Southcentral

In 2019, an Anchorage real estate firm estimated the market value of a downtown parking lot at more than $3 million.

Earlier this year, an obscure city agency voted to sell the lot for $1 million less.

The buyers were a pair of politically connected developers who are in the process of renovating a nearby hotel: Mark Begich, a former Anchorage mayor and Democratic U.S. senator, and Sheldon Fisher, a former state revenue commissioner who once ran for U.S. House as a Republican.

The agency that sold them the lot, the Anchorage Community Development Authority, or ACDA, is focused on striking real estate deals that boost the city’s economy.

But the sale price raises questions about whose interests were served by the transaction, as does a below-market lease that the agency previously granted to the developers — especially given Begich’s close ties to two of the board’s nine voting members.

Two independent real estate appraisers who examined the deal at the request of APM Reports and Alaska Public Media say the sale price was lower than the property would likely fetch on the open market.

Public agencies often grant financial incentives to trigger new development. But construction on the hotel is already underway.

Begich, at the recent ACDA board meeting where the sale was approved, suggested that the parking lot is not an essential piece of his project. And his plan isn’t to transform the lot into a vibrant new development; it will still be used to park cars.

“It’s really just kind of a complementary component,” Begich said. “It really is just part of this bigger complex that we’re trying to develop.”

The sole board member to vote against the sale, Lance Wilber, said he did so because he felt “a little uncomfortable” selling the lot for less than its $3.2 million appraised value.

“I think Mark and Sheldon have a great, great project. I have confidence that they’ll pull it off,” said Wilber, who also leads the city’s Office of Economic and Community Development. “I just want to make sure we’re not devaluing the property for a great development opportunity.”

Among the board members voting in support of the sale was Ron Thompson, who owns a business that handled some of the permits for Begich and Fisher’s hotel renovations.

A former head of the city’s public works department, Thompson and his family own Scope Permitting & Engineering, according to its latest corporate filings dated December 2022. His business handled some of the hotel’s electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits, according to city records.

Thompson declined to comment on his vote when reached by phone afterward.

Begich said Thompson’s connection to the permitting work for the hotel business was “incidental” and downplayed the significance of their relationship.

“Even without his vote, it passed,” Begich said.

Leslie Ridle, another board member who works part time for Begich and Fisher, recused herself.

But she voted in support of the previous lease and a separate agreement for another nearby parking lot that the developers plan to rent from ACDA for the next 99 years. Ridle was not employed by Begich and Fisher at the time, but she worked for Begich for nearly a decade when he was mayor and senator.

Begich’s policymaking experience has given him firsthand knowledge of ACDA’s purpose: As mayor, he led its creation in 2005. The agency, he said, was designed to have flexibility to partner with developers on projects in ways that don’t meet what he described as the “black and white” standards of traditional procurement rules.

ACDA, which also manages a number of city-owned parking lots and garages, is not subject to standard city purchasing and competitive bidding restrictions. It can buy or sell property worth up to $6 million without approval from the Anchorage Assembly, and in the past, it has invested cash directly into projects through public-private partnerships.

“ACDA was set up for the purpose of ensuring Anchorage had an arm to spur economic development,” said Begich, who’s worked in real estate for decades. The deal, he added, is “a win-win for everyone, and that two-block area is going to be just a catalyst to change the environment of downtown and create much higher value of economic development.”

Politically influential buyers

Both Fisher and Begich have lengthy resumes in Alaska politics and business.

Fisher was an executive at telecommunications and investment firms before independent former Gov. Bill Walker appointed him commissioner of Alaska’s revenue and administration departments.

Begich lost reelection to his U.S. Senate seat in 2014 but has remained deeply involved in Anchorage and state-level politics. He hosts forums for candidates and maintains relationships not just with Democratic leaders but with Republicans including Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

He’s also a successful businessman with a broad portfolio. Under a consulting contract with former U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, he lobbies the federal government on behalf of Dunleavy’s administration; he’s opened a grocery store in the North Slope community of Utqiagvik, and now, he and Fisher are embarking on an ambitious downtown real estate development.

The two men also have plans to renovate another building near the hotel into a marketplace with a grocery store, a distillery and residential units.

The $60 million hotel project has a number of other politically connected investors beyond Begich and Fisher, including two lobbyists and two former state legislators, according to corporate records.

