Page 1567 – Must Read Alaska

Dispatch searches for its digital roots

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April 21, 2017

*In better days: Tony Hopfinger and Alice Rogoff in this USA Today photo labeled “handout.”*

STOP THE PRESSES

The Alaska Dispatch News newspaper enterprise started out as the homegrown Alaska Dispatch internet news startup, with scrappy Amanda Coyne and brooding Tony Hopfinger working out of their home, pounding out long-form stories, and beating the stuffing out of the McClatchy-owned Anchorage Daily News.

The Dispatch was compelling, edgy, but unprofitable as an online publication, until Alice Rogoff discovered Alaska, discovered the Dispatch and discovered she could wield a heap of influence in our frontier outpost. She became its angel investor and majority owner in 2009.

They staffed up. They made waves and the media establishment across the country paid attention.

By May 2014, Rogoff couldn’t see how to be profitable. So she bought out the Anchorage Daily News at the price of $34 million, and they merged the operations. Little Digital had purchased the Big Print news operation. It was quite a story, and the media world was enchanted.

[Skip over this section if you can tell this enchantment story in your sleep.]

Soon thereafter, Coyne left to continue blogging independently. Hopfinger stayed for a while, but he was losing influence in the newsroom as executive editor. He left and much of the brilliant original digital media staff is now elsewhere. The print mafia had won.

CHECKING FOR A PULSE

It has been a bumpy three years.

First, Rogoff needed to move her presses out of the old Airport Heights building, which she had sold to GCI. But there was nowhere to put the behemoth offset, and so she began paying premium rent to GCI to keep her presses housed.

At some point this year, the millionaire publisher will get her new press from Indiana running down on Arctic Blvd at her newspaper’s new location, and will remediate her way out the door of the GCI building.

Second, Rogoff and Hopfinger are now in a nasty business divorce that will head to trial in August or, more likely, be settled in July.

Meanwhile, the print circulation of the Alaska Dispatch News appears to still be flagging, although no accurate numbers are being made public any longer. The industry has gone into its shell, hoping no one will notice.

Wikipedia calls the circulation at between 57,622 daily and 71,223 on Sundays, but others say the number is less than that by tens of thousands.

Must Read Alaska calculates the actual print circulation at about 18,000 daily based on old audits and a 6 percent average yearly decline in print readership nationwide. Add in the 10,000 Wednesday mailbox stuffer, and Rogoff might claim 28,000 readers.

The online circulation is falling too, although the ADN is still the top digital news property in the state.

UP AND DOWN THE PAYWALL

Rogoff started out at the Daily News-Dispatch by taking down the Dispatch paywall, which required a paid subscription in order to access the site. She told KUAC radio in January of 2015, ““It’s just not something that we have ever thought made sense.”

It would have been one thing, she said, if news readers had always paid for online news. But to get them to suddenly start paying for what they were used to getting for free just wasn’t likely. “And the way your news product gets seen by the people you want to see it, and read it, is by letting it be out there for free.”

But information dessemination is a cruel business. By January of this year, the paywall was back up. Sort of. It’s an on-again, off-again paywall, which some readers encounter and others do not. There is no real logic to it, but in any case, former Dispatch reporter Craig Medred has publicized ways to defeat it, and such information is readily available to those who know how to use the Google search function. Otherwise, it’s $9.99 a month.

This month, the Dispatch was thrown a lifeline to help it get its digital act back together. It’s a Rogoff walk-of-shame back to where she started in news in Alaska. The Poynter Institute announced that the Dispatch would be among 21 news companies that will get help learning to lead with their online foot first.

Or for Rogoff, relearning.

Poynter’s Local News Innovation Project, funded by the Knight Foundation, is a three-year program. There will be seminars and coaching involved. Perhaps there will even be targets and milestones to meet.

Coincidentally, three years is the same amount of time it took the Dispatch to dismantle itself to where it is today. It went from being a digital news leader, with talent like Coyne, Hopfinger, Craig Medred, Scott Woodham, Sean Doogan, and Kyle Hopkins (all now off doing other things) to this: Going Outside for help in rebuilding that digital pioneering spirit it dismantled when it combined operations.

LOOKING FOR HER MOJO

But will it be profitable? Rogoff certainly would like that.

Of course, it was a headier time back in 2014, when she was quoted in the Columbia Journalism Review saying, “This has to make money.”

