Those people, primarily volunteers, filled the audience at Wednesday’s borough assembly meeting, fearing a major source of funding might disappear.
These are grants that pay for air pacs used by firefighters, Jaws of Life tools, emergency services radios, radio repeaters, mass casualty drills, and many other pieces of equipment and training workshops.
“Emergency responders depend on this money,” said Ron Dane, chief of the McKinley Village Fire Department.
Marge Nord of Cantwell told the assembly that these grants are the only opportunity for her small community to purchase life-saving equipment.
But assembly members say they are only seeking more information about all these grants.
“It seems there has been an air of controversy presented,” said assembly member John Winklmann. “I don’t believe there is, as far as I’m concerned, and I voted against that particular resolution.”
“We’re in the process of dealing with accountability in a lot of things, from a lot of different sources. Grants is just one of them. Homeland security grants is just one of them.”
The assembly has never denied money to a fire department, he said.
Yet when last month’s resolution failed by a vote of 6-2, many folks in the Denali Borough feared that’s exactly what would happen.
The resolution would have provided blanket approval for the borough to participate in everything from Homeland Security grants to federal stimulus grants.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the borough’s emergency services director – who writes these grants – came out swinging.
“Last I checked, there were 2,000 people in the borough,” said Rusty Lasell. “How can you say you are looking out for the best interest of those people.”
Resolutions to be voted on at the meeting would accept money from some of those grants.
“Either you have to vote to not accept that money, or accept the program you didn’t support in the first place,” he said. “I don’t understand how that happens.”
The vote on those resolutions came long after this column had to be written, so I can’t tell you the final outcome here.
But it appeared the two sides were at least discussing how to make it work.
The assembly is right to seek accountability, but it also has to be careful that process doesn’t interfere with the actual writing of the grant. Timelines are often tight. From personal experience, I know that the perfect world idea of oversight or permission over every stage of a grant just doesn’t work.
But I also believe that the outcome of these grants is so important that the assembly will figure out how to satisfy the accountability and make it work.
Borough thanks student
Despite the fact that he leaned on crutches, David Arthur Townsend II wore a wide grin Wednesday night when the Denali Borough Assembly passed a resolution honoring his dedication to student government and to his community.
Townsend, a senior at Tri-Valley School, represented the state of Alaska at Boy’s Nation, a week-long educational youth program in Washington DC. He even met President Barak Obama.
The resolution states: “The Denali Borough Assembly is grateful to Mr. Townsend for the positive impact he has had on the Denali Borough School District and its students.”
Feeding visiting teams
One thing people in Healy know how to do is host visiting sports teams. These local moms are incredibly organized and can sit down and easily whip out a menu to feed 130 students for two days.
That’s what will happen this weekend when Tri-Valley School hosts a big soccer tournament.
The local soccer team is in desperate need of new uniforms, so the concessions will help pay for that. Thanks to Denali Subway, which is providing one lunch for all the athletes, and helping the cause.
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