The hotel, built in 1970, has 250 rooms and was once part of the Howard Johnson’s chain. It takes up a big chunk of two city blocks on the east edge of downtown, near the gritty Fairview neighborhood.

The renovated building will be an “upscale” hotel with outdoor decks, a restaurant, a microbrewery and energy-efficient heating systems, according to the developers. At ACDA’s recent meeting, Begich and Fisher said the additional property would give them more space to separate the building from the parking lot.

Now, Begich said, “you park, and you’re five feet from that back side of the building, which means that you open the window, there’s cars.”

“The idea is to push that back, create some cool landscaping,” he said. “There’ll be some outdoor decking. … It just creates a better environment.”

Begich and Fisher first approached ACDA about using a pair of city-owned parking lots for their redevelopment projects roughly two years ago, according to Executive Director Mike Robbins.

Robbins, a conservative who ran for mayor in 2021, endorsed Bronson after failing to advance to the runoff election. Bronson appointed him to run ACDA after winning that race.

Robbins has a background in business and once worked in media and marketing. He drew scrutiny during his campaign for lawsuits and federal tax liens that were filed against his companies.

In an interview, Robbins said he didn’t consider giving other businesses a chance to bid on the property.

Whose price is right?

The groundwork for the sale of the property, known as the Sockeye lot, was laid in 2022.

According to a resolution passed by the ACDA board in June of that year, the parking lot had lost nearly $68,000 in 2021 — though that was during the second half of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“All that lot was doing was costing the taxpayers money,” Robbins said, noting that his agency was under financial pressure during the pandemic.

But a review of financial records provided by ACDA shows that the lot made money before the coronavirus outbreak. The 2021 revenue loss was driven mostly by $55,000 in property tax-like payments that the agency had to start making after the lot was transferred to ACDA from another branch of city government.

In 2019, before the pandemic and before those payments were charged, the lot generated $12,500 in net revenue.

The resolution also said the lot had been “appraised” by the city at about $2.2 million, which wasn’t true. The city “assessed” it at that amount for tax purposes, which was significantly less than the $3.2 million appraisal prepared in 2019 by the real estate firm.

An appraisal is an independent real estate professional’s estimate of the price a property would command on the open market. An assessment is an often less-accurate figure assigned by the government to determine a property’s share of the tax burden, and it can frequently lag behind the actual value.

In an interview, Robbins dismissed the independent appraisal’s conclusions and said he did his own analysis after “calling around and talking to real estate agents around the city and going, ‘What’s land worth downtown?’”

“The appraisal was a little inflated,” he said.

Robbins shared a comparison he made of the Sockeye lot’s sale price with four vacant lots for sale in the area. Three of them were listed at per-square-foot prices lower than the sale price for Sockeye — though they were also farther from the heart of downtown and much smaller. The lot closest to the hotel was priced at a significantly higher per-square-foot rate.

The $2.2 million sale price of the Sockeye lot is probably less than ACDA could have gotten on the open market, said Dan Shantz, an Alaska-based real estate expert who reviewed the 2019 appraisal at the request of APM Reports and Alaska Public Media.

Shantz said the analysis shows that parking is not the most lucrative use for the property, and as a result, the authority’s losses don’t represent an appropriate measurement of its value. He said the lot’s value would be maximized by developing it into a commercial building.

​​”If that property was put on the market and exposed to other potential buyers, I’d be willing to bet somebody would pay more than the assessed value,” said Shantz.

A second real estate appraiser who has studied other properties in Anchorage, Chicago-based Joe Calvanico, also said the 2019 appraisal of the Sockeye lot seems consistent with the market.

“Why have an independent appraisal for $3 million and then turn around and sell it for the assessed valuation?” he wrote in an email.

Former Begich aide voted for lease

Before the developers bought the property, the authority agreed to rent it to them for a year — at a price well below what the appraisal recommended.

The 2019 appraisal, by the Anchorage firm Black-Smith, Bethard & Carlson, estimated $258,000 as a fair yearly rental price for the acre of land that the Sockeye lot sits on. But Robbins dismissed that as unrealistic.

“Why don’t you go downtown and try to rent a piece of land and see what they’ll offer it to you at? It ain’t no $258,000. I mean, come on,” Robbins said. “It’s frustrating, these appraisals.”

So, when the authority started renting the parking lot to Begich and Fisher’s business in 2022, it set the rent at a fraction of that amount.