This January, when she announced the paywall was going back up, she realigned expectations: “We don’t need to make money, but we have to stay afloat.”

The return to its digital roots may not solve the company’s core problems.

Today, the economy in Alaska is mired in a deep economic recession. Advertising is going to remain soft for some time. And, from the department of just desserts, an argument can be made that the Alaska Dispatch News, with its focus on changing public policy, had something to do with crashing the economy by pushing for the election of anti-oil, tax-it-if-it-moves Gov. Bill Walker and slanting the news coverage against the state’s primary economic engines.

The format may change and the company may limp forward with digital. But the larger question remains: does the Dispatch understand its readers or is it mired in journalistic hubris that “knows better” than the people it would serve? Remaining stubbornly misaligned with the economic interests of its readership seems a poor way to turn the circulation corner.

And finally, will three years of remedial digital therapy with the Poynter Institute bring profitability, or has the spine of the Dispatch business model been broken beyond repair?

Environmental group sues over Alaska predator control rollback

Politics

Suzanne Downing

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April 20, 2017

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*Grizzly approaches fishing gear along the Kenai River. (Fish and Wildlife Service photo)*

WOLF AND BEAR PROTECTIONS — STATE OR FEDERAL MANAGEMENT?

No sooner was the ink dry on House Joint Resolution 69, rolling back Obama-era prohibitions on predator control across Alaska’s federal lands, when the environmental groups had their lawsuit up and running.

Today, the Center for Biological Diversity filed that lawsuit in the District Court of Alaska in Anchorage, claiming that Congress doesn’t have a right to use the Congressional Review Act to turn over rules rushed through during the final days of the Obama Administration, which took game control authority on federal refuge land out of the hands of the State of Alaska.

The Center for Biological Diversity wants the rule reinstated that prohibits Alaska Fish and Game predator control measures, which the environmentalists have claimed allows game managers to kill wolves and their pups in dens and gun down grizzly bears at bait stations.” Those types of predator control are extremely rare in Alaska (see Q and A below).

In 2016, U.S. Fish and Wildlife enacted what’s known as the Refuges Rule. The lawsuit says that in the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997, Congress delegated to the Department of Interior authority for managing the National Wildlife Refuge System and directed that such refuges in Alaska be managed to “conserve fish and wildlife populations and habitats in their natural diversity.”

That last part is a point of contention. Rod Arno of the Alaska Outdoor Council says Alaska was exempted from the “diversity” portion because the size of our refuges already takes care of diversity.

The lawsuit says that if Congress wants to constrain Interior, it’s going to have to go through the usual means, which involves passage of a new bill.

Instead, the Republican House and Senate used a measure passed during the Newt Gingrich “Contract With America” era, which allows it to undo Executive Branch rule-making that happens during a president’s final months.

“Such Congressional overreaching undermines the separation of powers that must be maintained between the legislative and executive branches, in violation of the U.S. Constitution,” the lawsuit claims.

The Congressional Review Act has not been used widely in its 20-year existence, so few are ready to declare whether it can pass constitutional challenge.

The lawsuit, however, underscores the need for the Trump Administration to quickly fill out Department of Interior political appointments as they pertain to Alaska. Several key posts remain unfilled three months in to the new Administration.

“If not, then the lawyers will come up with the arguments all by themselves,” said a congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Assistant Secretary for Wildlife and Parks has yet to be appointed, and could play an important role in defending the Trump Administration against the Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit. Also pending is the Alaska Assistant to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a position that is still being discussed with candidates, even today.

Despite opposition from the State of Alaska, Native Alaskans, and the hunting community, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized regulations that limited or ended predator control on national wildlife refuges in Alaska. These rules went into effect on September 4, 2016 and change long-standing practices related to wolf and bear populations, as they impact caribou and moose availability for hunters and subsistence users. Those FWS rules that were rolled back are here.

In March, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game published this Q and A about Alaska’s predator control program:

TRUTH ABOUT ALASKA’S REFUGE RULE REPEAL

The (HJR 69) repeal nullifies regulations that allowed the federal government to override state wildlife management authority on Alaska’s 16 wildlife refuges. Contrary to what some activists claim, it does not allow hunters to gas wolf pups in their dens, to shoot bears and wolves from airplanes, or allow bears to be taken in steel-jawed traps.

