This year’s General Election has more fake nonpartisans running than at any time in Alaska history.
Stealth partisans running for the Legislature this year are emerging out of ostensibly nonpartisan elected seats in local government, but they’re anything but nonpartisan.
In Fairbanks, fake nonpartisan Marna Sanford skipped the Primary and put herself on the ballot as a petition candidate for the General Election. Sanford is part of the far-left wing of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, and before that served on the Planning Commission.
Her campaign contributions come from Democrats like Rep. Grier Hopkins, Sen. Scott Kawasaki, former Sens. Suzanne Little and David Guttenberg, as well as a host of others who align with the Democrats, even if they have an “N” or “U” by their name. Even Jason Grenn, a former representative who ran as a no-party candidate but caucused with Democrats, has chipped in cash. A list of some of her contributors can be found here.
How can voters tell Sanford will caucus with the Democrats? She signed the recall petition against Gov. Mike Dunleavy. This means if she wins Senate Seat B, she’ll be a vote against the conservative agenda.
Sanford is running against trucker Rob Myers, a Republican who came out of the citizenry, not an elected seat, to defeat Sen. John Coghill in the August Primary Election.
Sanford, a savvy candidate, represents the current trend among Democrats to disavow their party to be acceptable to centrist voters, as the Democratic Party gets further and further Left.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is one of those fake independents, and both Al Gross, running for U.S. Senate, and Alyce Galvin, running for U.S. House, are trying the same trick on Alaskans.
On the Kenai Peninsula, a local officeholder is also making a play for higher office by running as a no-party candidate against a Republican incumbent. Kelly Cooper is trying to unseat Rep. Sarah Vance for the Homer-Anchor Point seat, District 31.
Cooper currently serves on the Kenai Borough, a nonpartisan office. She, too, skipped the Primary and is on the General Election ballot as a petition candidate.
She is supported by Democrats Hal Spence (former writer at the Anchorage Daily News), the National Education Association political account, IBEW political action account, Democrat Rep. Matt Claman, the Alaska Center for the Environment, and she received a nice fat check from former Rep. Paul Seaton. A partial list of her donors is at this link.
Cooper has been a thorn in the side of Republican Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, and as the Assembly president and the leading advocate for the all-mail-in election, which is turning out to be a big avenue for expected voter fraud. She closed the Assembly Chambers and won’t reopen meetings to the public until the Chambers are remodeled with CARES Act funds. She was a supporter of Seaton, who also ran as a nonpartisan on the Democrat ticket during the last election — and lost.
Lately, she has refused to recuse two Assembly members with direct conflicts of interest regarding budgetary votes. In 2019, she spoke at the Homer Women’s March, and praised U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Alaskans on the Peninsula report getting phone calls supporting Alyse Galvin, Al Gross, and Kelly Cooper — all fake independents.
Also running as a fake nonpartisan who rose from the ranks of local politics is Anchorage Assembly member Suzanne LaFrance. Her Assembly aide, Adam Lees, had run in the Primary Election for District 28. Lees was a placeholder. Immediately after the election, he dropped out and LaFrance was put in his place to square off against James Kaufman.
LaFrance is another candidate who signed the Recall Dunleavy petition last year, and her donor base is peppered with Leftist luminaries, such as Assembly members Chris Constant, Meg Zalatel, Austin Quinn-Davidson, and Forrest Dunbar, former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, former Alaska Democratic Party Chair Kay Brown, former Democrat Sen. Johnny Ellis, and Rep. Ivy Spohnholz.
These fake independents would join Ketchikan’s original fake, Rep. Daniel Ortiz, who has always voted with Democrats from Day One.
Voters will be deciding between authentic and fake on Nov. 3. If Sanford, Cooper, and LaFrance go to Juneau to join hard Left Reps. Ivy Spohnholz, Harriet Drummond, and Geran Tarr, Alaskans will be in for quite a ride.
Next month we face the most significant election in my lifetime, and I’m old. After a summer filled with violent riots, this election season may end with more violence and destruction of property and lives in the name of “social justice” and “fair elections.”
Burning down America will not bring social justice or create a better society. Only the looney on the Left think that further dividing our people is good for America, but that is a real possibility based on the track record of this past summer.
Contrast that with how Anchorage responded to the “Summer of Love.” Anchorage did not erupt in violence. We did not burn down businesses, loot stores, murder people in the streets, or spew hatred against those who we had political disagreements. Peaceful demonstrations were held, some with heated exchanges, but they remained peaceful.
That method of protest is specifically spelled out in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which “prohibits the United States Congress from enacting legislation that would abridge the right of the people to assemble peacefully(my emphasis)” as the means to redress grievances against the government.
Anchorage, thus far, has demonstrated the political maturity to debate, demonstrate, and argue our differences without resorting to the power struggle of violence. Congratulations, well done.
Our test is yet to come. Will we continue to be the shining example of peaceful protests, or will we become just another American city destroyed by division led by a national movement to replace Democracy with Marxism. I kid you not. Anarchists are already mobilizing with the intent to violently disrupt our national security after the election and to ignite a revolution.
