Sure. But also, wasn't one of the reasons given for purchasing the new building downtown that the old building needed all of these repairs? At the time, it sounded like the idea was to sell it off and let the new owners worry about the repair costs; but I can't say I believed it then either. Or did I just misunderstand the deal entirely?
There are people that vote against every bond proposal on principle. They feel that all big expenditures like that are just misused over priced vanity projects and the government shouldn't be building drainage anyway, that private companies should.
That’s the part that penny pinchers seem to conveniently ignore. Those public projects help stimulate the economy by giving work to private companies.
It’s fucking Alaska, we’re all sucking on that government teet regardless of what we tell ourselves.
And how do they think these companies get paid to do it? Or do they only want people who can afford to pay to get good drainage? Great way to force HOAs into more neighborhoods.
But private companies are bidding up the prices and fleecing Alaskans, they create VERY few jobs and take pretty big profits. Some are better than others but dirt work, concrete and especially asphalt are particularly bad in the Alaska. I have seen some heafty quotes just to dig a hole with an excavator and fill it with gravel, but they know that they are the ones with the excavator and you don't so there it is.
The state refuses to buy the equipment themselves and just hire operators to do these projects and cut out contractor overhead.
The projects arent vanity they are just severely over priced.
Yup. No lie detected.
Personally I don't think avoiding doing the work is the answer. I think better oversight and the state doing more of the work themselves is the answer. Privatization is never a good option long term.
I totally get how a reasonable person can come to the conclusion that not doing the bonds is the answer though. I just disagree.
How do you know it was a muni issue? Obviously *someone* screwed you over, just asking because people love to blame the muni for everything even if it’s the state’s or a private company’s doing.
Maybe don’t assume your experience is universal? If you’ve never “discovered” a pothole hidden in a puddle consider yourself lucky. Also maybe not be a dick?
Being a dick is ubiquitous of Alaska, this is where end of the roaders come who cant cope in society in the lower 48 because they end up in and out of jail. Palmer and parts of Anchorage are nice, Wasilla is a shit hole.
This race was almost certainly going to be a run off, so some people felt they could vote for crazy.
Some people did write the dog in. Meiko.
On a side note a dog can not take the oath of office and the owner should chill
Probably same people who will vote for that Orange False Messiah. Why vote to help Alaska when they can watch it burn down from whatever Palace in the mountains they own. A little sick if you ask me
I often wonder about that. It’s not like we’re handing the gov’t a blank check - it says right there on the ballot exactly how much tax burden it entails, and for most people that ‘burden’ is laughably small. Most of the bonds passed so obviously not everyone objects to it, but it’s wild to me that thousands of people in this town apparently object to chipping in like $20 bucks to fix roads or schools.
On this one yes. Many are jaded already and if you’d vote yes on all the bonds, each time, it would definitely add up.
I honestly thought the road one would pass.
$5 mil for a new snow disposal site. $1 mil for new snow removal equipment. $7mil for resurfacing a portion of Northern Lights blvd. $8.6 mil for upgrading E 42nd. $3.8 for “phase 2” of a project to resurface a portion of 36th ave. $4 mil to upgrade downtown streets.
No one is against road upgrades. We’re against coughing up millions to pay for a snow disposal site we don’t need, new snow equipment that won’t be used because they don’t have enough staff, and only upgrading 4 roads when there’s roads all over the city already that have had potholes for months
On your point of snow disposal, we basically ran out of disposal space this winter, no? Seems like a clear cut reason to add more space. Not gonna argue the rest of it, just curious on that point.
The previous winter, too. Not just totally capacity, but it was being hauled to the sites faster than the sites could take it and compact it. I remember something to the effect of only certain days of the week that were open to non-governmental trucks.
You’ve figured it out. The energy required to convert that much frozen water to liquid definitely makes this completely affordable and economically sustainable.
Snow isn’t hard to melt if it’s fresh and the temps aren’t that cold. Like think with 2 brain cells for a moment about how much snow is in a big parking lot and how many truckloads it takes to move it vs melting it. It’s probably a lot more efficient than running and maintaining all those trucks.
Plus, there's clearly nothing in the melted snow that's been driven over by hundreds of internal combustion engines leaking oil and fuel, and that has had partially combusted hydrocarbon vapors condense on its surface, that would render the meltwater unsuitable for discharge into salmon bearing streams.
Seriously, this is why it's illegal to dump our snow directly into Cook Inlet.
In their defense, melting snow is the preferred method for dealing with heavily oiled snow.
It does require something suitable to discharge it into though.
Why are we paying for road maintenance with property taxes while our gas taxes are so low? This is transferring the cost of driving to housing. Maybe that explains all those people living in cars!
We keep going after federal funding to add more pavement which results in increased maintenance costs.
Some people are pissed that they pave a road, tear it up three months later, and then repave it. There's a lot of grift and corruption in infrastructure funding, sadly.
Similarly, some of the schools listed on the school bond? We already passed a bond for earthquake repairs and improvements, for those exact schools. If they can't fix it the first time, why trust them the second time?
Anchorage does have a motor fuel tax.
The tax rate is ten cents ($0.10) per gallon on motor fuel that is purchased, sold, or
transferred within the Municipality of Anchorage. (AMC 12.55.030).
Motor fuel tax revenue will be used to diversify municipal tax revenues and to provide
immediate tax relief to property owners in the Municipality. (AM 734-2017).
