An Interesting Situation

The Daily Noise has a front-page article today about how Gov. Palin has allowed most of her commissioners to have offices in Anchorage, rather than Juneau.

A bit of background, for those who don't know: our state capitol, Juneau, is roughly 600 miles southeast of Anchorage. Alaska is a very large place, and Juneau is geographically isolated from the rest of the state. You can get there by air or sea, but not by land.

Juneau has been the capitol for a long time, as it was one of the first places ships from Outside would stop, as they steamed north along the coast.

Nowadays, as I understand it, one of the principal purposes of Juneau is to provide support services for the State government. Folks there are terrified that, some day, the capitol will be centralized to a more accessible location. A number of locations have been proposed over the years, primarily Anchorage or places just to its north. The people voted, not too many years ago, that the government should not relocate to the Mat-Su Borough (read Wasilla - you've heard of them, now).

In the two years since Gov. Palin took office, the majority of her administration now works from offices here in Anchorage. The Legislature, however, is still based in Juneau - whether from tradition, inertia, or deliberate design is unclear.

It's always sad when a town, which has lost its historic purpose for being, dries up and slowly fades away. It happens all the time, unfortunately, and much history is typically lost as a result of that process.

Many arguments, pro and con, have been offered over the 50 years since Statehood for moving (or not). I doubt I have any original contribution to those lines of reasoning, at this point.

I have a problem, though, if the principal reason for not moving the State government is because it's Juneau's only support. I'm pretty sure that's not sufficient reason to support the status quo.