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Choose Respect revived by Alaska’s Attorney General

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
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Choose Respect revived by Alaska’s Attorney General

By KEVIN CLARKSON

You may know it as the “Golden Rule.” Some will recognize it as the words of Christ: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” I prefer this translation — “And just as you want people to treat you, treat them in the same way.” Foundational to this rule is the concept of choosing respect for, and practicing common decency toward others around us.

Former Gov. Sean Parnell and then-attorney general, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan championed a campaign to convince Alaska men and boys that “Real Alaska Men Choose Respect” in their treatment of women.

With Gov. Michael Dunleavy’s blessing and participation, partnering with other commissioners and departments, I plan to pick up this mantle and work to advance it further.

Real Alaska men should not only choose respect, they should practice it.

Sadly, we have our work cut out for us and we have nothing to be proud of in this area. According to a 2015 Alaska Victimization Survey, 50 percent of adult Alaska women have experienced intimate partner violence, sexual violence or both during their lifetimes. A 2014 Violence Policy Center study ranked Alaska first in the nation for the rate of homicide of female victims by male attackers. Alaska’s rate in this regard is more than three times the national average. And, in terms of sexual assault and domestic violence, the news is just as bad — Alaska ranks No. 1 per capita.

A 2017 Crime in Alaska Supplemental Report by the Alaska Department of Public Safety reflects that the number of sex offense victims increased by 27 percent in one year. The scourge of sexual violence permeates our entire state, but in Western Alaska, the rate of felony-level sex offense incidents is 106% higher than the statewide rate.

The largest brunt of these crimes falls upon our Alaska Native women. Alaska Native females have the highest sexual assault victimization rate of any gender or racial group — 42% of all reported victims are Alaska Native females. But the picture just gets worse when you consider the age of most victims. Statewide, the median age of female sexual assault victims is 19, and the most common age is 15. In Western Alaska the most common age of a victim is 13 and in Southcentral Alaska it is just 12 years old.

Who is it that is assaulting Alaska’s women? Well, this is another blemish on our state. Our young women, most of them Alaska Native, are being assaulted by men who they knew — in only 2.4% of incidents was the offender a stranger to the victim. This means that 97.6% of the time, the young woman who was assaulted knew the man who assaulted her. And in 59% of incidents, those young women are assaulted by a man of their own race.

Truly, the sexual assault problem that we face crosses all races. Statewide, we have an enormous need for men to choose and practice respect for women. We need respected men from all corners of our state representing the diversity of our state — white, African American, Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic and more, to step forward and help lead the way to make significant headway changing hearts and minds of men all across our state, but especially in Anchorage and western Alaska where the rates of sexual assault are the highest.

We cannot afford to allow this situation to continue. The cost of domestic and sexual violence on both individuals and society is enormous. The toll on the hearts, minds and bodies of Alaska women is incalculable. But, there are economic costs as well. Economic costs fall into five main categories: medical care for physical injuries and mental health care; lost productivity; lost lifetime earnings; costs of law enforcement; and the cost of our courts.

For my part, I will start by encouraging Alaska attorneys, including those in the Department of Law, to step up and provide pro bono legal representation to indigent women who suffer sexual assault and domestic violence. I will host pro bono service clinics for Alaska attorneys to make themselves available to assist victims, I will encourage Department of Law attorneys to volunteer to man the ANDVSA sexual assault and domestic violence hotline, and I will increase the number of pro bono cases that state attorneys can handle for victims.

Lastly, I pledge that this will not be the one and only time you will hear from me on this topic. I will make my voice a drumbeat to try to drive change in this area. We have to do better. I hope you’ll join me.

Kevin Clarkson is the Attorney General of Alaska.

IBU strike debriefing: All’s well that ends

Art Chance
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IBU strike debriefing: All’s well that ends

By ART CHANCE

I had some pretty harsh words for State Labor Relations and Law over the Inland Boatmen’s Union strike. I stand by my words that they got blindsided and were completely unprepared for the strike.

