A task force appointed by the University of Alaska Board of Regents is a team of Alaskans representing a moderate-to-liberal slice of Alaska politics: Four Democrats, two Republicans and four who are registered as Undeclared. It’s the reverse of how Alaskans are registered as voters. But this is academia, and left-leaning politics is not surprising.
The group is tasked with exploring options for the university system’s future structure in a time of budget cuts.
The task force includes:
One former and one current member of the Board of Regents: Jo Heckman, A former regent, co-founder of Denali State Bank, Republican; and Sheri Buretta, leader at Alaska Federation of Natives, Chugach Alaska Corporation, and former transition team member for Mayor Mark Begich, an Undeclared.
Three Alaska private sector leaders: Tom Barrett of Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., Undeclared; Aaron Schutt, of Doyon Ltd., a Democrat; and Joe Beedle, former CEO, Northrim Bank, who has published op-eds opposing budget cuts. He is a Republican.
One rural Alaska leader: Reggie Joule is a former legislator and mayor, now lobbyist for K-12 education with Sen. Tom Begich’s wife’s advocacy group. He is a Democrat.
Three retired UA faculty members: Terrence Cole, of UAF, far left faculty member, an Undeclared; Cathy Connor, leftist former faculty member at UAS, a Democrat; and Gunnar Knapp, retired UAA, an Undeclared.
One former UA executive: Wendy Redman, former UA executive vice president of Fairbanks, an Undeclared.
One student: Joey Sweet/UAA and former UA student regent, no voter registration found.
The task force is charged with evaluating the following structural options and others for the UA system and providing an update to the Board of Regents in September, and a final report in November. The options they will look at include:
Status Quo – Three separate accredited universities with the community college campuses part of their respective regional university.
Lead Campus – Three separately accredited universities but with more focus of specific academic programs at each single university along with expanded availability of courses across the system via distance delivery. Also, reorganize the community college campuses to report to one of the lead campuses.
One University – A single accredited university for all of Alaska with the community colleges organized as a unit within the university.
Three independent universities– Three separately accredited universities and associated community colleges with independent administrations and no statewide administration.
The members will gather input and evaluate how to move forward with what will be a smaller budget. Gov. Michael Dunleavy has proposed cutting $134 million cut, roughly 40 percent of the state’s support for the university system.
University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen has fought those cuts and said they would “devastate” Alaska’s university system and lead to campus closures, tuition hikes, and layoffs of as many as 1,300 university employees.
A second suspect has been arrested in connection with the death of 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman, pictured above, who was shot execution style near Thunderbird Falls in Chugiak. She had been reported missing on Monday.
Denali Brehmer, age 18, is facing charges of Murder 1 and Evidence Tampering, as well as other charges. Earlier, 16-year-old Kayden McIntosh was arrested in the case.
Cynthia Hoffman was reported missing by a family member on Monday. The family member said that the young woman had been seen by a friend at Polar Bear Park, possibly on Sunday at 4 pm. She was in blue jeans, a hoodie, and tennis shoes.
Detectives believe the family was given false information about Hoffman’s whereabouts and that she was killed — shot in the back of the head after being bound with duct tape.
The victim and her two alleged killers knew each other and friends are reporting that there was a romantic entanglement between them.
When we last heard from Bob Lacher, a fellow pilot who accompanied him on the trip had just suffered a bad beach landing and they have a damaged aircraft to deal with. This is part 3 of the 8-part serial of Chapter 1 of Lacher’s new book, which can be purchased at the links below.
After some time collecting Frank’s rattled ego and focusing on the problem, we got out all the tools we thought necessary to do the required body work. We did not have many.
It takes some amount of resolve to finally decide you are going to attack a near new $125,000 aircraft with a Leatherman, a crescent wrench, a small sledge hammer (brought to drive tent stakes)and an ax.
But once it had been decided, we went to work like a cluster of Bangladeshi rickshaw repairmen.
Soon we had the offending sheet metal hacked off, the bent tip surfaces hammered into rough shape, and space freed up for the aileron to move up and down again.
The aileron was bent up about 30 degrees and kinked. Once we made space for it to move within the wing, it was still crippled because of the range limitations and interferences caused by the kink. The big hammer was just bouncing off the bound up metal. The noises from each blow sent shudders rippling through what was left of Frank’s bruised disposition.
There was nothing left to do but perhaps get up on top of the wing and jump on it. That seemed rude. I finally tried a chin up, grabbing the end of the aluminum section and reefing down with all my weight. It finally started to come into shape. A few more reps of that and we were able to swing it through the full range of motion.