It charged the developers just $1,000 a month to rent the lot for a year, plus property taxes, which were some $50,000 a year. The developers would have the option to buy it before the agreement expired.

The monthly rent for the lot was less than the median $1,150 rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city, according to state data.

Also in 2022, the board approved an agreement with Begich and Fisher for another downtown lot. The property, known as the Coho lot, is 70% larger and sits next to the building that Begich and Fisher plan to renovate into a marketplace.

Under the agreement, the developers paid $12,000 a year for the right to activate a separate, 99-year lease for the Coho lot. Until they exercise that option, ACDA continues collecting parking revenue from the property, where the developers currently keep a dumpster.

The developers say they plan to initiate the long-term lease later this year. At that point, they would pay yearly rent of $42,000, which would rise to $102,000 over the course of a decade — still less than half the fair market rate estimated by the appraisal firm for the smaller Sockeye property.

Unlike the Sockeye lot, which Begich described as only complementary to the hotel, he said the Coho lot is indispensable for the redevelopment of the marketplace, currently in the demolition and design phase.

“The No. 1 question we get from potential users of that building is: How does the parking work?” Begich said. “When you don’t have control of that, you can’t really answer that question legitimately. And so it makes the project an economically viable project, in many ways.”

Among the board members voting in support of the 2022 Coho option and the Sockeye lease was Ridle, who was constituent relations director to Begich when he was mayor and then worked as his deputy chief of staff in the U.S. Senate.

While Ridle did not work for Begich at the time of her vote, she began a position a year later at a separate company owned by Begich and Fisher that manages low-income housing.

In a text message, Ridle said she had not worked for Begich for eight years at the time of the votes but still would have disclosed their friendship at the 2022 meeting.

She made no such disclosure in an audio recording of the public portion of the discussion. But Ridle said it’s possible she did so in a part of the meeting that was held in executive session, which is not open to the public.

Robbins, ACDA’s executive director, described his agency’s dealings with Begich as good for the city.

“I took a losing asset — it was costing money — and turned it into a positive,” he said. With the cash that the authority will receive in exchange, he added, “we can develop housing with it.”

“We can do untold amounts of good in leveraging that money,” he said. “That’s really what it was about.”

Robbins and Begich both touted the new revenues the renovation will generate through Anchorage’s hotel bed tax.

But the city won’t receive property taxes from the hotel for a decade. The project has qualified for an exemption for “deteriorated” areas, meaning that it will pay no city property taxes for its first 10 years.

The owners will still pay property taxes toward Anchorage’s school system and a local business advocacy organization, which is roughly half the total, Begich said.

This story was produced by APM Reports and Alaska Public Media as part of the Public Media Accountability Initiative, which supports investigative reporting at local media outlets around the country.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated David Bernhardt’s work with Mark Begich for the state of Alaska. Bernhardt consults for the state of Alaska with Begich, but does not lobby with Begich.

Since October of last year, Anchorage has been visited by a rare, feathered celebrity — a white raven, which appears to have taken up residence in the Spenard neighborhood.

Last summer, the raven was spotted south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula, where biologists confirmed the bird is not an albino but leucistic — which means it has a gene that causes a loss of pigmentation. It also has blue eyes. Biologists believe it’s most likely the same bird that has delighted Anchorage this winter.

Almost every day you can find new photos of the raven on Facebook on a page called Anchorage White Raven Spottings. There, you can see the bird aloft with its feathers, translucent through the light, or at play with another raven in the snow. Someone recently snapped a shot of the raven, as it strutted with a slice of pizza in its beak.

There’s also footage on Facebook of the raven loosening a bolt on a streetlamp and carrying it off in its beak, and a guy in conversation with the bird from its perch near McDonald’s.

Among the most recent posts, there are regal photos of the raven perched on a spruce bough as the moon rises in the backdrop. Many faces of the bird have been captured by a ravenous Anchorage paparazzi, who don’t seem to compete against one another but cooperate by sharing tips on how to photograph their quarry.

“It’s just so different. It is so out of the norm,” says Glen Klinkhart, a retired Anchorage police detective who has almost made tracking the raven a full-time job.

“We all know what a raven looks like. We all know the shape, how it’s supposed to look,” Klinkhart said. “And then when you see this, this white raven with this genetic difference, it just kind of stops you.”