As I am writing this, Louisville, and many other cities have once again erupted in violence. This time over the grand jury indictment of a former police officer in the death of Breanna Taylor, all because the indictment did not meet the mobs thirst for vengeance.
Will Anchorage do the same? If we do, we will have been drawn into the abyss of militant violence not based on the rule of law, but rather based on mob hysteria fueled by radical anarchists.
Two upcoming events will further test our resolve. President Trump is expected to nominate a Supreme Court judge this weekend to replace Justice Ginsberg. How will we respond?
The tension leading into the November election is at a fanatical frenzy. No matter whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump is elected our next president, projections are there will be violence across America. How will we react?
Not since the American Civil War have tensions been so extreme. The difference is, the Civil War had clear geographical boundaries and political objectives that could be recognized, if not accepted by all.
The Confederacy (south) was comprised of states that believed in a confederation form of government and supported slavery as an economic tool for prosperity. In no way am I inferring this was good or right, it’s just an historic fact.
The Union (north) was also aligned by specific states, but supported a federal system of government, generally opposed to slavery. The objectives of both sides were clear.
That is not the case in 2020.
Yesterday I drove by the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts (ACPA) in Anchorage. I saw the banners “Black Lives Matter In AK” hanging from the front of the building. Before you jump to an incorrect conclusion, I was not offended. Black Lives Matter was established as a social movement advocating for non-violent protests against police brutality against black people, it represented an honorable cause.
Then came the Ferguson and Baltimore riots, and BLM was hijacked by Marxists aligned with Antifa. BLM now embraces a diversity of tactics, including violence, to achieve its goals.
Hawk Newsome, head of Black Lives Matter for Greater New York has said that if BLM is not given what they want, they will “burn down” the system. This is funded by the likes of uber-liberal billionaire George Soros “Open Society Foundations,” which has donated over $33 Million to BLM. Don’t believe me? Do your research. It’s a fact.
Today, violent rioters across America are determined to eliminate our basic rights, fueled by Radicals who do not believe in individual accomplishment or the rule of law, but rather want to obliterate the greatest form of government ever created and ultimately impose a despotic autocracy where the enlightened elite determine what is “equitable and fair.”
Look no further than the rioting we see in Democrat-controlled cities, driven by anarchists determined to dismantle our institutions and replace our great democratic republic with their own autocracy. It’s all about POWER!
Revolutions are always about power. Today’s BLM/Antifa movement is straight out of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution playbook. They have the same objective, overthrow the establishment and create a power structure with them in control. Crush individualism in favor of collectivism. They win…You lose!
The pendulum swings back and forth. Every four years we get an opportunity to move that pendulum. Will we accept the outcome of the election, or become another Democratic lead city that doesn’t have the moral courage or leadership backbone to stand up against violent rioting if the political process doesn’t go their way.
Will Anchorage follow the sheep over the cliff, or will we stand tall against tyranny and the violence inflicted in order to gain control? Will Anchorage remain a community that respects opposing viewpoints and understands that politics is never perfect, but is the foundation of America and that our government structure is the best one ever created by people? Now the test.
First test: How will we respond to the Louisville indictment.
Second test: How will we respond to President Trump’s Supreme Court nomination?
Final test: How will we respond to the results of the November election?
Anchorage is a terrific community and we have always strived for social justice. We are good people. Not perfect, but working to improve how we treat each other. Cross your fingers that this unifying culture of our community will prevent anarchists from ruining a great American city.
Do your part: Vote and do not be hoodwinked into accepting anarchy as the alternative to justice and democracy.
Craig E. Campbell served on the Anchorage Assembly between 1986 and 1995 and later as Alaska’s Tenth Lieutenant Governor. He was the previous Chief Executive Officer and President for Alaska Aerospace Corporation. He retired from the Alaska National Guard as Lieutenant General (AKNG) and holds the concurrent retired Federal rank of Major General (USAF).
According to the Alaska Zoo, their 16-year-old alpaca was attacked by a wild brown bear, which had broken into the zoo at night. Biologists had been keeping an eye on the bear in the neighborhood, but it snuck into the zoo at night and mauled the alpaca. Officials euthanized both animals.
Although Caesar, the alpaca, is no more, the zoo’s remaining alpaca Fuzzy Charlie was able to escape the enclosure and was later located by staff inside the zoo grounds.
“Prior to the break in at the zoo, wildlife officials with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game had already determined that the bear posed a significant risk to public safety and were attempting to find the bear to remove it,” the zoo wrote in its blog.
“The bear’s entry point was discovered and has been reinforced. The bear was known to biologists for other activity in the surrounding neighborhoods. The zoo will continue to monitor perimeter fences, a long-standing policy for zoo safety.”
“We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss of both a wild bear and Caesar the alpaca. We care deeply about all animals and feel saddened by the deaths on both sides of the situation. We take this as a reminder that our city of Anchorage is indeed bear country. Wild bears are still active, gathering food and resources before their winter’s sleep. We ask the public to stay vigilant with bear safety protocols in neighborhoods by securing trash and other attractants.” said Patrick Lampi Director the Alaska Zoo.
Fairbanks teen Quannah Chasinghorse is the subject of a new article in Teen Vogue, which highlights her work to save the Arctic.