We face-checked each other for full approval and satisfaction.
In flight, it clearly would pull to the left, but we all agreed it should fly. In fact it might fly reasonably well. After another cigarette and more jaw jacking about how fortunate we were, the conversation finally got back to the dead walrus that was half in the water, half out, just a hundred yards away.
We were for sure going to cut its head off. Nothing would be more humiliating than wrecking an airplane and getting nothing. The act of beheading would begin the man-healing process. We rounded up the tools for the task, big ax, bone saw, serrated long-bladed Cutco knife, rubber gloves, hip boots and long rain jackets to shield us from the putrid splatter of magnificently rotten walrus goo.
Dad and a dead walrus found on the way to Unimak Island.
Our trip plans were seeing some daylight again. The plane looked airworthy and the walrus was about to receive serious neck surgery. Given all of that, it seemed like it was about the right time to drag out into the open the notion we had all been thinking about since the Great Mistake: If the plane flew reasonably well, did Frank have the appetite for limping on down to Unimak and completing the trip?
What was unthinkable several hours ago was now thinkable, at least to me. I threw it out there. My father’s response was to give me his best confused and disoriented look like he misunderstood what I said, like maybe if he ignored the crazy street person who was smelling of urine and asking for spare change….he would eventually escape his piercing stare.
Frank, apparently all jacked up on the fetid fumes of the nearby rotten walrus, did not take long to agree, at least to the concept. With an introspective tilt of his head he mumbled something about “if it flew, why not finish what we started?” This would be easy. If it pulled to the left, just steer more to the right, like a car with a low tire. The structural analysis was completed with confidence and, even more amazingly, without any beer.
Nods of affirmation were being exchanged and re-exchanged all around. Let’s do this!
All further issues would be worked out during the test drive. Dad was slowly coming around to our position to keep the venture on schedule and we set about soothing disrupted feelings and jangled nerves by acting normal and beheading the walrus.
It was a dandy. Half of the animal’s head had been buried in the sand and the tusks were bigger than previously scouted from the air. It was an hour and a half long job since Frank wanted the entire skull to clean and mount, rather than just the tusks.
Incoming tidal breakers were rolling the 3,000 pound carcass up and down the inclined beach like a massive beach ball caught in the surf. We’d make a few cuts in the three inch thick neck hide while standing in three foot deep water, trying to time the waves so we could run back up the bank each time a big one came in and swamped the operation.
Back and forth, cut, slash, hack, chop, hack…outrun the incoming wave…follow the outgoing sea back out, jump on it again and repeat. The blood and snotty decomposed flesh swirled in fetid pools around us. Thigh deep in the cold surf and bathing in the revolting stench, we cannibalized the huge head off the body and dragged the prize up on shore. We felt back in charge.
Both airplanes were loaded to near capacity given the fuel we still had, so we decided to stash the head well up the bank in some tall grass, marking it with a GPS and brightly colored flagging to allow retrieval on the home bound trip. Frank and I cleaned up and sacked and sealed our bloody, rancid clothes and gloves in big garbage bags and loaded for the flight further south.
After liftoff, some back and forth on the radio between us confirmed the Maul was flying well enough. It would be a couple hundred more miles to get to Unimak and I was hoping to get another walrus head, or even better, a couple more.
We got back into the low level, throttled-back flight pattern along the ocean’s edge and picked our way down the beach at just 100 feet elevation.
Although we did not find another walrus head to harvest, we did find a spot where several hundred walrus were hauled up on a sandy shore to build up some body heat and take a break. There was a beach area several hundred yards away that appeared flat enough to get the planes landed on and we decided to stop and take a closer look. These were a batch of mature bulls and weighed 2,500 to 3,000 pounds. Stacked shoulder to tail, flashing long ivory tusks. They clearly did not see us as predators and didn’t get the least bit agitated about getting visitors.
The smell made our eyes water and throats burn, the bitter fumes of ammonia in their excrement was not just really unpleasant as in a humid, confined chicken coop or the worst corner of a dirty barn, it was physically overpowering, seizing your lungs if you got a big hit of it straight in. After a good half hour break and a snack and taking a round of pictures, we walked back up the beach to the airplanes and continued on.
The next stop would be Cold Bay, a place to regroup, fuel up and possibly stay overnight.
