Readers write: Letters to the editor, May 17, 2016

If the current oil and gas tax credit system is not significantly changed, the state of Alaska will be paying hundreds of millions of dollars more in oil and gas tax credits than it receives in production taxes from the oil and gas industry. When we are faced with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, it is fiscally and morally irresponsible to continue paying these amounts to profit-making multinational entities while slashing funding for health, education and other programs that benefit tens of thousands of Alaska citizens. It is also irresponsible to simply defer payment of oil tax credits for a few years without significantly changing the amount of the available credits.

The duty of our state elected officials is to protect and promote the use of Alaska’s natural and financial resources for the benefit of Alaska’s residents, not for the benefit of profit-making corporations. The current system of oil and gas text credits is not sustainable. A sustainable and fair long-term fiscal plan is one that would significantly close the gap between oil and gas tax credits versus revenues; eliminate questionable and wasteful spending (e.g. Anchorage LIO); protect vital programs while promoting cost-effectiveness and efficiency; and include new revenues from broad-based taxes (state income or sales tax) and other sources.

The Legislature needs to overcome the intransigent and, in some cases, nearly unethical refusal of some of our legislators to consider significantly reducing oil and gas tax credits, and adopt a sustainable long-term fiscal plan. Adopting the original version of House Bill 247 proposing significant change in the current oil and gas tax credit system would be a major step toward implementing such a plan.

— Andy Durny

Fairbanks

I am writing in response to the May 10 online article by Michelle Theriault Boots, “An Anchorage cyclist is recovering after being left for dead in a hit-and-run.”

First of all — huge shoutout to Jackie Minge for finishing the Gold Nugget Triathlon even after being the hit-and-run victim of Boots’ article. It’s an amazing accomplishment for anyone to finish a triathlon, let alone to do so during recovery from being hit by a vehicle.

This incident brings to light the struggle of all those biking on Anchorage’s roads. From reading the comments on Boots’ article, recalling my own and many other commuters’ experiences it is clear that many people in Anchorage do not know or understand bike-related traffic laws. As a year-round bike commuter I fear that I have lived this issue far too often.

Anchorage’s municipal traffic code was adapted in early 2011 to address the emergence of more bike commuters on the road. Traffic laws allowing cyclists on the road are not new or unique to Anchorage; the code simply addresses the increase of popularity of bike commuting. Instead of choosing to remain ignorant, we should all develop tolerance of drivers and cyclists alike, share the road and understand Anchorage’s laws.

Cyclists are, by law, allowed on the road and are mandated to ride on the road in downtown Anchorage. When cycling in the road, cyclists are generally required to stay to the right of the road, but they can also “take the lane” for various reasons(CAC 9.38.060). When passing a cyclist, a driver must pass on the left and give the cyclist at least 3 feet of clearance (CAC 9.16.030). Cyclists are also allowed to choose to be on the sidewalk when traffic patterns, like speed or direction, encourage them to do so.

The municipality has recently taken on this issue through the Vision Zero Initiative. Vision Zero is a “community commitment to reduce the loss of life and major injuries on roadways to ZERO.” This initiative is focusing on infrastructure and how we can create a space for all commuters, education on how to avoid situations like Jackie Minge’s, enforcement of traffic laws so that a perpetrator in Jackie’s case can be brought to justice, and also through encouragement and evaluation.

But until the initiative is fully completed, we need to place the safety of a human life, of Jackie Minge’s life, above all else because cyclists have a right to be on the road. Bike to Work Day is Wednesday and gives the community the opportunity to create a safe space for all types of commuters in our wonderful city.

— Kati Ward

Bike Anchorage board member

and year-round commuter

The concept of race — that physical features determine intelligence, ability, character — does not exist in science. The mapping of human DNA shows that there is no gene for race — no gene for “Negro,” “Asian,” “Caucasian,” etc. The DNA associated with skin color, facial features and body types is a small fraction of the human genome and does not correlate to anything else.

The concept of race is cultural — not biological, not scientific. It was created to justify the discrimination, persecution and slaughter of those who look, think or act differently. The terms “mixed race,” “mixing of the races” and “interracial marriage” are from an ignorant past and have no meaning today. Marriage is about love and commitment — it has nothing to do with skin color, gender, ethnicity, religion.

From science and ethics, the truth that “there is only one race, the human race” should be generalized to “there are no human races, only humans.”

— Thomas H. Morse

Anchorage

All this propaganda about prescription opioid overdose! Looks like the drug cartels are running scared.(Lobbyist for drug dealers?) First, marijuana legalization; now Kofi Annan wants the UN to legalize drugs.

Why not consider the reasons middle-aged whites are overdosing/committing suicide on prescription drugs? Could it be economic conditions: loss of jobs, low salaries, inability to support their families?

