Climate Action Committee members didn't bother to prepare

The first meeting of the newly reconstituted Climate Action Committee of the Fairbanks assembly was a disgrace.

The new members—appointed by newly minted assembly presiding officer Aaron Lojewski—came to the meeting unprepared and unaware of the work that was done over the last year-and-a-half by the six former members dumped by Lojewski, a climate change denier.

Lojewski will deny that he is a climate change denier. Look for that claim if and when the News-Miner covers the story. Lojewski wants this committee to fail, which he will also deny. Running unsuccessfully for state office in 2016, he said “there is not enough data” about the human role in climate change and “There should be no Alaska policy to combat global warming.”

It is to the credit of the former committee members, all volunteers, that most attended the meeting Tuesday morning and offered their services to help finish the job. They were gracious and respectful.

A lot of work has gone into this project, and there is nothing radical about it, but the new committee members had no clue. A random selection of six people waiting in line at Fred Meyer would produce a group with the same level of awareness.

The new members, particularly state employee Barbara Haney, a new borough assembly member, and Vivian Stiver, focused on irrelevant matters and launched themselves on tangents—imagining that the plan is a sneaky attempt to take away rights, limit sprawl, indoctrinate children, reduce outdoor lighting, that 246 public comments are not very many, blah, blah, blah.

Haney, who gave no sign that she had read the background material prepared, led the nit-picking parade Tuesday, with more questions than a TV prosecuting attorney.

She claimed that people without computers didn’t know about the committee, that mailers should have been sent to borough residents, that she thinks “stakeholders" means “special interests,” that meetings should have been outside the city limits of Fairbanks, that GVEA should have been asked to send notices to the public, that the Grange and the “Farm Bureau” should have been consulted, etc. etc.

Lojewski appointed Haney to the committee, removing Mindy O’Neall, who helped start the committee in 2021.

Lojewski, Tammie Wilson, Jimi Cash and Frank Tomaszewski opposed it. The flaw in the ordinance setting up the committee is that it allows the presiding officer to appoint all the members, except the mayor, with no confirmation by the rest of the assembly.

Lojewski should have asked other assembly members, mentioned his plan in public and given notice that he wanted new members of the committee, seeking applications. He failed to do that, a serious mistake on his part. He hand-picked his friends and GOP comrades.

O’Neall said she never saw any of the new committee members at any of the public meetings or that they participated in the process in any way.

“I’m very concerned that the homework and the information that we’ve done over the last year was not considered before this meeting by the members. I’m very concerned about the tone of responses from particularly Ms. Haney to individuals who have worked very, very hard on this,” she said.

Haney, who appears to be searching for things to be offended by, was offended by that comment.

“As a point of order, Ms. O’Neall just impugned my character. Under Robert’s Rules that’s, I could have responded at the moment. Impugning my character is probably not a good start,” said Haney.

A state employee hired by Rep. Mike Prax, Haney is a world-class obstructionist who will succeed in making every borough meeting an hour longer by serving as a Grand Inquisitor, specializing in minutia.

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