She is the daughter of Jody Potts, who is the regional director for Native Movement, and who was recently the subject of an Anchorage Daily News story about former Lt. Gov. Byron Mallot’s fall from grace.
Potts told the ADN she decided to tell her story, in spite of her nondisclosure cash settlement with the Mallott family, to protect her daughter’s reputation.
“Did someone lose their dog?” Quannah Chasinghorse jokes, pointing at a large moose in her neighbor’s snow-covered yard. At -40 degrees Fahrenheit, it is a typical winter’s day in Fairbanks, Alaska. Quannah, an 18-year-old Han Gwich’in and Oglala Lakota youth, is curled up on the couch, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Protect the Arctic, Defend the Sacred.”
“It is a rare moment of rest for Quannah. In the past year she has traveled coast to coast, advocating to protect her homelands from the desecration of oil drilling, with her mother, Jody Potts, who is Han Gwich’in and a tribal member of the Native Village of Eagle. Her mother also serves as the regional director for Native Movement and is a board member with the Alaska Wilderness League. This mother-daughter duo represents the decades-long fight to protect their state’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
“Defend the Sacred” is the same group that is associated with protesterswho shoved a raw, bloody caribou heart at Sen. Dan Sullivan and his wife Julie Sullivan during a meet-and-greet campaign event in Anchorage.
“The refuge is hailed for its immense ecosystem of nearly 20 million protected acres, with sweeping tundra, glacial-fed rivers, and mountain ranges providing a sanctuary for wildlife, especially the 200,000-strong porcupine caribou herd, as of 2018. Before the region was deemed a wilderness refuge by the federal government, in 1960, it was known by the Gwich’in as “Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit,” meaning “the sacred place where life begins.”
Later in the story, the full anti-oil message is delivered in no uncertain terms:
“As we near the river at nightfall, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline snakes alongside us — a stark reminder of the fossil fuel industry’s threatening presence on the land.”
And then comes the pitch for the anti-job candidates:
“The cataclysmic shifts caused by the climate crisis and pandemic can create opportunity for change that is parallel in magnitude. To paraphrase writer Terry Tempest Williams’s book, Erosion, our undoing may be our becoming. The power of the youth vote is reason to hope. In the upcoming election, 1 in 10 voters will be Gen Z. The Brookings Institution reported that Gen Z and millenials “now comprise a greater share of the eligible voting population than has ever been the case. It’s about the same share of eligible voters as baby boomers and their elders — generations that voted for Trump in 2016 and for Republican candidates against President Obama.” It has been reported that by 2030 “millennials and their juniors will make up more than half [of] not just the population, but of all eligible voters.”
In a somewhat humorous video posted on Instagram, former Gov. Sarah Palin called out Sen. Lisa Murkowski, saying Palin “can see 2022” from her house.
The video, which appears to be purposefully home produced, shows Palin showing off her house and talking about how much she likes it, as she sports leather work gloves on a blustery fall day.
But then she says “But I’m willing to give it up, for the greater good of this country and this great state.”
“If you can’t find it within yourself to do the right thing this time, and at least give a fair shake to the Supreme Court nominee that your president will be bringing before you … and do what the majority of Americans want you to do, what you were sent to Washington, D.C. to do…”
She called out Murkowski for having said she would not vote for a nominee until after the election, giving the appearance that she hoped for a new president.
Palin was not impressed.
“And that’s why it’s so important. You’re thinking you’re going to go rogue … This isn’t the time, this isn’t the place,” said Palin, who authored the book titled “Going Rogue.”
Palin was the vice presidential nominee for the late Sen. John McCain, and was governor of Alaska from 2006 to mid-2009.
Murkowski comes up for re-election in 2022.
Here’s the Instagram “broad hint” video, placed on our YouTube channel for fair use news purposes:
Whatever political clout that Pebble Mine CEO Tom Collier thought he had, had fast evaporated after leaked recordings from a covert environmental group hit the news this week. It has cost him his job.
Collier has resigned from the Pebble Partnership “in light of comments made about elected and regulatory officials in Alaska in private conversations covertly videotaped by an environmental activist group,” the company wrote in a press release.
Northern Dynasty named former Pebble Partnership CEO John Shively, a well-known and respected Alaska business and political leader who most recently served as Chairman of the Pebble Partnership’s general partner, Pebble Mines Corp., as interim CEO pending a leadership search.
Northern Dynasty in a statement said “Collier’s comments embellished both his and the Pebble Partnership’s relationships with elected officials and federal representatives in Alaska, including Governor Dunleavy, Senators Murkowski and Sullivan and senior representatives of the US Army Corps of Engineers (“USACE”). The comments were clearly offensive to these and other political, business and community leaders in the state and for this, Northern Dynasty unreservedly apologizes to all Alaskans.”
Conversations with Collier and others with Northern Dynasty President & CEO Ron Thiessen, were secretly videotaped by two unknown individuals posing as representatives of a Hong Kong-based investment firm with links to a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise (SOE). A Washington DC-based environmental group, the Environmental Investigation Agency, released the tapes online Monday after obscuring the voices and identities of the individuals posing as investors.
