Outlook; Toys/Museums

Oh. I need to deliberate. Object. It's a job that has to be done. Laser guns like they fired it. Why have a lot of these people otherwise. I was appalled. I like out. Really make. A. Beautiful. Window into the community. This result with your host Beverly Martin. Hello everyone and welcome to Outlook. You were looking at one of Alaska's landmark institutions. It's the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. And I'm here inside where all the good stuff is. Tonight we're going to explore some of the corners that you may not have visited in of very long time. Also tonight we'll talk with Mayor George wert about some of the next steps now that the tax cap has failed. But first tonight parents around the country are trying to stop the merchandizing of

violence to their children through the media and through toys. The group is called the Lion and the Lamb Project and its founder was a mom who got mad. I used to be an education reporter for like but 20 years and I wrote a lot about kids and education and how kids live and what they learn. And then I had a little boy of my own and I noticed ever since he was really young even two and three years old there were all the men just totally popular back then. And that he was being enticed into violent play and violent entertainment constantly no matter what I tried to do to keep him away from it. And as a journalist I really looked into Should I be concerned about this or was it just like a hyper mom turns out you needed to be concerned about the amount of violence in her young son's world. Children's television programs like Saturday cartoons contain more violent acts per hour 20 to 30 than in primetime A mere six to eight. In fact Ninja Turtles was a runaway Victor a marketing sensation the most violent movie

production for young audiences at the time. We have 40 years of research. We've had 10 national studies there was a 1972 surgeon general study looked at 10 years of research. One thousand eighty two National Institute of Mental Health study looked at 10 years of research in 1992 the American Psychological Association looked at 10 years of research it's not just on that time with three independent studies the whole body of research now shows that children learn violin values through the media. Research also proves that the more television we watch the more we believe the real world is like television since the TV is on an average of seven hours in homes and children watch an average of four hours a day. They end up seeing eight thousand murders and 100000 acts of TV violence. Before leaving grade school the world becomes a very scary. And right now as a culture unfortunately we're sending children of very mixed messages because on the one hand we say violence is bad don't hit your brother and then we turn around we give the child a toy gun for Christmas the

season his son has seen the light. So kids who are young and don't understand the difference between fantasy and reality are getting very very confusing messages. But kids before the age of age really don't understand that death is permanent that real guns and toy guns. Are not similar even though they can tell you I know this is not a real gun. This is just pretend. They the concept is not really solidified. As with really young children. One of the four major effects that all these studies talk about with a view of violence is desensitisation so. Another reason I started this project is to make the invisible visible greater dosages of expertly choreographed violence is needed to satisfy de-sensitized audiences. There were 32 corpses in the first Robocop for instance the second contained 81 death wish one had nine dead 52 the second time around and by Rambo 3 The bodies had jumped from 62 to 106

in general as a culture I think if we saw it we'd be horrified if we read the research would be horrified. So what we try to do is we try to make it visible. Recently the Federal Trade Commission concluded that Hollywood deliberately markets adult rated products to youth. Toys based on adult video games comics movies is one example. The lion and the Lamb Project is battling on that front if you can look at the box Nowhere does it say that this is based on an adult rated video game so the kids are being marketed to brand name like Nike or coke or Mortal Kombat and the young they kind of take it in and then they want to move into the real product. Resident Evil is an adult right. The the video industry rated as am for mature its an adult rated games of the selling the toys to kids spawn started as an adult rated comic book which is due to the movie in this hold up to kids mortal combat is another adult video game so with industries doing is they're promoting just look at your camel to promote cigarettes to kids. These toys are kind of what we've dubbed him George and Joe

Camel toys and just like it was possible to sell cigarettes to kids. I mean Joe Camel was popular that doesn't mean it's right there just because kids might be drawn to violence and so only adrenaline involved that doesn't mean it's a right thing to do or does because a child I want drugs we would go and sell it to them. It's not like. We say I started actually the line in line project. One of the reasons I did was so that I would have a support group so that I can tell my son who used to say to me you know this other children don't have it you know there's a whole group of us now around the country who you know who are getting active about this and who understand why this is dangerous for kids and who are saying no to our children together. The media always a say it's the parents choice. But our culture is so saturated with it that it's very difficult for parents to always say no. I'd say a parent should use the peach chip rather than the V-chip is from parent and I say P is not for popular is for parent. Thank you. Thank you.

