We're not dead yet!

That Monty Python reference holds true: it may be months since Madame Publisher has posted on this blog, but she's still kicking. It's been a far-too-exciting fall and winter (a seemingly never-ending cold, a broken wrist, and serious debt in RepublicWorld), which interfered in the publication schedule. However, the Republic is heading for some pretty cool changes, some of which have already begun:

Twitter: yes, the Republic (although not really the Publisher of same) has joined the modern sound-bite era with a Twitter account. @EsterRepublic (the Publisher doesn't quite understand this esoteric 140-character means of communication, but she has the skilled help of two web-savvy teenagers).

Facebook: the Facebook page now has two new additional admins (the aforesaid web-savvy experts). Actual news may begin appearing.

Website redesign: after an editorial/marketing meeting yesterday, in which several excellent ideas were aired, the assembled group decided that it was time to redesign the website--to make it more functional, take advantage of all the nifty things that the web offers, and easier to find stuff. I actually have a team of people at work on this! Hoo!

Fundraiser: A massive fundraising shindig is being held at Hartung Hall on Feb. 25, 7 pm (that's a Saturday night): the Miners Masquerade Ball. That means costumes! There will be a toasting and speechifying contest (pay attention, Toastmasters!), a beard and moustache contest (men's and ladies' divisions), potluck food (bring edibles), live music (Lost Dog Old-Time String Band!), and DANCING. This will replace the Birthday Bashes, but there will likely be awards for the Publisher's Picks, and certainly prizes and games and other fun things. More info on this festival soon.

Foundation: The Republic is going to be working on creating a long-term support structure for the paper, etc. This will involve creating a nonprofit foundation (as discussed long ago and now revived): the People's Endowment for the Ester Republic, or PEER.

So that's the quickie update. More shall be appearing here in due time.

Library, gazebo, garden

Library:

This last week I spent considerable time updating the John Trigg Ester Library website and the Friends of the Ester Library website. They both still look a bit funky to me, but they're serviceable, and there's a lot of good information on line now. The monthly board meeting is coming up tomorrow; these meetings have been running two hours, up from one hour or less when we first started meeting. There's been so much going on (fundraising, designwork, construction & work parties, nonprofit applications, etc.) that we end up not having enough time to get through evverything.

Matt Prouty has been working on the revision of the library plans to one storey, and should have them for us at tomorrow's board meeting, along with the new cost estimate. The site plan is the big thing needed, so that we can get on with our driveway-building and site-clearing. I haven't done any scything of the grass jungle in the drive this year because I figure that there will be massive dirtwork done soon. I'm hoping we can have a tree-felling extravaganza in the next two weeks.

Gazebo:

The gazebo is really part of the library project, but since it's a separate structure, and smaller, and almost done, I think of it separately. We'll probably have a work party or two, coming up July 24 and 31. This will be pretty cool, actually. We will be doing the following tasks:

• building benches
• cleaning up the woods
• making a two-sided 4x8-foot corkboard to put between two of the gazebo posts
• putting in the final ties on the ceiling
• taking out the center post
• putting the metal skirting on the posts

Hans and I planted the hanging baskets and four flowerpots at the gazebo this summer, and I've been going down there once a week or so to water them (most of the baskets are under the overhang of the gazebo roof--a couple will catch a little rain, but not enough). There's a bunch of wood scraps and leftover pieces from the roofing last year that need to get cleaned up, and plenty of corks and peeled logs. We'll need to buy some sealant or stain or something to help preserve the benches.

Garden:

The garden is beginning to explode. (Fortunately, I have a cookbook for just this type of emergency.) The potatoes are HUGE. I hope all that energy they're putting into leaves and stems is translating into lots of potatoes underground. I managed to give/sell the last of my extra tomatoes and corn yesterday, but I still have to get sufficient dirt to plant the rest of the tomatoes I have that still need transplanting into big buckets. Lots of little green tomatoes all over the yard. The beans (black coco bush) have finally started to flower, and the fava beans are blooming and making lots of pods. The brassicas keep wanting to bolt, though. (Cabbages are still holding out.)