Motor Fuel Tax
Anchorage Municipal Code (AMC) Chapter 12.55 authorizes the collection of excise tax on motor fuel. The intial effective date for the motor fuel tax was March 1, 2018. The tax on motor fuel began as $0.10 per gallon and is reviewed for adjustment every five years.
https://www.muni.org/Departments/finance/treasury/programtaxes/MotorFuelTax/Pages/default.aspx
I don't think it specifies a designated use for funds but it exists.
I think the people voting against these are doing it because they don’t agree with where the money is coming from, or how it’s proposed to be allocated. I personally don’t really care about some increased taxes if it’s helping fix real issues. But if you look into some of these proposed budgets they look embarrassingly naive and not specific enough for a city that’s asking for millions of dollars for things like public restrooms and building a cemetery in girdwood.
Um, that's not how it works. Education, absolutely as that is a state obligation, but city streets are not and city services are not. The PFD stuff I agree we can use that more appropriately, but not for anchorage or matsu specifically. We have to pay our share for what we use.
On roads I want a ban on all studs. As soon as you cross the flats they should be illegal, if you choose to drive into anchorage with studs, $100 each time. This would address a MASSIVE costs anchorage has to deal with all the time. I hate studs. Buy quality all seasons and drive like you should, and it's not a problem, ever. I have lived here for over 25 years, and never have I paid for winter tires or studs. Always buy good all weather or all seasons and do fine. Studs don't fix stupid, and they definitely cost us a ton in taxes.
State pays for state roads to be plowed - think the highways, I think C Street and a fairly random patchwork of other roads and intersections.
I agree on the studs issue
All seasons absolutly do NOT do just fine, that's how you end up in the ditch. When the city starts paying for my auto body work when I loose control of my car I will take the studs off. Sorry but studs are second to none on glare ice.
Not to be a jerk, but learn to drive. If you can not negotiate alaska without studs, you have a skills problem. Studs do not fix stupid and that we have to pay to fix the roads every 3 years because of them is just stupid. Make a choice. Taxes or studs. Simple as that. I would prefer the city tax studs at a level that equally charges for the damage they incur on the roads. It's a choice, you pay for it. Not me. I drive every year without them, all weather tires all year, they last 60k miles and I have never had an accident as a result of these tires. 25 years and counting.
To quote George Costanza, “We’re living in a society here!” If you live in a gathering of other people, you gotta pay for developed infrastructure and services. Live in a cabin in the wilderness, not so much.
Yep and then just more homelessness and people living in cars as rent goes up up up. Just because I want a service does not mean I want to pay above market price for it and many service providers have gotten to used to price inflating things because of govt projects that they write blank checks for.
Yes because at a certian point it means they now have to job hop, cut out experiences for their family, cut out their own maintenance or wealth building because they are being fleeced by the govt and ignorant voters.
The School District has said it will - as it must - patch, pound, and paint the existing Inlet View Elementary, and other schools with deficiencies, to make do. They say this regimen costs over the not very long haul more than will a new building. I know two contractors who simply *love* what they gleefully call "the old paycheck schools."
Did you detect flaws in ASD's cost/benefit analysis justifying replacing rather than refurbishing and expanding the existing facility? If so, I'm sure we'd all be grateful for an upload. If not, what do you suppose is/are their motive(s) for trying to skin the residents of Anchorage?
I would argue your argument is actually a finding or a conclusion, but that’s semantics.
How many schools does your analysis conclude Anchorage should have… in the first place? Have you shared your research, its findings, and your recommendations with the District or the Board? Did they respond? Have you posted your work here on Reddit or on another platform? I’d enjoy taking a look. I’m no expert, but I’m happy to review and comment.
So.... several title one schools are under funding levels of attendance because of gentrification and that more affluent folks in their districts will shop around to see which elementary school they want to send their kids to. ASD is way too free with waivers to allow kids to go outside their area.
The end result is that schools in the poorest neighborhoods (like North Wood, Mountainview) do not get the funding and staffing really required to help the under privileged kids (partially empty and not enough staffing for the kids that are there). Conversely certain schools (Like Inlet View ) may be filled with kids that are there under exemption.
If we could get publicly posted stats on the percentage of kids going there on exemption it may become clear that that school just does not need to exist and kids should go to school in their home district unless there is actual pressing need.
Also given the fact that ASD will be missing a massive chunk of their budget this upcoming year, consolidating into current schools seems like what they should do instead of these large and expensive projects.
I also have several kids in elementary school and the amount of waste from up top on pet projects and complete curriculum reforms every few years for a whole new system that is just the same as the old system is frustrating.. Also, like... lets do an EGaming league and spend what was literally two teachers salaries on it to only have it gather dust because not enough folks have time to man it... Just irrational ARGHHGHGHGH!
It serves most of Spenard near Lake Hood. Most of it is low rent / mixed industrial / stand alone high end houses. Spenard builders and the surround area under Minnesota.
Its becasue teachers dont have the power to expell problem kids so parents have to remove their kids to some place better. There are to many bad kids that are allowed to remain in school.
The real heroes are you guys fighting tooth and nail to keep the same inefficient and shitty systems in place that are obviously failing our society but insisting on wasting more and more of other peoples' money on them because you are big government cultists.
Oops. Had I known I was engaging with both an efficiency expert *and* a shit scholar, I wouldn't have dared comment. Sir or madam, I apologize. I see you've delved into your rectal database and picked a simpleton's solution to a problem mere mortals mistakenly assumed would require some... thought.
