This is just a quickie, I’ll write a longer post later. It was a long night last night, but not actually a horrific one. I gathered from occasional checks of email & Twitter with my iPod Touch from within chambers that there was some dismay at the lots & lots of red-shirted ordinance opponents outside the Assembly chambers, but it was a bit bluer within: ordinance supporters got there earlier, & dominated the seating at the front of the chamber.
Testimony thus far has been a bit more blue than red, with (according to my tally, which I might have screwed up a couple times) about 40 people testifying in support of the ordinance and 31 in opposition. By the time things shut down for the night, I was perhaps ten people away from testifying myself, & according to Assembly chair Debbie Ossiander there’s a total of 320 or so people total who signed up to testify.
So more of this next week. And a longer post, complete with photos, later today.
Meantime, the Anchorage Daily News report of the hearing is here. Some bloggers have already posted some info, mostly photos — see Bent Alaska and Progressive Alaska. Heather James of SOSAnchorage.net (the good site, not the nasty Prevo site of similar name) was sitting right next to me through the hearing and did some live-blogging, which you can read here. John Arrono sat just the other side of her — he’s written up some observations of the evenings events at Alaska Commons. Over at Think Alaska, Erick Cordero Giorgana reports on the rumor — which proved to be true — that some of the people testifying had been transported in from the Mat-Su Valley. Besides a longer grander blog post from me later today on the goings-on inside the Assembly chambers, also expect to hear more later from Celtic Diva and AKMuckracker of The Mudflats, both of whom I believe were outside the Assembly chambers.
Addendum: Per Bent Alaska’s E. Ross, Gryphen at Immoral Minority has posted a report on the evening (see also Grypen’s pre-hearing post about his gay daughter), and there was a Mudflats open thread last night where mudpuppies live-blogged the evening. Mudflats report on the evening is now posted too.
Oh yeah. And my photos of last night are now online at my Flickr photostream.
Thank you for being my eye in the chambers, Mel. With our days together drawing down, Audrey is fragile and couldn’t be alone. So I put on Ch.10 and we went about an evening of routine. I was so glad to see Jane Angvik and Vic Fisher and dear Arliss — and disgusted to see the delaying tactic in play (those Valley speakers hope to drip, drip, drip the proceedings right past Matt’s remaining term so Dan can continue his father’s “good work”).
Thanks for the list of posts. Also want to mention that some Mudpuppies live blogged the hearing in the comments of a hearing open thread at Mudflats (over 400 comments when I checked late last night.) Gryphen at Immoral Minority already posted a report of the evening. Shannyn Moore was there too and will hopefully post about it. The many progressive bloggers have been wonderful sources of information and support during this difficult process!
Thanks E., I’ll add those to the list.