FACTS:

Q. DOES THE STATE OF ALASKA PERMIT AERIAL GUNNING OF BEARS?
A. Aerial hunting of bears is prohibited under general hunting regulations. Bears may be taken from the air in state-approved intensive management programs in limited areas by state staff only. The state is not conducting intensive management for bears on any federal lands, nor was it prior to the FWS rule.

Q. DOES THE STATE OF ALASKA ALLOW AERIAL HUNTING OF WOLVES?
A. Aerial hunting of wolves is prohibited under general hunting regulations. Only agents of the state in approved intensive management programs in limited areas may hunt wolves from the air. There are no state intensive management programs on National Park Service or FWS lands.

Q. DOES THE STATE OF ALASKA PERMIT THE GASSING OF WOLF PUPS?
A. This is prohibited under general hunting regulations.

Q. DOES THE STATE OF ALASKA ALLOW HARVEST OF BEARS AND/OR CUBS IN DENS?
A. The harvest of black bears at dens is allowed in a limited area under state and federal regulations where it is considered a customary and traditional practice for obtaining food.

Q. DOES THE STATE OF ALASKA ALLOW HARVEST OF WOLVES OR WOLF PUPS IN DENS?
A. No. This can occur only in approved intensive management programs and only by state staff. It was done in one program in 2008 and 2009.

Q. DOES THE STATE OF ALASKA PERMIT THE TAKING OF BEARS OVER BAIT?
A. Yes. The harvest of bears over bait is a form of regulated take in many areas of Alaska and the Lower 48 states. The Federal Subsistence Board also allows federally qualified subsistence users to harvest bears over bait on federal land.

Q. DOES THE STATE OF ALASKA ALLOW BEARS TO BE TAKEN IN STEEL-JAWED TRAPS?
A. No.

Q. WILL THE STATE BOARD OF GAME AUTHORIZE PREDATOR CONTROL IN REFUGES?
A. No, only the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can authorize predator control programs in refuges.

For more, visit http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=hottopics.res69

Don Young files for 24th term in Congress

Suzanne Downing

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April 20, 2017

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*Congressman Don Young and Ann Young stand in front of the Division of Elections on Gambell Street in Anchorage after he filed for his 24th term of office. He faces re-election in 2018.*

True to his word, Congressman Don Young filed for re-election yesterday in Anchorage. If successful in November, 2018, he would serve an historic 24th term, and would become the longest-serving Republican in Congress in U.S. history.

[Watch Young file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR1RWCkmTwQ&feature=youtu.be]

Young, from Fort Yukon, Alaska, moved to Alaska before Statehood and was a commercial fisherman, trapper, and gold miner. He also taught Native students at a Bureau of Indian Affairs log-constructed school. He captained his own tug-and-barge operation and delivered supplies along the Yukon River. He is the only licensed mariner in Congress to this day.

He was elected mayor of Fort Yukon in 1964. In 1966 he was elected to the State House, where he served for two terms, before being elected to the State Senate in 1970.

In 1973 he became Congressman for Alaska, and led the battle for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Don and Lu Young were married for 46 years before she died in 2009. On June 9, 2015 he married Anne Garland Walton, a Fairbanks-area nurse.

Young recently saw his 78th piece of legislation become law. That is HJR 69, which overturned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife rule that took game management away from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on federal refuge land. He has introduced more than 1,000 bills since taking office in 1973.

In June, Young will turn 84 years old. A lifelong Republican, he won with 50.3 percent of the vote during his last election in 2016 in a four-way race that included Libertarian Jim McDermott, (1o.3 percent), Democrat Steve Lindbeck (36 percent), and Independent Bernie Souphanavong (3 percent).

Severed head of a president and other indignities of art

The 907

Suzanne Downing

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April 20, 2017

6

**Before and after:** We altered the painting to put the artist’s own head in place of President Trump, because…well, it’s art.

ART CRITIC

If University of Alaska Anchorage artist Thomas Chung wanted to be famous, someone call his mom: He’s finally done it. He’s getting his 15 minutes of fame.

Chung painted a workmanlike depiction of a Captain America holding the severed head of President Donald Trump, while a vampish Hillary Clinton clings to the naked hero’s leg and birds caw around his ears. She’s wearing a pantsuit and she’s let her hair grow a bit. Various other things challenge the viewer of the painting, including the word: “Everything.”

Whatev’, as the kids all say.

Today is maybe the last day you can see on display the painting that has by now gotten the world’s attention, the painting that has caused rather a big ruckus in the world of “people who take offense at almost everything.”