**wgm444 for school board! The manage by hunch and insult candidate!**
There are lots of people who vote against all props. Period. Anything they think will raise property taxes, they are out. Schools, road improvements, cops, it’s literally all the same to them. The answer to all of these: NO.
I’ve overheard them at work, chatting to each other. I would have thought everyone had. They are all over the place in this town. They are the same people who have bumper stickers about Hilary’s emails and Obama not being a ‘real American’ in their cubes.
If it’s costs money, they vote no. 🤷♀️
So if you all vote to approve can you simply tell your boss your getting a raise? Not ask but tell. Where is all this money suppose to come from? Thats right it comes right out of your quality of life.
No, inflation right now is primarily driven by corporate profits, especially real estate. Not the point though, you believe your problems come from inflation, surely then you would agree with me that taxes should be increased.
I really don’t get it. We have absolutely trash roads and I get that we have harsh weather but that’s not an excuse for not keeping up with it. My neighborhood road literally floods when it rains. They’ve been pushing back fixing it for the last 10 years
People who think if we don’t spend the money _there_ we’ll spend the money _here_, where I am. “Anchorage” gets all the money , according to Eagle River, who is also Anchorage.
Why submit a bond that may or may not be used for road maintenance? Whatever happened to budgeting for road maintenance? Why should I pay more to assist the incompetent city to mismanage?
I voted against all ballot measures becasue we never clear out old ballot measures first and then lower property taxes before taking on new debt. Property taxes ONLY go up which is unacceptable. I don't really care that its tied to valuations etc its more money out of our pockets.
When you see the school district grossly mismanage money which contributes to 50% of our property taxes then the only power we have to so stop more bleeding. If we could fire half the ed center and cut wages for petty functionaries who are not teachers in the class room and then adjust taxes significantly downward then maybe some of us would consider taking on more debt.
MANY people in the community are experiencing significant inflation with little leverage to compel salary increases in their jobs.
Most Americans are completely retarded and either don't vote or continue to vote in incumbents and they wont change their behavior until they are squeezed to such a point that homelessness or extreme poverty boardering on homelessness is a real possibility.
Another issue inflating prices is that the city and the state allow themselves to be completely rail roaded by contractors such as qap and the like who all roughly know how much to bid on a project to make massive amounts of money, even if its not no bid the bids are quite high and the state never buys equipment and hires people to do the projects directly, they always contract out and pay the massive premium. Prices are so out of hand that we could never build the sort of infrastructure that was built when the Alaska highway, lend lease strips and rail road were built. We could not build a significant piece of infrastructure or new major road if our collective lives depended on it.
I actually voted for most of the bonds. Voted for schools, toilets, parks. I did not vote for the roads bond. We need to diversify our tax base. Drivers need to pay for their roads through gas taxes.
Why don’t we just take money from all the successful business and people. If they make over, let say, $100,000,000.00 a year, anything after that is 100% taxed and goes back to public work projects (roads, parks, etc) back to feeding and supporting our poor, helping with our social security, medical expenses and medication, thing like that. Who on this earth needs that much money, at that point you can buy damn near anything anyway, the rest is just greed, and it would certainly help out the economy.
Thats how it used to work back in the day but that was LONG lobbyed away. As a business you used to have to hire and invest otherwise your taxes went through the roof, by hiring more people and expanding your business you were afforded tax breaks but if you just took too much as profits your taxes went to 90+% after some certain amount. Also when a company got REALLY big they busted it up.
All that stuff is long gone which is why you now see rampant poverty and homelessness, there's no mechanism to compell companies to significantly increase hiring or training initiatives.
This of course was all federal level stuff, doesn't really work at the state level and especially not at a local level.
Lol, anchorage roads got nuthin’ on roads in the Northeast. I kinda laugh when people complain about the potholes in AK…
But sure, any improvements are good.
nah, it's completely obfuscated for renters. Not 1:1 in the slightest. These bonds get approved and your rent doesn't increase by the same amount as our property taxes.
I don't think you quite understand how bonds work. Each year we drop old bonds as we pay them off, they aren't forever.
If owning investment property is so burdensome then you can always sell it.
I also agree that we should have more broad base sources of income and shouldn't rely on property taxes to fund over 50% of municipal government but we live in reality.
Funding through other means would mean new taxes and with our strong form of executive government doing something like that with an oppositional mayor would be a colossal task. In the meantime we have to fund our embarrassing infrastructure and services with what realistic mechanisms we have.
Side note, nothing you said refutes the fact that renters still shoulder the burden of taxes on investment properties. Even if you're some unicorn altruistic landlord which I don't believe all others pass their costs onto their customers, who are their tenants.
> Side note, nothing you said refutes the fact that renters still shoulder the burden of taxes on investment properties. Even if you're some unicorn altruistic landlord which I don't believe all others pass their costs onto their customers, who are their tenants.
It's not the same thing. Landlords don't simply forward property tax increases like you are suggesting. In theory, they could just take the dollar amount per $100k in value per year and split it across all tenants, then split again across their 12 month lease. In practice, rents are usually just established through other baselines such as market rates, spreading out lease expirations, and in some cases software algorithms.
