The Alaska Federation of Natives’ annual convention in Fairbanks next Thursday through Saturday is shaping up for 72 hours of bashing of the Dunleavy Administration, with a brief time allotted for the governor himself to speak.
The theme for the conference is “Good Governance, Alaskan Driven,” and is focused on “the basic necessity of sound, fact-based government policy amidst Alaska’s current fiscal challenges.”
AFN isn’t saying it would prefer the last Administration of Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, but its agenda shows it clearly disapproves of this governor.
This year’s lineup is infused with opportunity to critique the Dunleavy Administration, now in its 11th month and facing yet another budget deficit.
Last year, the AFN convention was held in Anchorage, as it is during major election years. The convention was a meltdown of the Walker Administration, as Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott was forced to resign from office over his still-untold, but much-discussed bad behavior toward a young lady. During the convention last year, Gov. Walker announced his decision to end his bid for re-election, and he threw his endorsement to Mark Begich, the Democrat in the race.
Last year’s agenda theme was “Past, Present, and Future,” and it was upbeat, at least until the collapse of the Walker Administration began.
But there’s no looking to the past this year. It’s on to the theme of what constitutes “Good Governance” in the present.
And it’s likely to include an appearance by the radical faction, Defend the Sacred.
Gov. Dunleavy will be one of the first speakers of the convention. He’ll be at the microphone at 9 am on Oct. 17, and he’s been given 15 minutes for his address.
Following him, House Speaker Bryce Edgmon will have 20 minutes to share his views from a rural Alaska perspective.
On Thursday morning, the theme of good governance will be introduced in a session that targets the Dunleavy Administration and how it “tested the bounds of this principle”:
“‘Good government’ refers to how well the state’s meeting the needs of Alaskans. In 2019, the Dunleavy Administration tested the bounds of this principle. By example, the governor’s budget and vetoes eliminated (or encumbered) the state’s obligation to provide several constitutionally mandated services. #GoodGovernment requires Alaskans—particularly Alaska Natives—to assess the quality of state government in 2020.”
The panel will include April Ferguson, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Bristol Bay Native Corporation and AFN Board Member; and Greg Razo, Vice President of Government Relations, Cook Inlet Region, Inc. and AFN Board Member. His corporation has taken a position as a leader in the Recall Dunleavy movement.
Later that morning, a second panel on the topic of “Good Governance” will take aim at those not born in Alaska:
“Alaskans, as opposed to outside special interest groups, should be the ones driving state policy. Early Native leaders like those of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, William Paul, and Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich understood this, and led the fight to secure basic rights guaranteed to all Alaskans. This panel discusses why Alaskans—particularly Alaska Natives—must fight for strong, credible solutions that force the state to once again work with and for the people.”
It will be moderated by Nicole Borromeo, executive vice president and general counsel of AFN. Panelists are born-and-raised Alaskans, Senate President Cathy Giessel, House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, and former Alaska State Senators and AFN Board members Georgianna Lincoln and Albert Kookesh.
Thursday will also feature panels on public safety and violence against women, two serious topics for all Alaskans, rural and urban. The focus will be the lack of public safety in rural Alaska.
On Friday, one of the leaders in the Recall Dunleavy movement will give a special report. Sophie Minich, President and CEO, Cook Inlet Region, Inc., will speak on the topic of “Taking a Stand.” Minich has signed the CIRI Native Corporation up as a leader in the anti-Dunleavy sector.
Much of Friday will be devoted to the topic of the State of Alaska’s constitutional responsibility to provide education, health care, and welfare to the citizens of the state. Panelists will discuss how they see the Dunleavy Administration’s approach to cutting state spending.
All there members of Alaska’s congressional delegation will be given time to speak.
[Read the entire agenda at this link]
The AFN Convention will take place Oct. 17-19, 2019 at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks. Live television coverage is available on GCI Cable, 360 North, and ARCS, as well as a live webcast on AFN’s newly upgraded website.
That’s too bad. So much hate.
It’s all they got. Cheers –
Ironic. The people Touting “Rights for All Alaskans” are so eager to take thousands of dollars from every man, woman, and child in the state, and give it to special interests.
They’re going to welcome Bryce edgmon who just stole $1,400 from every man woman and child in the state. They going to bash a good man who’s trying to keep the lights on with a balanced budget, a man they criticize for cutting the budget of a failing University system who’s graduation rate on a four-year program is in the single digits. This is just a big let’s hate whitey party and it is so wrong. And I can say that because I am native American and I speak my own mind.
Actually, you are an American, and the 1st protects your right to speak your mind.
Given what you state, what’s with the propaganda mill you wrote below?
AFN is a radical racist hate group.
My tribe is Choctaw and is one of the five civilized tribes and the first to be put on the trail of tears when we left Mississippi headed for Oklahoma. Thousands died along the way. If anybody has a right to be hateful, I would think it would be us. However, I choose to judge a book by its contents and not by its cover, and I think Governor Dunleavy is an honorable man trying to do an impossible task.
GET OVER IT, ALREADY. You were not there.