Golden Valley Ratepayers Alliance

Just got a message in my in-box from the Golden Valley Ratepayers' Alliance, which is having a meeting at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center at 5:30 on Wednesday the 14th of April. The GVRA is a watchdog group of Golden Valley Electric Association ratepayers/members. Here's a segment of the e-mail (links added):

There are a couple major issues coming to a head in the next month:

• The GVEA Board of Directors is proposing to completely remove GVEA’s debt ceiling, which sits at a hefty $460 million already. All attending members will vote on this at the annual all-member meeting on April 27th.

• Removing the debt ceiling will allow GVEA to take out enormous loans, and we’re the ones to shoulder the debt. This may allow GVEA to finance the restart of the Healy coal plant 2. That’s right, GVEA still has not come clean about the true costs of Healy 2 and is trying to fool us into refinancing the failed project.

We should not pour more of our money into this black hole. Healy 2 has not once heated our homes or shaved money off our energy bills and it never will! There are smarter ways to power Alaska. Even if this money is not fed into Healy 2, we should have a say what direction our board takes with our money.

The GVEA Member Advisory Committee meeting follows at 6:30 the same day at GVEA.

Also in GVEA news, the annual membership meeting is coming up on April 27, Tuesday, at 7 pm at the Carlson Center (registration beginning at 5:30).

Library meeting today!

I've been working like mad writing up stuff for the John Trigg Ester Library meeting today. I was here until 9:30 or so last night, and was bushed. I'm still not done...it'll be fun, and Hans is off getting some ingredients for our potluck contribution. Hoo!

Back to the membership lists...

Ester fire department meeting

Just got back from the annual meeting of the Ester fire department/district. It was pretty good turnout this year. Kate Billington is the newest EVFD, Inc., board member; Bill Kopplin stepped down and Margaret Rogers and Nancy Burnham got re-elected. George Riley spoke on the fire commission. Mark Simpson invited the assembled to the upcoming Ester Community Association meeting (Oct. 11, 4 pm at Hartung Hall), and recommended that the two boards (ECA and EVFD) get together and look at ways for the two groups to work together better. It was a pretty interesting meeting. Good door prizes, too. I'll have more on this later, when I get my notes organized.

Emma Creek West: they still haven't fixed that public planning process

Attention Esteroids! The borough (read: the Land Management department) is planning to go forward with Emma Creek West. From the Butteris:

I did talk to Karrie Shaw, and she confirmed that they are indeed going to try and push through the subdivision, as a considerable amount of money has already been spent in the planning process. She did mention the possibility of putting in some sort of firebreak down the hill to mitigate fire hazard, and both State Forestry DNR and the Borough Division of Emergency Services confirmed that they have been approached by Paul Costello regarding this. She did not have much more information (for me, anyway) than that when I talked to her.

Paul Costello, the head of the Land Management department, contacted Bruce Jamieson to let him know that there will be a public meeting June 22, 6:30 pm at the Noel Wien Library to discuss the plan and listen to comments from the neighborhood. There is no agenda as yet.

[Addendum: Costello has cancelled the meeting. It will be rescheduled for sometime in July or August. For more information, contact Bruce Jamieson at 479-4673.]

As we have seen in past attempts to develop land around here, there have been many flaws in the designs of subdivisions, not least of which is a disregard for the impact of traffic, small size and poor proportions of the lots involved, and a lack of notification and engagement of the neighborhood. This time, it looks like Costello is making an effort to let the Ester Planning Committee know with sufficient advance warning, which is nice. Still, the word is trickling out rather slowly.

One large problem observed previously was a disconnect between the Department of Land Management and the Department of Community Planning;also, the public doesn't have much input to the whole process until fairly late in the game. When the first brouhaha over land on the Old Nenana Highway came up, the Ester Community Association and the borough mayor, Jim Whittaker, met at Hartung Hall. The outcome of that meeting was that Ester needed to come up with a land use/community plan to determine the best use of the land, and get it approved by the borough, or else the borough would simply develop piecemeal with the land nomination process it has (see the borough's parcel nomination map and guide—a 13-page PDF). Without that plan, the borough bulls ahead and we go from crisis to crisis. Voila, here we are again: another crisis brewing.