The sheer barbarism that flowed from Chung’s mind onto canvas has earned him worldwide notoriety. He may have a pretty face, but what’s in that Chung head of his? Apparently, it’s not a pretty place.

Chung told KTUU that he wept after the election of Donald Trump in November. And, as artists do, he put brush to canvas and came up with something that is a disturbing mash-up of his own fears, bad dreams, and political projections.

It’s not particularly wonderful or skillful, but it captures a moment in time in the artist’s interpretation of the world. Donald Trump was elected and by roughly half of the people who voted. It happened, and fragile folk like Chung are working through their grief — crying, painting, knitting pink pussy hats, detaching Trump’s head from his body, and having a miserable time.

This artistic interpretation is all about Tom Chung himself, of Brooklyn, NY, the UAA art professor who on his Facebook page posts reams of adorable and/or mysterious photos of himself, in which he’s almost always shirtless, such as this one, where his trim, youthful physique is very much like his depiction of Captain America: Chiseled and lean.

*Thomas Chung frolicking in the ocean somewhere in Facebook-land.*

The art world is full of crimes against art like, if you will, Robert Maplethorpe. We’ve seen much worse than an American’s president’s severed head painted by an MFA graduate. All over the world of ISIS there are real severed heads, and women much more oppressed and beaten down than Chung’s artistic depiction of Hillary in a soiled, suffragette-white pantsuit.

We’re reminded that President Obama suffered his own indignities, such as the time when this polar bear sculpture made a bloody mess of him:

*Chinese artist Vincent J.F. Huang created this sculpture of a polar bear holding President Obama’s severed head. Our inner art critic thinks it is gross.*

Consider, if you will, the misogynistic indigities to which Sarah Palin was subjected, this being perhaps one of the least offensive unless, of course, you are Lady Liberty, bloodied on the snow at the hands of Alaska’s most famous governor:

*Sarah Palin bags Ms. Liberty, or perhaps she’s saving her from a brutal attack. We’ll never know. Art by Zina Saunders. 2008*

And even President Bill Clinton was skewered by artist Boris Vallejo in this hilariously heroic depiction, with a shapely, somewhat sexy Hillary clinging to his testosterone leg, while donkeys peer around — and who knows that that thing is that they’re propped up on — perhaps someone’s dead body?

*Compare and contrast: Boris Vallejo painted this of Bill Clinton with a shapely Hillary clinging to his leg. It makes Thomas Chung’s artwork seem quite derivative*.

Before we set Thomas Chung out with the recycling, we remember that art is not always comfortable. People could very well read into the Chung painting that American progressives have unfairly beheaded Donald Trump, and that Hillary Clinton has never been more than a simpering wimp, clinging to false idols. Yet we read into this painting what we think the artist thinks, and some of us are none too pleased. We may be reading too much into it. We may be giving Chung too much credit for something that is not much more than a comic book illustration.

Given the time and a shared cup of coffee, we’d tell Chung how the art department at the University of Alaska, including the heat for the buildings, the plows for the parking lots, the paint Chung uses, and the canvas he abuses, are all paid for by public dollars, dedicated to learning by a tolerant, Constitution-loving citizenry, some of whom might prefer that Chung make his living in the private sector, and allow the actual marketplace to guide his creative genius.

Fifteen years later, Sen. Kelly still standing against income tax

Suzanne Downing

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April 20, 2017

2

*Pete Kelly of Fairbanks, Alaska Senate President*

IT’S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

Fifteen years ago, the Alaska House of Representatives passed HB-303, income tax legislation to make up for a budget shortfall of $963 million.

The tax itself would raise $250 million, it was predicted, and it would be set as a sliding scale, based on income.

If that tax had gone into effect, the state would have taken at least $3.75 billion out of the pockets of working Alaskans by now. And it’s doubtful, very doubtful, that government would have been smaller than it is today.

Other measures would be required to fill the budget gap back in 2002 — an alcohol tax increase would raise $20 million and the Permanent Fund Earnings Account would be used, with $650 million for state services, and $59 million for local governments.

Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz was one of those House representatives supporting the tax at the time. So was his contemporary Andrew Halcro, R-Anchorage, who was freshman in the House, but who didn’t run for re-election, instead returning to Anchorage to work on the transition team of newly elected Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.

“The free ride is over,” Halcro said in 2002, as quoted by the Anchorage Daily News back then. ”What do you want me to cut? Road maintenance? Construction at nearby Dimond High School? Prisons? Courts? We can’t do this anymore!”