I thank you for this and don't. Forget It's like trying to ban. The lion and the Lamb Project promotes toy trade is a violent toys for alternative products. The schoolhouse express in Anchorage sponsored this one and Daphne White is active on a national level and we have actually been invited to speak with the toy manufacturers of America the national trade association for the toy manufacturers and they're beginning to recognize that for the first time there's a problem because of our activism because they don't like to see all these toy trade ins. We also put out a list every year the top 20 and 30 dozen toys that I want to see the names of the dirty dozen list right here as the industry says violence travels well. Marketing is global. But the line of the Lamb Project is one way for concerned parents to concentrate their voices and create an international roar as experts say Children learn through play any toys educational. The question here is what does that mean.

You can contact Karen so Dyleski at 2 4 5 4 1 1 6. For more information about the lion and lamb project in Alaska I'd like to welcome Mayor works in the studio today. Your words. It was quite a vote just recently the tax initiative failed 70 percent state wide and right here in Anchorage about 75 percent. A lot of people are asking now OK that's done. But what's the next step. What are we going to do in order to carry some of those ideas forward. But before we even get started on that conversation where do you personally learn about this whole thing about your community about how people think. Well the I try to keep it short but first thing I learned that we've got some incredibly hardworking people in the municipal staff who work to produce two budgets in 90 days normally it takes four five months to produce one and we did that to within that very incredible short period of time so thanks to all those that did it. The other thing is

I think the public at large was very attentive. They they listened they thought they examined. And when they went to the polls they voted their preference whether we rolled back. The city to a service level of the early 90s or whether we continued to march ahead and I think they said let's move ahead. There are some other messages in there too. There were there were a lot of people who worked to defeat this who believe in government efficiencies believe in tax reform but felt this wasn't the way to do it. So my question to you is what role are you going to play what role will the assembly play in moving forward with some of their the some of the reforms that they were suggesting. Well about three immediate actions number one of course is to settle the current budget to a budget plus and I say plus because we purposely presented in a budget was below the tax gap three and a half million dollars below the tax cap. So we'll come back with those those add backs if you will that will create a budget right at the tax gap. There are some other

options and this gets into the second step is that how we can free up some money by using the trust Reserve. You know we have this many Permanent Fund here in this town but we also have alongside of that trust some reserve cash almost 40 million dollars that we might take portions of to invest in some long term equity in the way of paying off bonds. That would free up budget money ready for service and use the example of the Fifth Avenue parking garage that connects the sky bridge the Fifth Avenue Mall. Now that we subsidize it 1.8 million dollars a year so the Parking Authority can pay the bonds. There's about 11 and a half million dollars it would take to pay off those bonds. We take that out of the reserve we don't disturb the trust. We just take it out of the reserve pay off those bonds we have 1.8 million dollars immediately available in this year's budget to to pay for additional services. You know I think what I'd like to do is just very quickly tell us what you mean by

tax the tax cap in Anchorage. As I was using it is a little confusing so a real quick lesson real quick now plunging in 1883 the city adopted a spending limit a tax limit if you will that says each year's taxes could be no bigger than the previous years. Plus inflation plus population growth plus new investments in the way a box stores hotels or homes it built and in the intervening here. So we have each year a built in limit on how fast our city government can grow how fast your taxes can grow. And that includes the schools too so there's a there's two parts to this. What we did last spring was to roll that back by using up about 20 million dollars a savings so we set a new lower threshold for the current year coming based on last spring's taxes. And that's why the A budget is smaller than the current year's budget and we are looking at ways to to keep the critical essential desired

services moving efficiently effectively and still hold the lid on spending. OK now that tax cap about 50 50 over 50 percent is supported by the property tax revenues and it's my understanding that any other revenues than that would be forthcoming through a sales tax or whatever would offset some of those property taxes. So the question is do you have any preference do you have any ideas about other sources of revenue that can roll back some of those property taxes for people. Well I think that's exactly the question they ask because if I look at this is a teeter totter only if we're going to race a new revenue source. I think it ought to lower the burden on property owners. So we need to keep ourselves in balance. I'll be at the teeter totter doesn't have to stay where it is the day with the property owners paying a lot in other sources paying very little. I think we can we can find a new equilibrium point where we look at things like as we did last spring the voters very

