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Bass Pro, Cabela’s get into anti-Pebble Mine fray

Suzanne Downing
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71
Bass Pro, Cabela’s get into anti-Pebble Mine fray

BIG STORES THROW ANTI-MINING SUPPORT TO  ‘STAND FOR SALMON’ GROUP

It’s not just the REI Co-op that has gotten political. Now, two major outdoor companies that are frequented by hunters, fishers, and rugged outdoors enthusiasts are getting in on the anti-Pebble mine action.

Bass Pro and Cabela’s, now under the same ownership, sent a letter to customers this month, asking them to donate to a nonprofit organization that the companies would donate to, dollar for dollar.

The nonprofit? The Wild Salmon Center, which is a major funder of Stand for Salmon, a group well-known in Alaska politics.

“There’s no place in the world quite like Bristol Bay, Alaska,” the letter from Bass/Cabela’s reads. “Its rivers are filled with big rainbow and Dolly Varden trout, and it’s home to the largest wild salmon runs in the world — more than 60 million sockeye last year. For sportsmen and women, Bristol Bay rivers are what dreams are made of.

“Unfortunately, this beautiful place is at risk of being damaged forever by large-scale mining projects. The recent earthquake on November 30, 2018 further illustrated the risk of mining and development in this area.”

The letter then asks for a contribution to the Wild Salmon Center during 2019. Because…earthquakes?

The Wild Salmon Center, based in Portland, Ore., features decades-long efforts to preserve salmon habitat in the Northwest and Kamchatka, as well as Alaska. Its website has a pseudo-scientific “technical report” about Pebble, with outdated material referring to past mining plans.

The Alaska senior campaign manager for the Wild Salmon Center is Sam Snyder.

Snyder was the Alaska force behind Ballot Measure 1, which would have halted all manner of development across Alaska. On the Wild Salmon Center’s website, Snyder also takes credit for stopping the Susitna-Watana Dam.

Wild Salmon Center’s IRS-990 forms for 2016 and 2017, indicate the group “Worked with partner organizations to update Alaska’s fish habitat permitting law to strengthen protections for salmon habitat across the state.”

WSC in 2017 took full credit for the ballot initiative, saying it drafted the actual initiative and presented it to then-Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott for review and approval.

The group also took credit for stopping the Susitna-Watana Dam: “Capping a three-year, Wild Salmon Center-led campaign that rallied more than 14,000 Alaskans, Gov. Bill Walker halted the $6 billion project.”

WSC wrote that it developed school curriculum in Alaska: “Advanced the development and implementation of WSC’s comprehensive salmon education curriculum for grades 4-6.” This was a project it developed out of a pilot project it launched in Cordova in 2016.

In other words, the group is now in the public schools, teaching Alaska’s children.

The Wild Salmon Center made grants of at least $600,000 for Stand for Salmon activities in both 2016 and 2017. The year Ballot Measure 1 was on the ballot — 2018 — has not yet been reported by the group to the IRS.

The Stand for Salmon initiative was opposed by resource industries, Alaska Native corporations, labor unions, and others who feared that even a permit to build a driveway to a home would come under undue permitting burdens.

Millions of dollars were spent battling for the votes of Alaskans before the Nov. 6 decision, which went decisively against Stand for Salmon. Now, it appears Stand for Salmon will be the beneficiary of the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s good intentions as the environmental group organizes for the next phase of battling the the Pebble Project: Getting more people to appear at public hearings opposed to the project.

To learn more about the current Pebble Project, visit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site where comments are being collected in response to the draft environmental impact statement.*

The draft environmental impact statement comment period is March 1 through May 31, 2019. Public hearings are also scheduled throughout Alaska. Stand for Salmon will be organizing the opposition.

How do Alaska outdoor enthusiasts feel about Bass and Cabela’s supporting Stand for Salmon through the Wild Salmon Center matching grant? At least one Alaskan was unhappy about it, and forwarded the fundraising letter to Must Read Alaska for review, saying that the message “probably played well in the board room” but was not in tune with Alaskans.

*Must Read Alaska is neutral on the Pebble Project, but favors a fair regulatory and public process.

