Following their decision to change the 50-year-old Anchorage seal, the Assembly took a second vote to rename the iconic Hotel Captain Cook, located in downtown Anchorage.
“Today represents a new dawn here in Anchorage,” Assembly Chair Christopher Constant told reporters after the vote. “Anchorage residents know that decolonizing our downtown spaces is the most important task of city government. How can we combat crime, plow roads, or solve homelessness in the shadow of this towering orange obelisk of colonial oppression?”
Prior to the vote, the Assembly created a survey for Anchorage residents asking them about the renaming. 98% of respondents voted to keep the existing name of the historic hotel, with some voicing confusion about the Assembly’s authority to rename a private business. But Constant was not dissuaded.
“When we throw out the results that we don’t agree with,” he explained, “100% of the remaining results agree that the old name had to go.”…