6 Pack

The salmon are in the freezer, most of the big summer chores are almost done and maybe, just maybe, there will be some time to devote to this blog once again.

The PC reported that there are now six candidates for borough mayor.  New to the field is Tim O'Brien, a retired oil patch worker from Nikiski.  Of course, that follows last week's announcement that former borough mayor, Mike Navarre, entered the contest after he was able to convince Ron Long to drop out of the race.

Ron and Mike had enough common sense to realize that they would be competing for the same voters.  Ron, from Seward, and despite being on the borough assembly and its president for one term, really didn't have the name recognition on the peninsula and wasn't interested in schilling for votes, so it probably wasn't too hard for Mike to talk him into withdrawing from the race.

O'Brien doesn't seem to have any clear reason why he is running, well, except that his friends convinced him to giving it a try.

Right now, despite six candidates, I see a three-way race between Dale Bagley, Gary Superman and Mike Navarre.  Debbie Brown and Fred Strurman won't get anyone other than ACT folks to vote for them.

Here are the links to each candidiate's web site:
Mike Navarre: Nothing but press releases right now
Dale Bagley: Some info regarding his past accomplishments, light on what he might do.
Debbie Brown: Big on ideas, little substance on her site.
Fred Sturman: Fred's got one idea - cut spending.  Not one idea of exactly how or what he would cut.
Gary Superman: Nothing here right now other than his announcement that he is running.
Tim O'Brien: No web site yet, but there is a Tim O'Brien running for mayor of New Britian that has one!

Get Well Soon

The CPGH is in the news again and there are two interesting developments.  The first story to break is that Mayor Carey has been given the green light to enter private negotiations to rewrite the lease and operating agreements the borough and the hospital currently have.

In typical Carey Speak, the mayor is quoted in the CP as saying “One of the things we agreed to … was that while we are involved in discussions, we won’t give details of what we are talking about...Basically we want to get some changes made and then once we get them made, we are going to let people know what they are and why."

So, AFTER the changes are made, he'll let the public know what they were and why we need them.

Isn't that backwards?  If the changes are good and needed, shouldn't we be on board with the process from the get-go?  And please let me know of ANY decision Dave has made in his tenure that made sense.  Do we really want HIM to be making these decisions?

The follow-up story is that Ryan Smith is resigning from his post as CEO of the hospital to take a similar position at a smaller hospital in Wyoming.  Maybe there is a connection, maybe not.

What I find curious is that here we are in the land where Joe Miller gets more votes than anyone, yet most every resident wants the borough government to retain ownership and control over the hospital. Maybe there is the sense that despite how high medical costs already are, if the hospital was to entirely become a private enterprise, the costs of medical care would skyrocket and maybe the level of care with plummet.