When salary schedules become ‘salacious’ testimony

Suzanne Downing
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26
When salary schedules become ‘salacious’ testimony

REP. KREISS-TOMPKINS SEARCHES FOR A WORD, FINDS A SEXY ONE

Last Thursday, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Amanda Price made a presentation to a House Finance subcommittee on the Village Public Safety Officer program, in which she included facts that the highest paid VPSO in the system, with fringe benefits, costs the state $178,000, and that two positions in one area of the state were costing $350,000.

She continued to explain that the 43-member VPSO program costs the state $13 million in the proposed Walker budget, and $11 million in the Dunleavy budget. Because there are so many unfilled positions, the Dunleavy budget is lower.

She described challenges of recruiting and retention, and the relationship between the state, which provides the funding, and the tribal organizations that manage the VPSO programs. She said the department loves the VPSO program, in spite of its challenges.

There were a lot of numbers in her presentation, but those high salaries certainly stood out to the House Finance subcommittee on Public Safety. They brought questions.

Rep. Matt Claman asked Price several times if $350,000 is too much for two positions, and she artfully responded that she was merely providing the appropriators like him with the data, that she wasn’t saying the pay is too much or not enough.

Rep. Kreiss-Tompkins

Then came Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins, who in spite of his Yale education, struggled to find the right word.

The word he ended up using was “salaciousness.”

“There’s a certain salaciousness about splashing around larger numbers,” Kreiss-Tompkins said, in reference to Price’s presentation about the specific pay of VPSOs.

The only word that Kreiss-Tompkins could find to describe that salary analysis was “salaciousness?”

Commissioner Price is, readers know, the first female commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, and she’s undeniably attractive. (OK, she’s hot, guys, but was her fiscal analysis actually salacious?)

(Salacious: having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters.)

Price returned to the mic after a bit and gave her perspective:

“I’d like to comment on Rep. Kreiss-Tompkins, and just reflect that it was not my intention to make insinuations. I’m providing data, and some of the language selections that you made, sir, I think created an opportunity. You used the word ‘salacious’ … I would like to put forward that all of your salaries is public, my salary is public, Alaska state troopers salary is public. The public has a right to know how the public dollars that are being appropriated and allocated are being utilized and it’s my responsibility to address how those funds are being utilized. I put that information forward to provide information to provide some perspective and clarity for a body that may  or may not have had that not have had that knowledge.

“It was not in fact sir was meant to be salacious or insinuate anything,” she concluded.

(Salacious synonyms: pornographic, obscene, indecent, improper, crude, lewd, erotic, titillating, arousing, suggestive, sexy, risqué, coarse, vulgar, gross, dirty, ribald, smutty, filthy, bawdy…)

There, she said it. She didn’t mean to be salacious, Rep. Kreiss-Tompkins.

Foraker Group was shadow group behind Walker’s Census Commission

Suzanne Downing
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9
Foraker Group was shadow group behind Walker’s Census Commission

NO MORE — NONPROFIT GIANT IS NOT THE CONTROLLING ENTITY

Gov. Michael Dunleavy made more board and commission appointments last week, including an entirely new 2020 Census Alaska Complete Count Commission. Only one person was held over on that commission from the Walker era.

In doing so, Dunleavy removed all members who were part of a self-appointed parallel group convened by the Foraker group.

Here’s how it went down:

On Feb. 12, Dunleavy changed the composition of the Census Commission by revoking Gov. Bill Walker’s Administrative Order 301, which was signed one week before the Nov. 6 General Election.

Dunleavy replaced it with Administrative Order 303.

Dunleavy then removed nearly all of Walker’s picks for the commission, several of whom were associated with a parallel group called the Alaska Census Working Group, a creation of the nonprofit Foraker Group in Anchorage.

The Foraker Group specializes in helping other nonprofit groups with their management systems, financial systems, strategic planning and leadership development. Some see them as left-leaning.

A review of the Walker Census commissioners shows that the Foraker Group’s Alaska Census Working Group was actually in charge, including owning the chairmanship of the commission and four of the nine seats.

Walker’s nine-member Census Commission included:

  • One person from Department of Labor and Workforce Development (Eddie Hunsinger)
  • One person from Department of Commerce  (Katherine Eldemar)
  • One person from Department of Health and Social Services  (Heidi Lengdorfer)
  • One person from regional healthcare organization ( Ellen Provost, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium)
  • One person from the Alaska Municipal League (Patricia Branson, Kodiak mayor, who serves on the Foraker Group Governance Board)
  • One person from a tribal organization who is recommended by Walker’s Tribal Advisory Council (Carol Gore, also on the Foraker Group’s Alaska Census Working Group)
  • Two public members (Laurie Wolf, CEO of the Foraker Group, and Becky Hultberg, on the Foraker Group Operations Board).
  • One person from the Foraker Group’s Alaska Census Working Group, who would serve as chair of the commission (Gabe Layman, a lawyer employed by Cook Inlet Housing Authority.)

