After months of lobs, volleys and a few governmental foot-faults, the Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday failed yet again to agree about the fate of a proposed six-court indoor tennis facility. The Assembly did not pass any of the three proposals put forward to deal with $10.5 million sent to the city in April by the state Legislature to build the Northern Lights Rec Center, in West Anchorage. And since time ran out for a vote on the final proposal, the back-and-forth over Anchorage tennis is set to continue.
Assembly member Bill Starr wanted to start a $4-million reserve fund for a tennis facility and use the remaining $6.5 million for additional fixes to existing Anchorage sports facilities like the Sullivan and Ben Boeke arenas. Assembly member Tim Steele wanted to award $7.7 million to the Northern Lights Rec Center project. Both would have required tennis supporters to come up with the remaining money to build what is expected to be a $10-14 million facility. Assembly member Amy Demboski wanted to use $4.5 million of the $10.5 million set for the proposed courts for fixes to existing Anchorage sports facilities, and send the remaining $6 million back to Juneau for re-appropriation.
None of them got their way Tuesday night. Starr and Steele's amendments failed to get the six votes needed for passage. Demboski's was held over for the next regular meeting.
After Tuesday's non-action, the fate of the funding and the fate of the tennis courts remain unresolved.
The Northern Lights Rec Center has been the subject of both debate and ire. Tennis supporters say it will support ongoing maintenance and operations through the fees it collects from players. They point out that the Alaska Club -- a local health club company with locations throughout Anchorage -- owns all the city's indoor courts -- leaving people who can't afford a $2,000 yearly tennis membership out in the cold in winter months. The loss of the Alaska Club courts could also end high school tennis in Alaska.
"We have been told we can't use the Alaska Club courts next year, so without the new facility, high school tennis will go away in Alaska," said Stephanie Williams, an Alaska Tennis Association member.
The Alaska Club North Anchorage location -- which houses 5 courts -- is currently for sale. The Assembly had looked at using the tennis court appropriation to buy it, but the idea was scrapped, in part, because the 40-year-old building is showing its age.
The project money was separated from the rest of the state money for capital improvements in September. It has been in limbo ever since, and has drawn hours of public testimony from hundreds of people -- both for and against the idea of using public money to build indoor tennis courts.
Many on the Assembly -- including members Bill Starr and Amy Demboski claim the money for tennis courts was a surprise to them, and wasn't on its list of capital budget priorities when the list was sent to Juneau earlier this year.
"We have so many other buildings that need the money," Starr said.
The Alaska Tennis Association had asked Anchorage state Rep. Lindsey Holmes to put the money into this year's capital budget. Holmes put the request in with House Finance co-chair Rep. Bill Stoltze, who approved the money for the tennis courts and added it to the budget, which was passed by the full Legislature days later. It is currently listed as a $10.5-million project to be constructed at the Dempsey Anderson Ice Arena, near the corner of Northern Lights Boulevard and Minnesota Drive. But the amount of the initial request has been the subject of much contention between Mayor Dan Sullivan, tennis supporters and Stoltze himself.
At the start of Tuesday night's Assembly meeting, chair Ernie Hall and Assemblyman Adam Trombley announced that they had a recent meeting with Stoltze, who showed them a document he said proved Holmes only asked for $4 million for tennis. Stoltze has said the tennis money was included in a $37 million package of other capital budget requests – mostly to fix up aging Anchorage area public facilities, like the Sullivan and Ben Boeke Arenas, as well as fixes to Dempsey Anderson, itself. Stoltze has said the mayor and Holmes are responsible for increasing the appropriation to $10.5 million dollars, not he.
News of another night with no decision was hard to take for tennis supporters who had been coming to Assembly meetings since early September, hoping for a resolution to the issue.
"It is very frustrating," said Williams, a member of the Alaska Tennis Association – the group that asked the state for indoor tennis court funding. "This was never about tennis, this was about personalities on the Assembly," Williams said.
Williams isn't the only one frustrated by the continuing tennis deadlock.
"I have heard more about tennis than I ever want to hear in my life," Assembly chair Ernie Hall said during debate over the tennis courts.
Hall will likely have to hear even more about tennis in the upcoming weeks and months.
Since the Assembly couldn't pass any of the proposed tennis funding ordinances, the money -- $10.5 million -- remains available, either for indoor tennis courts, added fixes to other Anchorage arenas, or perhaps, something else. But the Assembly has to propose and then pass an ordinance to get to the cash. And even after more than eight weeks of trying, a consensus seems as far away as it ever has.