The wind was picking up. What had been 25- to 30-mph was now 35 to 40 and spitting rain harder than when we began. It’s difficult to keep a small aircraft parked and stationary in wind over 35 mph unless you can find a washed up log or heavy brush to tie it down to or unless you drive your own earth anchors, which we carried with us but were a pain to install and remove. If it did not slow down we thought it may be best to overnight in Cold Bay and see what the next day brought.
Mile after mile of black sand came and went. The winds continued sharply. When we finally arrived in Cold Bay there was no question the best plan would involve finding a tie down and waiting out the weather. A quick check revealed the winds were to slow to 25 or 30 mph by the next morning and stay that way for at least one day.
Come back on June 9 for the next installment, Part 4: A night in the Cold Bay ‘hotel’, and beach landing in a howling gale.
Compared to 2017, chlamydia is up 4 percent statewide, gonorrhea is up 3 percent, and syphilis, while the raw numbers are small, is up 289 percent. Year after year, these numbers keep creeping higher.
In Anchorage, syphilis cases went from 21 in 2017 to 85 in 2018. The statewide total jumped from 25 to 113, so most diagnosed syphilis cases are in Anchorage.
Also in Anchorage, there were 1,283 cases of gonorrhea reported in 2017. By 2018, the case count rose to 1,375.
Unsurprisingly, the state’s largest city also has the highest raw numbers of chlamydia, jumping from 2,522 to 2,677 between 2017 and 2018.
Chlamydia also puts Alaska on the map, as the No. 1 state. In 2017, more than 1.7 million cases of chlamydia were reported to the CDC. But Alaska is No. 1 for this disease, which is most often asymptomatic. 85 percent of those diagnosed with it had no symptoms.
As in Alaska, gonorrhea rates are rising across the country, and the medical community is running out of treatment options to cure what is becoming increasingly drug-resistant infection. Since 2012, gonorrhea in Alaska is up 208 percent.
Alaska has the highest rate of the infectious sexually transmitted disease in the country. Half of STDs are among young people ages 15 to 24 years.
So be sure to have fun this weekend, and if you swipe right on that dating app, don’t bring home anything you don’t want to tell your doctor about.
April employment was up an estimated 0.9 percent, or a 2,800 job increase from April 2018, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Construction added the largest number of jobs (1,800), followed by health care and oil and gas, which each added 500 jobs.
Manufacturing jobs are down, with a decline of 700 jobs, mostly in the seafood processing sector. Financial services and information technology dropped 500 jobs.
Federal jobs in Alaska also declined by 200, but was made up for by local government jobs, which grew by 200, and state government jobs, which grew by 100.
Alaska’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 6.5 percent, and the comparable national rate fell to 3.6 percent.
Not‐seasonally adjusted rates have fallen in nearly every area of the state as summer ramps up.
Unemployment rates increased slightly in Aleutians East Borough and Aleutians West Census Area, although they remained among the state’s lowest due to winter fishing.
The state’s largest decline in unemployment was in Bristol Bay Borough, where the rate fell from 14.9 percent in March to 7.7 percent in April as the area’s fishing activity picked up.
The unemployment rate in Anchorage is 5.1 percent; Fairbanks 5.8 percent and Juneau 4.6 percent. Sitka had 4.2 percent unemployment and Kodiak was at 5.1 percent.
Granny’s Guns, a mom-and-pop firearms dealer in Anchorage, has been the victim of a brazen robbery, where two vehicles were rammed into the front of the store on Dowling Road near Peterson Street.
Men wearing gloves entered and took an unknown number of firearms from the store, said to be 26 guns.
Owner Barry Barr said he can’t talk about the firearm heist because authorities have asked him not to. But for Anchorage, in the middle of a crime wave, there are dozens of stolen guns now on the streets, serial numbers unknown to the public since they have not been released by authorities.
Anchorage Police have made no public announcement about it in an effort to pursue quiet detective work out of the media limelight, but the news is being circulated across Facebook pages devoted to crime-fighting.
JUNE 7 UPDATE
According to Anchorage Police today at noon, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms industry, announced a reward today for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible for the June 6 burglary of Granny’s Guns in Anchorage, in which about 26 firearms were taken.
ATF is offering a reward of up to $5,000, matched by the NSSF for a possible reward of up to $10,000.
Anchorage Police Department and ATF are investigating the burglary, in which four suspects drove a stolen vehicle through the front doors of the business at 3:59 a.m. The burglars loaded the rifles and handguns into a separate vehicle.
