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Video: Rivera’s wild meeting as Assembly chair has man cuffed and tossed over shutdown objections

Suzanne Downing
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47
Video: Rivera’s wild meeting as Assembly chair has man cuffed and tossed over shutdown objections

“He needs to be removed,” said Assembly member Chris Constant.

“He needs to be 86’d,” said Assembly member Pete Petersen, evidently wanting to get rid of the man for good. The Urban Dictionary says that this means he needs to be killed.

Neither Assembly member realized their mics were still hot.

And so he was removed. Dustin Darden, activist and frequent candidate for office, was ejected from the Loussac Library’s Assembly Chambers.

Darden was not only removed, he was taken away in handcuffs by armed police after an outburst at the public podium, in which he blasted the Anchorage Assembly for not honoring the wishes of the public concerning economic sanctions on businesses.

Darden has been a participant at Assembly meetings for many years. He has never cussed while at the podium. He has never gotten violent. When the mask requirement was enacted in the chambers, he simply wore a cardboard box over his head in protest.

Darden is active as a sponsor of two petitions to recall members of the Assembly.

No one ever remembers him being kicked out, much less in handcuffs. Former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz used to take a time-out and chat with Darden in the back of the room, man-to-man.

But during the dire shutdowns and the new behavior rules the mayor and Assembly have imposed in recent months due to its fear of the COVID virus, Darden has become more strident at times.

On Wednesday night, he was agitated because of the way the Assembly had treated a previous member of the public, who had yielded a portion of her three-minute time to Darden.

Assembly Chair Felix Rivera had lectured the woman about being respectful. Here’s the tape:

Rivera shut the mic off immediately after Darden started yelling from behind the Plexiglas screen that has recently been installed to protect the assembly from the spittle of the public. That triggered Darden.

Darden raised his voice louder. He was shouting, pounding the podium and demanding the Assembly reverse the crushing shutdown orders against the Anchorage business community.

Rivera called security to have Darden removed. And then, as if by magic, the police arrived. They approached Darden, who had taken his seat, and they talked to him. Then Darden rose, put his hands behind his back, and was escorted out the side door.

The government-controlled audio of the meeting was shut off for several minutes while the incident took place. There is no question that Darden was out of order for a public meeting, but did they need to call the police, the members of the audience wondered.

After all, Rivera this summer allowed two men to lie in front of him during an entire meeting. The men were protesting. And Rivera allowed a Black Lives Matter protester to yell profanities at the Assembly in a loud voice this summer, and only thanked the man for his testimony.

But Darden is someone Chair Rivera has no tolerance for.

“Every business owner in Anchorage owes Dustin Darden a thank you. He consistently shows up every single meeting fighting for them when they won’t even show up for themselves,” said Bernadette Wilson, a civic activist who also shows up at meetings and who has organized rallies, and who has also pointed at the Assembly members and yelled at them without being called out of order.

Darden was never booked, and it appears he was not charged either. But the speed that police showed up to haul him out of the Assembly Chambers was impressive to those witnessing the spectacle.

During another section of testimony by the public, Assemblyman Chris Constant also objected to citizen Tim Rooney, who was making fun of the Assembly, as he described the types of themed sandwiches that local restaurants have made in honor of them, such as “Recall Rivera Sandwiches,” and “Curmudgeon Constant Croissants.”

Rep. Stutes goes with Democrats in House

Suzanne Downing
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Rep. Stutes goes with Democrats in House

Creating a 20-20 split between Democrats and Republicans, Rep. Louise Stutes, a Kodiak Republican, once again chose to go with the Democrats.

She says they are in the majority.

The news was broken first by the Cordova Times, an online newspaper in her district. Must Read Alaska’s newsletter reported it soon after. Then a press release followed from the House Democrat-led majority.

Stutes told the House Republicans during a Zoom call meeting that she was staying with the Democrats. She appeared for a portion of the meeting to evidently make the announcement to the participants, and there was no persuading her, as she had a long list of must-haves for her district, which included fully funding the ferry system, fully funding power-cost-equalization for rural communities, and more.

“If you know me, you know that during my time in Juneau I’ve never lost sight of where I come from. Although a proud Republican for 50 years, I am first and foremost a representative of my district,” she said in her press release.

“Kodiak, Cordova, Yakutat, Seldovia and all District 32 communities in between are reliant on a healthy Alaska Marine Highway System, robust fisheries management, quality K-12 schools, public safety, community revenue sharing, and investment in infrastructure. It’s no secret that services rural Alaskans depend on have been disproportionately targeted for cuts. As a result, I’ve prioritized working with legislators who support those services and my district, regardless of party affiliation,” she wrote.

