For governor, cookies come before budget’s main course

This morning, Gov. Bill Walker will unveil a complicated, multibillion-dollar plan to erase Alaska’s 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’s Mansion Holiday Open House.

This year’s open house was the 100th since the tradition began in 1913 when Territorial Gov. Eli Clark opened the doors of the newly built home.

The event is of such importance that even the budget plan had to wait. “Somebody suggested — somebody who has never been to one of these — ‘Why don’t we just move this date?’” the governor said, speaking with his wife and two grandchildren in front of a Christmas tree. “I said, ‘Oh, no, no, we won’t do that. We’ll just move the rollout date.”

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’s Mansion, volunteers and state employees laid out platters of cookies, set up decorations — even connected a Polar Express-themed electric train set.

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.

First through the door was Pat Marlin, who was wheeled across the threshold of the Governor’s Mansion to shake Walker’s hand.

Marlin has lived in Juneau since 1973, and this was far from her first open house.

“I love to meet everybody and see everybody,” she said of why she attends.

Not long after Marlin was Rosanne Schmitz, who was leading a preschool class to meet the governor — and enjoy free cookies. Her green jacket bore a sticker promoting clean mining along the border with Canada.

“Why not?” she said when asked why she attended the open house. “Like Gallery Walk or anything else, it’s a community event — and I love our governor and lieutenant governor.”

At last year’s open house, which came less than two weeks after Walker’s inauguration, he said he didn’t know what to expect.

“I figured some folks would show up, but I had no idea it would be that many,” he said. “It’s probably the most hands a person would ever shake in a finite period of time.”

Each year, some attendees bring handmade Christmas cards or decorations — Walker’s mantle in the upstairs portion of the Governor’s Mansion still bears a cotton-ball snowman given to him by a child last year, he said.

He enjoys the experience, he said. “They’re not bringing a legislative agenda to me. They’re thanking me and heading for the cookies.”

This year’s cookies — 25,000 all told — 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’s 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.

After the last cookie left the mansion, Walker began preparing for another big day.

“It’s important for the future of the state what we roll out tomorrow,” he said Tuesday night. “So it’s nice to have this the day before.”