow removal on the sidewalks. I live out at Sawmill Creek Apartments and as a result of the poor snow removal there are often long periods of time when I am unable to get out of my apartment complex and into the community on my own. In these times I feel stuck inside and this leads to personal isolation, depression, and heightens my Seasonal Affective Disorder. The poor snow removal greatly hinders my social life and I often feel uncared about and unheard in these periods when I can’t safely get into town.
In the past I have tried to speak my mind and address this problem with those in charge of snow removal for Sitka, but I felt that they only cared about people that drive cars. It was my understanding they said they would keep the sidewalks clear on Sawmill Creek Road, but during snowy times the sidewalks have not been in good enough condition for me to safely make it into town in my wheelchair. Sitka prides itself on being a pedestrian friendly town, but I have not found it to be accessible for me after times of snowfall. In the past I have actually gotten stuck in the snow on the sidewalk and also slid down an icy sidewalk into the road in my wheelchair. I want to be able to roll into town independently and not need someone to walk with me to make sure I’m safe and get past obstacles.
I know I’m not the only one affected by these issues. There are other people in Sitka in wheelchairs, and others that use walkers and have a hard time walking that I’m sure are affected by this as well. After the plows are done with the streets the sidewalks are a big mess and there are many obstacles. It is not safe for us to go into the street to get around the obstacles on the sidewalk. I believe this is an injustice and it is not fair that the sidewalks aren’t accessible to all in these times.
I am writing this letter to advocate for sufficient snow removal and sidewalk maintenance to help sustain a safe walking and wheeling community when there is snow or ice on the ground. If you want to support this initiative, please spread the word via social media and/or message me on Facebook.
Misty Warren Sitka
City Business
Dear Editor: There’s only one problem with Lydia McGraw’s suggestion that we should “have our city run like a business (which it is) by someone who knows how to be successful in business” (LTE, Sentinel, 9 Jan. 17). And that problem is that government is not business, let alone “a business.”
Business is based on mutually beneficial, VOLUNTARY exchange between those who produce and distribute goods and services, on the one hand, and those who consume them, on the other. The operative word is voluntary. Those who desire a particular good or service willingly exchange money with business people and organizations who are able to produce and provide these at a price the buyer is willing to pay, and at a cost the seller is willing to bear and still make a satisfactory profit.
Businesses are funded primarily by voluntarily provided investments (that can arise only from savings), and then entrepreneurs seek to turn this capital into the goods and services that customers will voluntarily want to buy, so as to make a satisfactory return on those investments. Just as a customer gets a satisfactory return on her expenditure when she purchases a good or service she wanted more than she wanted the amount of money she paid to get it.
What, then, is government based on? It is most assuredly not based on the voluntary, mutually beneficial exchange that characterizes business. While governments provide goods and services or access to them, there are many of these activities that many different people, from many different political and moral perspectives, and for many different reasons, do not want, do not see why the government is in the “business” of providing those goods and services in the first place, or why they should have to pay for them (Obamacare, the War on Terrorism, the 2008 Bailouts, standardized testing in schools, and marijuana criminalization are five widely divergent examples that come immediately to mind).
Another, far more critical difference between government and business is that while governments provide goods and services, the funding for these activities is not raised by investors, nor are they paid for by customers willingly and voluntarily purchasing them. The money required to operate governments is raised by various forms of revenue generation, primarily taxes. And, some folks pay more and some folks pay less taxes than others; just as some folks get more and some folks get less of all those government goods and services than others. And that, of course, is where the politics comes in.
A final difference between government and business is that when taxes don’t raise enough revenue to cover the cost of doing government “business,” governments are self-empowered to resort to deficit spending, which can only be done by borrowing (and, at the highest level, printing) money. Which leads to ever-increasing levels of short- and long-term debt. Governments, when they can create and maintain the right conditions, are able to run for a relatively long time on deficit spending, borrowing, and sovereign debt; the United States has been at it for about 70 years now. Businesses, on the other hand, unless they have corporate welfare connections with the government, cannot and will not survive operating cautiously chronically in the red (again, think the 2008 bailouts of Wall Street and GM).
Ms. McGraw’s focus seems to be on the personnel side of the operation of the City government, and not on what it actually does, how it does it, or why it does it the way it does (“... pay scales, retirement and vacation benefits... former military, educational, non-profit, federal, state, or local government office holders need not apply”). Applying sound business practices and standards to personnel, financial, and information management, administration, operations, and logistics certainly wouldn’t hurt any government, and would perhaps make it more efficient. But, would it make it any more effective? Would it make it any better able to accomplish what it is supposed to be accomplishing, as opposed to what it is attempting to accomplish?
This whole conversation could and would start from a sounder, clearer, and deeper foundation by first addressing and then answering the following questions: What is the function of government? Why do humans have governments, and what are those governments intended to do? And, how are they supposed to do it? What powers do those governments need and have; where does that power come from; and what are its limits? And finally, what is the nature of the proper relationship of government to civil and economic society?
Once these questions have been resolved, the focus can then no longer be simply one of fashioning the most cost-efficient government we can have by “doing things right”; ie, smarter, cheaper, faster, and better. Rather, we can focus on ensuring that we have the most cost-effective government; one that is “doing the right things,” as Peter Drucker once put it. A government that is doing what it is supposed to be doing, and doing it well. Right now, we have neither.
These are questions that demand rather immediate attention because of the stark, utter, brutal reality confronting the governments and the peoples of the City and Borough of Sitka, of the State of Alaska, and of the United States of America: that, under the current system, either government spending ~ at all levels, but particularly the Federal ~ is going to have to be cut, significantly, or else taxes are going to have to be raised, drastically. And, if all those long-term unfunded liabilities (ie, Social Security, Medicare, pensions, etc) and federal, state, and local government debts are to be honored, it will undoubtedly involve more than just a little bit of both. Or perhaps something else, even less desirable.
I’m not sure that Donald Trump in the White House is exactly what Ms. McGraw had in mind at the national level, but we are all shortly to be live-fire, reality-tv witnesses to an America with, by many measures, a very successful businessman in charge. It will be an interesting ride.
JG Moebus, Sitka
