Oh, you gotta go around the speakers.

Maybe not with mayor.

It's kind of loosey because it was a new government and not a lot of tradition, but people were just kind of making it up as we went along and making things work.

And I had been working with Lane Fleischer for a little bit and um forming the Federation of Community Councils, which I hold dear to my heart and my slave and still serve in my community council in South Edition.

So unification happened, and I realized that I was going to be fighting for trying to represent people in this new government, which to me made so much sense.

Why did we have a city and a borough and services that ended on one street?

And maybe there was a gap in between and you didn't have services.

So I was really, really hopeful.

As soon as the election happened, Mayor Sullivan appointed me and four other people to write to labor orders for the meeting.

And AS 2340 had already been passed for the state of Alaska.

You can have another labor ordinance that holds your jurisdiction.

They cannot veer too much for the state ordinance.

You can't go.

And so we pretty much patent after that because I was the only one that knew about the state ordinance, and I've been working under it for Steve World City.

School District uh non-certified people for about a year.

So this committee was me, Tom Fink, Mark Sullivanberger, who was the city employee head of the city union, Alaska, you know, Anchorage Municipal Employees Association.

Doug Stark and Municipal Attorney Rich Husman, who's a pretty straight-lace type person.

You know, he wasn't like some municipal attorneys, which were weren't flexible and listened a lot.

So like Mr.

Falsey.

Yes, my kids.

Yeah, he's on the get things done side.

And so it took us about a year, but we got this ordinance written.

And so we started figuring out how are we going to form this new government and merge employees.

Well, on my side, there was me.

And on the cities, there was everybody that George Sullivan could put in place to make things happen for the city's benefit.

And I remember my two nemesis, uh Stan Stone King and Lynn Doherty, who had absolutely no involvement previously with labor relations, but they wanted the city to win on every point that they were assigned to.

So we battled for years.

We had unfair labor practices, we had three elections because they kept messing things up.

And I can't remember the specific case, but John Hedman was representing APEA and me at that time.

And he's recently passed.

And uh we had a case go to the state Supreme Court that supported our position.

So finally, um, during the last two years of this struggle, AMEA decided they needed more help.

So they went to the Teamsters.

So they had Jesse Carr in AMK against me.

So Ike Moldric called me up.

Ike was uh the head of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and my former husband had been an electrician, so I kind of knew him.

He said, Girl, you need some help down there.

I can't have carr taken over the city.

So I went and met with Ike and he said, Whatever you need for resources and just back up.

And it was really great to know that.

But he said, if you ever have to negotiate with Jesse, I'll tell you what he told me the first time I sat down.

He showed, he had this really long conference table and the Teamsters Hall with a giant picture of Jesse Carr in the room.

Wherever you sat, you had to look at his BDIs and ah that looks and he said, take this jar of Vaseline, you might need it before this meeting's open.

Well, do a mind for these youngsters in here.

Jesse Hawke was Alaska's version of Hoffa.

He was a mafia guy.

He just he just was.

That's how he rolled in, you know, during the pipeline days that Fairbanks people were disappearing, and a lot of stuff happened at the warehouses.

I had a lot of respect and fear for Mr.

Cod.

Not so much for the people I was negotiating against, because they knew nothing about government.

But the IBEW, the civil asside, the IBEW and Teamsters had fought jurisdiction over communication workers.

The IBEW had traditionally represented people on the dew line and the outer banks or whatever, and the Teamsters won an election.

And I thought, well, I can't have them coming into government because they don't do it the way we do it.

And so that's what I decided to assist me with APEA.

Anyway, we won some battles, but we lost the war.

But during that seven-year period, it was just hopeful on one hand and crazy on the other.

Things would happen like I'd be negotiating with George Solan.

He actually sat down with me.