In the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly Seat F race, voters can choose between Tammie Wilson, a former Assembly member with extensive budget experience, or high school gym teacher Garrett Armstrong. One of them — the Republican or the Democrat in what is ostensibly a nonpartisan contest — will replace departing de facto marxist Savannah Fletcher, who is attempting to join the state Senate in November.
It’s been a year since the Fairbanks Assembly took a hard tack to the left, and voters saw the results almost immediately, with lavish spending on an animal shelter followed by attempts to ratchet up taxes, and move Fairbanks to an all-mail-in ballot, so it can become like Anchorage.
Candidate Tammie Wilson brings to the table extensive experience with budgets, both on the Assembly and as a state legislator. While she was chair of the Assembly Finance Committee, Wilson delivered a budget well under the tax revenue cap, which resulted in a lower overall borough mill rate for taxpayers.
Since her departure from the Assembly last year, the budget instantly expanded, and spending has started to climb.
While the 2022-23 budget was $183,566,824, the budget by the new left-leaning Assembly was over $197 million, resulting in an estimated areawide mill rate of 10.599 mills, an increase of 0.158 mills from the FY23-24 budget. It taxes up to the Borough’s revenue cap.
Among the list of budget items Wilson has called out as excessive is the $33 million spent on the lavish “Puppy Palace” animal shelter replacement project. The proposed shelter has limited additional capacity, limited outdoor runs, and no drop off boxes, but does have a clerestory roof and extensive meeting rooms and facilities for borough staff along with other excessive amenities. Yet it cost as much as an elementary school in Alaska.
To compare, a new 33,000-square-foot elementary school (nearly twice the size of the Puppy Palace) was built in Kivalina in 2023 for $50.4 million.
The new Mat-Su Central School, at about 50,000 square feet, is being built for $25 million. But the 17,737-square-foot animal shelter in Fairbanks was a $33 million expenditure.
Wilson would have voted against the project at that budget level. She has called out the current Assembly members for failing to listen to the extensive testimony against what appears to be the most expensive animal shelter in the nation.
The Assembly not only voted to proceed with the enormous cost, it added another $236,700 to the project in September for a design change.
And yet, the Assembly needed money for schools, but it had spent so much on the puppy palace that it decided to try to blow through the tax cap and get the public to tax itself another $10 million for education. After six hours of testimony that went largely against holding a May 7 special election to increase property taxes, the liberal majority on the Assembly voted for the election, which cost taxpayers another $130,000. The taxpayers revolted and turned it down.
Wilson has noted that some Assembly members spend their time texting during Assembly meetings rather than listening to the public. Those who do testify are often treated with disrespect, she has noted.
Garrett Armstrong is on the board of the local chapter of the NEA — the National Education Association, which is one of the most powerful Democrat surrogate organizations in the country. On the Assembly, the NEA would be his master, as this is a playbook the NEA has run time and again in Alaska.
Armstrong has consistently indicated in forums that he doesn’t have enough information on issues to make an informed statement on a topic. However, he has made it clear in his newspaper commentaries and in social media posts that he is in favor of expanding the role of government. He endorses Democrat Grier Hopkins for mayor and indicates he will vote with the liberal side of the aisle to continue the march toward converting the Fairbanks North Star Borough into an Anchorage-style government.
One of his ads, claiming Wilson opposed the trails plan, had to be pulled because it was materially false. Wilson, along with Jimi Cash, voted to approve 2022-47, the trails plan; there is a difference between making sure easements are legal versus being “anti-trails.”
Armstrong, a registered Democrat, signed a petition to recall Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2019. That petition, organized by supporters of scandalized Gov. Bill Walker, including the brother-in-law of Grier Hopkins, failed to advance for lack of interest in the voters’ part. Most of the signers of the petition were Democrats.
Armstrong would be a vote for the liberal side of the spectrum for Fairbanks.
It’s Fairbanks, Of course they will vote Tax-to-max