Must Read Alaska has learned that Marti Buscaglia, the embattled executive director of the Alaska Human Rights Commission, has resigned, effective April 26.
Buscaglia resigned in a memo sent to the chairman of the board of the commission, Brandon Nakasato, and the other commissioners. It is dated April 8.
Buscaglia became the subject of much debate after she put her State-issued business card on a truck parked in the parking lot of the Human Rights Commission, ordering the owner to remove his truck and its “offensive sticker” — which was a Second Amendment sticker, Black Rifles Matter.
She also posted a deriding comment about the man’s truck on the State official Facebook page.
It’s tax season and only seven days left to the federal tax filing deadline of April 15. Just in time for Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak to make it known she’s onboard with state income taxes.
Fed up with talks of cuts and efficiency, Rep. Stutes took a bold stance today, firmly supporting new income taxes in her response to a message from an Alaskan who says he is ready for a state income tax.
Stutes hit the “all reply” function with her one word answer: “Agreed!” That made sure that all of her colleagues in the Legislature know just where she stands.
It’s rare for a Republican to be so frank about wanting to institute an income tax on a conservative population that doesn’t have one on the books, but Stutes often writes in her constituent newsletter about the need for such a tax. Her Kodiak residents have a per-capita income of $32,600, not counting the $3,000 Permanent Fund dividend that the Dunleavy Administration wants to return to each Alaskan.
Congressman Don Young has posted a short video encouraging Alaskans to reach out to help prevent suicide among the military community. It’s apparently a growing concern for Alaska’s congressman and he’s using his bully pulpit to talk directly to Alaskans.
In March, Young sent a letter to the Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Nadja West, asking for an investigation into the increasing number of suicides among soldiers at Fort Wainwright.
“As the number of military suicides continues to climb in Alaska, it is clear that the battle is far from over,” he wrote. “Therefore, I request that you send [an Army Medical Command] team to Fort Wainwright to examine the situation on the ground and provide us and the installation with solutions for a path forward.”
Now, Young, who is an Army veteran himself, has turned his focus to the issue of veteran suicide:
The Anchorage Police Department is using new phone technology from the First Responder Network Authority, a national communications platform that allows first responders to communicate even when regular cell phone networks are overwhelmed.
FirstNet is an independent authority inside the U.S. Department of Commerce. It was created by Congress in 2012 to develop, build, and operate a nationwide, dedicated broadband network exclusively for first responders.
APD had already planned to join FirstNet before the Nov. 30 earthquake in Southcentral Alaska, but the Police Chief Justin Doll said the earthquake highlighted the need, even though officers never lost communications during the earthquake or after.
“When the shaking stopped, one of the first things I started doing was using my FirstNet phone to call members of our APD team to begin our response to the disaster,” Doll said. “While some residents experienced busy communication networks, I had immediate 100 percent connectivity with other FirstNet public safety users.”
The system has its roots in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. In New York City and other areas, first responders were not able to communicate across agencies. Landlines and mobile connections were overwhelmed by the high volume of calls, making them a poor option for public safety personnel responding to emergencies.
The State of Alaska is also part of the FirstNet build out, which has now been accepted by all 50 states.
OCEAN-GOING FERRY WON’T BE IN SERVICE UNTIL MAY 18
The Alaska ferry M/V Tustumena is staying put at the Vigor Ketchikan Shipyards for now, due to extensive “steel wastage” on the car deck.
The 55-year-old ferry was in for its annual maintenance and overhaul in February, and during that servicing the rust was discovered. It is expected to return to service on May 18 on a trip from Homer to Kodiak. Originally, it would have been back in service next week.
The delay impacts communities in Southwest Alaska and along the Aleutian chain. Alaska Marine Highway System staff is contacting affected passengers.
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is in the process of replacing the Tustumena, one of two ocean-class vessels in the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet. Because of its size and design, it is the only ferry capable of serving all 13 ports of call between Homer and Unalaska.
But it has limitations. In addition to age, it can only accommodate 36 vehicles and 174 passengers. There is increasing demand for car deck capacity between Homer and Kodiak.
The timeline for replacing the Tustemena:
Glosten Selected for Design November 2013
Reconnaissance Report March 2014
Environmental Documents June 2014
Design Study Report November 2014
Construction Manager/General Contractor Procurement January 2019
It is time for Alaskans to talk to their representatives and senators about Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s trio of proposed constitutional amendments aimed at addressing the state’s chronic red ink problem.