The Alaska Census Working Group is not one with which Alaskans may be familiar. It was a project ramped up last year by the mother nonprofit (Foraker) for the purpose of having a say — and sway — in the census.

Bruce Botelho, who masterminded the Walker-Mallott ticket in 2014 and also in 2018, is on Foraker’s Alaska Census Working Group and also serves on the governance board of the Foraker Group. This put one of the most partisan heavyweights of the Alaska Democratic Party right in the middle of Alaska’s census commission, without his name ever being actually attached to the work of the commission.

Gov. Walker had budgeted $250,000 for the commission in his December budget, funding that would have been de facto controlled by the Foraker Group. That funding has been zeroed out by the Dunleavy Administration.

The Foraker Group has since taken down the Alaska Census Working Group page from its website. But CEO Laurie Wolf made a presentation to the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee on Feb. 26.

Dunleavy’s commission makeup is now different. And the Foraker Group is not part of it. In taking this step, the Governor has effectively taken back control of the Census Commission rather than allow a shadow group to control it.

The commission now has one representative from the Office of the Governor, the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Health and Social Services, a mayor of a municipality in the state, a member of the Alaska Native community, and three public at-large members.

The 2020 Census Commission members are:

  • Darren Deacon of Kalskag, chair of commission
  • Heather Carpenter of Juneau
  • Jedediah Cox of Anchorage
  • Jordan Shilling of Anchorage
  • Justin Larkin of Anchorage
  • Michele Hartline of Nikiski
  • Stephen Colligan of Wasilla
  • Eddie Hunsinger of Anchorage
  • Bryce Ward of North Pole

WHAT DOES THE COMMISSION DO?

The state’s Census Commission is responsible for setting parameters and methodologies to help with the complete census count. Given how population is changing in Alaska, with the Mat-Su as the fastest growing area in the state and population in Southeast decreasing, the Census will play a role in the legislative political boundaries.  Those will be set through a process known as redistricting, which occurs every ten years subsequent to the actual census count.

Alaska is a notoriously difficult place to accurately count population because of its wide geography, the seasonal nature of work and subsistence activities, and a naturally reticent populous that doesn’t like answering government questions. But the count is an important factor in federal funding of over 100 programs, so the State of Alaska has a lot at stake in making sure every eligible Alaskan is accounted for.

[Read: U.S. Census starts a year from now in Toksook Bay.]

Capital creep: Official hearings now held outside of Juneau

Suzanne Downing
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11
Capital creep: Official hearings now held outside of Juneau

HOW TO MOVE A CAPITAL: ONE HEARING AT A TIME

The House Majority, led by Democrats and eight moderate Republicans, has done something no legislator from Wasilla has ever been able to do: Move the actual legislative sessions outside of Juneau during regular session.

Former Eagle River  Sen. Randy Phillips, who fought for a decade to move the capital out of Juneau, would be proud.

What’s more, the House Majority has been able to move these precedent-setting sessions without a peep from the usually very strident capital defenders in Juneau — not a word of objection has come from city leaders, and not from the three legislators who represent Juneau.

Is this development a sign of things to come for Juneau?

The co-chairs of House Finance have scheduled and will sponsor the following official hearings on the Permanent Fund dividend and the state budget:

JUNEAU – CAPITOL BUILDING ROOM 519
Friday, March 22, 5-8 pm

KETCHIKAN – LOCATION TBD
Saturday, March 23, noon-3 PM
LOCATION TO BE ANNOUNCED

BETHEL – LOCATION TBD
Saturday, March 23, 2-5 PM

MAT-SU BOROUGH – MATSU LIO, 600 E. RAILROAD AVE., WASILLA
Saturday, March 23, 2-5 PM

SOLDOTNA – SPORTS CENTER, 538 ARENA AVE.,
Saturday, March 23, 2-5 PM

ANCHORAGE – ANCHORAGE LIO, 1500 W. BENSON BLVD.
Sunday, March 24, 2-5 PM

SITKA – LOCATION TBD
Sunday, March 24, 2-5 PM

FAIRBANKS -FAIRBANKS LIO, 1292 SADLER WAY, SUITE 308
Sunday, March 24, 2-5 PM

Legislative special sessions and hearings outside of the normal 90-120 days have been held in Anchorage in the past, over the strong objection of Juneau. And Juneau has fought hard for decades to keep the regular session in the capital city, arguing that it was more cost efficient than moving hearings around the state.