Two Rivers came up with a community land use plan; we can do the same. Unfortunately, when the chair of the ECA's community planning committee, Roy Earnest, left town, and the dust settled from Emma Creek East, the committee more or less dissolved. One good thing that remains from the original committee, however, is the e-mail list, and people have been keeping an eye on the borough so we don't get surprised again. Bruce and Sandy Jamieson and a few others have been keeping in contact with Costello et al., which has helped, and now Roy Earnest and family are back, and Roy's ready to plunge right back into the planning whirlwind (Roy had served on the planning commission or an advisory board with the borough, too, if I recall correctly).

The borough provides a handy guide to the public planning process, How to Participate in Land Use Decisions (another 13-page PDF). There are several places where meetings are supposed to be listed; this one at Noel Wien is not in the public notices, nor anywhere else that I could find, even though this is supposed to happen next week.

The borough certainly did not notify the local paper!

Updates on Ester nukeage

The public hearing at the Planning Commission on the permit for Reeves' nuclear power plant has been moved to June 16, per Dermot Cole (glad he's keeping an eye on this one).

On the question of being a nuke-free zone

Memory is a tricky thing. In 2003, three resolutions were introduced to the Ester Community Association at the spring meeting. They were published in the Republic and a poll conducted during the Fourth of July Picnic, where they were overwhelmingly approved by poll participants. However, the actual vote on them did not take place until the fall meeting, at which point two of the three were withdrawn and the one remaining, on making Ester a PATRIOT Act-free zone, was passed.

So when Mike Musick spoke at the GVEA meeting recently (fourth video in the member comments), saying that Reeves' plan to install a modular nuclear power generator might require a bit of discussion with the community association because Ester had declared itself a nuclear-free zone, he was only partly correct. Although the formal resolution was introduced and a public poll conducted, the resolution itself was not passed.

Mark Simpson referred to these resolutions as "hare-brained" in his August 2003 piece in the Republic, "Assemblies and Agendas," but now we are faced with the actual possibility of nuclear power in our neighborhood. Mark's main issue was with what he saw as the politicization of the ECA:

You see, it’s not the anti-PATRIOT Act stance I’m disgusted with—it’s the hijacking of an honorable, useful, apolitical association of people to fulfill the aims of some short-sighted political activists. It puts the ECA on a level with the Berkeley City Council, forever passing wacky pronouncements, rather than the Peace Corps, actively engaged in bettering lives. The ECA could host a forum, a debate, or a “teach-in,” or rent its hall to others to do so, but it best serves its members by remaining above the fray.

I saw the no-nukes resolution then not as a political issue, but as a health and safety issue, and I still do. And now is when having our community on record about it in the form of a resolution would have been a good thing.

The few people I've spoken with out here or conversed with via Facebook about the nuclear power plant aren't taking it seriously. They seem to see it as a quack idea with no real merit. However, two other commentators at the GVEA meeting besides Musick spoke about it, and they seemed to be taking it quite seriously. (The first spoke in favor of it, the second pointed out the hazards of it.) I think it's a mistake not to treat this as a genuine possibility. From what I've read, the Hyperion power plant would be an order of magnitude of improvement over the large-scale types that are causing such problems around Fort Greely [PDF] (not to mention the big headline-grabbers like Chernobyl).

Even if Reeves decides the price tag is too steep, the fact remains: small-scale nuclear power is fast becoming the Next Big Thing, despite the ever-present and apparently intrinsic drawback to this kind of power: mind-bogglingly long-lasting deadliness. It is becoming cheaper, more accessible, and more tempting to communities across the world as a power resource, and Reeves won't be the last Alaskan to think about it as a reasonable option.

Note: Bill Stringer wrote a letter to the editor in yesterday's News-Miner about the waste heat problem a small generator might cause. In the comments, it is quite clear that there are many people who see nuclear power as a feasible option for Alaska. A few useful links in the comments include:

New Commercial Reactor Designs, a list from the Energy Information Administration of the US government;

"Galena Electric Power—A Situational Analysis," the draft final report prepared for the Department of Energy by ISER and dated Dec. 15, 2004;

and a list of civilian nuclear accidents from Wikipedia.