Scientists say the white raven is very rare. But how rare? Rick Sinnott, a wildlife biologist, says he knows of only two other white raven sightings in Anchorage. The last one was 20 years ago in the Midtown area.

“It wasn’t as white as this one,” said Sinnott, who remembers that its feathers were tipped with a bronze hue. “It was shiny bronze. It was very beautiful.”

Sinnott says another white raven was spotted 20 years before that and believes three sightings over the course of four decades meets the definition of rare, especially when you consider the genetic odds. Sinnott says it would take both a male and a female with a recessive leucistic gene to mate — and even then, maybe one of four chicks would be white, if any at all.

Ravens are smart enough to know what they look like and can recognize themselves in mirrors, so Sinnott worried that other ravens would pick on the white raven because it’s different. But he’s glad that doesn’t appear to be the case.

“When it’s around other ravens, it doesn’t seem to raise feathers around the top of its head, which would suggest it’s not subordinate,” Sinnott says.

In fact, the white raven behaves more like an “alpha” bird. In a recent post, Klinkhart shared pictures of the raven in a spat with four black ravens over a discarded Häagen-Dazs carton of White Raspberry Chocolate Truffle ice cream. In the last photo in the series, the raven shows off its prize.

It’s one of more than 10,000 photos Klinkhart has taken of the raven since October. But there’s one that he’s especially proud of, taken on a day in which he found the bird completely alone. He laid down on the ground to watch, with camera in hand.

“It started getting closer and closer. And I just froze. I’m like, ’Don’t move. Don’t affect its behavior. Let it behave,’” said Klinkhart, who wondered if the bird was just curious.

“That white raven came (within) about two feet of me and looked in my camera lens,” he said. “Then it tilted its head. And then it waddled off.”

Klinkhart says he was so close to the bird that the photo showed his reflection in the bird’s blue eye, a magical moment. Since that first time, the raven has come close to Klinkhart’s lens a couple of times. In a video, the bird comes so close that Klinkhart is unable to focus his camera.

In many Alaska Native stories, the bird is a mystical being.

Meda DeWitt, a Lingít healer who works with medicinal plants, says she first heard about the white raven’s meaning years ago from another traditional healer, the late Rita Blumenstein, known as Grandma Rita — a Yup’ik from Southwest Alaska, trained by her elders from childhood to ease pain and suffering.

“This is one of the stories that she would tell that brought hope,” DeWitt said. “She would say, ‘We will see a white raven, and that’s when we’ll know that humanity as a whole is shifting towards one of peace.’”

DeWitt says it’s a prophecy Grandma Rita heard from her elders, an example of the white raven’s long history throughout the world as a messenger bird. Even the Greek god Apollo had one, which turned from white to black after displeasing him.

In Alaska Native stories, Raven also transforms. DeWitt says not to forget that Raven is a trickster who finds trouble. Her uncle tells a story about how Raven wanted to bring mankind fresh water to drink, so he tried to steal a bucket from a chieftain’s house. Soot blackened his feathers as he escaped through a smoke hole. In another version of the Lingít story, Raven turns black after he steals the moon, the sun and the stars to bring light into the world.

DeWitt believes Raven has transformed yet again and has returned to encourage mankind to save the planet, a message especially important to Alaska Natives.

“Our whole job is to steward the earth, and if the earth is sick, that means we’re sick,” DeWitt said. “When I see something like White Raven, it gives me a profound sense of hope. Even beyond hope, knowing that we’re going to be successful.”

Floyd Guthrie, another traditional healer who is Tsimshian, Lingít and Haida, says he has waited a long time for the white raven to appear.

“It makes our hearts feel good, because we connect to the truth of his existence,” said Guthrie, who believes the raven has always been around to watch over humans but not necessarily visible.

“It’s so wonderful to see White Raven with the blue eyes,” Guthrie said. “In his own way, he just has to tell us, ’I’m not very far away from you.’”

Guthrie and his wife, Dr. Marianne Rolland, specialize in treating trauma. Years ago, when Rolland was searching for a name for their counseling center in Anchorage, she says the words “White Raven” came to her, not in a voice, but from what she calls a place of knowing.

“White Raven is reminding us of our own spirituality and of what we’re here on earth to do,” Rolland said. “That we’re not just physical human beings, but we’re spiritual beings.”

Rolland says she’s not surprised by the hundreds of raven photographs that have been posted on Facebook, which include artwork the bird has inspired. From paintings to sculptures to beaded earrings, there’s almost a cottage industry of art featuring the raven, not to mention mugs, stickers and keychains.