Photos of three of the four suspects are included in this release. Suspect one was wearing a blue long sleeve with dark hair and a white cloth over their nose and mouth. Suspect two had dark pants, dark long sleeve shirt, black vest and a hoodie on. Suspect two also had red shoes on and a dark bandana covering their face. Suspect three had gray pants, a white under shirt and a blue hoodie with “Bartlett 17” on the back. Suspect four was the passenger in one of the suspect vehicles. All of the suspects wore gloves.
Both vehicles have been recovered. The stolen vehicle used to break through the front doors was left on scene. The other vehicle was recovered later in the day of the burglary.
Anyone with information about the persons responsible and/or information leading to the recovery of the stolen firearms should contact ATF at 1-888-ATF-TIPS (888-283-8477), email[email protected], or contact ATF through its website at www.atf.gov/contact/atftips.
Tips may also be submitted to ATF using the ReportIt® app, available on both Google Play and the Apple App Store, or by visiting www.reportit.com.
I attended the Anchorage Museum’s media preview of its new exhibition of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, which had been seeking the Northwest Passage in 1845.
The European powers had been fascinated with finding a Northwest Passage and with Polar exploration since the late Middle Ages. If you’re old enough to have had a U.S. or World History course, you’ll remember names like Hudson, Cabot, and Cartier, who made their mark on maps.
The Napoleonic Wars interrupted exploration but with the return of peace, the great powers returned to exploration of the unknown areas of the planet, and especially the fascinating Arctic and Antarctic regions.
The British Admiralty was seeking to complete the mapping of a Northwest Passage in the mid 1840s. Sir John Franklin was not on their short list to command the mission.
Franklin was a failed governor of Tasmania but wealthy and well-connected, and he had a well-connected and aggressive wife. He wanted to restore his reputation so ultimately he was tapped to command the expedition to the Arctic.
We have no idea how good Franklin was as a commander and ship’s master and a somewhat deeper than superficial look doesn’t give us much indication. It really doesn’t matter; Royal Navy capital ships were nominally commanded by some guy who could afford to buy the flag; some guy who’d worked his way up from a ship’s boy at 14 to become the sailing master really ran the ship, though his uniform wasn’t as nice.
HMS Erebus and Terror were “bomb ships;” heavily built ships built for shore bombardment. Both were reinforced for Arctic service and both had new steam engines for auxiliary propulsion, fresh water production, and steam heat. Both, however, were quite old, one built in the ‘Teens, the other in the Twenties. Despite their formidable reputation, the British Navy’s vessels were notoriously cheaply, corruptly, and shoddily built; a British frigate captain’s fondest dream was to be assigned to a French or American prize vessel.
We may be allowed to wonder just how substantial the two aging vessels really were, despite their modernization and their lavish provenance.
We really don’t know and aren’t likely to definitively know what led to the demise of the Franklin Expedition. It is pretty clear that command and discipline disintegrated, but that could have been from death and attrition or from something like a mutiny; we just don’t know.
The British elite had a fit of apoplexy over the allegations of cannibalism, but cannibalism has been with us for a very long time in survival situations, and the infamous Donner Party cannibalism episode was only a couple of years after the Franklin event.
The only thing we know is that everyone died, and at least from the view of 150 years later, it looks like there might have been some chance of survivability had the right decisions been made. All we can do is speculate, so let’s turn to the exhibit.
I like this exhibit; it has some really cool maritime archeology.
That said, if you can’t read a Patrick O’Brien book without looking up a term, you’re not going to understand a lot of this exhibit. It is pretty thin gruel about what life on a 19th Century sailing vessel was like; “Master and Commander” will give you a better view.
The Museum needs to bulk up the narrative or provide some docents. The guy in charge of the exhibition couldn’t tell me if the crew were primarily Naval ratings recruited to the mission, or simply guys “shanghaied” from British bars for service on a ship; the Brits did that sort of thing.
As for the cannibalism, the British elites had a fit about the allegations, saying that the Royal Navy’s men would never do such a thing, but the question unanswered is whether the men were the Royal Navy’s men. Once that is answered, then we can talk about whether the Royal Navy’s men would have eaten their fellows were they hungry enough.
Then, we get into the political correctness of whether or not the Franklin Expedition could have survived had they reached out to the Native people for local knowledge.
First, the crew of the vessels were as old or older than the average Inuit adult they might have come in contact with. The Inuit life skills didn’t give them a particularly impressive life expectancy in the harsh Arctic climate. I’ll grant some over-weaning British arrogance; the British elite could not have conceived of asking aboriginal people what to do.
But then there are questions of just how well they could communicate with the language differences, and just how much interest either would have had in helping the other.
