A Valley home builder has filed to run for House District 7, Wasilla, making it a two-way Republican primary.
Earlier this year, Chris Kurka filed for that seat.
Born and raised in the Mat-Su Valley, Robert Yundt II is a third- generation carpenter whose family history in the valley runs back to the early 1940s. He and his brother built their first home at age 20 and he started his own home construction business by the time he was 24. He has built close to 100 projects around the valley, ranging from single-family homes to 32-unit apartments.
Kurka is the former executive director of Alaska Right to Life and is also a third-generation Alaskan who has been politically active.
Both are seeing to replace Rep. Colleen Sullivan-Leonard, who is not running for reelection.
A third entrant could make this race even more interesting. Former House Rep. Lynn Gattis filed earlier this month to run for office, but didn’t indicate if she’ll run for House District 7 or for Senate Seat D, which was won by Sen. David Wilson four years ago.
Pew Research went to Twitter with one of its latest explainer charts, showing that, according to the headline, Republican states are just not reducing their COVID deaths as fast as Democrat-controlled states.
The chart, as it turns out, is one of several in a Pew story about how Democrat states are experiencing the most COVID-19 cases and deaths — but that’s not what their headline says on the graph the group featured on Twitter.
Without the context of the story, viewers might not pause long enough to see that the reasons that the deaths are not dropping as fast in Republican-controlled states is because those states have not had as serious a problem with the coronavirus as their Democrat counterparts.
Here’s how MRAK’s resident statistician explained how Pew came up with its conclusion — by ignoring the early data when the cases were rising in Democrat-controlled states and only focusing on deaths since April 25:
The University of Alaska Board of Regents Audit Committee report has revealed a larger-than-anticipated budget gap, and a short time frame during which to solve it, forcing some tough decisions dead ahead.
The Regents will consider solutions at their next meeting, June 4-5, including merging University of Alaska Southeast into either University of Alaska Anchorage or University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The university system as a whole is projecting a shortfall of $14-$40 million by fiscal year 2022, even after using $25 million in one-time funds.
The move comes at a time when the chancellor of the UAS campus, Dr. Richard Caulfield, is retiring after just five years, and the school is recruiting a successor.
The university system is suffering from declining enrollment, and predicts that the student body will drop dramatically in the next couple of years, along with tuition and fees:
Some of the options and the context for the decisions the regents face were posted in these documents last week:
UAS was established in 1987 with the restructuring and consolidation of the former University of Alaska Juneau, Ketchikan Community College, and Islands Community College.
Ketchikan (KINY) – The Democratic primary for U.S. Senate has a new face in the race and the candidate, Christopher Cumings, hails from Southeast.
Cumings, who works for a non-profit organization in Ketchikan, has filed as an Independent to run against Dr. Al Gross, a registered nonpartisan who has the Alaska Democratic Party endorsement, and Independent David Matheny in the primary election.
“I feel like Congress is missing that kind of ‘normal person’ perspective,” Cumings said. “I’ve fallen down to rock bottom and pulled myself back up and I think Congress needs those kinds of like resilient, resourceful, and tough people. I guess I’m running to kind of stand up for us poor people.”
Cumings, who describes himself as a progressive, spoke to what he sees as the difference between his candidacy and that of Gross.
“I think we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum,” Cumings said. “He’s pretty moderate, he’s older and well-off and he’s lived out a pretty privileged life. I’m really progressive. I’m young and I think outside the box. I’ve struggled and I pulled myself up and I think that gives me a different perspective and some wisdom on the problems that regular people face.”
Cumings also ran as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. He came in fourth out of four candidates with 8.1 percent of the votes cast.
On May 14, I filed suit against the commissioner of the Department of Revenue. The state was preparing to release in excess of one $1 billion of federal emergency funding on the basis of recommendations made by a single legislative committee.
The funds had never been appropriated by the full Legislature, as required by the constitution.