“The unethical manner in which these tapes were acquired does not excuse the comments that were made, or the crass way they were expressed,” said Thiessen, Northern Dynasty President & CEO. “On behalf of the Company and our employees, I offer my unreserved apology to all those who were hurt or offended, and all Alaskans.”
Alaskans are used to Sen. Lisa Murkowski waffling, but this week, she waffled to the correct position: She said she would wait to see who the president nominates for the Supreme Court. She’ll hold off judgment.
Trump is expected to make that nomination on Saturday afternoon.
Murkowski, who often mixes it up with President Donald Trump, had stated earlier this summer that the next president should be the one to appoint a new Supreme Court justice in the event that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Murkowski reiterated that position last week after the 87-year-old finally succumbed to her courageous battle with pancreatic cancer.
Murkowski said she would not vote on a Trump nomination. The new president should pick the replacement for Ginsburg.
Alaska Republicans were livid. As far at least 52 percent of them are concerned, Trump is going to be the next president.
Then, after it became evident the president would not back down from his constitutional duties, Murkowski flipped — she now says she’ll wait to see who Trump nominates.
It was a rare retreat for Murkowski, who many Alaska conservatives think has her finger in the wind too often, to see which way she will blow. She has often seemed far too comforting to the Democrats she serves with than her fellow Republicans.
Last time a nominee was offered by Trump, she went with the darlings of the Left. More than 100 women from Alaska went to Washington, D.C., and she met with many of them in her office while they pleaded and beseeched her to oppose Brett Kavanaugh. A letter from 350 women attorneys in Alaska arrived at her office in opposition to Kavanaugh.
“Believe all women,” was the mantra. And she meekly went along. The pressure was too great. But in the end, she didn’t vote at all. She simply was marked as a convenient “present.”
Political maturity is hard to measure and happens over a matter of years for all of us. For Murkowski, perhaps we are seeing a measure of political maturity that germinated from her experience with the Kavanaugh confirmation process, when she was photographed with Sen. Dianne Feinstein lording over her, looking like a junior high school thug trying to steal Murkowski’s math homework.
This Murkowski seems more politically savvy than the one who has held the president in political disdain for the past four years.
Today, she has come to realize that the confirmation vote will go on with or without her, and for her to be marked “present” again would be political suicide. This time, she has to pick a team.
People outside of Alaska often don’t understand why a bright red state would reelect Murkowski, but they forget some important points.
The first is that Alaska was a Democrat stronghold before the pipeline started revving up the economy in the 1970s. With jobs came workers who pay taxes and pay attention to politics. But many of those jobs are leaving the state under the current global economic shift, and they’ve been replaced by Obamacare expansion jobs in healthcare. Those jobs, funded by government, brought in thousands of Democrat voters to the state.
There are, in fact, a lot of liberals who call Alaska home, and many of them either have government jobs or get government checks for various reasons. The state is more blue than people realize. Without the Mat-Su Valley, a huge Republican stronghold, Alaska would be a Democrat-leaning state.
Second, Republicans in Alaska voted in 2010 for Joe Miller over Murkowski in the Republican primary, but she appealed to the non-aligned voters when she pulled of the most successful write-in campaign in U.S. history in the General Election, a feat that she accomplished in mere weeks.
She knows her base, and it only includes some of the Republicans. This has forced her to the Left to scoop up moderates and practical Democrats who want to avoid what they’d see as a worse choice.
Third, at least some Republicans in Alaska remember that Murkowski was one of the few who stood by the late Sen. Ted Stevens while he was being railroaded by the corrupt Department of Justice. Even Gov. Sarah Palin abandoned Stevens politically, as did many others in the public arena. Stevens had few friends who defended him. But Murkowski did, at her own peril. It was an act of courage and loyalty.
Some Alaskans will forgive her for a lot of her sins because she showed political courage during that witch-hunt.
Murkowski won’t have to face Alaska voters for two more years, but she has to start building back some of her support among less-forgiving Republicans if she wants to return to Washington, D.C. in 2023.
There’s a lot more work and influence ahead for her if she does return to serve, as she has since 2002, because she is now 20th in terms of seniority, and she may climb even a few steps after November’s election.
If the Senate flips blue, Alaska will be glad it has a senator who can work with the other side of the aisle.
Although her approval rating in Alaska is generally low — in the low 40s — Murkowski still has support here, and if she draws upon her constitutional training, she may be able to win back some of her harshest critics.
J. Bruce Ismay was the chair and managing director of White Star Line, owners of luxury passenger ships, including the Titanic.
As such, Ismay was the highest-ranking person from White Star Line on-board Titanic as she steamed across the North Atlantic into her destiny….and a rather large iceberg.
Bill Evans
Mindful of the woefully limited capacity of Titanic’s lifeboats and unconcerned about the chivalric code of “women and children first,” Ismay used his authority to secure a place for himself in one of Titanic’s too few lifeboats.
While many of his customers and passengers were consigned to the icy depths of the North Atlantic, Ismay ensured that he escaped the tragedy without even getting wet.
Taking a page from Ismay, the Municipality of Anchorage is taking steps to ensure that its budget remains unharmed by the fiscal tragedy wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic and government shutdowns, while many of its businesses and citizens founder.