“It is critical now, more than ever, that we stand our ground to protect and restore our coastal communities.” – Louise Stutes

Notably, she did not mention her desire to protect the Permanent Fund or the dividend Alaskans are statutorily guaranteed each year.

“After giving it careful thought, I’m making it public that I’ll be caucusing with my colleagues in the current House Majority Coalition who share my vision for a vibrant rural, as well as urban Alaska.”

“By working together, I am confident we can build a bright future for all Alaskans,” Stutes wrote, before wishing everyone a merry Christmas.

It’s not a new betrayal. Stutes has caused for the past four years with the Democrats. But during the last two years, she had Reps. Bart LeBon, Tammy Wilson, and Steve Thompson of Fairbanks, Jennifer Johnson, Gabrielle LeDoux, and Chuck Kopp of Anchorage, and the late Gary Knopp of Kenai by her side.

LeDoux, Kopp, and Johnston were voted out of office, Wilson left early for a state job, and Knopp died in a plane crash and his and Wilson’s replacements are staunch Republicans. Which means all eyes are on Reps. Bart LeBon and Steve Thompson of Fairbanks, who have repeatedly promised they would not return to the Democrat fold this year.

And that means the House is still at a 20-20 split with neither group able to claim a majority.

Bill Sheffield to be awarded honorary doctorate by UAA

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
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Bill Sheffield to be awarded honorary doctorate by UAA

The University of Alaska Anchorage will award Democrat Gov. Bill Sheffield an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at the Fall 2020 commencement ceremony on Sunday, Dec. 13.

Born in Silverdale, Washington, Sheffield served in the United States Airforce during World War II, worked as a sales and service representative for Sears Roebuck, and was transferred by Sears to Alaska in 1953. He went into the hospitality business, establishing the Anchorage Inn. Eventually, Sheffield bought out his business partner, expanded his hotel holdings and grew his hotel empire to 19 properties in Alaska and the Yukon territories.

He was elected the fifth governor in 1982, and served one term. During his tenure, he oversaw massive infrastructure projects, including roads and water systems. He pushed through an unpopular bill that consolidated the state’s four time zones into two and is responsible for creating Alaska Standard Time. Sheffield also helped facilitate the purchase of the Alaska Railroad from the federal government and commissioned the construction of Spring Creek Correctional Facility in Seward.

During his tenure, he faced Senate impeachment hearings over an award of a $9.1 million noncompetitive lease to a company that was partly owned by a friend of Sheffield’s, Lenny Arsenault. In 2018, he authored a memoir, Bill Sheffield: a memoir, from the great depression to the Alaska governor’s mansion and beyond.

Sheffield is 90 and lives in Anchorage at a home that has been the location of many a political fundraisers for candidates from both sides of the aisle. He was recently spotted getting exercise at the Midtown Mall.

Read about the other honorees at this UAA link.

Pebble Mine and ANCSA’s intended framework for self-determination

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
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Pebble Mine and ANCSA’s intended framework for self-determination

 By LISA REIMERS

Many people have speculated that the Alaska Natives Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA, was an experiment in federal Indian policy.

In 1971, Congress authorized Alaska Natives to select and receive title to 44 million acres of public land and $962 million dollars as a settlement of their aboriginal claim to land in the State of Alaska.

The ANCSA framework was unique because it mandated the creation of for- profit corporations – both at the regional and village level – to be the legal vehicle by which the government would compensate Native people in Alaska as well as return ownership of their land.

There has always been a negative connotation surrounding the idea of corporate ownership. Federal Indian policy prior to ANCSA involved settlements and treaties that created the reservation system– which meant that the land and assets were held in trust by the federal government and were therefore controlled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

While ANCSA corporations are for-profit corporations, the mission and guiding principles by which they operate is ultimately influenced by the Alaska Native values of their shareholders.

This means that ANCSA corporations are the ultimate decisionmakers when it comes to deciding if and how their land and natural resources should be managed to achieve economic prosperity for their shareholders. That is why I do not view ANCSA as an experiment. Instead, I view it as the ultimate framework for self- determination.

I say this because of the insight I have received from people who actually took part in the implementation of ANCSA. I am an original shareholder of Iliamna Natives Ltd. (INL), which is a village corporation that formed following the enactment of ANCSA. INL was conveyed 69,000 acres of land in and around the village of Iliamna.