But the measure had to pass the Senate. The Senate was solidly Republican.

Sen. Dave Donley and Sen. Pete Kelly, co-chairs of Senate Finance, said at the time said, “No way.”

“We had a multi-year plan to cut $300 million, and the House and Senate had worked on it for years,” Donley recalled. Sean Parnell was co-chair with John Torgerson before Donley and Kelly, and had to work on the cuts as well.

There was also an advisory vote in 1998, and the public had gone heavily against using the earnings portion of the Permanent Fund. Donley said that while he and his side opposed using the earnings, his side of the argument was outspent in messaging by Halcro and his group, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to support use of the earnings.

“We had a 10-point plan of reforms we needed to make before we’d consider new taxes,” Donley said.

The price of oil eventually rose again. Gov. Frank Murkowski recalculated oil taxes to allow the state to scrape more money out of oil companies. And with higher prices and Gov. Sarah Palin, the Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share was signed into law. ACES brought a pile of oil money into government, and government grew to take full advantage of it.

Donley never did get his government reforms, and he is now serving on the Anchorage School Board, having been elected in April. He has his red pen handy.

Pete Kelly returned to the Senate after a few years away, and now serves as Senate President. He’s still fighting the income tax.

Andrew Halcro got a political appointment from now-Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, and both still favor an income tax even today.

“The only thing standing between Alaskans and an income tax is the Senate,” Senator Kelly said in an interview with radio talk show host Dave Stieren.

OTHER SIMILARITIES WITH 2002

As in 2002, most Alaskans today say that given the choice, a sales tax would be more acceptable than an income tax.

But, as in 2002, Democrats mainly oppose sales taxes because of the burden placed on low-income Alaskans. On April 15 — Tax Day — the House Democrat-led caucus passed HB-115, a personal income tax not unlike the one that passed in 2002, though it’s a bit more aggressive.

Also in 2002, when Gov. Tony Knowles brought House Democrats and Republicans together for a series of closed-door meetings to broker a deal, that action is also repeating itself.

Gov. Bill Walker today invited House Democrat leaders and Senate Republican leaders to the Governor’s Mansion in an effort to broker an agreement.

BATTLE-HARDENED SENATE PRESIDENT

The co-chairs of Senate Finance, Anna MacKinnon and Lyman Hoffman attended, but Senate President Kelly did not head over to the mansion.

What would be the point, after all? The governor already has said which side he favors — he is insisting on an income tax, higher oil taxes, and a restructuring of the Permanent Fund. It’s not exactly an honest brokerage, said Kelly.

“I don’t mind meeting with the governor, he’s not the mediator in this,” Kelly said, as quoted by KTVA. “This is a disagreement between the two bodies, and he’s not the mediator. His background and his experience as a lawsuit lawyer, those are not people that bring people together, they actually get in-between people and take sides and usually take hostages, too. So I don’t think it’s a role he’s really comfortable with and it’s really not appropriate.”

“The income tax is a big deal,” Kelly said on the Dave Stieren Show. “Alaskans should use the handy dandy Senate majority tax calculator. You can put your numbers in and it will tell you what you’re going to pay. It’s pretty shocking to most people.”

Kelly also warned that HB-115 adopts federal code, which comes with possibly tens of thousands of dollars in penalties for making mistakes on your tax returns.

This vague reference is buried in the back of the bill, he said: “An innocent person reading it won’t see it.”

Besides, imposing an income tax on people during a recession is the wrong thing to do, Kelly said, and he’s sure it is not going to pass the Senate: “I don’t know if the State of Alaska has ever had a Senate with this much resolve on an issue. It’s taken difficult votes. There’s not going to be an income tax.”

Kelly has been battling an income tax for nearly 20 years, and shows no signs of stopping.

His side has offered SB-26 as a complete solution: Restructuring the Permanent Fund to use a percent of the market value of the earnings (known as POMV), putting a spending cap and revenue limits in place, and making cuts in spending to close the fiscal gap.

But House Democrats, as articulated by Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, have said, “If the Senate thinks we are going to get out of here with only a POMV, they have another think coming.”

Eastman accuses LeDoux of threatening Reinbold with campaign cash

Suzanne Downing

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April 19, 2017

8

Gabrielle LeDoux started a political action committee last year and has received thousands of dollars from lobbyists. Now she’s threatening other lawmakers that she’ll withhold campaign funds if they don’t vote her way on keeping her PAC legal. And she’s doing it in the middle of deliberations on the House floor.