Earlier this week, Anchorage’s Chief Fiscal Officer, Alex Slivka, reported that the Municipality plans to reroute federal Cares Act money to fill a $17 million shortfall anticipated in the Municipal Budget. That shortfall represents approximately 3 percent of the general government operating budget for the city. The shortfall is caused by a reduction in tax revenues from businesses that have been decimated by the pandemic and associated restrictions.
The method by which the Municipality plans on securing its fiscal lifeboat is by using $61 million of CARES Act funding to pay for “first responders.”
In other words, the Municipality will use the CARES funding to pay the normal costs of Anchorage’s Police and Fire Departments. This will, in turn, free up the general tax funds that would otherwise have been used to fund the police and fire.
In a scheme that would make Tony Soprano blush, the Municipality will essentially launder the federal money by simply using it to replace Muni funds, thereby washing the CARES Act money free from any pesky spending limitations.
Remarkably, federal funding — which the government does not even really have — and is simply an IOU from future generations — is to be used to ensure that the debilitating economic effects of the pandemic do not inconvenience Municipal government and its priorities.
While Anchorage residents and businesses are tightening their budgets and cutting their costs in an effort to simply survive the economic devastation stemming from the pandemic, they will surely be heartened to know that their Municipal government will be made whole.
Sitting safely and securely in its own federally funded fiscal lifeboat, the Municipality can look out upon the sea of businesses and citizens struggling to keep their head’s above water. J. Bruce Ismay would be proud.
Pebble Mine is a story of Alaskans and Native peoples being prohibited from using their natural resources. The mine is of tremendous significance to the Alaska people touched by it, but not in the ways that have been portrayed in media…incessantly.
Among the thousands of articles, press releases, documentary-style videos, and advertisements written and paid for by Outside environmental activist groups and wealthy donors, none mentions the people whose lands and lives will actually be affected by the mine.
While Alaskans love and care about their State, not all have had their voices heard. Many have been drowned out. Most of the general public outside these small remote communities are probably unaware that there even are other views about the mine, voices in support.
It’s time they were heard.
REALITY OF LIFE
The tiny rural native Alaskan villages of the Lake & Peninsula Borough, Newhalen, Nondalton, and Iliamna, and Bristol Bay regions are nearest the mine. The residents, whose families have lived there for generations, have had to learn and understand the mine. It’s literally about survival, preserving their way of life, and protecting their ancestral homelands.
Life there is hard, unimaginable for most Americans. Alaska’s Lake & Peninsula Borough and Bristol Bay regions are among the most impoverished areas of Alaska, with high levels of unemployment (nearly twice the State average), diminishingpopulation, and financially struggling schools.
Because these small rural communities are shut off from transportation systems and roads, everything must be brought in by barge or plane, from the fuel to their heat homes and generate electricity, to the basics of daily living.
The cost of living is high. People struggle with fuel costs double those of Anchorage, and electric rates nearly 18 cents per kW/h. The average residential electricity rate in Nondalton, for example, is 17.88 cents/kWh, more than 50 percent higher than the national average, and industrial electric rates are more than one and a half times the national average.
Former Village Tribal Chief Bill Trefon of Nandalton endeavored to explain to people outside their villages that traditional fishing, once passed down generation to generation, could no longer sustain them. Local fishing permits had dropped by half in just a single generation, he wrote.
Yet, there are no jobs or economic opportunities to make it possible for them to live and support themselves.
When permits for commercial fishing were limited in 1975, Alaska residents received 81.7 percent of the permits, with nonresidents getting 18.3 percent. By 2016, as permits were transferred and bought, local rural residents saw their permits drop by 30 percent. Some areas like Bristol Bay lost over 50 percent of their local permits. Meanwhile, nonresidents garnered 10 percent more permits. Permit ownerships also moved out of rural Alaskan areas to the cities, which grew 25 percent.
A quarter of all Alaska fishing permits are now held by nonresidents. The greatest percentage, nearly half, of all permit transfers were to people outside family units.
In Bristol Bay, half of all salmon permit holders live outside Alaska, taking jobs and revenue with them.
The big money is made by commercial fisherman and processors harvesting the salmon from Bristol Bay, but less than a third of it stays in Alaska and most of that flows into larger communities outside the Bay area.
Fishing jobs aren’t going to locals. Only a third of all fishing jobs in Bristol Bay are held by Alaska residents. Fishing processing has also moved out of state. According to University of Alaska-Anchorageresearch, 75 percent of the Bristol Bay salmon industry jobs and $300 million in processing income had been moved out of state by 2010. Jobs for fishing crews similarly moved out of state, and only one out of every eight Bristol Bay processing workers were even Alaskans.
Cost of a fishing permit has grown out of reach for most rural local people. A Bristol Bay drift salmon permit now goes for$180,000 or more. Increasingly, these high-priced permits end up with big money out-of-state fisheries and wealthy hobbyists who find commercial fishing a fun way to spend the summer, wrote Alaskan journalist, Craig Medred.
