No news on Alaska port study until after election
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A major study on the troubled Anchorage port project won’t be available to the public until three days after next month’s election, even though the ballot will include an initiative that asks voters to support more funding for the project, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The initiative seeks approval for a $453 million statewide transportation bond that includes $50 million for the port.
Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan has been briefed on the $2 million study by engineering firm CH2M Hill but won’t answer questions because of a signed confidentiality agreement sought by the Maritime Administration, the lead agency on the project. MARAD is paying for the study.
The Anchorage Assembly is scheduled to be briefed on the project three days after the Nov. 6 election.
The city, the port and MARAD need time to “edit, correct, comment and amend before the public briefing,” city spokeswoman Lindsey Whitt said in an email to the Anchorage Daily News.
“The public has a right to know what they are voting on,” said Bob Shavelson, advocacy director for Cook Inletkeeper, an environmental watchdog group. “When you’re talking about public money and something as important as the Port of Anchorage, it should be a public, open, transparent process.”
The Nov. 9 meeting will be open to the public, but the public won’t be able to testify.
A key issue in the troubled port expansion is the design itself, using giant vertical sheets of steel driven into the Inlet floor to hold backfill and create new land.
Construction was halted in 2009 when inspections revealed a number of steel sheets already installed had bent and jammed together in some spots and split apart in others.
Three construction seasons have passed with little new work on the project in which about $300 million already has been spent.
The city doesn’t expect to release the actual study until mid-December, Whitt said.
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Ken Paulson is president and chief executive officer of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and in Washington, D.C. Previously, Paulson served as the editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today.
Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center and president and chief operating officer of the Diversity Institute, is a veteran journalist whose career has included work in newspapers, radio, television and online.
John Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center in 1991 with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values.
Dr. Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum. He writes and speaks extensively on religious liberty and religion in American public life.
David L. Hudson Jr. is an expert in First Amendment issues who writes for firstamendmentcenter.org and for other publications. Hudson teaches law and was a scholar at the First Amendment Center.
Tiffany Villager is director/First Amendment studies at the First Amendment Center, which she joined in 1993. She also served as the center’s research manager and research coordinator, and developed the center’s library.