"It's your job to come up with a compromise," Allen Clendaniel, president of the Alaska Tennis Association, told the Assembly just before the meeting ended at 11 p.m. Tuesday night.
Changes to taxi rules approved
Nineteen months after beginning an overhaul of city code regulating taxi drivers, the Anchorage Assembly passed a package of changes by a vote of 10-1.
The changes -- including new fare rates, fuel surcharges, allowances for service animals, and a requirement for video cameras inside all Anchorage cabs -- have been the subject of months of debate at work sessions and Assembly meetings. It has been a huge task -- a task at least one assembly member thought was still unfinished.
"I think we have bitten off more than we can chew," said Assembly member Patrick Flynn, the lone member to vote against the taxi changes.
Flynn wanted to postpone the item, so transportation officials could study how to best serve outlying areas of the city like Eagle River and Girdwood. Flynn's motion to postpone failed 9-2, and the members moved forward with the taxi regulation changes.
The changes passed by the Assembly include:
• A 5-cent increase in the per-mile rate, raising it to 30 cents per mile
• Requiring all Anchorage taxis install video cameras, with tour operators who run shuttle buses exempted for 12 months
• Allowing taxi drivers from outside Anchorage to drop off and return the same passenger from outside the city
• Having the Anchorage Transportation Commission -- a municipal department -- study the demand for service from rural Anchorage areas like Eagle River and Girdwood
• Increasing the fee to transfer a taxi permit from $750 to $1,000
• Reaffirming that complaints about discrimination against people with disabilities, or members of other protected classes, fall under the City charter's Title 5 and can be addressed by the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission
• And asking the city to study the number of cabs available at "bar break" -- when local bars close for the night, to determine if there need to be more temporary taxi permits issued between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Some of the debate over the new regulations has been testy -- so much so that at the beginning of the Tuesday night meeting, Assembly Chair Ernie Hall took time to remind members of the Rules of Order, and ask that they not engage in personal attacks while discussing the multitude of amendments to the ordinance. Despite the worry of tempers flaring, the Assembly worked quickly to go through the 22 amendments and full ordinance, which is more than 60 pages long.
The rules governing taxis -- including setting the rate charged per mile and the "flag drop" rate -- have not been modified since 2005. The latest round of work on the issue has seen disability advocates calling for tougher rules to prevent cab companies from refusing to pick up people who need accommodations.
Taxi drivers themselves said some of the rate changes do not go far enough. Tour companies resisted proposals to require video cameras in all vehicles for hire.
Many taxis already have cameras installed in them, but having cameras in all cabs could help prevent violent crimes committed against cab drivers, according to Anchorage Police Department spokesperson Anita Shell.
On Nov. 19, an Anchorage cab driver, 54-year-old Atiqullah Khalil, was severely beaten by three men after dropping them off in an alley behind the Arctic Tern Inn. Anchorage police said Khalil was punched in the back of the head, and knocked to the ground when he tried to flee. Police said the men -- who remained unidentified and at-large in the days after the beating -- also robbed Khalil. The beating left Khalil in the hospital for days.
But tour operators objected to the proposal to require video cameras and signs inside their shuttle vans, claiming it would violate their customers' privacy -- a customer base they claim is not a threat to drivers. The Assembly passed a 12-month exemption of the video camera requirement for Anchorage's tour operators. Cabs will still be required to carry them.
The Assembly stripped a proposed requirement that would have required all Anchorage taxis to be four-wheel or front-wheel drive. At a Thursday Assembly work session, Assembly Member Dick Traini said newer cabs would be front-wheel drive because cab companies usually buy old police cars and APD has converted to front-wheel-drive cars. Traini said that means as older cabs are retired, newer ones would already be front-wheel drive, eliminating the need for the requirement in the city rules.
In the end, the taxi rules rewrite was easily handled by the Assembly on Tuesday night. But that doesn't mean that anyone is happy about all the changes. Flynn said last week that the proposed changes have "managed to irritate everybody at this point," and many of those still ended up passing.
And even though the package of changes passed on Tuesday, the ordinance is likely far from finished. Some of the new changes will be watched closely by members to see if they need to be adjusted again.
"Ordinances are meant to be changed," said Assembly member Elvi Gray-Jackson.
Contact Sean Doogan at sean(at)alaskadispatch.com