Alaska Editorials

Here is a sampling of Alaska editorials:

Feb. 1, 2018

Ketchikan Daily News: Looking up

Alaska’s economic confidence is on the rise.

It was higher in the fourth quarter of 2017 than it has been since the third quarter of 2015, according to the state Division of Economic Development, as measured by the Alaska Confidence Index. The index increased to 54. An index of 50 and above, on a scale from 0 to 100, represents confidence.

Alaska’s lowest recorded level was 49 in the first half of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017.

The index measures Alaskans’ confidence in the local economy, their personal financial situations, and their expectations for the future, according to DED. The index uses information collected by the Alaska Survey, which is a quarterly sample of at least 800 Alaska households chosen randomly.

The survey has six components - state economy confidence, local economy confidence, personal financial confidence, expectations for the future at the state level, expectations for the future at the local level and personal expectations for the future.

In the past four years, the highest levels in economic confidence occurred in the second and third quarters of 2014, when the index numbers exceeded 60.

Nothing stays the same forever. What goes up will come down one day, and that which is down has the potential to go up.

It’s happened throughout Alaska’s history.

That a rise is being recorded is encouraging given the state’s budget deficit and the effect the deficit has had on Alaska communities.

Such encouragement can be the beginning of a turnaround of fortunes.

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Feb. 2, 2018

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Can’t blame the Steese Fire Department

The recent decision by the Steese Volunteer Fire Department to limit the circumstances in which it will provide assistance to the Fairbanks Fire Department is troubling but understandable.

It’s troubling because of the potential impact on residents and because it makes the city look bad.

It’s understandable because Steese officials say the number of calls for assistance by the city department has increased sharply and could put residents of the Steese fire service area at risk of not having their own crews available for an emergency call should they need aid.

Residents of the Steese fire service area pay, through additional property taxes, for that service. Steese officials therefore are acting, as they should, in the best interest of their residents - the people who pay the bill.

Steese crews still will respond to the calls for assistance - “mutual aid” is the term - for major emergencies such as structure fires. That’s if they have the staff available, of course.

But those lower-level calls? As of Jan. 11, the Steese department has made itself no longer available for mutual aid responses for such calls as investigating a smoke smell or assisting with certain types of medical calls.

The Steese department has had enough, apparently.

What pushed the department over the top to make this decision?

As the Fairbanks Fire Department sees it, it’s a 19 percent increase in emergency calls in the city in a three-year period. The Steese Volunteer Fire Department responded to 86 mutual aid calls in the city last year; city crews responded to the Steese department’s request for mutual aid 14 times, according to a story this week by Daily News-Miner reporter Robin Wood.

Steese fire Chief Mitch Flynn, in an interview, had some blunt words about the situation: “I feel as though the mutual aid agreement is being taken advantage of and abused. The number just keeps increasing each year. It has the appearance we are subsidizing the city department.”

For now, the University Fire Department will fill in, but even that department’s chief isn’t happy about it.

“On a philosophical basis, we’re not OK with it; we’re not OK with subsidizing the city’s services,” Chief Doug Schrage said.

So the big issue that needs an explanation is this:

Is the Fairbanks Fire Department so understaffed that it has to ask for help more often from other departments? Or is the firefighter shift schedule out of alignment? What has changed to cause the marked increase in calls? Are residents abusing the system?

Fairbanks city residents deserve answers because they, like residents of the Steese fire service area, also pay for fire service and should expect that their department is able to adequately handle the city’s needs without asking for too much help from the usually willing neighboring fire departments.