Reeves wants to do WHAT!?, or, nuclear power for Ester

Oh good god.

Found this first on Fairbanks Open Radio, and now in an article by Dermot Cole in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: John Reeves has applied for a permit to install a portable nuclear power plant on a 4-acre lot near Ester. He makes the following nonsensical claims: that nuclear energy is the "cleanest, safest, cheapest form of energy available" (um, yeah, when it's 93 million miles away).

Before I get into the details of this, here's the date for the public hearing on the permitting:

Tuesday, May 19, 7 pm, FNSB Planning Commission. You can e-mail the entire commission at planning@co.fairbanks.ak.us.

Hyperion Power Generation, the company Reeves would like to work with, is creating small, self-contained modular power plants, rather like the Toshiba company's proposed modular power plant for Galena. (As of last year, this power plant was still scheduled for permitting approval with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.)

Hyperion's modules are smaller than Toshiba's by quite a bit (only about two meters cubed) and use no weapons-grade material. Here's how the Guardian describes them:

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory.

Let's see: "clean".

The biggest problem with nuclear power is the waste, both mining waste and power industry waste. The Star (Toronto) describes the problem succinctly:

The fact is the units would still produce nuclear-fuel waste – a football-sized amount for each reactor – and while it would be collected by Hyperion and managed at a central location, a large part of the population believes it immoral to create and leave behind highly toxic waste for future generations.

Can a company like Hyperion be trusted to transport, collect and manage this waste from potentially thousands of sites?

And will Hyperion be around for thousands of years to look after its mess? Will the governments of the countries in which these potential sites are to be located be stable enough to properly regulate the nuclear industry and plants within their borders, again, for thousands of years?

To claim that they are "greenhouse gas-emission free" is nonsensical, just as it is for anything these days. Transporting the module back and forth every 7 to 10 years is going to require something in the way of fuel, and there is no industrial equipment manufactured today that doesn't rely on fossil fuels somewhere in its creation. Mining uranium, of course, has its own set of problems above and beyond greenhouse gas emissions (the uranium mining industry has a lousy health and safety record).

Side note to Alaska's political bloggers: any of you recall the Elim student protest and Palin's mining plans for the Seward Peninsula? The student blog doesn't appear to have been updated since September 2007, but there's some more news items that showed up in 2008. Northwest Alaska isn't he only place that needs to be thinking about this question, though: Bokan Mountain near Ketchikan is described as Ucore Uranium's "flagship property".

[I really don't get why Palin is so pro-mining and so unfriendly toward renewable industries like fishing (which bring in more money than mining!).]

"Safest":

I'm not sure what these companies think they are doing, trying to sell nuclear power plants to people in a state riddled with fault lines and volcanoes and flooding rivers. I read a ludicrous claim somewhere (can't find it now...) that because an item is buried, it would be safe from earthquake. Um, what? the earth moves, and not just on the surface—down for miles! And radioactive material, if it gets loose, is decidedly unsafe. In any quanitity.

There are a couple of big advantages that these small modular-type power generators have over the traditional sort of nuclear power plant. One of them is no mechanical systems: no moving parts, nothing to break down and cause havoc thereby. The other is that the expense in building and maintaining them is considerably less than with a big plant. The uranium hydride used as fuel is far less nasty than the fuel typically used in nuclear power plants. And it's not going to be useful for people intending to make their own nuclear weapons.

Now let's address "cheapest."

Typical large-scale nuclear power has been heavily subsidized. There's no way it could compete with oil, coal, wind. solar, geothermal--any other method. It's the most expensive form of power generation out there, excepting maybe using a gadzillion mice on excercise wheels...and most estimates of cost never even touch the expense of guarding the waste properly from 260,000 years...mostly because the plan is to bury it in the ground and forget about it. The mini-nuke option is cheaper, by a lot, but it still doesn't address this long-term problem and expense.