The first time the IBU mouthed the word “impasse,” the State should have filed an unfair labor practice and had them ordered back to bargaining. I’m told that the Department of Law was afraid the Alaska Labor Relations Agency would order the State to arbitration. I hope nobody in the Department of Law was giving that utterly stupid advice to the Administration. I’ve been in similar situations and the reality is that your political principals just won’t follow your advice sometimes. Sometimes they don’t even ask; they ask somebody they met at the Baranof Hotel the night before and don’t even bother to ask the people who get paid to do this stuff.

Let’s put all that behind us. They took about an 8 count, pulled themselves up off the floor, and fought back. I’m told that Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka went to the table and pressed for a settlement. Good on her for taking charge.

In my time I’d have never let a union representative near a commissioner; I would rarely even see a union rep myself.   You make sure that the union understands that they work themselves up to that meeting, and if they get face to face with an appointee, it had better be a damned big deal.

They haven’t published the text of the tentative agreement that ended the strike against the State ferry system, but I’m told the union got no raise the first year, and 1.5 percent the second and again the third year. The workers will eventually start contributing to their health insurance. One ship crew got free coffee. If the State ended a strike and got a three year agreement on these terms, they fell in the outhouse and came out smelling like a rose.

I’ll reserve my final judgment until they publish the full agreement; you can hide big bucks in the fine print of a labor agreement, but if they got them back to work on the advertised terms, they did one helluva job; good on them.

Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon. 

Will Dunleavy veto the $1,600 PFD, or let it stand?

Suzanne Downing
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Will Dunleavy veto the $1,600 PFD, or let it stand?

ALASKANS WILL FIND OUT THIS WEEK

Gov. Michael Dunleavy, as he considers the Operating Budget given to him by the Legislature, is in a no-win situation on the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend.

In a nutshell, here are some of the factors he must wrestle with as he approaches that item in the Operating Budget:

  • Dunleavy is dealing with a House and Senate that gave him a $1,600 appropriation for the dividend. This is something he cannot add to, but the majority of the Legislature has said is enough.
  • The statutory (legal) calculation for the dividend this year is $3,000. That formula is a law on the books. It’s what he wants to follow until the formula is changed by law.
  • Dunleavy ran on bringing the dividend calculation in compliance with statute (as it was for all the years up until the Walker Administration), and to take any changes to the calculation to the people for a vote, via a constitutional amendment.
  • He could not get his constitutional amendment bill to do so heard in the Legislature.
  • Dunleavy faces a recall campaign that has Democrats, public employee unions, state workers, a Native corporation, and a couple of millionaires backing it to overturn his election. The petitioners are people who never voted for him in the first place, and their grounds appear spurious.
  • If Dunleavy gives in to the Legislature and agrees to the $1,600 dividend, he won’t win back his critics, and he’d make critics of many of his supporters, such as the PFD Defenders and a vast majority of Alaskans who want the law to be followed.
  • If he vetoes the $1,600, the likelihood that the dividend checks being issued later than usual increases because he would need to call another special session. Is he willing to take on the majority in the Legislature?
  • If Dunleavy calls a special session with a bill to appropriate the PFD, the Legislature could once again cut the amount and stuff more spending in the bill (the Groundhog Day syndrome).

Dunleavy said on the Mike Porcaro Show he’ll sign the Operating Budget this week. He has indicated that he’ll once again veto hundreds of millions of dollars to get the budget closer to balancing, as he did with the first Operating Budget. He has even hinted at a few possible exceptions. He may spare senior benefits and may rollback some of his earlier cuts to the university system, with the rest of the cuts coming next year.

But one thing he has not yet signaled is what he’ll do with the Permanent Fund dividend quandary. Either way comes with certain political peril.

[Read: Bipartisan group pushes governor for statutory dividend]

The Permanent Fund Defenders issued the following statement:

The Alaska Permanent Fund Defenders, an Alaska based organization dedicated to the long-term protection of the Alaska Permanent Fund, today expressed mixed sentiments about the legislature’s handling of the Permanent Fund and the issue of how to pay individual Alaskans a dividend.  The Permanent Fund Defenders organization is guided by a five-person board of directors chaired by Clem Tillion, a former President of the Alaska Senate and one of the individuals who helped establish the Alaska Permanent Fund.  Other board members include Jack Hickel from Anchorage, Rick Halford, a former President of the Alaska Senate from Dillingham, Joe Geldhof, an attorney from Juneau,  and Juanita Cassellius from Eagle River.