Obviously, we are one of the closest landowners near the Pebble Project. My parents were one of the original founders of INL who decided that INL land should be protected until there is a project that we can use to leverage our land for the good of our shareholders.

A project didn’t come along until 2004 when Northern Dynasty approached us with the plans they were working on and they asked my parents to form a subsidiary of INL that could partner with Pebble to provide jobs to our shareholders in the region. That is when we formed the Iliamna Development Corporation (IDC), a wholly owned subsidiary of INL. I have spent the last 16 years of my life as a sitting board member of both INL and IDC, as well as working as the CEO of IDC.

I am still proud to say that IDC – because of the work we accomplished with Pebble – went on to hire hundreds of employees from the region. At one point, IDC was the single largest employer in the Lake and Peninsula Borough. The pride I felt stems from the fact that I believed this project was the opportunity we needed to fulfill the intentions of ANCSA for our shareholders. That is why INL signed a rights-of-way agreement with Pebble in 2019, allowing them the right to build a transportation corridor on our land.

INL submitted a comment asking the U.S. Army Corps to select an alternative that put the transportation corridor on our land. INL carefully selected the route for the transportation corridor because it avoided three things: culturally sensitive areas, subsistence use areas, and critical salmon spawning habitat. INL did this not only with our shareholders in mind, but also the general public’s interest. When the Army Corps announced their record-of-decision (ROD) for the Pebble Project, INL shareholders were shockedto read that the Corps denied the permit because “the proposed project is contrary to the public interest.”

I believe this statement is contrary to the core principles of ANCSA, which transferred decision the making authority regarding resource and land development to the corporations and their shareholders. Who is to say that the Army Corps won’t use public interest to deny a project on ANCSA land in the future?

Lisa Riemers is CEO of Iliamna Development Corporation.

Kenai lawmakers ask governor to join election lawsuit with Texas

Suzanne Downing
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49
Kenai lawmakers ask governor to join election lawsuit with Texas

Three Kenai Republicans have asked Gov. Mike Dunleavy to join in a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of Texas against four states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin — over elections.

“Trustworthy elections are a cornerstone of our constitutional republic,” they wrote. “Recent action by our judicial branch, with the effect of allowing absentee ballots to be accepted without a witness signature, is contrary to state law. The judicial branch has no constitutional authority to change state law in this matter.”

Signed by Reps. Ben Carpenter, Sarah Vance, and Rep.-elect Ron Gillham, the letter asked the governor to direct Acting Attorney General Ed Sniffen to join in the Texas lawsuit.

Texas AG sues swing states for changing election rules at last minute, same thing Alaska courts did in October

Texas AG sues swing states for changing election rules at last minute, same thing Alaska courts did in October

Suzanne Downing
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51
Texas AG sues swing states for changing election rules at last minute, same thing Alaska courts did in October

Texas has sued Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin over “unconstitutional irregularities” in the election process.

In a case filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says that the four states used the coronavirus pandemic to ignore state laws that govern absentee and mail-in voting.

At issue is that judges in the four states did away with security measures, among them signature verification and absentee ballot witness requirements. They also reduced election security by eliminating poll watchers.

The four states are the battlegrounds that President Trump won in 2016, but lost this year. Each modified their voting procedures in violation of their own state laws, the suit alleges.

Because those states are the key electoral votes that will determine the presidency, the lawsuit is throwing another wrench into the electoral vote calendar. The Electoral College is set to meet on Dec. 14 to cast their votes.

Alaska’s election procedures were also changed via a ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court. In October, after ballots had already started to be cast in the General Election, the high court ruled that the witness requirement for absentee ballots is unconstitutional during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision went in favor of the lawsuit brought by the ACLU-Alaska on behalf of the Native American Rights Fund, American Civil Liberties Union, and Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The ACLU-Alaska said that the witness signature “serves no legitimate purpose,” an indication that the lawsuit group may try to make this a permanent injunction against the witness requirement for mail-in ballots.

The Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling was not challenged by the Texas Attorney General because there are only three electoral votes for Alaska, not enough to swing the election this year.

Georgia is worth 16 electoral votes, Pennsylvania has 20, and Michigan and Wisconsin have 16 and 10 — enough to tip the scale for Biden.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an emergency request from Rep. Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania, and other Republicans who sought to decertify the Pennsylvania election results, which member of Congress and other GOP activists to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.