I'm wondering. The borough didn't have any zoning plans for wireless phone transmitter towers, so they popped up all over and caused a fuss. I'm betting they don't have any zoning in place regarding nuclear power plants, either.

More on the West Valley High School reunion

So I commented on this before, but there's a 30-year West Valley High School reunion coming up on the 17th through the 19th. This is for the class of 1979, with 1978 and 1980 invited to attend, too. Looks like some fun events, at the Pump House, the Alpine Lodge, and Alaskaland (I refuse to call it Pioneer Park).

Apparently David Wheeler is deceased. I wonder what happened.

Panel o' bloggers

Yours truly has been invited to participate in an Alaska Press Club J-Week panel titled "Yoda Sez: Always in Motion is the Future." The panelists include bloggers Andrew Halcro, Shannyn Moore, Tony Hopfinger, Amanda Coyne, me, Kyle Hopkins, and Dan Fagan. The moderator is Jay Barrett, the news director at KMXT Radio in Kodiak. What I'm doing in with this bunch I can't figure out, but hey, it appealed to my ego and I had the money, so (assuming Mt. Redoubt doesn't belch again) tomorrow morning I will be flying down to Anchorage to bluff my way with the best of them.

Guess I'd better renew my membership.

Bullying is bullying, gender aside

And the Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board recognized this last night at their meeting, with all four members present speaking in support of including gender identification its nondiscrimination and harrassment policies.

The issue was brought to the committee’s attention when a high school administrator and school counselor said students had raised concerns of bullying and harassment toward other students who might be questioning their gender identity.

The current policy addresses sexual orientation but not gender identity — which are two separate issues, according to Gayle Pierce, labor relations director for the district.

Unfortunately, a few of the News-Miner's bloggers seem to think that the issue is one of "social engineering," or that gender identity is the same thing as homosexuality, or that it encourages kids to have sex.

Nope. The issue is one of bullying, harrassment, physical and verbal abuse. And that is simply not acceptable behavior. It puts the people engaging in it on the level of pigeons or chickens, making them dumb, brutal clucks. It demeans them and their victims, hurts people, and NOT addressing bullying allows this very bad behavior to flourish.

Gender identity is very important in our society, but gender is not, as I've said before, a simple black/white, male/female issue. Gender is a continuum, both physically and mentally, and a complex of physical traits and hormones and emotional, psychological, and spiritual facets. It's just not always a simple thing.

Take me, for instance. I am a woman with a slight moustache and developing beard. I don't like the beard (really a goatee), but I do like my rather feminine moustache. So I tend to shave my chin hairs and leave my upper lip hairs. But I don't do it every day, and, you know, hair grows. Every once in a while, some little kid looks me dead in the eye and asks me, "Are you a girl or a boy?" or they point to my face and say, with surprise or glee or shock, "You've got a moustache!" It's a bit refreshing. Kids, little kids, just blurt out the questions. Grownups pretend they don't see anything different, and either avert their eyes and shun me, or simply accept me, or--after they've known me for a while--hesitantly come out and ask me why I don't shave or get electrolysis or whatever. (Women are the ones who tend to do this, and then frequently try to convince me that really, it would be so much more attractive/civilized/better/nicer if I did shave.)

So I answer the kids by explaining that I'm a woman, and that some women have hair on their faces, but that most of them shave it off, and I just don't feel like it. It's no big deal. But for them, the identifying factor on maleness or femaleness is hair (and whether one has an outie or an innie, to quote a poster on the News-MIner blog). But it gets confusing when one has both, or one's reactions and feelings and hormonal shifts seem to match one official gender but one's body parts or way of moving or something else matches the other official gender. There is tremendous pressure to choose one of the two official genders, and to stick to the rather narrow parameters of that official gender. For some, this is right. For others, like me, we buck a trend by being just a tiny bit--or hugely--ambiguous.