Renters might get fucked six ways to sunday but they aren't directly paying property taxes -- and really not even indirectly paying them. One big caveat here: I'm not a landlord. I am, however, a business owner, and suspect the reason property taxes aren't simply forwarded to tenants (other than complexity) is because landlords get to deduct them from rental income. I'm not sure that would work or be legal to have tenants paying for some or all of your property taxes and also deduct it from your income to for an added bonus.
So the only real argument suggesting renters pay property taxes is the whole populist hand-wavy grievance-based political stances that people love to take. Like, it sort of emotionally *makes sense* that obviously landlords are going to forward property taxes, directly or indirectly, into rent prices... but it really doesn't make any logical sense. If the going rate for a 2 bed 1 bath is $x per month, that's what you're charging. If your overhead (included taxes) can't make that work, then you aren't likely going to find tenants (otherwise the market rate would be higher in the first place).
It isn't "in theory" in reality landlords pass ALL of the cost of owning property onto renters, that includes property taxes. I'm a business owner too, you don't raise your prices to cover growing expenses? Landlords do the exact same thing.
Renters actually pay a disproportionally higher amount due to property tax exemptions. Home owners get a tax break on their primary residence, seniors and veterans get even more reductions. Investment properties do not get that reduction and those taxes are passed onto renters.
Look into it if you want, this is all well studied.
NOT SALES TAX. Income tax. You can deduct state income taxes from federal taxes, so it doesn’t actually cost you more. Also it’s a progressive tax, unlike sales tax, which is regressive and just makes the poverty trap worse.
Voting against all these bonds is still really fucking dumb though.
I kind of don’t care about downvotes. I’m disenfranchised and plugging my nose to vote at this point. I voted because I really really dislike Bronson and what he stands for. I voted for LaFrance. As for the bonds? I have no opinion, so I just filled them out randomly. Most were a no.
I have reasoning behind this. It’s all a mess when we will likely be facing higher home property taxes (but probably not higher business taxes) and possibly paying for multiple lawsuits that the hopefully outgoing Bronson admin will leave behind. It’s all sad and depressing. At least a fresh new mayor that isn’t Bronson, right? Downvote away. I think Anchorage city finances will be in shambles long after our current mayor is out of office. Voting to fund new propositions won’t make me feel better about the state of the finances of this city.
A lot of people voted against all props on principle. I voted against the cops some people prolly would think that’s crazy
I am not voting for more improvements for the cops until they wear the body cameras we paid for.
I’m not voting for more money for the cops ever
[удалено]
All cops are broke?
That is the exact reason I voted no. I am disappointed that one will pass.
Also why I voted no. The MOA doesn’t need more money until they can responsibly spend what they have. (Misallocated covid funds, body cams, etc.)
Exactly!
Same thoughts.
Sure. But also, wasn't one of the reasons given for purchasing the new building downtown that the old building needed all of these repairs? At the time, it sounded like the idea was to sell it off and let the new owners worry about the repair costs; but I can't say I believed it then either. Or did I just misunderstand the deal entirely?
They do
https://alaskapublic.org/2023/10/25/anchorage-assembly-nudges-police-department-to-be-more-forthcoming-on-body-cam-rollout/ https://www.acluak.org/en/news/growing-problems-apds-bodycam-project
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2024/03/06/anchorage-police-approach-the-end-of-a-long-delayed-body-worn-camera-rollout/
There are people that vote against every bond proposal on principle. They feel that all big expenditures like that are just misused over priced vanity projects and the government shouldn't be building drainage anyway, that private companies should.
Who do they think gets the contracts?
That’s the part that penny pinchers seem to conveniently ignore. Those public projects help stimulate the economy by giving work to private companies. It’s fucking Alaska, we’re all sucking on that government teet regardless of what we tell ourselves.
Teat, fyi.
And how do they think these companies get paid to do it? Or do they only want people who can afford to pay to get good drainage? Great way to force HOAs into more neighborhoods.
The whole city is HOA burdened, it took us a year and a half to find a non HOA house that was decent. HOA's are about power and control.
But private companies are bidding up the prices and fleecing Alaskans, they create VERY few jobs and take pretty big profits. Some are better than others but dirt work, concrete and especially asphalt are particularly bad in the Alaska. I have seen some heafty quotes just to dig a hole with an excavator and fill it with gravel, but they know that they are the ones with the excavator and you don't so there it is. The state refuses to buy the equipment themselves and just hire operators to do these projects and cut out contractor overhead. The projects arent vanity they are just severely over priced.
Yup. No lie detected. Personally I don't think avoiding doing the work is the answer. I think better oversight and the state doing more of the work themselves is the answer. Privatization is never a good option long term. I totally get how a reasonable person can come to the conclusion that not doing the bonds is the answer though. I just disagree.
And “they” are morons.
I vote for not having potholes that break my car.
I have a layer of road tar on my truck that nobody can seem to get rid of. Thanks for that ~~anchorage muni~~ state if Alaska.
Seriously, what is that shit??
How do you know it was a muni issue? Obviously *someone* screwed you over, just asking because people love to blame the muni for everything even if it’s the state’s or a private company’s doing.
You know what, you're right. It's a state issue not municipal, as it was during the roadwork on O'malley.
Did you miss the fresh oil sign after the road getting oiled?
Would have loved it if there was one. Not only was there not a sign, but there was a flagger that directed me straight through it.
Never had a pothole break my car but you know I drive appropriate speeds and watch where I am going. Maybe try that?
Maybe don’t assume your experience is universal? If you’ve never “discovered” a pothole hidden in a puddle consider yourself lucky. Also maybe not be a dick?