Clem Tillion, Chairman of the Defenders expressed disappointment with the legislature based on the legislature’s failure to follow the existing statutory formula for paying the PFD.  Tillion, calling on his long history with the creation of Permanent Fund the PFD noted: “The citizens of our great state got shorted by the legislature.”  Tillion went on to say that the payment of $1,600 to eligible Alaskans was an arbitrary amount that follows the repeated failure by the legislature the previous three years.”  Tillion acknowledged that “building a sustainable operating budget is difficult” but noted “there are always competing interests and demands on funding that make the budget contentious.”  The former President of the Alaska Senate observed that shorting the citizens’ PFD was an “unnecessary act because it harms those least able to afford the cut and erodes the link with their fund.”  He said, “Mike Dunleavy worked hard to get each and every citizen $1,600. We request that the Governor not veto the short-funded PFD and continue his work to add more funds for the dividend according to law.”

Tillion wasn’t entirely dissatisfied with the legislature.  The former President of the Senate noted the legislature adopted an operating budget that reduced spending compared to previous years.  And he noted “as part of the operating budget, the legislature moved billions of dollars from the Earnings Reserve Account managed by the Permanent Fund Corporation into the corpus of the Permanent Fund,” a move Tillion said was “worthy of the kind of leadership demonstrated by Hugh Malone and Jay Hammond,” two of the individuals most responsible for establishing and protecting the Permanent Fund.  Tillion expressed his willingness to work with current legislative leaders like Bert Stedman and other members of the legislature next session to “move more money from the Earnings Reserve Account that is essentially unprotected from political looting and sock it away into the corpus of the Permanent Fund where it will be protected forever.”  

Permanent Fund Defender board member Joe Geldhof was a close observer of the budget discussions in Juneau this year and paid special attention to the decisions related to the Permanent Fund and PFD payments.  Geldhof noted that “while a majority of Alaskans certainly support payment of a full PFD, the legislature is fractured on whether and how to complete this task.” Geldhof observed “the political fault lines in Alaska on the PFD issue are not based on partisan lines or geographic regions.”  He said, “The debate between paying a full PFD or chopping government services was incomplete and based on a false choice.”  Geldhof summed up his thoughts on the PFD by saying: “The citizens of Alaska deserve to have a say here and the responsible thing to do is for the legislature to adopt a resolution Alaskans can vote on to protect the PFD in the Alaska Constitution.  A constitutional amendment based on prudent principles that calls for an equal split of the realized earnings of the Permanent Fund earnings or perhaps based on the POMV concept is what the citizens deserve and what the legislature desperately needs so we don’t have to go through this annual dog fight,” according to Geldhof, who noted in conclusion that this goal is also “what Governor Dunleavy is seeking.”

Tillion and Geldhof both acknowledged that hammering out the details of a constitutional amendment would require compromise and hard work.  Tillion had the last word from the Defenders on this point, noting: “Nothing really good comes without hard work.  Alaskans know about hard work.  The people need all the politicians to get a constitutional amendment about their dividend done.  The Governor wants it done and so do most of the members of the legislature who are worn out with this annual fight, so let’s get it done.”

Chris Birch memorial: Aug. 15

Suzanne Downing
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Chris Birch memorial: Aug. 15

The family of Sen. Chris Birch has announced a celebration of his life will take place on Aug. 15 at 3 pm at Hilltop Ski Area in Anchorage.

“All those who knew and loved Chris are welcome to come and share community, camaraderie, and coffee, just as Chris would have wanted,” the family announced.

Chris served for many years on the Hilltop Ski Area board of directors and believed strongly in their mission to support recreational opportunities for youth. He was instrumental in helping the organization secure funding to build the chalet.

In addition to celebrating his and Pam’s 25th wedding anniversary at Hilltop, it was the site of Logan and Heather’s engagement, and Tali’s graduation from law school. Chris and Pam Birch could be found hiking at the Hilltop Ski area almost on a daily basis, when not in Juneau.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests a contribution in support of the community Chris loved to Lutheran Social Services of Alaska.

Birch died from an aortic dissection on Aug. 7.