I am part Irish and Scot. I am part Apache and Cherokee. They lost. Tough kimchee, but we ended up here in the U.S. in 1758, and the Washington in 1656, because of tyranny and oppression. That’s just the way it was, and is.
I have no respect for those who live in the past. The idea is to PREVENT the PAST from becoming our FUTURE. Ya dig?
No of course I wasn’t there, but my family was. To know the past is to know the future because history always repeats itself. Your condescending tone is troubling. Obviously mixing blood in your family didn’t pay off. Now we have the Democrats and the radical leftists trying to take over everything and squash our constitutional rights. Remind you of anyone? To be so close-minded and not allow free speech and respect for everyone you miss out on a lot. I pitty you.
I wouldn’t put that harshly, but, reduced to lowest common denominator terms, yeah. Democrat controlled, Marxist in thought and ideology, that’s what may in the Bush subscribe to.
No question.
The way to retribution nowadays is to hate and destroy anything in your way and blame anyone and anything for your problems.
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For AFN to imply Dunleavy is the problem is an insult to this native Alaskan. 13 pages of an agenda full of liberals to feed their cries of blame, claiming that if only there was more money all would be ok. Who in the hell are they kidding?
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While they are brainstorming assaults on the native women in this state, I hope they don’t forget to address the native men that are also committing those assaults. The native men that are molesting children in villages. Let’s talk about the generational sexual abuse that gets hushed up and swept away again and again. Uncomfy isn’t it? You bet it is! But this is the ALASKA FEDERATION OF NATIVES so start acting like it.
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And how about including on your agenda, in lieu of bashing Dunleavy and wondering how someone else can pay your way, how your own Native Corporations can assist with the alcohol and street homelessness issue that’s swarming urban Alaska and actually help your own people.
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Just a few thoughts
Well stated.
Why don’t we end all bush subsidies and let them get funding from their native company’s. Let every city and borough stand on its own.
Because your forefathers took away their way of life and we are accountable. You can’t ruin someone’s culture and then look the other way.
You can be accountable for whatever you want. How about the lower 48 crimes against the native people or lets go back farther and talk and the slavery or how about the crusades? If they and the other state funded groups cannot help to live within our means then you and everybody who thinks like you an step up and fund it all. This budget cut needs to effect everybody and all I hear is whining about the end of life as we know it. Everything changes and nothing is forever. By the way it seems like the north slope peoples like the money they are raking in.
Yeah, always someone else’s fault, right. Alaska was not conquered as was CONUS with the tribes submitting to rezs. There was no Trail of Tears. So, please, stop it.
I have two grandmothers, one Bedonke Apache–the Wood side, one Cherokee–the Washington side.
Obviously you have a memory fault. Alaska was first Concord occupied whatever you want to call it by the Russians and then we came and purchased it. Then came the missionaries who through the process of assimilation tried to strip the different villages of their cultural beliefs and their language. Later on, the missionaries apologized for this crime. I witnessed this apology in Gamble. So to agree with you, yes it is always someone else’s fault but it falls on everyone to try to right the wrong. No there wasn’t any trail of tears but we parked some warships off the Southeastern coast and shelled the village for a couple of days until they submitted. There were many conflicts at Sitka and other places statewide. To say that this was all bloodless is just dead wrong. So that’s your history lesson for today.
Our tribe conquered their tribe but instead of wiping them out we invited them to join our tribe. Big mistake.
How is that, what did you want genocide?
Given that the RNCs are Fortune 500s, given the 44M acres, given that the corporations cannot go broke, that’s what was supposed to happen. However, development of their lands has been mired in the anti-development, you owe us attitude. Consequently, the suicide, the booze, the drugs, the sexual abuse, and the child abuse and the breakdown of the family, because of a lack of opportunity.
You are owed is the message from the Dems as they sell abortion and the destruction of the family as the “solution”, rather than opportunity, jobs, and hope. They sell death. And the young women buy into it.
I don’t know very many native women…. actually just one in the bush that has had an abortion.
Ungrateful and entitled. Very much too bad! The negativity is bad for Alaska and bad for Alaskans. There’s always a native slant on how bad we have it. I support our ELECTED governor. Consider what he’s had to work against. I’d like to hear a positive native message for a change.
I’m for some of the cuts. The Indian wars in the lower 48 were tragic. But tribes have been fighting other tribes for thousands of years over hunting grounds, water, whatever somebody else had that they wanted. And yes they did take slaves and their women. Basically they were doing to other tribes what we did with manifest destiny. Black people in Africa sold black people into slavery. All the slave traders did was buy them. It wasn’t right but we didn’t take our boats to Africa and knock them on the head and drag them back here we bought them from black tribes that had taken slaves. And what about the crusades? They went down there to protect the holy Land. They eventually got over run, but I don’t have the problem with the Templars or the crusades at all. It was a worthy cause protecting pilgrims visiting the area.
And when I say we I mean slave traders. In 1831 my family was being run out of Mississippi and made to forcefully March on the trail of tears to Oklahoma so count me out of that part of it.