This action was so clearly unconstitutional that several members of the Legislature warned against it, as did the legislative legal office. The Legislature was in session but had been in prolonged recess, and it was apparent that they were prepared to let the responsibility for spending the funds go to the committee and the governor, abdicating their constitutional duty.
This threatened action had, and now has, potential for long-term harm. Our constitution is the basis for a stable society, with everybody operating under the same rules.
If leadership willfully creates structures that are plainly unconstitutional, then different populations in the state are living under different rules. There is a word for this, if it escalates: it is tribalism.
There are ghastly shadows here, like Rwanda. State leadership consciously solving political problems by creating unconstitutional structures is a dereliction of duty, a violation of their oath of office to support and defend the constitution, and constitutes treasonous behavior.
In some fields of endeavor, notably politics and law, things are not always what they seem. So when I filed the suit against the impending actions of state leadership, what was it? Was it an attack? Was it an attempt, as virtually every newspaper headline said, to prevent the federal funds from being distributed to the people? Was it somehow trivial and or self-serving, as claimed by members of the Legislature?
No. What it was, in fact, was a gift — the gift of a political tool to the leadership of the Legislature. Using the threat of the suit, they were able to summon the will to convene the legislature after a 50-day recess, something that had not been possible in the crisis atmosphere.
Given this very real crisis, you would think that the members of the Legislature and the administration could gather the courage, the intellectual capacity, and the political will to dispense the funds in a constitutionally appropriate manner. It is in their and the state’s interest to have a long term defensible and constitutionally conforming track record.
As far as the use of the suit as a political tool was concerned, it almost worked. But, sadly, pathetically, they just couldn’t relinquish their decades-long habits of ideological battle and their refusal to cooperate with each other for the sake of Alaskans. What crisis? Better to complain about having to do the job they wanted to get elected to do and stage a charade session with no content.
Both houses passed unconstitutional law to underpin the release of the emergency money. The legislation is unconstitutional because it is not an appropriation bill as clearly laid out in the constitution. Instead, the legislature did something they called “ratifying” the existing committee work. But “ratification” is not found in the constitution. Ratification has no legal or constitutional definition, was invented on the spur of the moment, and does not contain any of the protections that an appropriation process provides.
Not all the leaves have fallen from this tree, and we’re into a long game now.
The threat of unconstitutional solutions to political problems will escalate. Will the governor be able to do whatever he wants, claim “need” and “extreme time pressure,” and get it “ratified” by a compliant Legislature after the fact?
Alaskans should not tolerate this. Instead of bringing out the desperately needed better angels of political leadership, the world health and financial crisis will become a partisan tool, the public welfare be damned.
For this reason I will proceed with the lawsuit in the expectation that the courts will make it clear that the legislature cannot shirk their duty under the constitution.
I make prayers to the Raven that we will be able to stop the use of unconstitutional political chicanery and the consequent dangerous slide into tribalism.
CBS This Morning has an incredible report on the predicted spike of COVID-19 cases around the country.
Incredible, in that the news show said that Alaska has seen a spike of 111 percent in cases of the coronavirus since the state reopened for most business.
In fact, there were 35 active cases of the coronavirus in Alaska on May 12, while there are 39 active cases today, May 26. On May 12, there were 345 cases recovered, while on May 26, there were 362 cases recovered. And no new deaths were reported due to COVID-19 in the past 21 days; the total death count is still 10, with some of those deaths considered only marginally questionably related to COVID-19.
Phase 3-4 of reopening began Friday, with Anchorage not reopened until Monday. But the mainstream news organization was twisting the math to fit the narrative.
405 cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed in Alaska since early March, but the numbers have not been on the increase. If anything, there’s been a measurable drop in new cases over the past few weeks, since the spike in mid-March:
That’s not to say there won’t be another spike, now that out-of-state workers are arriving for the fishing season. But it just hasn’t happened yet.
The State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services is aware of the CBS report and Alaskans’ outcry, and are reaching out to the national newsroom to attempt to correct the record.
Former House Representative Bob Lynn died on Memorial Day, May 25, 2020. He was 87.