Bipartisan group of legislators push for statutory PFD

Suzanne Downing
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Bipartisan group of legislators push for statutory PFD

PRESSURE ON GOVERNOR TO VETO THE $1,600 DIVIDEND

A bipartisan group of legislators has written a letter to Gov. Michael Dunleavy, expressing their continued support of a full, statutory Permanent Fund Dividend.

Signers include Senators Mia Costello, Peter Micciche,  Mike Shower, Shelley Hughes, Lora Reinbold, and Bill Wielechowski, Representatives Sarah Vance, Ben Carpenter, Sharon Jackson, Gabrielle LeDoux, Laddie Shaw, Dave Talerico, and Chris Tuck.

“We are writing to express our continued support of paying Alaskans their 2019 Permanent Fund Dividends according to the full statutory formula. As you are aware, the legislature has passed House Bill 2001. This bill provided full funding for dividends to be paid according to the statutory formula when it came to the Senate floor. However, the version that eventually passed included a funding level that had been reduced by almost half,” the letter states.

“The amount of each year’s dividend is set in statute by a formula that has been in place and remained the same since the distribution of the very first dividends. Alaskans are fully justified in expecting their dividends to be distributed based on this traditional formula. Similarly, they are justified in feeling angry and shortchanged by the legislature’s unilateral decision to not pay the full amount owed to Alaskans,” the letter says.

The letter contains signatures from from members of all four legislative caucuses: the Alaska House Majority, the Alaska House Republican Minority, the Alaska Senate Majority,  and Alaska Senate Democrat Minority.

“The Permanent Fund Dividend is part of what connects all Alaskans, and every Alaskan should have a voice in its future,” said Sen. Mia Costello. “I believe we need to hear from the public before any changes to the statute are made. Until the public has an opportunity to weigh in, we need to follow the statute already on the books when it comes to paying out the dividend.”

“The legislature and the public spent years debating what to do with the earnings of the Permanent Fund before creating the Dividend program in 1982. It was meant to give every Alaskan a direct, equal ownership benefit in our oil wealth and provide an automatic spending cap to protect the Fund,” said Sen. Bill Wielechowski. “It’s one of the most successful and popular programs in Alaskan and American history. Hundreds of thousands of Alaskans rely on the PFD, as do many Alaskan businesses – and they deserve to have the consistency and stability of a statute that lawmakers follow. Under the Constitution, the legislature can change the PFD statute, but until they do, the existing formula should respectfully be followed.”

The governor will sign the Operating Budget in coming days and must decide whether to accept the $1,600 Permanent Fund dividend set by the Legislature, or veto it and call for a $3,000 dividend through another special session.

BP sale rumor surfaces again, with credibility

Suzanne Downing
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BP sale rumor surfaces again, with credibility

Petroleum News is reporting the latest rumor in the oil patch: BP is selling off its Alaska assets and exiting the state.

It’s a rumor that’s going like wildfire around the oil patch.

Normally, when the Petroleum News reports something, it’s a fact you can take to the bank. If the newspaper is going to go out on a limb with a rumor, it’s because the rumor is so strong, it’s the news.

The whispers of BP’s possible exit have been ramping up for weeks, and insiders have contacted Must Read Alaska with various versions.

One version is that BP is reportedly selling most or all of its interest in Prudhoe Bay to ConocoPhillips and Hilcorp. ConocoPhillips would operate the west half (WOA) and Hilcorp would take the eastern portion (EOA) of BP’s North Slope interests, according to this rumor.

Another rumor is that BP has called a company meeting for all Alaska employees on Aug. 20, with no subject announced.

BP operates the entire Prudhoe Bay field — more than half of Alaska’s total oil production.

Of course, no BP or ConocoPhillips representatives will talk about it, because those companies are publicly traded and there are strict regulations surrounding information that can impact share price. Announcements like this are done systematically, governed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But Hilcorp is a privately owned company, with an entirely different corporate culture. If it’s buying out BP’s assets, the change could mean a trimming of the workforce.

What appears evident is that BP and Hilcorp have been in discussions for some time, but have never sealed a deal.

Country star at wit’s end in land rights dispute with aggressive Homer group

Suzanne Downing
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Country star at wit’s end in land rights dispute with aggressive Homer group

HOMEOWNERS REQUEST VACATING EASEMENT TO PREVENT STALKING, CLIFF FALLS

Zac Brown is a wildly successful musician, an accomplishment that has brought him a degree of celebrity he must deal with daily as he travels from show to show with the Zac Brown Band. It goes with the territory in the entertainment business.