— Mary Turner

Anchorage

When I was a young boy the entire town of Palmer dumped their garbage directly into the Matanuska River at a specifically designated location. It was our unsanitary “landfill” for many years. Everything from lead acid batteries to dead cows, to your automobile’s waste oil properly went tumbling down the steep bank and into the river. The lighter stuff floated away in the current, saving space and minimizing maintenance of the site. We never gave it a second thought. This seems insane now, because it is.

But the future, when it finally arrives, always informs the past. When I read Sen. Sullivan’s commentary on the Obama administration’s “overly burdensome” and “overreaching” restrictions on the oil industry pouring raw methane into our atmosphere, I wonder if a sharper look at our history of often erring on the side of polluting could serve us better. Will we look back 40 years from now and scratch our heads about how we could be so profoundly environmentally illiterate as was the case with Palmer’s landfill? Of this I have no doubt.

— Bob Lacher

Wasilla

To the Donald: If you are candidate for the presidency of the USA, your tax return is our business. You said you were going to release it but “couldn’t” until the audit was finished (I never understood why not). Now you’ve changed your mind and it’s none of our business. I beg to differ.

For the last 40 years every candidate for POTUS has released his/her tax returns. You may think you’re special, but in this case you’re not. What are you hiding? Not your disdain for the electorate.

— James P. Welch

Eagle River

Incentives? Easy, the state of Alaska has the resource; “they” want it. What’s the problem here?

— Valerie Luczak

Wasilla

The cartoon you chose for the May 12 ADN editorial page suggests that to object to anatomical males occupying female restrooms makes such a person a clown. Then, just call me Bozo. I believe that anyone who has the equipment to use a urinal, should use the urinal. If the person is sincere in his diagnosis of his own sexuality and on this basis has had the offending urinal-ready equipment operationally removed, then Bozo might look the other way. And if a woman/girl wishes to use the men’s restroom, Bozo finds this marginally acceptable because that alone would show she probably has more cajones than most of the men who use it.

As things are going in this culture, Bozo expects to see LGBT soon expanded to LGBTP because don’t pedophiles need love too? In such a culture that celebrates a woman’s right to have her own unborn child killed, any perversion would seem tolerable. At 80 years of age, Bozo feels quite fortunate that he will likely have moved on before the worst of this plays out, a sentiment which I am sure is now shared by many of your readers.

— Ron Michelson

Wasilla

The Alaska Dispatch News is now, as it always has been, a far-leftist entity that allows letters and comments in line with their own ideology, while denigrating or simply eliminating those posts or letters that come from a different point of view, specifically a conservative or libertarian point of view.

So much for the First Amendment.

That said, I will continue to submit my thoughts, printed, posted or not, as I see fit, whether I am banned or not.

The ADN is a singular source locally of information in the printed form, and has an obligation, nay, a duty to report all sides of any issue, and to report only facts rather than a ideologically tainted narrative.

Facebook has been called out as such.

I am calling the ADN out as such as well.

Just report the facts, ADN.

We, the public, shall determine what said facts mean to us.

— Randy Lee Harkins

Anchorage

Being from Cajun Country in South Louisiana, we pride ourselves with good ol’ Cajun cooking and Southern Hospitality. I arrived in Anchorage on Sunday May 8 for business. I just wanted to applaud Anchorage for the great hospitality, great food and the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. I could not have asked for a better stay; people are so kind.

I look forward to my biannual return. I can say I love this place. Kudos to Anchorage, Alaska, for being great.

— T-Bryan Chaisson

Welsh, La.

Why didn’t anyone plan ahead for the inevitable drop in oil prices? Instead of planning ahead, legislators and the governor are now banging their heads together reacting. Their actions are like a heart without a pacemaker, banging and clanging around until the organism, the beautiful state of Alaska, is destroyed.

Before it’s too late, the powers that be need to look at what they are doing by destroying two of the most valuable natural resources we have in Alaska: our young people and our senior citizens. If we don’t provide an environment where children can learn to read and grow and excel, they will become inmates of the overcrowded prison system with which legislators claim they are trying so hard to deal. And it is truly about time legislators started respecting the intelligence and responsibility of Alaska senior citizens. Were it not for the sacrifices, hard work, losses and successes of Alaska seniors, this state would never have attained such greatness.

I fear for the fate of our great state of Alaska because of the incompetent, unfocused legislators in power today. Putting an incompetent Legislature in a $12.5 million building isn’t suddenly going to make them responsible statesmen. Or is it a $34 million building to which they already committed? Since I’m just one of those incompetent, dispensable senior citizens, I’m too busy trying to survive to keep up with them.

Perhaps they should round up all the seniors in Alaska and take out life insurance policies with the Legislature as beneficiary. Then, they could truly starve us to death and collect the insurance so they can house themselves in a multimillion-dollar building while pretending to work and, of course, collecting a generous per diem to feed themselves.

I may be struggling but, as most senior citizens; I am not too busy to vote.

— Jacqueline Fries

Anchorage