Iceland advances civil rights, Alaska lumbers well behind

While Iceland demonstrated its thorough understanding of the idea that civil rights are for everyone through its choice of prime minister this week, Alaska, and of course the rest of the United States, lags far behind in this simple concept. However, the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District is considering tonight (and on the 17th) whether to add gender identity to its non-discrimination policy list. This was brought up back in November 2008 by the school board's Ethnic Committee (see minutes of November 11, 2008):

3. The Policy Review Committee met and considered a proposed amendment to School Board Policy 1011, Nondiscrimination. The administration proposes to amend the policy to include gender identification as a basis for non-discrimination in the school district. This is a current issue for the school district as transgendered individuals attend school. One school expects a currently identified male will soon begin dressing as a female and the school wanted to know how to handle it. Research into the issue established that court cases are placing gender identity as a protected class. The objective is to provide the schools guidance on how to deal with it. The concern expressed is if boys come to school dressed in feminine clothing it would cause disruption. The administration believes that administrative regulation on dress code provided gender neutral guidance to cover transgender dressing. The impact of the revision to the non-discrimination policy is to provide protection for students of transgendered identification who may come forward to say they felt bullied. The Policy Review Committee accepted this proposed amendment. The proposed amendment is now out for public comment to principals, staff and PTAs. The PRC will address it again at its December meeting.

Seems like a slam-dunk to me, but then I thought that it was shameful to consider adding discrimination based on sexual orientation to the Alaska Constitution.

Ester bus line redux

Well, turnout at the bus meeting last Saturday was, in a word, disappointing. I talked to about 20 people before and after, all of whom were excited about the idea of a bus out here but a bit skeptical that we'd get one that would work (almost everyone mentioned the debacle of last time they tried this). Most had forgotten about it, or had other stuff to do, or weren't feeling well, like me.

I ran into Ken Woods at the Eagle last night, who had gone to it. Tylan Martin, the instigator for this, told me that only eight people showed up (which isn't really bad for around here, actually). So now he's distributing a survey to get more information. The borough won't do anything unless they have more response from the public, so if you want a bus line out here, LET THEM KNOW. You can get the surveys from Tylan Martin, and there will be a stack of them at the Eagle and the post office. If there's enough interest, Ken told me, then the borough will do its own, more comprehensive, survey, sending them out to everybody within a quarter-mile of the proposed route. But if they don't hear from enough people initially, then it's dead in the water.

You can send surveys to:

Tylan Martin
4463 Dartmouth Rd.
Fairbanks, AK 99709

or to

David N. Leone
Transportation Manager
Fairbanks North Star Borough
3175 Peger Road
Fairbanks, AK 99709

30-year high school reunion

Omigod. I just received the dreaded invitation to a high school reunion, where we get to see what we've all done with our lives (those who've survived this long, or can make it, or want to, that is). I've avoided all the previous ones, but I think I ought to go to at least one. The invitation was sent by Chris Wallace, whom I detested when I was at West Valley but haven't seen since, and, according to the (very quiet) rumor mill, is doing fine by himself nowadays. It'll be odd to meet these people again. My attitudes toward them probably will need to change, since for almost everybody I knew then my attitudes are merely memories of attitudes directed at memories of people. No basis in current, real life.

It feels peculiar. All those cherished biases will have to go out the window. Well, perhaps not all of them…

So somehow a week went by

Without a single post from me! Well, five days, actually. Life has been busy: playing ukelele at the Eagle with the Crusty Olde Minstrels (sorta--one of 'em, anyway); doing the royalty calculations and payments and statements for my book authors (glad that's out of the way!); a library meeting; data entry and final finishing on the Republic (now out on the newsstands!); updates to miscellaneous websites (rather slow and still ongoing); regular work (which has been nutso). Et cetera.

I was feeling cruddy on Saturday, so I missed the Ester bus line meeting. I haven't found anyone yet who went, but I will report on it as soon as I find out what happened.

At the library meeting on Sunday, we had pitiful attendance (only 5 of us), but we fixed the date for the 5th Annual John Trigg Ester Library Lallapalooza & Book Bash: Sunday, March 1, 1 to 6:30 pm at the Annex. We hashed out a new and improved mission statement and goals for the library (with one objective to fulfill those goals: get the building built!), which I'll be sending out to the library membership this evening. (Don't have it with me or I'd post it here.)