Fishing opportunities for small rural traditional fishing communities are limited, Medred said. Jobs are growing scarcer, and about 30% of the people in the communities impacted by the Bristol Bay fishery now live below the poverty line.
For the people in these remote rural areas nearest the Pebble mine project – far from the fisheries and abundance of the Brisol Bay watershed − life is very different from the commercial fishing industry of the Bay. It’s also different from the larger surrounding towns or cities hundreds of miles away. Fuel and food are painfully expensive, and stable employment scarce. Myrtle Anelon, who owned a bed and breakfast in Iliamna, told former environmental journalist, Edwin Dobb, writing for National Geographic in 2010, that the Pebble Partnership is the first outside economic business to take an interest in her community’s welfare.
“The others make money in our backyard,” she said (referring to seasonal residents who own lodges that cater to high-end sport fishers), “but they don’t hire locals, they don’t buy from us.”
“Outsiders want us to go back to the old ways,” Lisa Reimers, head of Iliamna Development Corporation, explained to Dobb. “Some mine opponents promote a self-serving, sentimental view that ignores what it actually takes to survive,” she said. Her family and their community living around Iliamna Lake do still practice subsistence fishing and they treasure the wild habitat. But they also have truck payments, mortgages, and medical bills to pay. They want to send their kids to college. They need cash and welcome mining jobs, she said.
According to the latest Distressed Communities Report from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, these remote rural villages suffer significantly greater hardships than many nearby communities and cities across Alaska. Half of the villages in the Lake & Peninsula Borough were rated as “distressed” in 2019. The average earnings for Newhalen, for example, are $20,941 a year, with only 39 percent of people having year round employment. The poverty rate in Iliamna is about 30 percent higher than the entire state of Alaska.
Sixty percent of Iliamna and 70 percent of Newhalen workers earn under $9.84/hour.
Not all Alaskan communities face the same hardships as those closest to the mining area. In the town of Dillingham, 131 miles to the north, with a population 23 times larger, the average earnings are nearly double those of Newhalen. The poverty rate is almost half and 23 percent more people have year round employment.
Igiugig, a small village on the south shores of the Kvichak River, 48 miles southwest of Iliamna, has the highest percentage of year round employment in the Lake & Peninsula Borough, with renowned trophy fishing lodges and big game and sport fishing guides that cater to celebrities.
Along with financial hardship come crippling problems with alcoholism, abuse and suicide. Suicide rates among Alaska Natives are nearly four times the national average.
“So many young people …feel they have little opportunities for themselves in our Village,” Reimers wrote on the Iliamna Facebook page. People opposing the mine “don’t have a clue that a project in an area of poverty can change peoples perspective on life, for the better. A project can give them hope to build a home and raise their families in their home. Instead we get people’s negative opinions on a project and who go along with the special interest groups to stop any opportunity for these young people, who may have good future of this project if it was given a chance. They don’t see the damage this is doing to our young people, who are trying to make a good life for their families,” she wrote.
“I am not going to give up on our young people. I am going to continue to believe that people will see the truth of the devastation stopping a project does to other humans… the damage it is doing to the people to stop them from prospering.”
One of the Corps meetings in 2018 for local input on the Pebble mine, as part of the EIS process, was held at Newhalen School. Those who went to the meeting posted an account on Facebook. The Corps listened to their input and specific environmental concerns.
The majority of the locals from Iliamna and Newhalen wanted economic opportunities and jobs so that they could stay in their communities and raise their families, they reported. Families said “they would like to see their kids work and not have to depend on the government for assistance.” Right now, they have to leave their families for work. Pebble would give them an opportunity to work at home and “allow them to be with their families.”
At another 2019 Corps meetings, held in Kokhanok, local and nearby Iliamna residents also mostly spoke in support of the mine proposal noting the few jobs and poor economy. One mother said she’d lived in Iliamna her entire life.
“This is my home, there is where I want to be. And I am able to live here because I have a job,” said Chasity Anelon who had gotten an operations job with the Pebble Project. While many are afraid, “I’m also willing to see the process work and if they can prove that it can be done safe, I feel like it’s important for people in our lake area to have jobs. There’s been so many people that have left our communities because there’s no opportunities here. And when somebody has a job and they’re able to come to work and they have pride, is shows. You can tell.”
At the meeting held in Newhalen that evening, the “overwhelming message was that community members were struggling to find jobs,” reportedAlaska Public media. “People there largely supported the mine.”
PEBBLE HAS BROUGHT OPPORTUNITIES
The local villages have forged good working relationships with Pebble. More than a hundred members of the communities, especially in the Lakes region and in Newhalen, had jobs working for Pebble during the exploration and study years, doing the field work as well as providing a wide range of support services, as a University of Alaska-Anchorage study documented. Pebble gave preference to local hiring and contractors were required to hire locally as much as possible, the study found. Apprentice and job training programs also enabled the locals to get the more advanced skilled and specialized jobs.
“Work earned on the Pebble Project continues to have positive impacts on Alaska Peninsula Corporation,” a recent quarterly member newsletter, APC Now!, reported. “The relationship between APC and the Pebble Partnership proves to be especially valuable in other ways,” it said. “Pebble work has demonstrated its value to the villages of Kokhanok and Newhalen by contributing to local economies through resident hire, doing business with local vendors and partnering with tribal governments. What we know for certain, is that working with Pebble has had a profound impact on community well-being for shareholders working to support their families.”