As they do every year, legislators have held town hall meetings in their local communities, which were widely reported in the press. Now, they are spending tens of thousands of dollars to hold actual official hearings in these same communities, poking the camel’s nose a few more inches under the tent.

No objection has been raised by Juneau’s three representatives, Sen. Jesse Kiehl, Rep. Sara Hannon, and Rep. Andi Story. All are Democrats. Apparently, a road show designed to whip up public support for higher budgets is more important to the Juneau delegation than defending their capital from creeping incrementalism.

How these official hearings will be staffed and documented is still unknown. 360north.org will not be able to livestream them for the rest of Alaska. The local media in the various communities will likely be the only source of information for the official proceedings of the House of Representatives.

If they can do it this year, then they can do it every year. Juneau has a lot to think about as the hearings take place elsewhere, starting Saturday.  A voter initiative is now being considered to move the legislative sessions, and these hearings could put wind in the sails of the capital move advocates.

Five things you should know about the Anchorage bond package

Suzanne Downing
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11
Five things you should know about the Anchorage bond package

(4-minute read) SCHOOL, ROAD BONDS FALL ON TAXPAYERS, NOT STATE

Anchorage voters face a decision about whether to approve bonds during the municipal election, which ends April 2.

Here are five things you should know about the Anchorage bonds

1. If they pass, your property taxes will go up further. A homeowner with a valuation of $300,000 currently pays about $4,035 in property tax (this varies) and would pay nearly $81 more per year if all six bonds pass. Renters will see this additional cost passed along in higher monthly rent ($6.75 is the amount that would cover it).

2. The municipality currently carries $1.06 billion in voter-approved debt. Over half of that is school construction debt.

3. The ballot that voters have in the mail by now asks them to add an additional  $113.1 million to Anchorage’s outstanding debt, for a total of $1.17 billion owed by property taxpayers — an increase of 11%.

4. The $59 million in school bonds is not eligible for state debt service support. Debt service will fall entirely onto the shoulders of local property owners. Moreover, the State is considering reducing or eliminating debt service support for school bonds from past years, which would sharply increase local property taxes even without adding any new school construction debt.

5. Some of the bond measures will bump up the tax cap, because they include language for ongoing operations and maintenance. Bumping up the tax cap will lead to higher taxes next year. The city’s current budget is the highest in history at $522 million.

Here are the propositions that would add to Anchorage homeowners’ and renters’ tax burden. Note:  Must Read Alaska is using a $300,000 valuation, rather than the $100,000 valuation used by the city. The average home value in Anchorage id $331,000.

[Want the full description of each bond? Check the Municipality’s website here]

Proposition 1: $59,113,000 capital improvement bonds for the Anchorage School District. A homeowner with a $300,000 valuation would pay an additional $40 a year in property tax.

Proposition 2: $5,936,000 for public safety bonds for the infrastructure of the Anchorage Area-Wide Radio Network, acquiring new ambulances and replacement cardiac monitors, upgrading transit facilities, acquiring and replacing transit vehicles, upgrading infrastructure and undertaking bus stop improvements and school safety zone improvements and related capital improvements. Approval will automatically increase the municipal tax cap to pay for annual operation and maintenance costs related to the proposed capital improvements. For a homeowner with a $300,000 home would pay an additional $4.02 in annual property taxes, plus another 6 cents a year to pay for annual operation and maintenance that would be related.

Proposition 3: $5,513,000 in capital improvements on municipal buildings, including roof replacements, HVAC, safety improvements, bathroom renovations. A homeowner with a $300,000 home would pay another $3.75 a year in property taxes to retire the bonds.

Proposition 4: $33,240,000 in general obligation bonds for roads and drainage.  A homeowner with a $300,000 home would pay another $20 a year in property taxes and another $2.31 per year for annual operations and maintenance related to the improvements. This bond language increases the municipal tax cap going forward to include operation and maintenance. Chugiak, Eagle River, and Girdwood are excepted.