clearly supported the tax on rental cars. We can find other ideas. We've all long time had attacks on the hotel space a bed tax as we call it. Maybe there are some other things we can do in the area of fees and of course there's always a big question of sales tax and whether there's a community ready for a general sales tax in my mind. George Wirth believes that ought to be a teeter totter if you raise some other alternate taxes you know to lower the impact on property. Now there weren't you who that is going to take the next step to say OK let's consider these revenue sources as opposed to leaving it as it is at the assembly or is it your office. Well I think it's both of us plus more. I think at the Assembly and the mayor need to have this conversation in the political arena but we need it in the neighborhoods. We need people in the community councils in the interest groups that are out there looking for the future of our city in the arts community in the hotel in the hospitality industry. We have to engage as we have had in the

last seven months eight months huge question over the 10 mil cap. Now we need to go to the next step and have a conversation about how do we level this playing field that we want to level the playing field. What are the local control issues that we want to impose on that. And quite honestly I think we may have to rally our wagons to fend off an initiative on the part of the legislature I'm disturbed by what I hear. The legislative it interested in imposing a state wide sales tax. Sales Tax have always been in this state a local issue left up to local communities no two communities have the same rules. And now for the state to step into that arena I think is not the right thing to have happen so we're going to have to watch very carefully what this let's the next legislative session. And it's going to take some education as you say at a local level because the sales tax is failed. A number of times a 60 percent supermajority to even pass one so that is going to be a public disclosure that's why I used the teeter totter analogy because all the

previous sales tax questions didn't keep that teeter totter in balance. They were in additional spending issues so you kept the burden on the property taxpayers in large measure and you just added more taxes for more spending. I think we have to be careful because I think there was a message this citizens voted no with the expectation that we're going to deliver efficiency. We're going to do our very best to give the best buy for every dollar spent. And speaking of efficiencies there are people who have who see inefficiencies and or at least they think they do. They may see ways to save money. Is there some way that citizens can go to the municipality and say that's true. Sider find out what the rationale is and if they have a good idea have it adopted. Sure. And that's what we're trying to create is an organization administration where my departments and my employees I say mine their city employees but my administration is responsive to that working level to answer any and all questions. If a citizen has a question I would hope that they go directly to the source and get a very

prompt and immediate response customer service first. If they don't contact me contact the department head. You know I do read my emails I do answer my emails and it's much more efficient than a phone actually. And don't hesitate at the same time though we do have an institution that does that we have first your assembly members will take on questions like that and get an answer for the citizen. We also have an ombudsman if there's a complaint to misbehavior on the part of any citizen any any employee of the city. All right so that is there's something right in there that is an independent way to informing the public to do this assembly member or mentor to quick and ready ways. You know there was another there were a series of town meetings and one of the one of the issues was actually what started this whole initiative war was the inequities perceived inequities perhaps of property evaluations the assessment the censor's

office will be reduced. A lot. What is your reasoning behind that when it seems that that would be two things. One is I think that there is some work that's being done it doesn't need to be done and I'll come back to that I mean and the second thing is I don't think we're taking advantage of technology in the marketplace as much as we can. First point. For example 85 percent of the people that appeal their assessment either never show up or never provide any reason for their appeal. And under the previous assessors management then he was having the staff prepare a complete response to an appeal that was really not adequately filed. So 85 percent of the work level work effort was going into nonproductive things these folks never showed. I've met with the Board of Equalization they said well why don't you use a consent agenda if you have 85 percent of the cases that are no shows when as you put it all on the agenda. And if they do show then you can pull them off the agenda and deal with them

one by one but otherwise dismiss those as not responsive. And so that saves a huge amount of were in the appeals area almost 85 percent because there's still a little bit of processing you have to keep track of the send of a letter and make sure they understand there were obligations and so forth. The second issue was technology. Unfortunately this is one of the few Alaskas one of the few states that doesn't require transaction reporting what I mean by that. When a property sells or a building sells in other states you have to report the sale price at the closing price to the local assessor or the local land records office. And that then becomes a data point for assessors to figure out fair and full market value because we are a fair and full market value state. We are in this state assisted 100 percent of fair and full market value but we put blinders on our assessment was we're not going to let you look at the market. And that's strange and I think there's a problem there than what we might be able to do and what I've asked of the multiple listing service in the city of course is not allowed to be a member that

we have asked would they sell us the bulk of that. Either by neighborhoods or by building so that we can't identify an individual transaction but we get by district by type building. The cumulative averages in the spread of prices for things meeting that definition and we don't have an answer yet but I think if we can get that kind of input then our assessors office going to operate with some sense of modern technology. And incidentally that we still need to upgrade their computers able they had computers for three years can you believe that. Well well they did. They got older and we need upgraded. We're almost out of time and just like you to address fairly quickly what citizens can do to sustain the momentum that has happened with this initiative. Dialogue it's been lively in its hands and there's a great deal of interest in making this community really prosper. So what what's the next step for all of us as citizens.