Actually, African slaves were the losers in the African tribal wars, sold into slavery by Arab slave traders. Under Islam, slavery is permitted. Still practiced today.
They were the middleman. Warring tribes in Africa gathered up the slaves and sold them or traded for whatever. When Oprah Winfrey found out that blacks sold blacks into slavery, she wept. She so wanted to blame whitey.
To be expected. Always that way with the Democrat controlled AFN. No Republican governor has been received with open arms by the AFN.
The AFN is a pity party–give us more money.
We make our own problems, but don’t tell us about it.
We abuse our kids, destroy our families, hide from reality in drugs and booze, but it is someone else’s fault.
Same old malarkey, same old whining, same old hands out give us money malarkey.
RNCs that are Fortune 500s, 44M acres of rich lands, privilege in hire and education, and that’s still not enough.
The Alaska Native needs to look in the mirror for the source of their ‘troubles’.
True they need to look in to the mirror more and quit blaming everyone else. I do not have millions of acres of land and big corporations who do not share the money.
I halfway agree as a native. When you take the handouts from big brother, you become dependent on him and in a lot of ways lose your freedom. My tribe the Choctaw we’re given the opportunity to stay in Mississippi and become assimilated, but we decided to hit the trail of tears in order to stay free.
They didn’t have all the problems they have today before Americans came in and muddied up the waters. They wouldn’t have been able to hold their land from outside interests just like what happened in the lower 49 states. If you can’t keep what is yours I wonder how long you can claim ownership. Maps have changed and will continue to do so. But to get back on the original topic, to blame our duly elected governor for all the high crimes and misdemeanors of the past is truly absurd. He’s just a man trying to balance the budget the way he sees fit which is why we hired him. If any one of our households operated in the red we stand to lose everything we own and suffer bankruptcy. If I State continues to operate like this, we too will suffer the same circumstances you. And now for your reading pleasure, another Choctaw moment….. Did you know that the Choctaw Nation sent care relief during the Irish potato famine? Obviously they cared more about human suffering than lines on a map.
The last Indian war (the Modoc war in S. Or and N. Ca.) happened over 120 years ago. The last real Indian died in it. We lost, get over it!
America is your country, where your loyalties should lay. It may not settle well with those who are trying to live in the past, but it is what it is. You can pee into the wind all you want, but you’re just going to get wet, and accomplish nothing of lasting value.
“White-man this, White-man that” is an exercise in futility. When ancient Israel was deported to Babylon, God told them to pray for their captors well being, for their fortunes were cast with their captors.
We must bless America in our prayers and actions, as our fortunes are dependent on America doing well.
The lase real Indian died in the Modoc wars. We lost, it’s over, get over it, move on. Today is the first day of the rest of all our lives.
You’re full of crap. What do you mean the last “real” indian died 120 years ago? I have lived on the Navajo, Blackfoot, Aleut, Siberian Yupik, and Alaskan Yupik reservations, and I can tell you, there are thousands of “Indians” still kicking. You act as though the jews were supposed to just give up when the Nazi’s were practicing genocide. All hope is lost folks. The sky is falling. What an idiot.
Any American Native, who is a citizen of the US, is first and foremost an American. Their historic nationality is just that, history. I am an American, who’s historic nationality just happens to be Yupik, Norwegian, and German.
American Natives haven’t assimilated, become blended into the white society. However, we have learned to work within, and with their culture.
Half of my childhood was on a reservation. We preserved our history, and much of our traditions, but we held white-man’s jobs, lived in white-man’s houses, drove white-man’s cars, and saved our white-man’s money in white-man’s banks.
In America, there are many nationalities “still kicking”, but nonetheless, if they have citizenship, then they’re first and foremost Americans.
Perhaps you would be happier to just stay on the reservation, playing “real Indian”.
That’s the dumbest damn thing I’ve ever heard and I hear a lot of such things on here. I guess you missed the part about being a sovereign Nation. Yes all reservations are within the confines of the u.s. borders, but reservations control their own business. They have their own police force their own courts but they are on federal trust land so in the end big brother gets the say. Take a journey sometime onto a reservation such as the Navajo or the Choctaw and you will see that most natives aren’t just playing native they are The real McCoy.
Your attitude is one of the reasons why many of our people are still living on the fringes of America.
Clinging to the past stops us from any real future. Alaska’s 12 regional corporations was a business model shoved down our throats. We wouldn’t have come into the modern world otherwise. The NOL’s bailed us out and served us notice that we had to come to terms with the real world.
It’s been over 120 years since any tribe went to war against America. Even my cousins in AIM merely demonstrated and made noise.
Wanna be a “real Indian?” Declare war and attack an American military base. You will be by yourself, and you won’t last 10 seconds.
Your a real Indian? Yah! Right!. You lack self control and can’t even keep a civil tongue!
That’s funny right there. You don’t even have a clue what it’s like to be Native. Yes, I am an American, and an American Native. You won’t steal my culture from me. Why would I want to attack America? It’s my country. You sound like you wanted genocide against Natives.
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