“White Raven opens hearts, and opening up hearts opens up creativity,” said Rolland.

After seeing the photos, Jerrod Galanin felt the urge to fashion a Lingít-style, copper armband with the white raven in silver. Not long afterwards, it was as if the bird sought him out.

“The flight pattern was like sporadic and kind of crazy,” said Galanin. “And so, I looked closer, and it landed on a light post, right on top of us.”

Some Facebook followers have speculated about whether the white raven is male or female. Biologists say it’s hard to tell for sure. The males are a little larger and can have pouches with a bigger bulge under their throats. Rick Sinnott, the biologist, says males also like to show off during courtship.

“He’ll fly up in the air and drop sticks and fly down and pick them up, catch them as they fall. Or do all kinds of aerobatics, like you see them flipping on their back and doing all kinds of things,” Sinnott said. “When males are trying to impress females, they go into quite a frenzy of that kind of behavior.”

Sinnott says the mating season begins at the end of January and runs through March, so we may soon find out whether the raven is a him or a her. Or maybe not. Sinnott says sometimes ravens just like to entertain their buddies.

Sinnott says when ravens take up urban life, you can usually find them hanging out near busy intersections, where there are restaurants and grocery stores. And for the white raven, that means plenty of dumpster dining. Seems the bird has favored those at the Spenard Roadhouse. As one Facebook poster put it, “At least the white raven has good taste.”

From the progression of photos from October, the raven appears to have fattened up, but maybe it’s just the bird’s feathers fluffing up to survive the subzero temperatures.

Sinnott says it’s likely the raven will move on come spring and head out into the wilderness. Ravens are known to travel hundreds of miles away. Some birds tagged in Anchorage have been spotted as far away as Juneau, Fairbanks and the North Slope.

But for now, the white raven brings warmth and cheer into the heart of an Anchorage winter.

As Floyd Guthrie says, it is here to say, “I see you.”

Editor’s note: Audio of the white raven unscrewing a bolt on a street lamp was from a Jennifer Collin’s video. Sound of the bird preaching to the choir came from a Todd Billingslea video.

Dimond High School STEM teacher Cat Walker has been named one of four finalists for the National Teacher of the Year Award, given out each year by the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Last spring, Walker was named the Alaska Teacher of the Year during a surprise assembly. Walker learned that she was a finalist for the National Teacher of the Year award in December, but had to keep it a secret. Last week, Dimond Principal Tina Johnson-Harris made the announcement over the loudspeaker to the entire school, keeping Walker’s students in her classroom late so that they could share the moment with her.

“My students just kind of sat there in shock.” Walker said. “It was very different than having the school find out in an empty classroom and I’m so glad I got to experience it with students because they’re who it’s all about. And that’s what I do it for.”

Walker grew up in Alaska and began teaching at Romig Middle School in Anchorage in 2006. Walker currently teaches marine biology, oceanography and vocational education courses to her students at Dimond.

She’s excited for her students to use remote operated vehicles in the swimming pool as part of a lesson planned for this Thursday.

“The students will be simulating cleaning up an oil spill, and retrieving objects and navigating through small, small tunnels and simulating careers that they actually could have along the coastline in Alaska,” Walker said.

Walker’s lesson plans often connect students with businesses in the community through science. Last year, students cleaned over 200 pounds of marine debris from beaches around Whittier as part of the Ocean Guardian program. Students are currently working with a local optometrist to print phone holders for low vision patients to read their own documents.

“I love teaching students because it’s that moment when they learn a new skill, or they learn how to problem solve, and they develop that growth mindset, and you know that they’re going to be okay,” Walker said.

In 1995, Chiniak’s Elaine Griffin became the only Alaska teacher ever to win the National Teacher of the Year Award. Alaska Native Cultural Charter School teacher Danielle Riha was also named a national finalist for the award in 2019, and Tikigaq first grade teacher Harlee Harvey was named a finalist last year.

The winner will be announced in April.

The Anchorage Museum is pausing its move to make admission free for Alaska Native people.

The policy, announced earlier this month, would’ve allowed anybody who identified themselves as Alaska Native to get in free.

The museum changed course Tuesday night, saying it was putting that on hold pending further review.