Proposition 5: $3,400,000 in bonds for parks, playgrounds, recreation facility improvements. This will cost a homeowner of a $300,000 property valuation an additional $3.90 per year in property taxes, and an additional $1.86 per year for the annual operation and maintenance costs. This bond language automatically increases the tax cap. Properties in Chugiak, Eagle River, Girdwood, and other areas outside the Service Area are excepted.

Proposition 6: $2,400,000 in bonds for fire service for replacing vehicles and equipment. A homeowner with a $300,000 valuation would pay an additional $2.46 per year in property tax, with Chugiak, Girdwood, and other areas excepted.

Proposition 7: $3,500,000  in bonds for the Anchorage Police Department’s Elmore Facility to expand the crime lab, and other police department improvements. For a homeowner with a $300,000 valuation, this bond would cost $2.43 a year in property tax, with Girdwood, Bird, Indian, Rainbow, Portage and other areas excepted.

[A complete list of already existing bond indebtedness for the Municipality can be seen here.]

Human Rights Commission director was regulating ‘hate speech’

Suzanne Downing
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62
Human Rights Commission director was regulating ‘hate speech’

MARTI BUSCAGLIA DIGS DEEPER THE MORE SHE EXPLAINS HERSELF

Pro-tip for Marti Buscaglia: She may want to just stop talking to the press. She’s not making it better and now that there’s an official investigation into her conduct, it’s time for her to just clam up for a bit. In fact, taking a quick vacation to Hawaii would be advisable.

Buscaglia, the executive director of the Alaska Human Rights Commission told a reporter on Friday that she simply wasn’t sure:

Was the “Black Rifles Matter” truck decal free speech or hate speech?

Since she wasn’t sure, she took action to regulate it as hate speech in a parking lot on A Street that is leased by the State.

Buscaglia left her calling card — her official business card showing the authority vested in her by the State of Alaska — on the truck belonging to Brenton Linegar, who owns a small plumbing firm that had a contract to do repairs on the building. It was a heavy-handed message to a private citizen to get off the parking lot of the State of Alaska.

Buscaglia, whose agency has an official Facebook page, then took a photo of the back of the truck and decal and posted it on Facebook with a provocative comment meant to shame the truck owner: “In what world is this OK?” she wrote.

Under the Seal of the State of Alaska, Buscaglia was doxxing the owner of the truck — publicly shaming him on Facebook. That wasn’t enough for her. She decided to hurt his business by sending an email to the owner of the building asking him to ban the plumbing company from doing work.

Buscaglia — or her staff — felt the immediate backlash from Alaskans on Facebook, and the sting of their comments led her to remove the post from the official State page.

She offered an explanation that “it offended many gun owners who felt we were against the second amendment and the right of citizens to own guns. Please know that is not the case. Our concern was with the connotation of the statement to the Black Lives Matter movement. We know some of you were offended by the post so we removed it.”

Buscaglia was showing her confusion: Gun owners on Facebook weren’t offended by the agency’s action due to the Second Amendment. It was the First Amendment they were concerned about.

After all, this is a state agency with a mission of enforcing fines and penalties on people for their behavior. The agency had, on Thursday, suddenly expanded its mission from regulating behavior in hiring and housing to regulating speech on public property — a massive scope expansion.

[Read: Human Rights Commission vs. First, Second Amendment]

As the Human Rights Commission public relations nightmare started blazing, Buscaglia’s phone started to ring. By Friday, the news media had taken notice.

She told the Associated Press: “I think the line between being protected by the First Amendment and hate speech is very fine. And frankly, I wasn’t sure which one this was.”

HATE SPEECH A NEW REGULATORY AREA FOR THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION?

The U.S. Supreme Court has, on multiple occasions, shown that whatever hate speech is — and that is an elastic term — it’s protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The Court has said, at least six times in recent years, that even offensive speech is protected. Those protections do not necessarily include lewd, obscene, libelous or “fighting” words — “those which by their very utterances inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

[Read: Dunleavy investigates bureaucrat’s attack on gun-loving plumber]

However, even that speech has strong protections. Rappers and hip hop artists have been threatened with with obscenity or outright censorship efforts, and rap lyrics made a name for themselves in the 2015 Supreme Court case Elonis v. United States, when the Court was asked to decide whether a song was a real threat because it contained lyrics that appeared to threaten the rap artist’s ex-wife. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

But at the Alaska Commission on Human Rights, there is such a thing as hate speech, and Buscaglia is on the lookout for it, and has shown a willingness to use the authority of her office to punish people who she thinks is violating some kind of law. A law that doesn’t exist is being enforced.