Iliamna Natives Ltd Board of Directors discussed the economic benefits the mine will bring. Pebble will bring about 750 to 1000 well-paying six-figure mining jobs, along with 1,000 mining support jobs. The project is also estimated to generate up to $420 million in revenue for Lake and Peninsula Borough over the next twenty years, on top of state taxes and royalties of between $970 million to $1.32 billion. These are nothing short of life saving for these communities.
Mining offers the best solution for Alaska, as well, they told their shareholders. With Alaska being among the richest mineral areas on Earth, it offers stability from the swings in the global markets and can produce the minerals the world energy supply will need.
A personal connection with the local people may have begun with John Shively, the original CEO of the Pebble Partnership, but it undeniably continues today, much of it given little fanfare or recognition outside the local communities. Pebble had said it was committed to partnering with local businesses and people to make certain the mine will benefit local communities and would contribute to the sustainability of the villages and native cultures. The local people have seen that commitment in action.
One little publicized initiative is Pebble’s sharing its on-site power infrastructure development to help lower fuel costs and bring affordable low-cost electricity or natural gas to local villagers. Pebble already began the RFP process last June. It also launched a revenue sharing plan to give 3 percent of their net profits to residents of Bristol Bay.
Working with local businesses, Pebble signed a Memorandum of Understanding last July with APC. It turned over the operation of all logistics for the project related to the proposed northern transportation corridor to the local native village businesses, which will bring them more than $20 million, and give the local businesses preferred contractor status.
More than a decade ago, Pebble established the Pebble Fund, a $5 million endowment to support local community-led projects to improve the health of the Bristol Bay fisheries, build community infrastructure, and other community projects to contribute to the people’s sustainable future. The fund awarded grants for an elderly food bank, libraries, schools, and cultural programs, street lights, vocational training, and other community projects.
NATIVE-OWNED LOCAL BUSINESSES SPEAK OUT
Others believe they know what is best for them, but “we are among the people who live closest to the proposed mining site and have the most to lose or potentially gain in terms of Pebble’s fate,” Reimers and Mary Jane Nielson with APC wrote six year ago. “We are a proud people who believe in the rule of the law. The mining project should be judged by the legitimate process established by law.” Not by politics or those with the most money, they wrote..
“These lands are some of the world’s most productive, supporting subsistence fishing and hunting that represent a significant part of our livelihood. They are also a cultural treasure, as our ancestors have existed and subsisted on their bounty for thousands of years. They are our lands, and we have the rights to control what goes on here. Yet our rights to manage these holdings…are being stripped away, seriously threatening our ability to provide for our own people.” It is being supported, they added, “by activists who seem to want to turn all of Alaska into a national park.”
APC is made up of more than 800 local businesses of the Aleut, Dana’ina, Sugpiag, and Yupik native peoples. It has taken an active role in collecting information on the impact of the proposed mine, educating themselves on the facts of the project, and making sure their people have had a place at the table with Pebble.
As Brad Angasan, APC Presidentand lifelong Bristol Bay commercial fisherman, wrote, unless one takes time to understand the permitting process and the facts of the mine proposal, one may continue to believe only what certain environmental groups publicize and want them to think. “We are immersed in opinionated, emotional hype,” he wrote, with “a common belief that resource development will kill the fishery.”
Alaska’s business leaders don’t have the luxury of making emotional decisions or deciding business strategies on public opinion polls, he said. We must consider every aspect. We back Pebble Mine, he wrote.
Considering the greater good is, in this case, the preservation of our people “in villages on the brink of abandonment,” Angasan said. “What we know for certain is that we are in a race against the clock to prevent abandonment of some of our region’s most historic villages. When communities die, cultures die. People need jobs and communities need healthy sustainable economies to survive. These are desperate times for many people.”
As Iliamna Natives Ltd posted last year that the more they’ve learned and have developed a trust with Pebble Partnership, the more their support has grown.
“We just defeated an anti-Pebble candidate for Governor. We just defeated an anti-Pebble ballot initiative. And an overwhelming majority of Alaskans believe Pebble should have a fair shot at the permitting process,” the group wrote.
PEBBLE OFFERS CHANCE FOR LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS
Their decision to support Pebble mine and desire for it to have a fair opportunity to prove its science and engineering was not made by the lure of immediate money and wasn’t a decision made lightly.
The villagers studied the Pebble documents and research, including the in-depth Preliminary Assessment of the Project completed in 2011 in preparation for the permitting process.
During the early development, exploration and study years, between 2004 and 2011, many of them had worked alongside Pebble doing field work and studies for that Assessment. The local people had also taken part in the more than 4,000 meetings with Pebble Partnership, with translation services provided to make sure their native elders could participate in the consultations.
Thousands of people had also taken part in the 350 tours of the mine that Pebble had offered for everyone potentially impacted by the mine. They asked questions, voiced concerns, and learned everything they could about the mine project.