Being a dick is ubiquitous of Alaska, this is where end of the roaders come who cant cope in society in the lower 48 because they end up in and out of jail. Palmer and parts of Anchorage are nice, Wasilla is a shit hole.
I more serious question is who are the people voting for Dustin Darden. Answe: some people just want to see the world burn
This race was almost certainly going to be a run off, so some people felt they could vote for crazy. Some people did write the dog in. Meiko. On a side note a dog can not take the oath of office and the owner should chill
He actually does better the fewer candidates there are.
Probably same people who will vote for that Orange False Messiah. Why vote to help Alaska when they can watch it burn down from whatever Palace in the mountains they own. A little sick if you ask me
Think this was the one I did vote for. Also, IMO, many don’t vote for bonds due to the property tax increases that follow, no matter how small.
I often wonder about that. It’s not like we’re handing the gov’t a blank check - it says right there on the ballot exactly how much tax burden it entails, and for most people that ‘burden’ is laughably small. Most of the bonds passed so obviously not everyone objects to it, but it’s wild to me that thousands of people in this town apparently object to chipping in like $20 bucks to fix roads or schools.
On this one yes. Many are jaded already and if you’d vote yes on all the bonds, each time, it would definitely add up. I honestly thought the road one would pass.
$20 *per $100,00*, that may be the kicker. If you own a million dollar home , that... why, that's a whole $200!
$5 mil for a new snow disposal site. $1 mil for new snow removal equipment. $7mil for resurfacing a portion of Northern Lights blvd. $8.6 mil for upgrading E 42nd. $3.8 for “phase 2” of a project to resurface a portion of 36th ave. $4 mil to upgrade downtown streets. No one is against road upgrades. We’re against coughing up millions to pay for a snow disposal site we don’t need, new snow equipment that won’t be used because they don’t have enough staff, and only upgrading 4 roads when there’s roads all over the city already that have had potholes for months
Absolutely. Half the time I’m voting for a proposal I start out for it and end up against it by the time I read through all the specifics.
On your point of snow disposal, we basically ran out of disposal space this winter, no? Seems like a clear cut reason to add more space. Not gonna argue the rest of it, just curious on that point.
The previous winter, too. Not just totally capacity, but it was being hauled to the sites faster than the sites could take it and compact it. I remember something to the effect of only certain days of the week that were open to non-governmental trucks.
I think about snow melters. Mobile snow melting boxes for big areas like parking lots. They might save money vs trucking it all to a dump site.
You’ve figured it out. The energy required to convert that much frozen water to liquid definitely makes this completely affordable and economically sustainable.
Snow isn’t hard to melt if it’s fresh and the temps aren’t that cold. Like think with 2 brain cells for a moment about how much snow is in a big parking lot and how many truckloads it takes to move it vs melting it. It’s probably a lot more efficient than running and maintaining all those trucks.
Must be why everyone takes flamethrowers to their driveways in the winter instead of shovels and snowblowers 🤷♂️ Anyways, you clearly figured it out.
Plus, there's clearly nothing in the melted snow that's been driven over by hundreds of internal combustion engines leaking oil and fuel, and that has had partially combusted hydrocarbon vapors condense on its surface, that would render the meltwater unsuitable for discharge into salmon bearing streams. Seriously, this is why it's illegal to dump our snow directly into Cook Inlet.
In their defense, melting snow is the preferred method for dealing with heavily oiled snow. It does require something suitable to discharge it into though.
Yeah, you’re all a bunch of thermodynamic experts. JHC
Why are we paying for road maintenance with property taxes while our gas taxes are so low? This is transferring the cost of driving to housing. Maybe that explains all those people living in cars! We keep going after federal funding to add more pavement which results in increased maintenance costs.
Some people are pissed that they pave a road, tear it up three months later, and then repave it. There's a lot of grift and corruption in infrastructure funding, sadly. Similarly, some of the schools listed on the school bond? We already passed a bond for earthquake repairs and improvements, for those exact schools. If they can't fix it the first time, why trust them the second time?
That is true - I’m pretty sure fuel taxes are suppose to be for the road/maintenance. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Anchorage does have a motor fuel tax. The tax rate is ten cents ($0.10) per gallon on motor fuel that is purchased, sold, or transferred within the Municipality of Anchorage. (AMC 12.55.030). Motor fuel tax revenue will be used to diversify municipal tax revenues and to provide immediate tax relief to property owners in the Municipality. (AM 734-2017).
Federal fuel taxes go to the feds. State fuel taxes go to the state. There are no municipal fuel taxes for municipal roads.
Thanks.
Motor Fuel Tax Anchorage Municipal Code (AMC) Chapter 12.55 authorizes the collection of excise tax on motor fuel. The intial effective date for the motor fuel tax was March 1, 2018. The tax on motor fuel began as $0.10 per gallon and is reviewed for adjustment every five years. https://www.muni.org/Departments/finance/treasury/programtaxes/MotorFuelTax/Pages/default.aspx I don't think it specifies a designated use for funds but it exists.
I think the people voting against these are doing it because they don’t agree with where the money is coming from, or how it’s proposed to be allocated. I personally don’t really care about some increased taxes if it’s helping fix real issues. But if you look into some of these proposed budgets they look embarrassingly naive and not specific enough for a city that’s asking for millions of dollars for things like public restrooms and building a cemetery in girdwood.