From where we sit, all three should have been part of the Alaska Constitution since Day One.
One deals with a spending cap – Alaska has one, but it is largely ignored – and a savings plan. The second would place a constitutional roadblock on state taxes without a vote of the people. A third proposed amendment would bar any change to the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend without a vote of the people.
On April 8, 1944, the Alaska Juneau Gold Mine, Alaska’s largest, closed down at midnight, due to the high cost of labor and low price of gold. It had produced 90 million tons of gold-bearing ore, and was one of the largest mines in the world at the time.
The first trumpeter swans of the season have been spotted at Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge in Fairbanks.
Nenana Ice Classic ticket sales ended on Friday. Watch the river ice fall apart here.
Alyeska Spring Carnival and Slush Cup is April 12-14. Details here.
Alaska Folk Festival is April 8-14 in Juneau at Centennial Hall. Details here.
Arctic Man 2019 is April 9-14. The ski and snowboard race is on hold for 2019 and will be revisited for 2020. This is the 34th year of what’s sort of a Burning Man of the Hoodoo Mountains, where everyone hopes to return home in one piece. Details here.
The House State Affairs Committee was a rough neighborhood for Public Safety Commissioner nominee Amanda Price on Friday. The Democrat-led committee co-chairman and his posse had come loaded for bear.
The first clue was when Rep. Zack Fields asked Price to go to the unusual measure of swearing herself in under oath before the committee. No commissioner in a confirmation interview has to swear on a Bible. It was a gotcha.
Price demurred taking part in the theater that Fields wanted to create for the cameras. Fields asked her to explain why, and she responded that since no other commissioner designee has ever been asked to do so in Alaska history, she’d take a pass.
Price is the second female commissioner designee that Fields has attacked with an intent to kill her appointment. His first victim was Kelly Tshibaka, commissioner designee of Administration. Tshibaka’s fault was being a Christian, although Fields says he was talking about her beliefs about homosexuality being a disqualifier for employment with the State.
Rep. Adam Wool served as Field’s wingman, and opened the salvos against Price on Friday with a line of questions about how Price’s work with the Walker Administration ended. He was warming her up for the battering to follow.
Price, who had served as Walker’s crime policy and prevention advisor, said that her challenges with the Walker Administration came in part because she was not a proponent of SB 91, the omnibus criminal justice reform package that Walker signed into law.
Amanda Price
Since that law passed, crime has become epidemic and criminals were cycling in and out of jail under the liberalized provisions of the law, which has since been somewhat reined in.
“We were not on the same page with regards to public safety, and several of the proposals that Gov. Walker made to me I vehemently did not support, and so it stopped making sense,” she said, describing her tenure in the Walker Administration as challenging.
Wool’s verbal probing continued, as he said that her concern seemed to be before SB 91 was even signed into law, inferring that she had been too hasty in her judgment of the law. Wool is on record as a proponent of SB 91.
Rep. Fields then piled on: “Ms. Price, did you leave the Walker Administration under your own volition?”
“I’m going to say no,” Price said. “It was clear that it wasn’t working. I had already packed a box in my office and knew that I was going to be leaving. The governor and I had had many challenging conversations. I was not happy there. I don’t think they were happy with me at that time.”
She was let go by Gov. Walker’s Chief of Staff Scott Kendall about three months after Kendall came on board, replacing Jim Whitaker. Price described the conversation in which they agreed it was time for her to go as polite and professional, and that he gave no specific reason for their decision.
Fields challenged her, saying that in another committee she said she left the Walker Administration because of differences over SB 91.
Price said that her statement was not inconsistent, because her role of trying to provide the governor with information from law enforcement professionals she had heard from who were opposed to SB 91 put her in an adversarial position. “It was one of the reasons that I failed to be influential in that administration.”
Fields then brought in what he thought was his big gun.
He asked Price if it was because she didn’t share Walker’s vision or if it was work ethic and other work performance issues.
Price noted that former Deputy Chief of Staff Marcia Davis and former Chief of Staff Whitaker, both prior to Kendall, had both given her positive recommendations.
Fields then asked her if she had ever presented work that was not her own as her own work.
“To the best of my ability to answer that question, no,” she said.
Fields wouldn’t let up. He referred to public records requests by the media “regarding allegations of plagiarism, absenteeism, and misleading members of the Legislature about why you departed the Walker Administration. Are you aware of why the Administration has not complied with the requirements of the Public Record Act and still has not substantively responded to these requests?”
She wasn’t aware of those because she’s not a party to those discussions, she said.
