Sometimes the most obvious good idea hangs in front of us like a wad of cash in front of Alaska legislators talking to Bill Allen, but we just can’t see it. Since I can’t get all my good ideas from “The Voice of the Times” anymore, I figured I’d have to look extra hard at the “Letters” section of the Anchorage Daily News.
This is where we find out what Alaskans think about important issues like where does milk come from and should moral people accept the theory of gravity or not.
On May 10, I saw this one:
“Move the Capital to Glennallen. A quick look at an Alaska road map shows that Glennallen is a central hub. And a great place to move our capital to.”
We will forgive this letter writer for ending his sentence with a preposition, because that’s not a real rule anyway.
And we will just ignore his implied sarcasm, because THIS IS A GREAT IDEA. Move the capital to Glennallen and quickly.
If they come, we can build it.
For now, businessman Park Kriner can put our legislators up in the Caribou Hotel and they can try on the Copper Valley for size. Lobbyists can set up wall tents and surround their doomed targets like the Sioux surrounded Custer.
Consider for a moment that our legislators will be utterly exposed in this environment, not only to lobbyists, but to Interior Republicans and other biting insects. They will be exposed to the actual farmers Larry DeVilbiss never wanted them to see. Ordinary people will be able to bring in money and buy their legislative representatives back from oil company service company Veco lobbyists, their current owners.
Expect some long term benefits as well: the 20 swamp acres west of town with the three-foot-tall black spruce trees is finally going to sell. The gas line will have a spigot here. Rick Pyle will put in a 24-hour sushi bar at his grocery store.
The crumbling shoulders and heaving pavement of our highways may get fixed, as they suddenly become “crucial arteries leading to the seat of government.”
Someone may clean up the nastiness leading to those other kinds of seats at Long Lake and Mendeltna highway rest areas—because if the legislature meets in Glennallen, we will have to take care of the not-tourists who travel on the highways all winter, too.
Senator Al Kookesh and Representative Woodie Salmon will find out where Kenny Lake is and will perhaps talk with their constituents who live there.
On the minus side, some legislators from Anchorage may die of altitude sickness when they realize how far north the state goes.
In other misfortunes, we are likely to lose our communities’ subsistence status as the office buildings and subdivisions rise, sucking attention and population away from Juneau and Anchorage and the Mat-Su valley. And all those people will overburden the half-completed Glennallen Sewer Project.
If that happens, I’m moving to Willow.