Imagine an orchestra preparing to perform. It does not begin without history. Every musician brings experience; every section has a distinct voice; every score reflects lessons learned from what came before. Imagine being able to study how communities across Alaska and the nation have governed themselves. Where they found harmony. Where they created unnecessary friction. What they might arrange differently if given another chance. Then imagine applying those lessons to the place you call home.
That is how I think about Eaglexit.
Alaska’s system of local government is still young compared with many systems around the country. That gives us an unusual opportunity. We do not have to assume that today’s arrangement is the only one we can ever play. We can preserve what works, correct what does not, and arrange government so its structure better fits the community it is meant to serve.
Anchorage itself shows that local government sometimes needs a new arrangement when circumstances change. The 1975 unification addressed the problem of its time: overlapping city and borough authority, conflicting service responsibilities, and an urbanizing region governed through multiple structures. The solution was to bring those competing parts into one unified Municipality.
The question is not whether this community has an economic base capable of supporting local government. The tax base already exists and is already supporting public services.
Eaglexit applies the same reform principle to a different problem. A half-century later, one unified government is being asked to conduct communities that have grown materially different in geography, services, schools, land use, fiscal priorities, and civic identity. The arrangement that produced greater coherence in 1975 does not have to remain unchanged forever. The remedy today may be different, but the purpose is the same: organize local government so the parts fit the people, place, and public needs of their time.
The vision is not complicated. It is a local government whose parts work together. It is balanced, efficient, accountable, and close enough to the people it serves so that citizens can understand where their money goes, who is responsible for each service, and whether the whole arrangement is working.
No worthwhile civic effort should fear skepticism. People have reasonably asked whether a new borough would cost too much, whether taxes would rise, whether an earlier effort already settled the question, and whether the proposal can truly serve everyone in the community.
Those questions deserve respectful, factual answers.
On finances, the model starts with the Municipality of Anchorage’s 2025 budget and conservatively uses property taxes alone to demonstrate recurring operating feasibility, without assuming that other taxes, fees, utility revenues, grants, or enterprise income would transfer to the new borough.
In 2025, the Municipality budgeted to collect about $1.05 billion in taxes, fees, charges, and enterprise revenues, with an estimated $107 million originating within the proposed Chugach Regional Borough (CRB) territory, subject to further geographic reconciliation.
But the proposed borough does not need to claim all of that revenue to demonstrate fiscal capacity.
Eaglexit, at its best, is not an argument about leaving something behind. It is an invitation to take greater responsibility for what comes next:
The affected tax districts held about $4.897 billion in taxable value and generated $73.31 million in 2025 property taxes. The CRB model instead proposes about $50.11 million in recurring property-tax revenue, matched to operating costs for administration, public safety, roads, parks, streetlights, fire/EMS, and education, including $12.93 million for the local education contribution.
That distinction matters.
The question is not whether this community has an economic base capable of supporting local government. The tax base already exists and is already supporting public services. The question is whether those existing local resources can be organized and governed in a way that is more responsive, transparent, efficient, and sustainable for the people who live here.
The earlier 1975 Eagle River–Chugiak borough effort also deserves to be understood accurately. Its legal defeat turned principally on Alaska Constitution Article II, section 19, read together with Article X, section 3. The Legislature could not create a special or local borough-formation process when a general law could be made applicable. It was not a judicial finding that the community lacked the economic capacity or civic ability to govern itself. Today’s effort proceeds through the generally applicable Local Boundary Commission process.
Questions about motives deserve an equally simple answer: a borough, if created, must belong to everyone who lives within it. It cannot be built for one political faction, one neighborhood, one generation, or one point of view. Good local government has to work for the family that has lived here for 50 years and the family that arrived last month; for the person who supports the proposal and the person who doubts it. The measure should be character, contribution, fairness, service, and results, not ideology or identity.
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That is why the orchestral analogy matters. A community is not a solo performance. No one person owns the score, no single section should overpower every other, and harmony does not require every instrument to play the same notes. The structure can be prepared, the finances tested, and responsibilities clearly assigned, but the quality of the performance ultimately depends on people listening to one another and contributing their distinct parts to something larger than themselves.
Eaglexit, at its best, is not an argument about leaving something behind. It is an invitation to take greater responsibility for what comes next: to ask whether local government can be closer to the people, easier to understand, more accountable for the money it collects, and better arranged around the future of this community.
Imagine what this community could accomplish if we approached that question not as competing political sections, but as neighbors willing to listen, adjust, and contribute. We do not all have to play the same instrument or hear every issue the same way. But we can still create something coherent together. A local government in which responsibility is clear, every community has a meaningful voice, and the whole is stronger because its parts are allowed to contribute what they do best.
TAKING ACTION
— The Local Boundary Commission is set to meet on Sept. 1, when Eaglexit Board Member Michael Tavoliero will present arguments supporting repeal of a regulation that stands in the way of the proposed new borough. Supporters of the Eaglexit movement are being urged to participate in the Zoom meeting, which will include time for public comments. Click here for more information.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