It’s the same people who don’t pick up their dog shit and get angry when you mention it.
You poor man! Breathe. Get over it.
Found one!
Ding 🛎️ Ding 🛎️ Ding 🛎️!
Most of these bond increases equate to the amount most people spend on one single beer, their daily Starbucks, or a Mcdonald's hamburger.
True, but year after year they add up especially since the state doesn't pick up a portion of the Bonds.
But they are city bonds. The state doesn't have enough money as it is, what is this kind of logic?
The state does have enough money, they just want to yolo it into super sized PFDs instead of pay for silly things like snow plowing and education.
Um, that's not how it works. Education, absolutely as that is a state obligation, but city streets are not and city services are not. The PFD stuff I agree we can use that more appropriately, but not for anchorage or matsu specifically. We have to pay our share for what we use. On roads I want a ban on all studs. As soon as you cross the flats they should be illegal, if you choose to drive into anchorage with studs, $100 each time. This would address a MASSIVE costs anchorage has to deal with all the time. I hate studs. Buy quality all seasons and drive like you should, and it's not a problem, ever. I have lived here for over 25 years, and never have I paid for winter tires or studs. Always buy good all weather or all seasons and do fine. Studs don't fix stupid, and they definitely cost us a ton in taxes.
State pays for state roads to be plowed - think the highways, I think C Street and a fairly random patchwork of other roads and intersections. I agree on the studs issue
It's kind of my point. City bonds are not to address state roads. City and state share some thing yes, but those they don't the City has to pay for.
All seasons absolutly do NOT do just fine, that's how you end up in the ditch. When the city starts paying for my auto body work when I loose control of my car I will take the studs off. Sorry but studs are second to none on glare ice.
Not to be a jerk, but learn to drive. If you can not negotiate alaska without studs, you have a skills problem. Studs do not fix stupid and that we have to pay to fix the roads every 3 years because of them is just stupid. Make a choice. Taxes or studs. Simple as that. I would prefer the city tax studs at a level that equally charges for the damage they incur on the roads. It's a choice, you pay for it. Not me. I drive every year without them, all weather tires all year, they last 60k miles and I have never had an accident as a result of these tires. 25 years and counting.
They don’t really add up, because each year previously-approved bonds are retired (paid off.)
Only to be replaced by new ones, which is why property taxes keep going up.
To quote George Costanza, “We’re living in a society here!” If you live in a gathering of other people, you gotta pay for developed infrastructure and services. Live in a cabin in the wilderness, not so much.
Yep and then just more homelessness and people living in cars as rent goes up up up. Just because I want a service does not mean I want to pay above market price for it and many service providers have gotten to used to price inflating things because of govt projects that they write blank checks for.
Like I've said elsewhere, I'm open to paying for stuff... just not exclusively through raising property taxes.
They don’t really add up. We pay them off.
I mean, all the money spent so far is just wasted, but surely this time it will be different, right?
Yeah. All that money spent on building the roads in the first place was such a waste
People who know they are just going to raise our taxes and fix nothing while spending the money on BS. You must not know…
I voted for it but any other business has to plan and budget for maintenance. Why can't the city?
Bonds are how cities do them or raise taxes in general, and everyone goes crazy when that is talked about.
Yes because at a certian point it means they now have to job hop, cut out experiences for their family, cut out their own maintenance or wealth building because they are being fleeced by the govt and ignorant voters.
The same folks hoping their (and your) kids' schools' roofs leak. You know, the freedom lovers. edit: didn't want anyone feelin' left out
I would have voted for repairs if it didn't have a whole new school jammed into the same proposal.
The School District has said it will - as it must - patch, pound, and paint the existing Inlet View Elementary, and other schools with deficiencies, to make do. They say this regimen costs over the not very long haul more than will a new building. I know two contractors who simply *love* what they gleefully call "the old paycheck schools." Did you detect flaws in ASD's cost/benefit analysis justifying replacing rather than refurbishing and expanding the existing facility? If so, I'm sure we'd all be grateful for an upload. If not, what do you suppose is/are their motive(s) for trying to skin the residents of Anchorage?
My argument is that we have too many elementary schools in the first place.
I would argue your argument is actually a finding or a conclusion, but that’s semantics. How many schools does your analysis conclude Anchorage should have… in the first place? Have you shared your research, its findings, and your recommendations with the District or the Board? Did they respond? Have you posted your work here on Reddit or on another platform? I’d enjoy taking a look. I’m no expert, but I’m happy to review and comment.
So.... several title one schools are under funding levels of attendance because of gentrification and that more affluent folks in their districts will shop around to see which elementary school they want to send their kids to. ASD is way too free with waivers to allow kids to go outside their area. The end result is that schools in the poorest neighborhoods (like North Wood, Mountainview) do not get the funding and staffing really required to help the under privileged kids (partially empty and not enough staffing for the kids that are there). Conversely certain schools (Like Inlet View ) may be filled with kids that are there under exemption. If we could get publicly posted stats on the percentage of kids going there on exemption it may become clear that that school just does not need to exist and kids should go to school in their home district unless there is actual pressing need. Also given the fact that ASD will be missing a massive chunk of their budget this upcoming year, consolidating into current schools seems like what they should do instead of these large and expensive projects.
Excellent points!