The great sin of historiography is presentism; looking at the past through the eyes of the present.
“Death in the Ice” looks at the events of the late 1840s through the politically correct eyes of the 2000-teens. A sailing ship in the early 19th Century left port even more alone than a space ship today would leave for Mars. A sailing ship leaving for the far side of the world, whether the Arctic or the Pacific, was totally out of touch until it returned to its home port or ran into another ship that could forward some communications.
Franklin and his crew left England as well prepared and equipped as the knowledge of their time allowed. They screwed up, and they died; that’s what happens if you don’t get it right. That is a lesson we today should take to heart instead of looking for politically correct ”life hacks.”
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.
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.
General inquiry: Does it seem like dandelions are especially hardy this year? Or is the word invasive? We are told by one local beekeeper that this seems to be a bumper crop year for the wandering weeds.
IN THE LEGISLATURE: House gavels in at 10:30 am, Senate gavels in at 11 am.
Alaska Daylight Report:
Today is June 7, the 158th day of 2019. Below is the amount of daylight anticipated today by several Alaskan communities:
Juneau will clock in with 18 hours 2 minutes of daylight.
Anchorage will see an hour more, with 19 hours 2 minutes of daylight.
Fairbanks will receive a whopping 21 hours 9 minutes of daylight.
In Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), the sun will shine all day.
Summer solstice (the year’s longest day) will take place in exactly two weeks, on June 21, 2019.
6/7: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service management officials for the Chignik area will hold a subsistence fishing stakeholder meeting at 4 pm. The purpose of the meeting is to provide all interested parties with an opportunity to discuss the upcoming salmon season in Chignik with federal Fish and Wildlife Staff. More information here.
6/7:Alaska Public Offices Commission provides group training 12-2 pm. Check details here.
6/7: The Alaska State Board of Education & Early Development will hold public testimony beginning at 9:10 am. The State Board oversees the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development and supervises the Commissioner. Those wishing to testify to the board can either show up to the board’s meeting in Anchorage or call in via telephone. Visitthislink for details.
6/7: The Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct will hold their quarterly meeting in Anchorage. The public portion of the meeting will commence at 9:45 am and end at 10:30 am, when the commission will enter executive session. More information here.
6/7: Opening of the Anchorage Museum’s new exhibit titled “Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition”. The exhibit showcases over two-hundred artifacts associated with the lost ship that departed London in 1845 and was never heard from or seen again. That is, until the two sunken ships were re-discovered in 2014 and 2016. $5 gate fee plus museum admission. Free for museum members.
6/7: First Friday Spring Garden Party at Risse Greenhouse between Fairbanks and Chena Hot Springs. Free to attend, and the greenhouses will be scattered with over twenty local artists and live musicians. Runs from 5 – 9 pm.
6/7:InteriorAlaska GOP will host their weekly luncheon at Denny’s in Fairbanks beginning at 11:30 am. The guest will be Fairbanks advertising consultant Steve Neumuth speaking about “The Art of Campaigning”. All are welcome.
6/7: Deadline to enter in the Kodiak Island Borough’s Junk Vehicle Disposal Lottery. One hundred lucky lottery contestants will receive free removal of one junk vehicle from their property, courtesy of the borough’s Community Development Department. Instructions for entry atthis link.
6/7: June Alaska Aviators Forum at the Aviator Hotel in Anchorage. This month’s edition of the forum will feature Bert Hanson, Chief Pilot of the Iditarod Air Force. Bert will speak about his 36 years serving as the “eyes in the sky” for the world’s most famous sled dog race. Begins at 7 pm, more details here.
6/7:WasillaMusic in the Park 2019, the first of four nights in June in which the Wasilla community will come together at Wonderland Park to enjoy an evening of live music, delicious food vendors, and all-around family fun. Admission to the event is free, visitthis link for details.
6/7: Deadline to submit photos to Senator Dan Sullivan’s Frontier in Focus photo contest. Send photos of your best Alaskan summer scenery to Senator Sullivan at [email protected].
6/8:Kenai Air Fair & Fun Flight. Morning will begin with breakfast at the Soldotna Airport, with a BBQ at noon in Kenai. This event will also feature live music and a military appreciation event. All participating aircraft must be registered; more information here.
6/8: Alaska Run for Women in Anchorage to support breast cancer awareness. Both a one-mile and five-mile race will take place. Visit here for more information and to register.
6/8:Nascar/Inex races at Alaska Raceway. Doors open at 3 pm. Info here.