 

Buscaglia later told KTUU that her business card contained direct phone access to her and she had hoped to receive a call from the truck owner to learn more about the bumper sticker.

“I wrote it on my business card expressly for the purpose that I expected the person to call me when they got it,” she said. “It has my direct line on there. The connotation that if you pull into the human commission parking lot and you see a truck with that sticker, you would wonder what’s going on.”

That’s not what her note said. It said “Please do NOT park this truck with that offensive sticker in this parking lot.”

Along with her business card was one from Kendall Rhyne, chief probation officer for the State of Alaska.

Buscaglia claimed she was just trying to start a conversation with the truck owner. But was she? Or were those cards meant to add authority and intimidation to the handwritten note?

In any case, she may not have started the conversation she wanted to have. Linegar, the truck owner, took the matter to his friends on Facebook, asking them if there’s something he didn’t understand about the Black Rifles Matter sticker.

FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTS POLITICAL SPEECH

The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the public from people like Marti Buscaglia, those who appoint themselves philosopher kings to sit on high and decree which political speech is protected and which must be removed from the public square — and from government-owned parking lots.

As a person who had a career in newspapers, Buscaglia evidently never grasped the rule of law provided by the Constitution. She is now the agency chief in charge of enforcing — or abusing — its protections.

And it’s taken a plumber to point out the problem with the situation.

Coming Up

Suzanne Downing
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0
Send political calendar items to suzanne @ mustreadalaska.com

Spring revenue forecast: North Slope oil at $68.90 for FY19

Suzanne Downing
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0
Spring revenue forecast: North Slope oil at $68.90 for FY19

THEN DROPS TO $66 PER BARREL FOR 2020

The Alaska Department of Revenue released the spring 2019 revenue forecast today. The spring forecast includes the Department’s updated FY19, FY20, and long-term forecasts for oil price, oil production, and state revenue.

Not counting transfers from the Alaska Permanent Fund, the Department forecasts unrestricted revenue of $2.7 billion in FY 2019 and $2.3 billion in FY 2020.

Additionally, the Permanent Fund is expected to transfer $2.7 billion to the general fund in FY 2019 and $2.9 billion to the general fund in FY 2020. These amounts are available both for payment of Permanent Fund Dividends and for general government spending.

Alaska North Slope oil prices are forecast to average $68.90 per barrel for FY 2019 and $66.00 for FY 2020. Based on a review of oil market fundamentals, the Department chose not to revise its view on long term oil price since the fall forecast. Long term, the Department continues to expect oil prices to stabilize in the low 60’s in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars.

The revenue forecast is also based on projected North Slope oil production averaging 511,500 barrels per day in FY 2019 and 529,500 barrels per day in FY 2020.

The fall forecast posted by former Gov. Bill Walker anticipated an average Alaska oil price of $75 per barrel for fiscal year 2020, with prices climbing to average $84 per barrel by 2027.

The current price of Alaska North Slope crude is $68.43.

The production forecast is prepared in collaboration with the Department of Natural Resources and reflects an updated assessment of future production that slightly adjusted production expectations for the next several years. Production is still expected to remain around 500,000 barrels per day over the next decade as new developments offset production declines from existing fields.

 

Some human rights, not others?

Suzanne Downing
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3

THE ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET

If the state is looking to save a couple of million dollars, it should start in the governor’s office by red-lining the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights – or, as it should be known, the Alaska State Commission for Some Human Rights But Not Others.

Must Read Alaska is reporting a worker for a small plumbing contracting business in Anchorage, a business working on the building leased by the commission, came back to his truck this week and found a note. It was on the back of commission Executive Director Marti Buscaglia’s business card. There was another card from probation officer Kendall Rhyne.

Buscaglia’s message told the worker to “not park this truck with that offensive sticker in this parking lot.”

The sticker in question: “Black Rifles Matter.” It has an image of a semi-automatic rifle.

Read the rest of this op-ed at Anchorage Daily Planet:

http://www.anchoragedailyplanet.com/151217/some-human-rights-not-others/

 

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