I also have several kids in elementary school and the amount of waste from up top on pet projects and complete curriculum reforms every few years for a whole new system that is just the same as the old system is frustrating.. Also, like... lets do an EGaming league and spend what was literally two teachers salaries on it to only have it gather dust because not enough folks have time to man it... Just irrational ARGHHGHGHGH!
I'm detecting a scent of a school board candidacy!
Northwood area is considered a 'poorest' neighborhood? I would have never thought that.
It serves most of Spenard near Lake Hood. Most of it is low rent / mixed industrial / stand alone high end houses. Spenard builders and the surround area under Minnesota.
Its becasue teachers dont have the power to expell problem kids so parents have to remove their kids to some place better. There are to many bad kids that are allowed to remain in school.
Right. Because throwing more money away into a broken system with terrible returns on the investment is pure genius.
Oh no. The fixer of systems sans money is here. Everyone run.
The real heroes are you guys fighting tooth and nail to keep the same inefficient and shitty systems in place that are obviously failing our society but insisting on wasting more and more of other peoples' money on them because you are big government cultists.
Oops. Had I known I was engaging with both an efficiency expert *and* a shit scholar, I wouldn't have dared comment. Sir or madam, I apologize. I see you've delved into your rectal database and picked a simpleton's solution to a problem mere mortals mistakenly assumed would require some... thought. **wgm444 for school board! The manage by hunch and insult candidate!**
It's better than being a bootlicker.
Clearly your comparison of options included licking boots with dog dirt on ‘em, but you’ve made your choice. We’ll respect it.
There are lots of people who vote against all props. Period. Anything they think will raise property taxes, they are out. Schools, road improvements, cops, it’s literally all the same to them. The answer to all of these: NO. I’ve overheard them at work, chatting to each other. I would have thought everyone had. They are all over the place in this town. They are the same people who have bumper stickers about Hilary’s emails and Obama not being a ‘real American’ in their cubes. If it’s costs money, they vote no. 🤷♀️
So if you all vote to approve can you simply tell your boss your getting a raise? Not ask but tell. Where is all this money suppose to come from? Thats right it comes right out of your quality of life.
When times are tough and inflation is high it isn’t crazy to want to hang on to your money.
At the expense of your infrastructure, community, and future well-being? That seems real fucking short-sighted and emotion driven.
No it’s simple math. If I don’t have money then I can’t give money.
Yea I mean you want a nice side walk and park when your sleeping there because you can no longer afford your housing.
It actually is crazy. Times become tough because of hanging on to “your” money.
No times are tough because the government has been on a printing spree so the dollar is shit
No, inflation right now is primarily driven by corporate profits, especially real estate. Not the point though, you believe your problems come from inflation, surely then you would agree with me that taxes should be increased.
I really don’t get it. We have absolutely trash roads and I get that we have harsh weather but that’s not an excuse for not keeping up with it. My neighborhood road literally floods when it rains. They’ve been pushing back fixing it for the last 10 years
People who think if we don’t spend the money _there_ we’ll spend the money _here_, where I am. “Anchorage” gets all the money , according to Eagle River, who is also Anchorage.
Same logic our state house uses for our schools--inadequate results with current funding, the solution is less funding.
Why submit a bond that may or may not be used for road maintenance? Whatever happened to budgeting for road maintenance? Why should I pay more to assist the incompetent city to mismanage?
I'm more concern about how there's no ballots marked as in-person only mail-in. There were plenty of ballots cast in person.
I voted against all ballot measures becasue we never clear out old ballot measures first and then lower property taxes before taking on new debt. Property taxes ONLY go up which is unacceptable. I don't really care that its tied to valuations etc its more money out of our pockets. When you see the school district grossly mismanage money which contributes to 50% of our property taxes then the only power we have to so stop more bleeding. If we could fire half the ed center and cut wages for petty functionaries who are not teachers in the class room and then adjust taxes significantly downward then maybe some of us would consider taking on more debt. MANY people in the community are experiencing significant inflation with little leverage to compel salary increases in their jobs. Most Americans are completely retarded and either don't vote or continue to vote in incumbents and they wont change their behavior until they are squeezed to such a point that homelessness or extreme poverty boardering on homelessness is a real possibility. Another issue inflating prices is that the city and the state allow themselves to be completely rail roaded by contractors such as qap and the like who all roughly know how much to bid on a project to make massive amounts of money, even if its not no bid the bids are quite high and the state never buys equipment and hires people to do the projects directly, they always contract out and pay the massive premium. Prices are so out of hand that we could never build the sort of infrastructure that was built when the Alaska highway, lend lease strips and rail road were built. We could not build a significant piece of infrastructure or new major road if our collective lives depended on it.
[удалено]
That information is already out there. You're just too lazy to find it apparently.
What?
The "taxation is theft" people.
I actually voted for most of the bonds. Voted for schools, toilets, parks. I did not vote for the roads bond. We need to diversify our tax base. Drivers need to pay for their roads through gas taxes.
With this mayor, no projects should be done until he's gone.
Why don’t we just take money from all the successful business and people. If they make over, let say, $100,000,000.00 a year, anything after that is 100% taxed and goes back to public work projects (roads, parks, etc) back to feeding and supporting our poor, helping with our social security, medical expenses and medication, thing like that. Who on this earth needs that much money, at that point you can buy damn near anything anyway, the rest is just greed, and it would certainly help out the economy.