One Alaska man’s battle with COVID-19 and his message to people of the Mat-Su Valley

Suzanne Downing
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51
One Alaska man’s battle with COVID-19 and his message to people of the Mat-Su Valley

Steven Johnson is a healthy 60-year-old who works out three times a week, takes his vitamins, keeps his weight down and eats a healthy diet. He’s retired, so his stress level is generally low.

If we’re to be honest here, Johnson is kind of an “Alaska man” who grew up in the Mat-Su. He’s tough. He takes care of himself.

He thought he would be the guy who, should someone breathe the COVID-19 virus onto him, would have mild symptoms and a quick recovery.

It didn’t turn out that way for the Palmer resident.

Four weeks after his first COVID-19 headache, he’s barely out of the woods, he said. At least he’s sitting in a chair. But he is weak.

“There were a couple of times I thought I’d need to get to the hospital,” Johnson said. “I’ve had just about every symptom in the book for COVID.”

Headache, muscle aches, joint pain, leg pain, lung fluid, shortness of breath, brain fog — these were some of the coronavirus symptoms he has had over more than month. Tylenol had no effect on his pain. Johnson lost his sense of taste and smell. And he spent days and days in bed with a fever.

Johnson is still suffering the effects, with bouts of inexplicable leg pain that come and go, and he has trouble focusing his brain long enough to even perform short administrative tasks.

Johnson is now wondering if this is the new norm for his life.

A lot of people in the Mat-Su Valley seem to take a cavalier attitude toward the coronavirus, and Johnson wants to get the message out that how your body reacts to COVID is nothing you can predict. You can be completely fit, like he was, and find yourself an invalid.

Congressman Don Young had a short bout with the virus, and he’s 87 years old. Sen. Josh Revak also picked up the virus and had a mild case. But a young man that Johnson knows nearly ended up in the hospital, and he was only 25.

“It kicked his butt,” Johnson said of the young man. As for Johnson, the virus has been even worse, however.

Johnson says that he believes he picked it up on Election Night, at a crowded party where people were in each other’s six-foot zone, and there was a lot of social interaction. OK, let’s call it like it was — there was hooping and hollering.

He believes a lot of others probably came down with the virus at that party, and he knows several who did.

Some people may have had mild cases, but that’s a crapshoot, Johnson said. You don’t want to take the risk, in case you are the one who ends up with excruciating leg pain, overall weakness, or even worse, in a hospital on a ventilator.

It’s a message Johnson says needs to be heard especially around the Mat-Su, where he has heard that some do not believe the virus is real, or believe only the weak get it. He realizes there’s a stigma and some people don’t want to talk about it, but he decided to, because nobody should have to feel like he does.

People are still gathering, not practicing physical distancing, not wearing mouth or nose coverings, and they don’t seem to consider whether they’ll be the next super-spreader who delivers the fatal toxic dose to someone.

“Just take some precautions,” is his message for fellow conservatives. The virus is not a political animal, and whether you get it or don’t get it is not a badge of political honor. But it could be the end of your life as you know it, as you may never recover the health you once had. Or, like Johnson, not recover your sense of smell or taste.

That’s what Johnson is wondering about now — whether he has been through something that will seriously diminish his health for the rest of his life, and whether the Election Night party was worth the risk.

Warning signs and symptoms of COVID-19:

Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. People with these symptoms may have COVID-19:

  • Fever or chills
  • Cough
  • Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
  • Fatigue
  • Muscle or body aches
  • Headache
  • New loss of taste or smell
  • Sore throat
  • Congestion or runny nose
  • Nausea or vomiting
  • Diarrhea

Look for emergency warning signs for COVID-19. If someone is showing any of these signs, seek emergency medical care immediately:

  • Trouble breathing
  • Persistent pain or pressure in the chest
  • New confusion
  • Inability to wake or stay awake
  • Bluish lips or face

Passings: Chuck Yeager, world’s greatest pilot, who loved fishing in Alaska

Suzanne Downing
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12
Passings: Chuck Yeager, world’s greatest pilot, who loved fishing in Alaska

SPENT MANY DAYS OVER MANY YEARS IN SOUTHEAST ALASKA

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles “Chuck” Yeager, who was the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound, has died at the age of 97.

Yeager was the pioneering pilot whose authentic West Virginia drawl, skill, calmness under pressure, and fearlessness made him an American icon. He never had a college degree, and so could not join the space program, but he said, “I like to fly, and capsule riding was not flying to me.”

Yeager visited Alaska many times and loved salmon fishing from Southeast to Southcentral.

