This morning, Gov. Bill Walker will unveil a complicated, multibillion-dollar plan to erase Alaska\u2019s deficits and balance the state budget within four years.<\/p>\n
But first, there were cookies.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, hours before flying to Anchorage to present his budget plan, Walker hosted between 3,000 and 4,000 Juneauites at the annual Governor\u2019s Mansion Holiday Open House.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s open house was the 100th since the tradition began in 1913 when Territorial Gov. Eli Clark opened the doors of the newly built home.<\/p>\n
The event is of such importance that even the budget plan had to wait. \u201cSomebody suggested \u2014 somebody who has never been to one of these \u2014 \u2018Why don\u2019t we just move this date?\u2019\u201d the governor said, speaking with his wife and two grandchildren in front of a Christmas tree. \u201cI said, \u2018Oh, no, no, we won\u2019t do that. We\u2019ll just move the rollout date.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the hours before the official 3 p.m. opening, Walker and his staff briefed legislators and others across the state about the impending release of the budget plan. Inside the Governor\u2019s Mansion, volunteers and state employees laid out platters of cookies, set up decorations \u2014 even connected a Polar Express-themed electric train set.<\/p>\n
Attendees started lining up an hour before the opening, eventually forming a line that spiraled around the house, nautilus-like, in weather that non-Southeast residents would consider bad.<\/p>\n
First through the door was Pat Marlin, who was wheeled across the threshold of the Governor\u2019s Mansion to shake Walker\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
Marlin has lived in Juneau since 1973, and this was far from her first open house.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love to meet everybody and see everybody,\u201d she said of why she attends.<\/p>\n
Not long after Marlin was Rosanne Schmitz, who was leading a preschool class to meet the governor \u2014 and enjoy free cookies. Her green jacket bore a sticker promoting clean mining along the border with Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not?\u201d she said when asked why she attended the open house. \u201cLike Gallery Walk or anything else, it\u2019s a community event \u2014 and I love our governor and lieutenant governor.\u201d<\/p>\n
At last year\u2019s open house, which came less than two weeks after Walker\u2019s inauguration, he said he didn\u2019t know what to expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured some folks would show up, but I had no idea it would be that many,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the most hands a person would ever shake in a finite period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each year, some attendees bring handmade Christmas cards or decorations \u2014 Walker\u2019s mantle in the upstairs portion of the Governor\u2019s Mansion still bears a cotton-ball snowman given to him by a child last year, he said.<\/p>\n
He enjoys the experience, he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not bringing a legislative agenda to me. They\u2019re thanking me and heading for the cookies.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s cookies \u2014 25,000 all told \u2014 were baked by Breeze-In, and the Alaskan Fudge Company contributed another 250 pounds of treats. Funding for the sweets comes from the budget for the Governor\u2019s Mansion, which totals $752,800 this fiscal year. More than half of that figure pays salaries and benefits for staff who work in the building.<\/p>\n
After the last cookie left the mansion, Walker began preparing for another big day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important for the future of the state what we roll out tomorrow,\u201d he said Tuesday night. \u201cSo it\u2019s nice to have this the day before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning, Gov. Bill Walker will unveil a complicated, multibillion-dollar plan to erase Alaska\u2019s deficits and balance the state budget within four years. But first, there were cookies. On Tuesday night, hours before flying to Anchorage to present his budget plan, Walker hosted between 3,000 and 4,000 Juneauites at the annual Governor\u2019s Mansion Holiday Open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":14380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14379"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}