The engineering studies for that Assessment found that the Pebble mineral resources were incredibly rich and had the potential to produce far beyond the first 25 years, which was the initial phase of the project. The mine had the potential to extend “78 years and beyond.”
Expansion appeared most promising to the higher grade minerals in the eastern portions. But they understood the importance of starting off with a smaller initial project to give the mine a chance to go through the scientific reviews and permitting process, then prove itself and its safety to the communities and to Alaskans. Research would continue, though, and based on the conditions existing during those first 20 years, they’d determine if expansion was feasible. Then, or course, they’d have to go through the permitting process all over again.
For the local people, it was a chance they wanted to take. It was an opportunity that could help their villages survive.
It was those long-term prospects that offered them hope for their children and for future generations.
“What we know about the project is that it will operate for somewhere between 70 and 100 years. We will permit an 18 to 20 year mine as the first phase. That limits risk to the region so we can see how we operate. Over the long term, we provide opportunities for several generations of people.”
– John Shively, 2013
This first permit will also be an opportunity to build other infrastructure, like improved roads and energy, with power provided at cost to help the local communities. That would help the local communities get goods cheaper.
“This winter someone sent me a picture of a gallon of orange juice in Dillingham for $24,” said Shively. “We can change the economy out there and in the long run have a very positive impact.”
LOCALS CLAIM THEIR RIGHTS
After years of discussions with Pebble and among their members, a group of 1,500 village businesses including APC, Iliamna Natives Ltd, Kijik Corporation and Tanalian, came together and gave their unanimous supportfor a fair permitting process for Pebble and other exploration activities throughout the region.
They claimed the right to evaluate Pebble and to base their determination on the merits of the process, not on political interference.
“Jobs and economic activity brought forth by Pebble and other resource development exploration has been significant,” they wrote. “These projects have allowed village corporations to hire local[s] and contract for services offered by various local governments, including tribal organizations. The resources created through seasonal and viable employment by exploration activities have contributed to sustainable communities, created jobs in an area with high rates of unemployment, and created access to energy for many who suffer the high cost of living in many parts of the Bristol Bay region.”
The growing frustration and anger of the local rural communities against interference from outsiders with money, though, is palpable. While honoring and respecting those working in commercial fishing, there’s an undeniable economic imbalance between the local Native peoples who live and work where resources are taken and where nonresidents go to spend their seasonal bounty of wealth, said Angasan.
“For years, we have fought to have our voices heard in the debate about whether or not Pebble should be allowed to proceed through the permitting process and for years we have had to put up with organizations from outside Alaska taking positions without affording us the basic courtesy of hearing our views about this issue,” APC and Iliamna Natives wrote in a letter to the President of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in February.
Having been engaged in the Pebble issue for some 15 years, they objected to “so-called regional and tribal organizations that tell the world they speak with a united voice on the Pebble issue. Let’s be clear – this is simply not the case.”
They were referring to and disputing the “Bristol Bay Proclamation” from the NCAI which called for the Pebble permitting process to be halted. The Proclamation was issued to sell the perception to the general public around the country that all native people oppose the mine.
Locals knew, but probably most of the general public didn’t, that NCAI is not what it appears. And it clearly doesn’t represent the voices of the local Alaskan native peoples. This Washington, D.C.-based organization is just one example of the outsiders organized against the local people.
NCAI calls itself one of the most important intertribal political organizations in modern times, playing a critical role in activism, litigation efforts and lobbying activities. But it is a front group. Among its foundation partners are the most radical, wealthy and influential left political organizations in the country, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Ford Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Northwest Area Foundation — none based in Alaska and all with political agendas far beyond concerns about salmon or the environment. NACAI also partners with the EPA. Many of its legal and policy activities oppose any natural resource development, including pipelines and mining, and lobby for climate change energy policies,
Just a few grant examples reveal how well NCAI is funded. It received $6.2 million in grants from Kellogg Foundation in October 2017. Ford Foundation gave it $400,000 this year alone. And another progressive nonprofit, W.F. Hewlett Foundation, funded it $950,000 just between 2018-2019.
NCAI even has its own news organization,Indian Country Today, LLC (a non-profit news company owned by NCAI), with a Washington newsroom for its online publication, along with a new newsroom at Arizona State University. It’s soon to launch its own national television news program. Additional funding came with $1 million earlier this year from the Southern California-basedSan Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a member of the Southern California Association of Governments.
“The thought of losing the power to exercise self-determination is an insult and contradiction to the Forefathers who devoted their lifetimes fighting for Alaska Native rights,” said Angasan. Our people’s support of Pebble mine goes along with our mandate to protect and preserve the interest of those places we hold sacred, said Angasan, APC President. “The places we come from and continue to live.”
From theirvoices: “Our Lands are vast. Our Lands are plentiful, sacred and rich with Opportunity. Our Waters are pristine and abundant with life-sustaining purity. These are the elements of a life unique to our People. The relation between the Land and our People exists in perpetuity. This is our Identity, and what we must protect for the generations to come.”
Sandy Szwarc, BSN, RN is a researcher and writer on health and science issues for more than 30 years, published in national and regional publications and public policy institutes. (Pebble Partnership did not contribute to, or have any role in, this series.)