He visited the Gildersleeve floating logging camp on Prince of Wales Island when it was at Whale Pass, where he fished in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. He sometimes piloted the Louisiana Pacific jet that brought Harry Merlo, who was the CEO of Louisiana Pacific. Keaton Gildersleeve recalled one of the last times Yeager had visited the logging camp, which was when it had been floated to the Behm Canal area, north of Ketchikan. Gildersleeve said Yeager was impressed that the workers came and went via floatplane.

In 2010, Yeager fished in Alaska with Clay Lacy, National Aviation Hall of Fame inductee, aviator Cliff Robertson, and others. They flew to the state in a Citation V. He fished near Craig, and also near Yakutat that year, at the mouth of the Tsiu River.

Fishing in Alaska, landing by helicopter.
One last tour of Alaska in 2018.

Other little-known facts about Chuck Yeager:

  • He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces as a private in Sept. 1941 because flight training required a college education, and he had but a high school diploma.
  • World War II created a need for more pilots. In spite of his 20/10 vision, Yeager was accepted for flight training.
  • During his first combat mission, he named his P-51 fighter-bomber “Glamorous Glennis” after his girlfriend Glennis Dickhouse. The two married after the war.
  • He was shot down over France in March, 1944, on his 8th mission. His rescuers were French resistance members, and he stayed with them for two months and built bombs with them, using the techniques he had learned from his own father.
  • Yeager was awarded a Bronze Star for rescuing another downed airman, who was severely injured. He carried the man over the Pyrenees Mountains from France to Spain, and then got him into the care of the British at Gibraltar.
  • When he was 89 years old, he few in the backseat of a F-15, breaking the sound barrier. It was 65 years to the day after he had been the first in history to do so.
  • Possibly his last trip to Alaska was in 2018, at age 95. That year he also attended a West Virginia Air National Guard Air Show at Yeager Airport to celebrate the 71st anniversary of his breaking the sound barrier.

If you have a memory of Chuck Yeager in Alaska, please add it in the comments below.

Dunleavy: Vaccines on the way to Alaska, no mandates

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Dunleavy: Vaccines on the way to Alaska, no mandates

By SCOTT LEVESQUE

Appearing on the Must Read Alaska Show podcast, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said that Alaska would receive close to 100,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine within the next two weeks.

Dunleavy detailed the state’s initial vaccine allocation, including:

  • 35,100 doses from Pfizer-BioNTech
  • 17,900 doses from Moderna
  • 20,000+ doses for U.S. military personnel
  • 30,000 doses for U.S. military dependents

The state’s distribution process will not include military service members; those will be handled through the military branches, but their allocation was included in the state’s overall vaccine dose count. 

Additionally, Gov. Dunleavy outlined the first-phase distribution priority list, which includes the following recipients in order of priority:

  • Hospital/Frontline Workers
  • Long-Term Care Residents and Staff
  • EMS/Fire Personnel
  • Community Health Practitioners
  • Personnel administering the vaccinations

The Alaska COVID-19 Task Force will begin the distribution process for Phase 1A recipients in December and January. With doses expected to arrive shortly, a state task force is working out a logistical process.

In Great Britain, the first COVID-19 vaccines are being administered today, approximately a year after the virus began circling the globe, killing more than 1.5 million people.

Doses of the vaccine will continue to trickle into Alaska until all vaccination requests have been fulfilled. Many of those vaccinations are expected to be administered by Native health organizations; Alaska Natives are experiencing a high mortality rate associated with the virus.

“Alaska will get a tremendous number of doses of this vaccine, and we will continue to get doses until the folks that wish to be vaccinated will be vaccinated,” Dunleavy said.

The governor shared his thoughts on state-mandated vaccinations:

“There will be no mandate to get a vaccination. I don’t believe in mandated vaccinations. Ever since I was a senator, and before that, when I was a school official, I don’t believe that people should be forced to get a vaccination, those vaccinations will be available for those who want them. So, rest assured – people of Alaska – there will be no mandating vaccinations from my administration or this government.”

For many Alaskans, the state’s economic fragility is of grave concern as 2020 comes to a close. And as daily COVID cases continue to rise, the prospect of an effective vaccine is a glimmer of hope.

Dunleavy understands the importance of a vaccine and the effect it will have on next year’s tourism season, and other aspects of an economic rebound in Alaska:

“The efficiency of these vaccinations is surprisingly pretty good — 90%. This [vaccine] is going to help us put the worst of this behind us. Because again, what we are planning for at this time is how we are going to get our economy up in time, especially tourism in the spring and summer.”

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