Library meeting today

Here I am, blogging when I should be working on my editorial or getting ready for the library meeting today at 3 pm, down at Hartung Hall. Hans ran down to heat the place up about an hour ago. He's not back yet, which makes me wonder. Gary Pohl and Matt Prouty will be bringing the new design for the Ester library; I'm very excited! Hoo!

After the meeting, Monique's going to be having a slide show of her photos from China down at the Eagle (5 pm). That ought to be interesting.

I'll post more here when I know what's up.

More on the cell phone tower

The company in question is DigiTel, and the tower would be 180 feet tall, with blinking red lights to ward off airplanes. Alaska DigiTel has put in about a dozen towers in the Fairbanks area, and while this makes communication easier, a lot of neighborhoods are getting pretty pissed off at the company.

Aside from the negative impact on property values and aesthetics, the residents of the Parks Ridge Road area are concerned about precedent: if this tower can go in here, then one can go in on any ridgeline residential neighborhood. One very valid question the residents have is that if even an area zoned residential (supposedly this zoning is for the express purpose of securing an area from commercial or industrial purposes) can be used for this, then what's the point of zoning it residential? It renders the zoning meaningless.

Leon Lynch has written an excellent letter to the editor of the News-Miner on this.

A planning meeting on this tower will be held at the borough December 9. Comments can be sent directly to the planning commission (reference CU2009-003 - include your name and address).

The News-Miner has had several articles and opinion pieces on cell phone towers recently:

Birch Hill cellphone tower needs a new final resting place--outside cemetery, by Dermot Cole, August 25

Unseen hazards tower above eyesore, Community Perspective by Douglas Yates, September 8

Cemetery's future remains uncertain, by Rebecca George, September 11

Cell phone towers sprouting up in Fairbanks, by Chris Eschelman and Rebecca George, September 14

City of Fairbanks unsure of whose property cell phone tower is on, by Rebecca George, September 14

Local officials ponder cell phone tower zoning issues, staff report, September 29

City of Fairbanks may benefit financially from cell tower, DigiTel, by Rebecca George, October 16

Mark Musitano, 452-5542, is the contact person for the Parks Ridge neighborhood group.

Cell phone tower trouble brewing

A property owner in the Parks Ridge area wants to lease part of his property to a cell phone company so they can put up a tower. Having a tower there would certainly improve reception for those of us here in the broadcast shadow, but the property owner's neighbors are none too happy about the plan. Kate Hall called me up about this on Sunday to explain: the tower (hole already dug although the permit hasn't yet been secured) would be only 14 feet from the property line (making the man's next-door neighbor unhappy and being within the right of way). People are evidently concerned about the tower's proximity (lots of kids in the neighborhood, worries about the viewshed, broadcasting tower in a residential neighborhood, etc.). Kate told me she'd send me information on the situation, but I haven't got it yet. There will be a planning board meeting at the borough on this in early December.

Dermot Cole has brought up the issue of cell phone towers in his column--the Birch Hill Cemetery has been abused with a tower, setting a bad precedent. It seems to me part of the same pattern of poor planning (or no planning) that plagues the Fairbanks area. Or perhaps it's not so much the planning but the land management. The planning board frequently gets trumped by Paul Costello's department (required to Make Money) or the borough assembly.

More to come.

Food co-op fundraiser

Hans and I are going to the Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market fundraiser tonight. The local news media have been giving it fairly good coverage, with a few stories in the News-Miner and Latitude 65 and an interview on KUAC. Not sure how long we'll stay, but it ought to be a fun time, and I plan to sign Hans and I up as members. Here's the skinny:

The Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market Fundraiser, DANCE and Dessert Auction!
(Please feel free to donate your favorite dessert for the cause)
THIS Saturday, Nov. 22, Doors open at 7:00
In the Denali Building 3354 College Rd. (The former Democratic Hdqtrs. across from Mike's Chevron)
Suggested donation: $10
Everyone welcome!
Music by Pat Fitzgerald, Robin Dale Ford, Alex Clarke & special guest, Ron Veliz!

Since I'm the blogmistress, I should at least poke my head in the door! But the music sounds like fun, and I'm interested in the meeting part of it that's also supposed to be happening.