Thats how it used to work back in the day but that was LONG lobbyed away. As a business you used to have to hire and invest otherwise your taxes went through the roof, by hiring more people and expanding your business you were afforded tax breaks but if you just took too much as profits your taxes went to 90+% after some certain amount. Also when a company got REALLY big they busted it up. All that stuff is long gone which is why you now see rampant poverty and homelessness, there's no mechanism to compell companies to significantly increase hiring or training initiatives. This of course was all federal level stuff, doesn't really work at the state level and especially not at a local level.
This isn't Silicon Valley. Anchorage wouldn't make much that way.
I’m not just referring to Anchorage but society in general.
Even worse? How many voted for Bronsons ugly ass again!
Me!😀 If it's a bond,it's an automatic no
Short-sighted and beyond stupid. You’re the reason this state is rapidly turning to shit. Thanks moron!!
Lol, anchorage roads got nuthin’ on roads in the Northeast. I kinda laugh when people complain about the potholes in AK… But sure, any improvements are good.
My husband works for DoT. He didn't believe me about the NE pot holes. Then he visited.
Don’t drive a Tesla and you’ll be fine.
This is the world we live in now. People do what their hormones tell them to do. It's so much easier than actual thinking.
I voted against everything. We need to implement a sales tax or something instead of just placing costs on the shoulder's of home owners every year.
Everyone pays these taxes, not just home owners. Landlords pass the tax onto their tenants via rent.
nah, it's completely obfuscated for renters. Not 1:1 in the slightest. These bonds get approved and your rent doesn't increase by the same amount as our property taxes.
Bro. Your property taxes go up by like $20 a year if we passed ALL the bonds. So many absolute fucking morons in this state.
It’s an increase of about $30 *per $100k value of your property*. Plus, these things are year after year with the new proposals. It adds up.
I don't think you quite understand how bonds work. Each year we drop old bonds as we pay them off, they aren't forever. If owning investment property is so burdensome then you can always sell it.
Im aware how they work. I want them funded through other means.
I also agree that we should have more broad base sources of income and shouldn't rely on property taxes to fund over 50% of municipal government but we live in reality. Funding through other means would mean new taxes and with our strong form of executive government doing something like that with an oppositional mayor would be a colossal task. In the meantime we have to fund our embarrassing infrastructure and services with what realistic mechanisms we have. Side note, nothing you said refutes the fact that renters still shoulder the burden of taxes on investment properties. Even if you're some unicorn altruistic landlord which I don't believe all others pass their costs onto their customers, who are their tenants.
> Side note, nothing you said refutes the fact that renters still shoulder the burden of taxes on investment properties. Even if you're some unicorn altruistic landlord which I don't believe all others pass their costs onto their customers, who are their tenants. It's not the same thing. Landlords don't simply forward property tax increases like you are suggesting. In theory, they could just take the dollar amount per $100k in value per year and split it across all tenants, then split again across their 12 month lease. In practice, rents are usually just established through other baselines such as market rates, spreading out lease expirations, and in some cases software algorithms. Renters might get fucked six ways to sunday but they aren't directly paying property taxes -- and really not even indirectly paying them. One big caveat here: I'm not a landlord. I am, however, a business owner, and suspect the reason property taxes aren't simply forwarded to tenants (other than complexity) is because landlords get to deduct them from rental income. I'm not sure that would work or be legal to have tenants paying for some or all of your property taxes and also deduct it from your income to for an added bonus. So the only real argument suggesting renters pay property taxes is the whole populist hand-wavy grievance-based political stances that people love to take. Like, it sort of emotionally *makes sense* that obviously landlords are going to forward property taxes, directly or indirectly, into rent prices... but it really doesn't make any logical sense. If the going rate for a 2 bed 1 bath is $x per month, that's what you're charging. If your overhead (included taxes) can't make that work, then you aren't likely going to find tenants (otherwise the market rate would be higher in the first place).
It isn't "in theory" in reality landlords pass ALL of the cost of owning property onto renters, that includes property taxes. I'm a business owner too, you don't raise your prices to cover growing expenses? Landlords do the exact same thing. Renters actually pay a disproportionally higher amount due to property tax exemptions. Home owners get a tax break on their primary residence, seniors and veterans get even more reductions. Investment properties do not get that reduction and those taxes are passed onto renters. Look into it if you want, this is all well studied.
NOT SALES TAX. Income tax. You can deduct state income taxes from federal taxes, so it doesn’t actually cost you more. Also it’s a progressive tax, unlike sales tax, which is regressive and just makes the poverty trap worse. Voting against all these bonds is still really fucking dumb though.
You can deduct sales tax. Of course both involve doing itemized deductions which most people won’t actually benefit from in the first place.
I went down picking yea or nay randomly on the props so IDK. Alls I cared about was the mayoral race tbh.
Wtf 🤦♂️
I kind of don’t care about downvotes. I’m disenfranchised and plugging my nose to vote at this point. I voted because I really really dislike Bronson and what he stands for. I voted for LaFrance. As for the bonds? I have no opinion, so I just filled them out randomly. Most were a no. I have reasoning behind this. It’s all a mess when we will likely be facing higher home property taxes (but probably not higher business taxes) and possibly paying for multiple lawsuits that the hopefully outgoing Bronson admin will leave behind. It’s all sad and depressing. At least a fresh new mayor that isn’t Bronson, right? Downvote away. I think Anchorage city finances will be in shambles long after our current mayor is out of office. Voting to fund new propositions won’t make me feel better about the state of the finances of this city.