The country music star says he is also a regular guy, with a wife and five children. When he purchased property in Homer, Alaska, he hoped to provide a normal life for his children as they grow.

But his little piece of paradise in the Cosmic Hamlet by the Sea has become the target of a few locals, some of whom Brown named on a radio show this week: John Fowler, an Anchorage man who owns adjacent property below Brown’s land, Willy Dunne, who serves on the Kenai Borough Assembly and lives off of East End Road, and Michael Armstrong, a writer at the local Homer News.

Between the three of them, they’ve made Brown’s life a living hell as they send people up to Brown’s property to try to establish a trail that they call “historic.”

At least that is how Brown has described the situation on the Michael Dukes show. He decided to take his case to the listening audience after getting the impression the reporter from the local newspaper was against him. Armstrong had repeatedly printed photos of the Brown home under construction and had given readers explicit instructions for how to reach it, and it seemed to Brown he had created a purposeful flood of lookie-lous.

According to Brown, Fowler was trying to sell him some adjacent property for double the market value. When Brown decided he wasn’t interested at that price, Fowler said he would start sending people up to Brown’s property along the section line easement, a 10-foot span along the side of his land. A witness of the encounter corroborated Brown’s story to Must Read Alaska.

Brown said Fowler enlisted the help of Assemblyman Dunne and Armstrong to harass him.

Brown’s property sits at the end of a dead-end road on a bluff above the town of Homer. In addition to the property where he is building his house, he purchased several lots below, to protect the privacy of his family.

The property belonging to Fowler is also below him. Fowler and his friends claim the public has legal access to the section easement and are trying to build a case for making it a public trail.

Brown said Fowler is simply trying to build a trail to increase the value of his own land, which he has named “Canyon Trails,” as part of his marketing package to prospective buyers, and to attack Brown’s sense of safety in order to force him to purchase his land.

“I’m the golden ticket so he can get them sold,” Brown said.

The matter of the easement is in the hands of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, which will consider the decision of the borough. The borough’s planning department says it has no need for the easement and is willing to vacate it.

In fact, the State Department of Natural Resources has said there is no historic trail there.

But Roberta Highland, who is with the Kachemak Bay Conservation Society, says that the section line easement should remain open. She is relying on a pamphlet written in 1994 that described a trail in the vicinity. According to that pamphlet, the trail route changed from time to time, depending on the conditions.

According to Brown, the trail group are producing maps and sending people up to Brown’s land to harass him and his family, causing him to have to bring his children inside to escape the lenses of celebrity seekers. Instead of privacy, he’s been hounded by the campaign fomented by Dunne and Fowler, and aided by Armstrong. He feels they’ve made him a prisoner in his own home.

He also said he has video of Assemblyman Dunne trespassing on his property, and that Armstrong has been complicit by repeatedly putting a photograph of the log home, under construction, in the newspaper.

“Carloads full of people — 12 cars a day come down our road and it’s not a pass-through road. It’s intentionally way off the cut,” Brown said. Others who live nearby said Brown has underestimated the number of cars now going down the road, and that over 50 cars are now common, most of them taking pictures of Brown’s home.

“His (Fowler’s) realtor comes with nine people, they loiter around my house and walk through my construction. I’ve been painted as an antagonist,” Brown said. “I am not someone who feels good about being extorted.”

Someone even spray painted on Skyline Drive the letters “ZB” at the intersection that leads to his and two other houses at the end of the road.

Brown described how his young son came into the house distraught after he saw the graffiti, fearful that people “were hunting my daddy.”

The one thing that Brown values most is his family’s safety and privacy, he said. But when the local paper publicized his name, rather than using the name of the limited liability corporation that he purchased the property under, and when the paper published photos of his house, his privacy started to vanish. Trespassers became common.

Brown said one man with a baby in a backpack came up the steep slope, which is more than 57 percent in one place, and the baby fell out of the backpack and tumbled; the man tumbled as well. The baby could be heard wailing for 45 minutes afterward. Another man and his horse tumbled down the cliff as he made his way up the section line.