Well I think it's very important to continue to have a dialogue with assembly members to let them know how important it is that we have if they're interested in balance and changing the ratio here how much property owners pay and how much other people pay share that idea. Too often very often and I speaking now as an Assembly Member for five years the only folks I hear from are those that say I want more for my special project I want more for X Y and Z seldom do you have a more philosophical conversation I think that's important to have that philosophical conversation we need to talk about. What kind of revenue base we have fees. We can do administratively and we're going to do that starting January we're going to look across the board at all the fees we've had a marvelous success in times past we went to the commercial model with ice sheets if you remember we were really short on ice rinks in this town because we weren't at the commercial market. We went to market based pricing and within 18 months we had three new ice sheets built by the private sector at no cost to the taxpayers.

So you're saying take the initiative public and talk to you talk to the assembly and keep this very very positive community dialogue. Absolutely. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. You know many of us come to changing exhibits we have lunch here in the atrium but the honest how many of us calm and actually climb those stairs to go up to the second floor. I haven't for a long time so today that's what we're going to do. There are 34 steps to climb to the second floor where the historical part of the museum comes alive in the Alaska gallery where display after display traces Alaska's history from its earliest years to the present. You can learn about early life in the great land of the tools they use the stuff of daily life their daily transportation.

And one source of today's state's wealth students come regularly to learn here. Like Mrs. Carey's third grade class from college gate they're learning about the ol Utes. Are there any trees on the Aleutian Islands do you think. No. So where do they get word. If. Drift away. Yes. What if your mom wants to sew on buttons for a while. You just heard spellings from the hills. Learning at the museum is doing touching trying on creating hats for instance like those worn by the ol youth some hundreds of years ago. You. Were still on the second floor looking at pioneer families walking past the Contemporary and ancient be displays to the USGS library and then.

To reach the Museum Archives where Diane Brenner and one staff member soon to be a part time because of budget cuts and volunteers care for 300000 historical photographs and 10000 books about Alaskan native culture and Alaska and American art. My name is Kathy Blanc I work for the glacier interstate but your Gosh National Forest and we're redoing the exhibits in the baggage ponds visitor center this winter and I'm searching for some historical photos. When people bring us materials they're never organized and so what we do with a core of about 15 volunteers as we organize collections we index them we put them in file folders we figure out how we can make those pictures available to someone because they're no good if they're all in a shoe box. Oh. But you're saying perhaps 160 170. This is a greater positive circle photos from all over Alaska. Diane is very helpful in trying to I think I think I read specific funding requests.

All right now we're on the first floor and in an exhibit treasure called weaving in time. What we're seeing here is many generations of baskets. From. Very very old maybe a hundred years old right up to the present time especially that I want you to understand is really like this is probably the largest. The largest gathering of baskets in quite a while. The curator around Roland from the Museum of the Aleutians really did a wonderful job in collecting this one. Now this is all borrowed so it all goes back to the original long and soft of the show. Probably a hundred baskets here. Wow that's a lot but remember the various very small.

Right now a romp through the permanent exhibit on the first floor and a quick look around the contemporary Native arts exhibit and our final stop. The children's gallery and the art Hill where there's lots of action. This is Long's fourth grade class from Chester Valley visit. Squish the art of print making exhibit. And they're going to make prints of their own. Actions. Get it. Done at every. Turn in. The area. Arnica. Well we've just taken a quick tour of an outstanding museum. An outstanding museum that spaces severe budget cuts of staff of ours and of services. So as a community we're going to have to decide if we value institutions like this as we allocate our resources and hopefully

those decisions will take into account what is important for future generations as well. Well that's our show for tonight. Thank you for joining us hope you're with us next week. For outlook I'd evilly Michael S.. Goodnight. If you have questions or comments you would like a copy of tonight's program. Haughey period code 9 0 7 5 3 7 0 0 7 0. Or write us at our blog. Kay kay I'm Channel 7 for the 877 number City drop Anchorage Alaska 9 9 5 0 8. Or e-mail us at this address.