6/9: Bulldog Memorial Ride hosted by Denali Harley-Davidson in Wasilla. Begins at 11 am, further details at the Facebook page here.
6/7-6/9: The Palmer Chamber of Commerce will hold their annual Colony Days celebration to celebrate the region’s rich history. The three-day long festivities include a parade, axe throwing competitions, and block parties downtown. There will also be plenty of local food and crafts available for purchase, visit herefor a detailed schedule of the celebration.
6/7-6/9:Kenai & Soldotna will celebrate the lifeblood waterway of their communities in the annual Kenai River Festival. This weekend festival surrounding the Kenai River will take place at Soldotna Creek Park, and include live music, various food vendors, and an artisan market. Click here for more detailed information about the weekend’s events.
6/7-6/9: 2019 Special Olympics Alaska Summer Games. Over three hundred athletes will compete in five different summer sports. Come cheer them on and support a good cause. Click herefor detailed location information for each sport.
Alaska History Archive:
June 7, 1913: At 20 years old, Walter Harper became the first person to ever reach the summit of Denali, spending about ninety minutes atop North America’s highest peak. Harper, an Athabaskan, had been invited to summit the mountain in early 1913 by British priest Hudson Stuck. The expedition left Nenana (via dog team) on March 17, 1913, summited on June 7, and returned on June 20, three months later. Soon after getting married, Harper tragically died in a southeast Alaska ship wreck at age 25.
June 8, 1899: 120 years since Noel Wien, Alaska aviation pioneer and founder of Wien Air Alaska, was born in Wisconsin. Among many other first-time records, Noel Wien was the first to fly from Fairbanks to Seattle, the first to fly across the Bering Strait, and the first to fly north of the Arctic Circle. Dubbed “the father of Alaska bush flying”, Wien was named Alaskan of the Year in 1975 and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2010. Noel Wien passed away in 1977 at seventy-eight years old.
Gov. Michael Dunleavy entered the rally this evening in Wasilla to the iconic Tom Petty song blasting out from speakers, “I won’t Back Down.”
“You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.”
About 300 residents from around Southcentral Alaska loved it, and cheered him into the room like a rock star. They came from as far away as Kenai to support him and his effort to protect their Permanent Fund dividends.
The song and the crowd made a statement: For them, the Permanent Fund dividend should be paid according to the statutory formula, and that is a non-negotiable item.
“And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down … Gonna stand my ground.”
Earlier in the day in Juneau, senators opposing the $3,000 dividend tried to force the Senate to revote on the PFD bill in front of them, but Sen. Shelley Hughes of the Mat-Su put a “call on the Senate,” and with members not showing up, the body eventually adjourned. It was parliamentary politics at play, as the Senate is split on whether the dividend should be the full $3,000 or should be the $1,600 that some lawmakers feel is “palatable enough” to the public.
In Wasilla, where the next special session will be held, any reduction from the statutory amount was not a palatable with the crowd at Everett’s, the lakeside venue where Dunleavy held his Restore the PFD rally.
“Well I know what’s right. I got just one life. In a world that keeps on pushin’ me ’round. But I’ll stand my ground.”
Many of Dunleavy’s remarks were similar to his campaign promises when he ran for governor, and indeed, it was his stance on the dividend that won him overwhelming support in November. This was a theme he was well-versed in, something he has talked about hundreds of times before, and at different town hall meetings across the state. And this was a crowd that clearly loves him.
Dunleavy urged those in attendance to not only call and write to those legislators who support the full dividend, and thank them, but to be sure to contact those who do not support the current statutory formula.
“The PFD is the canary in the mine,” he said. Once lawmakers start fooling around with the formula, which is set in statute, then it is only a matter of time. Later he told reporters that if the statute needs to be changed, then the Legislature should change it. But for now, he said, “Follow the Law.”
And he also reminded them, albeit he was preaching to the choir, that if the dividend is not paid in full, Alaskans will likely start a ballot initiative to take it to the vote of the people.
“Our framers (of the constitution) said you are the vanguard to keep in check rogue legislators,” Dunleavy said. “If you aren’t involved at the front end of this, you will be involved at the end.”
Several times during his remarks the crowd burst out in spontaneous cheering. There were no counter-protesters and security was light.
“Let’s work on this thing together,” Dunleavy said.
It appears that the governor has every intention of calling the Legislature into session in Wasilla, and if nothing else, the footage from tonight was staged to give the Legislature a sense of the enthusiasm of the people in the Valley for being part of the conversation.