It’s a safety hazard, Brown said, not a safe historic trail like it’s being portrayed.

Plus, it’s his property.

The Zac Brown Band is based in Atlanta, Georgia, but Brown said he wants to spend much of the year in Homer, where he has invested in a local business, and where he loves the community. He just doesn’t love way some are violating his rights.

The matter of the property rights vs. trails through the Gruening Vista West Home Owners Association will be taken up at the Aug. 12 meeting of the Borough Planning Commission, at the Navarre Administration Building in Soldotna. The commission will be considering the recommendation of the borough’s planning department to vacate the easement. The meeting starts at 7:30 pm.

Scott Hawkins passes; he helped candidates, ran for governor

Suzanne Downing
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Scott Hawkins passes; he helped candidates, ran for governor

A major force in Alaska’s political landscape has died.

Scott Hawkins, who supported and was a wise counselor to dozens of pro-business candidates and political leaders, and who ran for governor in 2018, passed on Aug. 8 at his home in Anchorage, surrounded by his family. He had battled pancreatic cancer for nearly two years.

Hawkins moved to Alaska after completing his economics degree at the University of Puget Sound. He worked in banking and was the first executive director for the newly created Anchorage Economic Development Corporation. With nothing more than a legal pad and a pencil, he set about trying to attract major businesses to Anchorage.

Hawkins strongly supported growing the private sector in Alaska and had a knack for being able to spot opportunities that would create jobs. His successes with AEDC included removing the infrastructure impediments that were preventing the construction of the Alyeska Prince Hotel (now the Hotel Alyeska), and helping the Ted Stevens International Airport become a hub for cargo jets by securing the resources and deals to bring the runways up to needed standards for the larger jets that now come from Asia through Anchorage every day.

[Read: Scott Hawkins Obituary]

Hawkins founded his own economics consulting business, an Anchorage-Japan tour company, and he co-founded Alaska Supply Chain International, which provides oil field services, including logistics, supplies, and human resource services to energy companies. As CEO and president, he developed business for ASCI in Chile, Trinidad, Sakhalin Island, and North Dakota, as well as on the North Slope and in Anchorage. Before his death, he had been working on a project to expand the business to Angola.

For the past decade, Hawkins had grown more active in politics, financially supporting candidates who were committed to growing the business climate of Alaska. His goal was to ensure the business community was more engaged in politics because lawmakers have such control over the business climate. He founded Prosperity Alaska, which later changed its name to Alaska Wins, a pro-business policy group. He had served on the board of the Alaska Chamber and as the chairman of BIPAC, the oldest industry-focused political action committee in the nation.

He ran for governor in 2018 on a pro-business platform, and traveled the state widely, hearing from Alaskans of all walks of life. He left the race after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In recent months, he worked from his home on business until his final days.

“Scott was such a positive force in our state, always believing that Alaskans could prosper, and treating everyone with respect and dignity,” said Gov. Michael Dunleavy. “Rose and I extend our deepest condolences to his family.”

“This has been an incredibly difficult week for Alaska,” said Rep. Lance Pruitt (R-Anchorage). “Though many of us got to know Scott through his advocacy work, his legacy will certainly transcend politics. Our entire caucus wishes to express our deepest condolences to the Hawkins family during this very difficult time.”

“Every time I ever had the opportunity to interact with him, Scott was an extremely kind, honest, and compassionate gentleman,” said Rep. Sarah Vance (R-Homer). “He was the sort of advocate that Alaska needs, and we’ll undoubtedly miss his presence in our state for years to come.”

“At every turn, Scott Hawkins was a champion for Alaska’s economy, people, and everything we have to offer to the world,” added Rep. Sara Rasmussen(R-Anchorage). “His kind spirit and generous nature made him a joy to be around. Alaska has lost another great statesman, but I hope that we’ll honor Scott’s legacy by being more like him: kind, honest, and empathetic.”

He leaves behind his wife Toyoko, daughter Lisa, mother and father Charlotte and Harry Hawkins, and his sister Wendy and her family. An obituary will follow with details about services.