“You were not aware that a member of the governor’s staff had corresponded with at least one member of the media repeatedly stonewalling in response to a public records act request that occurred over two months ago?” Fields asked.
“Rep. Fields, that feels like a very opinionated statement.” she said, adding she was aware of a public request but not about Fields’ list of allegations. The two spoke over each other briefly before Price asked if she’d be allowed to answer his question.
During the public testimony section of the hearing, several people spoke on Price’s behalf.
That’s not enough for Fields, who wants former Chief of Staff Scott Kendall to be brought into the committee to discuss his views of Price. And if he won’t come in, Fields might subpoena him.
Kendall has said he would not discuss a personnel matter with the committee unless Price waived the confidentiality requirement afforded to state employees.
Fields pressed onward, and asked her about a foreclosure that appears on the court record. Price responded that after her husband was injured in an accident as an Anchorage firefighter, the family experienced financial hardship and their home was foreclosed on.
Price worked for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Heart Association, and Standing Together Against Rape. Her grandfather, father, and husband are all in public safety. Members of the committee seemed particularly concerned that she has never worked as a police officer or trooper.
Must Read Alaska has obtained the letter written by Price’s former direct supervisor, Walker’s Deputy Chief of Staff Marcia Davis and the one from former Chief of Staff Jim Whitaker.
Although Kendall’s letter was entered into the committee’s document page online, these letters were not admitted by the committee chairs to be included as part of the record:
DAVIS LETTER:
Dear —
I served as Governor Walker’s deputy chief of staff during the same time period that Jim Whitaker was chief of staff. I interviewed Amanda Price prior to her hiring as a Policy Analyst and was extremely impressed with her professionalism and commitment to the fight against sexual abuse in our state in her position as Executive Director at STAR.
I was her direct supervisor during her time with Governor Walker. Amanda was an outstanding worker.She worked hard, smart and with intense focus. She was strongly motivated to achieve our policy objectives of reducing sexual assault crimes and she tackled the problem strategically.Shecreated alliances with law enforcement at all levels within the state and gained their buy-in to improve the speed of processing sex crime kits.She helped DOS improve standards and processes at the crime lab to lessen their bottleneck in kit processing.She did all of the heavy lifting to put together a federal grant application which brought the state over a million dollars to pay to speed up that processing.
Amanda’s personal and professional ethics were beyond reproach. I fully support her appointment as DPS commissioner andknow that she will move the Department forward into the 21st century quickly and efficiently. We citizens are extremely fortunate to have her at the DPS helm.
“Days on the beach” is labor relations slang for somebody being suspended without pay. Alaska Human Rights Commission Director Marti Buscaglia was suspended without pay for 15 days, starting Monday.
The seven commissioners might have let Buscaglia cash in personal leave so she had money for the pay period, but if they’re telling us the truth, she lost a couple of weeks of pay.
In the public employment world, 15 days without pay is a big deal. Where you have a statutory or contractual requirement of progressive and corrective discipline, 15 days off without pay means your string has about run out.
If you’ve had a 15-day suspension without pay and you screw up again, not many arbitrators or administrative law judges are going to have much sympathy for you if you get fired.
In the Human Rights Commission executive director’s case, the commission has no obligation to observe the progressive and corrective discipline rules since she is not a classified or union employee, but rather an appointive employee. If the commission wanted to, they could do nothing to her or they could dismiss her. It’s not quite that simple, but close.
The Human Rights Commission is an artifact of The Great Society, a series of domestic programs with the goal of total elimination of poverty and racial injustice. The 1964 Legislature took time off from dealing with the Good Friday Earthquake to enact it. It can and has been used to shakedown employers with claims from poverty pimps, but mostly it just exists to provide sinecures for minority supporters of an administration.
So, it isn’t surprising that the holdover appointees from the Walker Administration wouldn’t want to take decisive action against one of their own over the “Black Rifles Matter” event.
Executive Director Buscaglia doesn’t work for the governor; she works for the commission. The commission works for the governor and the members, according to AS 18.80.020, are “appointed by the Governor for staggered terms of five years, and confirmed by the legislature.”
They can be removed for cause, but removal of a Democrat appointee for cause by a Republican governor is usually a fight to the Supreme Court. Why bother with a nothing agency and a nothing appointee? This is one of those things that you just let go.
A phone call will make sure that the plumber whose truck decal offended Buscaglia doesn’t get 86’d from work in the building. And make sure the commissioners understand that what goes around, come around.
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.
