I typically go to the Goose Lake beach to swim during the week, with temperatures above 67. During my three most recent visits, there were 50-100 beachgoers. There were more kids than adults — kids climbing lifeguard chairs, swimming without lifejackets, swimming in too-deep areas without swimming ropes to mark safety; swimming with unleashed dogs. There were kids throwing rocks at kids, kids told to toilet in the lake because toilet facilities were locked or too far, a homeless person bathing in the lake. There was a liquor bottle on the beach; a couple discussed the gun they brought for protection against bear and moose. A mama duck and babies were dodging thrown rocks — eight babies yesterday and today only seven.
The beach-goers are the unemployed, underemployed, weekday weekenders, grandmas or babysitters looking after kids, and bored teens. With high gas prices, our struggling economy and our inflation, our free beach getaway is more important than ever for our financially challenged citizens. As a single mom, I brought my kids and their friends to the beach and counted on lifeguards to provide for their safety. I couldn’t afford camp; I wasn’t a mayor who could go off to his cabin. The mayor cuts the budget for our most vulnerable citizens — our children and our homeless. Is not having a lifeguard worth a child’s eye from a bully’s rock or a drowning?
Similarly, our homeless, soon to be evicted from Sullivan Arena, will be sleeping on pavement, in our parks, in our yards — toileting behind dumpsters and trees, unbathed and not welcome on our buses to ride to the preposterously located Elmore center, potentially freezing and dying. Our mayor’s thoughtless policies make our most vulnerable residents expendable.
— Marty Margeson
Anchorage
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