 

 

MRAK Almanac: Seward Silver Salmon Derby

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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MRAK Almanac: Seward Silver Salmon Derby

The MRAK Almanac is your place for political, cultural, and civic events, events where you’ll meet political leaders or, if you are interested in getting to know your state, these are great places to meet conservative- and moderate-leaning Alaskans.

Alaska Fact Book

Question: How many dollars in taxes has Alaska received since marijuana was legalized in 2014?

Answer: While Alaska legalized commercial sale and production of cannabis in 2014, the first legal marijuana was sold more than two years later 2016. At the end of last year, the Alaska Department of Revenue said it had collected nearly $20 million in tax revenue since marijuana was first legalized. Since cultivators are taxed by the ounce, this number translates to over 30,000 pounds of marijuana.

8/8-8/10: JUMP short film festival in Juneau. Free to attend, and all films have an Alaska or Juneau connection. Read more about the films here.

8/9: Summer block party in Juneau, sponsored by the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council. There will be family games, local food trucks, and lots of fun for everyone. Starts at 5:30 pm.

8/9: Drive up the Parks Highway and visit the Willow Farmers Market. Runs from 2 pm – 7 pm at Mile 69.

8/9: Weekly Interior Alaska GOP luncheon at Denny’s in Fairbanks. This week’s guest is Senator Click Bishop, representing District C. Lunch starts at 11:30 am, and all are welcome.

8/10: The 64th annual Seward Silver Salmon Derby begins, with almost $20,000 in prizes. Last year’s first place winner was a 16.73 lbs. The derby will run until August 18. Read more here.

8/10: Farm Fest 2019 in Kenai. Sponsored by Ridgeway Farms in Soldotna, this annual event features live music, a petting zoo, hay rides, and fun for the whole family. Admission is free, and the festival starts at noon. Read more here.

8/10: It’s Alaska Wild Salmon Day, Alaska’s newest recurring holiday since 2016. There are events going on all around the state, so it’s best to check this link for a celebration near you. The one thing they all have in common? Admission is free.

8/10: Annual Alaska Walk for Down Syndrome in Anchorage. Starts at 1 pm at the Anchorage Park Strip. Further details here.

8/10: Gazebo Nights summer concert at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks. Enjoy live music and a beautiful Fairbanks sunset. Admission is free.

8/10: Partners Real Estate annual backyard BBQ bash in Eagle River. Admission is free, so come enjoy free food, family fun, and dozens of local vendors. Read more at the Facebook link here.

8/10: Kenai Peninsula Beer Festival at the Soldotna Sports Center. Runs from 5 pm – 9 pm. Come enjoy some local brews and even better conversation. More details here.

8/10: The Valdez Women’s Silver Salmon Derby will take place. The top three will receive cash prizes, with the top 50 receiving gift bags. Definitely a worthwhile deal. More details about the derby here.

8/10-8/11: Enjoy downtown Anchorage at the Anchorage Market & Festival. This is Alaska’s largest outdoor market, with over 300 vendors in attendance each week. Starts at 10 am.

8/11: Last day of the Tanana Valley State Fair in Fairbanks. Fireworks start at 11 pm. Enjoy the last days of summer and see what local vendors have to offer.

8/11: The most Alaskan run you’ve ever heard of: the 17th annual Running with the Bulls 10K/5K at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer. All participants will be running past (not from, thankfully) the farm’s 81 resident musk oxen. Read more about the race here.

Alaska History Archive:

August 9, 1915—104 years ago: An official election was held to determine the name of Anchorage. According to alaskahistory.org, the following nine names were on the ballot for voters to choose from: Alaska City, Anchorage, Gateway, Homestead, Lane, Matanuska, Ship Creek, Terminal, and Winalaska. While Alaska City garnered the most votes, the voters were overruled by the U.S. Postal Service, which opted to call the city Anchorage.

August 10, 1728—291 years ago: Russian explorer Vitus Bering (for which the Bering Sea is named), first discovered St. Lawrence Island. This is often considered the first visit to Alaska by Europeans. St. Lawrence island is closer to Russia than Alaska, with the village of Gambell (the island’s largest village) located only 36 miles from the Russian mainland.

 

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FBI offers reward for alleged meth dealer, ‘Pepe Pebenito,’ who has been on the lam for four years

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The FBI’s Anchorage Field Office is offering a reward...

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