Lynn served as an Alaska legislator from 2003 until 2016, when he lost the primary for what is now District 26, Anchorage hillside, to the late Chris Birch.
In 2019, Lynn had packed up his life in Alaska and, with the help of his grandson Danny Aab, drove 4,000 miles to Ranch Cucamonga, California, to be closer to his family as he aged. He had been in the hospital in recent weeks as his health failed.
Lynn was born in East Los Angeles in 1933. In his long and interesting life, he served the U.S. Air Force, where he was an F94C fighter pilot. He served in Vietnam as a radar controller at Monkey Mountain and in Air Defense Operations (including Kotzebue), was an inspector general, and had been awarded 17 awards and decorations, including the Bronze Star and Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. He was a school teacher, a police officer, ambulance driver, and Realtor at different times in his civilian life, but he was always a Vietnam Veteran, and an advocate for veterans.
Lynn earned his bachelor of arts from University of Arizona, and a masters degree from California State University, Long Beach. He served as mayor pro-tem and city councilman of the City of Moreno Valley, Riverside County, California, where he was instrumental in the founding of that city in 1984.
He was married to his wife Marlene Wagner Lynn, whom he had met on a blind date, until her passing in 2016; the couple had six children and by this point more than 21 grandchildren. The family was close and Bob Lynn was the beloved patriarch. His family spent much time with him in recent months.
Lynn was an a prolific blogger, and kept an online journal during his service in the Legislature and afterwards, often writing about history with his interesting historic vignettes. He was also a gifted photographer, and posted many of his photos on Facebook over the years, where he kept in touch with friends and former colleagues. He was still writing notes and posting photos from his life on Facebook in April, and filling in the gaps of history about his experiences on his journey through life. His Facebook page is a treasure of historic notes that include many memories of Vietnam, as well as his time in the Legislature:
“I was the chair of the Alaska Legislature’s State Affairs Committee for several years,” he wrote last year. “We heard many highly controversial issues. But nothing was more controversial that the subjects of Daylight Savings Time and Traffic Circles. I must confess, when those two subjects came before my Committee, I had the urge to flee the scene. Attempting to change anyone’s opinions on Daylight Savings Time and traffic circles will always be more difficult than trying to change someone’s religion. I predict those two subjects will haunt the State Affairs Committee ad infinitum. I miss chairing the Committee, but I don’t miss that.”
In the House of Representatives, Lynn was a member of the Republican caucus, serving on numerous committees:
Chair, State Afffairs Committee: 2007 – 2008 Chair, Military and Veterans’ Affairs Committee: 2005 – 2006 Member, Armed Services Committee: 2003 – 2008 Member, Economic Development, International Trade and Tourism Committee: 2005 – 2008 Member, Education Committee: 2005 – 2006 Member, Judiciary Committe: 2007 – 2008 Member, Labor and Commerce Committee: 2003 – 2006 Member, Military and Veterans’ Affairs Committee: 2003 – 2004 Member, Resources Committee: 2003 – 2004 Member, State Affairs Committee: 2003 – 2006 Member, Majority Caucus 2003 – 2006
Do you have a fond memory of Rep. Lynn? You are invited to leave it in the comments.
QUICK WORK BY CITIZENS AFTER OFFICIAL CEREMONY CANCELED
As many as 200 Alaskans gathered around the flagpole at the Delaney Park Strip on Monday to take part in a hastily organized Memorial Day observance, after the annual Municipality of Anchorage event was unceremoniously canceled late last week by Mayor Ethan Berkowitz.
Bernadette Wilson, a local business owner and activist, was the force of nature that brought all the elements together. The diminutive, lifelong Alaskan, niece of Gov. Walter J. Hickel, told attendees that they could expect a bobble or two in the proceedings, and that the big-name politicians were not in attendance. Today, it was just the people saying thank you to their heroes and telling living veterans that they, too, will never be forgotten, pandemic or no pandemic.