Two state representatives are saying that a third has acted improperly on the House floor, threatening to withhold campaign cash if a member didn’t vote the right way on a measure.

Rep. David Eastman of Wasilla sent a letter to Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux of East Anchorage on April 14. The letter describes an incident that could only have involved LeDoux and Rep. Lora Reinbold of Eagle River, according to those who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In the incident, LeDoux is alleged to have made a threat while on the House Floor of the Capitol to withhold money from Reinbold.

The letter dated April 14 doesn’t refer to LeDoux by name but said that “a member” who has a political action committee threatened another representative who sits next to him by saying she would withhold political action committee campaign funds during the next election cycle.

LeDoux has a political action committee, “Gabby’s Tuesday PAC.” Rep. Paul Seaton also has a political action committee, and so does Eastman, for that matter, although his has no significant money.

Here’s how we are told it happened by those who were there: While on the House floor on April 13, LeDoux was putting pressure on Reinbold to vote against an amendment offered by Chris Birch of South Anchorage.

Reinbold stood her ground and refused, at which point LeDoux got increasingly upset and told her that her “next campaign will not be receiving any donations from the other House member’s PAC,” according to Eastman’s account, which was distributed by mail to legislators’ mailboxes in the Capitol.

“While this situation is unfortunate for many reasons, it occurred to me that there may need to be some rules put out that speak to disseminating information on the House Floor that helps legislators adjust their campaign fundraising expectations. Though candidates will not be able to file for office until next month, providing such information could be construed as helping a candidate plan their fundraising efforts,” Eastman wrote.

LeDoux is the House Rules chair and has enforced such rules as disallowing Republican members to refer to unallocated funds as “slush funds,” or to government workers as “bureaucrats.” It would be within her power to create such a rule as suggested by Eastman.

The Muldoon member was a Democrat before she was a Republican, and has now joined with Democrats in ruling the House of Representatives. Her fellow Republicans are in the minority for the first time in decades.

What was the Birch amendment that got LeDoux so agitated at Reinbold, enough to threaten her over political action committee cash? It was an amendment that would have prohibited legislators from having political action committees like the one that LeDoux started last year.

*Rep. Lora Reinbold speaks on the House floor, with Rep. David Eastman seated next to her.*

Reinbold has stated to others that such PACS are nothing more than redistributing lobbyists’ money and she believes them to be unethical.

Speaker Bryce Edgmon was the recipient of $1,000 of “Gabby’s Tuesday PAC” money.

LeDoux was taking it personally, sending notes to Reinbold on the House Floor to no avail, and then finally walking over to her during an at-ease and making what could be construed as a political threat involving the exchange of money.

Or, as some might refer to such actions, trying to trade votes for cash. That could be a matter for the Alaska Public Offices Commission, or at least the Legislative Ethics Committee.

Eastman is a minority member and Reinbold is a minority alternate of the Legislative Ethics Committee. It is likely both would have to recuse themselves should the matter be brought before the committee.

Recall fever spreads to Haines, Alaska

Suzanne Downing

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April 18, 2017

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Homer conservatives aren’t the only ones working to recall members of their city council. The Adventure Capital of Alaska now faces the possible recall of half of its borough assembly, too.

The recall progressed last week when the Haines Borough clerk and attorney decided there were sufficient grounds for a group to begin gathering signatures on a petition.

The three assembly members facing possible recall include Heather Lende, a local writer; Tom Morphet, who owns the local Chilkat Valley News; and Tresham Gregg, a local artist.

The three are accused of violating the Open Meetings Act by carrying on correspondence about city business amongst them privately and by pressuring the police department to perform duties that would benefit certain assembly members’ private businesses.

A group of 10 residents, led by Don turner Jr., have 60 days to gather 258 signatures on each of the three petitions. If they do, that means Haines will hold a special election for half of its Assembly.

The complaints against the three are, in part, linked to a message from Police Chief Heath Scott that said Assembly members Lende and Morphet asked the police department provide a police blotter.

Morphet, as the publisher of the local newspaper, stands to benefit financially from the blotter, which is a daily incident log, as it would be then printed by his newspaper. Lende makes her living writing about small-town life in Haines, and also writes obituaries for the newspaper.