“This pause is in the interest of making sure we are in line with our intention to honor Indigenous people and provide access to their cultural belongings while also fulfilling the broader community considerations and applicable museum guidelines and the law.” museum spokeswoman Janet Asaro said in a statement Wednesday.

The move to make admission free for Alaska Native people has received some community pushback. The author of one Anchorage Daily News opinion piece described the notion as discrimination against non-Alaska Native people under the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Others have praised the notion as an effort to showcase the museum’s exhibits, many of them featuring Alaska Native art and artifacts, for the people whose cultures the exhibits represent.

The Native Village of Eklutna, the only federally recognized tribe in Anchorage, described the free admission as, “Great news for Anchorage’s original inhabitants!” in a Facebook post shortly after it was announced.

Asaro, the museum spokesperson, declined to be interviewed, saying the museum is reviewing all aspects of the policy. She said, to her knowledge, no legal action has been taken over the proposal.

The Indiana man who catfished and manipulated a group of Alaska teenagers in 2019 into murdering a vulnerable young woman was sentenced to 99 years in prison on Thursday.

Twenty-five-year-old Darin Schilmiller of Indiana won’t be eligible for parole until he’s served 45 years. Schilmiller pleaded guilty in August to soliciting the murder of 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman.

Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson said he reviewed hundreds of pages of evidence that included Schilmiller’s electronic communications with his co-defendant, as well as photos and video the offenders shot, and police interviews. The judge summarized Schilmiller’s actions like this:

“This was intentional, premeditated murder for hire,” Peterson said. “You plotted with other co-defendants to kill somebody you never met for no reason other than the sheer thrill of controlling others and seeing it be done.”

Peterson said Schilmiller’s actions were shocking, beyond comprehension and showed a total lack of humanity, care and compassion.

Schilmiller and the Alaskan teens’ crimes were not limited to the murder of Hoffman, who had an intellectual disability. Schilmiller is also awaiting sentencing on related federal charges for conspiracy to create child pornography.

Timothy Hoffman is the victim’s father. He made two brief, crude statements to Schilmiller as he was escorted out of the courtroom. Hoffman described himself as a believer in Jesus and forgiveness, but couldn’t bring himself to forgive in this case.

“One down, five to go,” he told reporters afterward, referring to other then-teenagers involved.

One of them, Denali Brehmer, now 23, had been scheduled for sentencing this week, but that has been delayed and currently set for mid-February.

Another, Caleb Leyland, now 24, is scheduled for sentencing June 10. Kayden McIntosh, now 20, has a case pending trial. And two others are in the juvenile justice system, which is not public.

The Anchorage Assembly decided Tuesday night that the name of Alaska’s late congressman should be attached to the city’s port after all.

It took about an hour of awkward discussion and procedural maneuvering before the Assembly finally arrived at a straight up-or-down vote to change the name from the Port of Alaska to the Don Young Port of Alaska.

With his widow Anne Garland Young following the meeting in person, the name change passed in a 10-2 vote. Members Karen Bronga and Meg Zaletel voted no.

Mayor Dave Bronson said Young was in his office a week before he died in 2022, and had asked that the port be renamed after him.

“Quite frankly, that’s why we’re here today,” Bronson said. “Don was a friend of mind. He was a gentleman of the highest order. And I just thought it’s right that the dean of (the) House got the port named after him that he actually requested.”

Assembly Chair Chris Constant supported the name change, but discouraged making Young out as a saint.

“It’s not been fair to a honest record of Don Young’s life and story in Alaska,” Constant said. “It was great and it was terrible and it was everything — it was life! And we should not practice hagiography in undoing the stories and making false narratives about people.”

Constant, a Democrat, said he respected Young, a Republican, especially for actions toward the end of his life. Constant highlighted Young’s words in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his vote for the massive federal infrastructure bill. Constant framed both as Young rejecting his party’s position to look out for Alaska and the nation.

Don Young died in March of 2022. He was the most senior member of Congress at the time, representing Alaska in the House of Representatives continuously since 1973.

The new name is a partial rejection of a renaming panel’s recommendation. The panel wanted the place referenced in the name to change as well, so that it became “The Don Young Port of Anchorage.”

Historically, the facility was known as the Port of Anchorage until the Assembly changed it to the Port of Alaska in 2017. It was a symbolic move, in part to convey to legislators who fund infrastructure projects the port’s importance to the entire state. By weight, most goods that enter Alaska pass through the port.