“This is not a state event. This is not a municipal event. … To be honest with you, I kind of thought they might show up today and attempt to tell us we couldn’t be here,” Wilson said.
“This is a ‘We the People’ event,” Wilson said, speaking into a low-powered sound system, without a stage or large speakers to amplify her message.
Talk show radio host Eddie Burke came up with the idea last Thursday to have an alternative “People’s Memorial Day” event, but it was really Wilson who took the idea and ran with it on Saturday and Sunday.
“This event was planned 48 hours ago by a few patriots who felt a great responsibility to keep our promise to never forget,” said Wilson, who has never missed a Memorial Day visit to her grandfather’s gravesite at Fort Richardson — until this year, when JBER canceled the public participation.
“We are missing some the things we have all come to know and love and associate with Memorial Day,” she said.
There would be no 21-gun salute. No military jet flyover. No presentation of colors.
“I cannot even tell you I have all the protocols down 100 percent,” Wilson said. “But what I can tell you, and I really and truly believe, is that hundreds of thousands of solders are smiling down on us from heaven above, stretching from Arlington to Fort Richardson National Cemetery. So while there may be a couple of hundred of us here, every single one of those souls is with us right now. Whether it’s your grandfather, your dad, your sister or your best friend, they are very much with us today.”
Wilson said that at some point in each person’s life they have the call to duty to defend the nation’s freedoms. “Today, as those freedoms hang so delicately in the balance, you answered the call and fulfilled your promise to never forget. This Memorial Day — especially — will be a day we never forget.
Wilson said that she had no grand dignitaries to introduce, and the crowd warmly received that news with applause.
“The mayor will not be joining us,” she said, and then had to stop for a moment to wait for the applause to die down.
“We can find certain excitement in the reminder that indeed it is not government that has solved our problems, it is everyday average Americans that became heroes,” she continued.
“So despite what the municipality of Anchorage has not sponsored, today ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ we remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” Wilson said.
“We’re bringing a message loud and clear to our veterans: We will never ever — with or without government — in the good times or in the times we have the virus, we will never ever forget you.” – Bernadette Wilson
Vocalist John Teamer sang the National Anthem and the Alaska Flag Song, as well as the official songs of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, and Lt. Gen. Craig Campbell, Air National Guard, Alaska National Guard (ret.), gave appropriate, not lengthy keynote remarks. A bugler played “Taps.”
Then several wreaths were solemnly presented for fallen members of each of the branches of service. The wreaths, too, were quickly assembled over the weekend by a volunteer.
Among those attending were former Lt. Gov. Loren (and Carolyn) Leman, Attorney General Kevin Clarkson, and former Mayor Dan Sullivan, but none had speaking roles.
Legislators in attendance included Reps. Chris Tuck, Lance Pruitt, Gabrielle Ledoux, Laddie Shaw, Mel Gillis, Sharon Jackson, and Sen. Josh Revak and Bill Wielechowski. Only one Anchorage Assembly member attended: Jamie Allard of Eagle River. They, too, did not have speaking roles at the “People’s Memorial Day” observance.
Want more? Watch Must Read Alaska’s drone video coverage of the event here:
The Alaska Veterans Memorial is located within Denali State Park at Mile 147.1 between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
It is the destination each Memorial Day for veterans, many of whom ride their motorcycles together to pay tribute to fallen heroes of war. Here are some photos from the year’s ride, thanks to Rep. Laddie Shaw, Navy Seal (ret.).
An outdoor memorial grove in Denali State Park in Interior Alaska, it honors Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Alaska National Guard, and Merchant Marine veterans from Alaska, as well as Alaskans who were awarded the Medal of Honor.
Relive the event at our slide show:
Those who are in Southcentral Alaska who wish to participate in a Memorial Day ceremony can find one led by citizens planning to lay wreaths at the Veterans Memorial on the Delaney Park Strip in downtown Anchorage (along 9th Street). The impromptu ceremony, organized over the weekend, will begin at 10 am, and is not sanctioned by the Mayor’s Office, which has canceled the traditional ceremony.