The group pushing the recall also say that Morphet and Lende should also not have asked the former city manager to delay opening construction bids for the small boat harbor project. Closed emails between Morphet, Lende, and Gregg about the project was a violation of the Alaska Open Meetings Act, according to the group.

The borough manager has since been fired from his job, and the borough has settled with him to the tune of $55,000.

Then, Morphet got into further hot water this month when he publicized complaints about the Haines Police Department intimidating people on numerous occasions.

The group supporting a recall says this is a separate issue, but that his behavior was improper — he should have taken his complaint to the interim manager, Brad Ryan first, rather than bring it out as a complaint in a session of the political body itself.

Meanwhile, across the Gulf of Alaska in Homer, a special election is set for June 13 to recall three city council members who conspired to introduce “sanctuary city” status to Homer. This would mean that immigration laws would not be enforced in Homer, much like in San Francisco and a few other other “sanctuary cities”. Their ultimate wording watered it down to be an “inclusion” resolution.

The conservative resistance to their “resist Trump” resolution quickly spread and enough signatures were gathered to hold a special recall election. The group in favor of recall is documenting the economic impact that the three caused businesses in town by their actions, impacts that include canceled bookings by would-be visitors to Homer this summer.

[Read: Homer city council goes into full ‘resist’ mode against Trump]

[Read: Smoking gun: Homer city council members intended to create sanctuary city]

The complaint against the Homer councilors — Donna Aderhold, David Lewis and Catriona Reynolds — call them unfit for office, “as evident by their individual efforts in preparation of Resolution 16-121 and 17-109, the text of which stands in clear and obvious violation of Homer City Code Title 1.”

At this rate, 2017 could go down as the Year of the Recall in Alaska’s coastal communities.

House Democrats’ press conference crashed by angry Gabby

Suzanne Downing

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April 18, 2017

9

*An agitated Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux interrupted the House majority’s press conference this morning and told the Senate “they have another thing coming!”*

The House Democrat majority press conference today started out as predicted, with statements from the four participants that were crystal clear: The Senate must agree to all of their tax proposals: Income tax, oil tax, and Permanent Fund. The compromise they seek is complete agreement with their positions.

“We’ve sent over [to the Senate] four big pieces that we talked about: Strategic budget cuts, oil tax credit legislation, restructuring the Permanent Fund, as well as a broad-based measure,” said Speaker Bryce Edgmon at the outset.

“Broad-based measure” is a euphemism for an income tax, something he was clearly having a hard time saying.

But between Edgmon and Reps. Chris Tuck, Paul Seaton and Neal Foster, the four reiterated that all four “pillars” of their plan would need to be adopted by the Senate in order for there to be adjournment. The first pillar he mentioned, “strategic budget cuts” actually ended up being a budgetary increase over last year.

Overall, the House Democrats who are in control added more than $200 million to Gov. Bill Walker’s proposed budget of $4.2 billion.

Their message this morning evidently wasn’t firm enough for Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, who was sitting agitatedly in the audience during the press conference.

She stormed to the front of the room, bumped Rep. Foster from his microphone while he was in the middle of taking a drink of water, and angrily said, “If the Senate thinks we are going to get out of here with just the POMV (Permanent Fund restructuring) they have another thing coming.” And with that, she stormed off.

It may have been unorthodox for LeDoux to butt into a press conference in which she was not an invited participant, but she did articulate the Democrats’ position even more clearly than they had: It’s the Democrats’ tax-and-spend way or the highway. There will be not compromise coming from the House.

Events: Pillars of Freedom Brandon Stone, Miners Ball, Mimosas, Cinco de Mayo

Suzanne Downing

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April 18, 2017

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UPCOMING EVENTS OF NOTE

April 19, 12 pm, Juneau Glacier Valley Rotary Pillars of Freedom speaker series with Brandon Stone,

at Centennial Hall Convention Center. Stone is a former Juneau resident, an 8-year Navy SEAL officer. Tickets at Hearthside Books.

Lt. (Ret.) Stone’s service with SEAL Team TEN was spent in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa. While leading a team of U.S. and Afghani troops through a Taliban stronghold in the Helmand province, he was severely wounded, losing a foot from an improvised explosive device. He was awarded a Purple Heart along with a Bronze Star with Valor for his heroism.

He is modest about his service: “I know that my contribution pales in comparison to that of many I know who accomplished marvelous feats and have given their lives in service of our country.”

He is the son of the late Juneau Assembly member and Juneau mining historian David Stone. He earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law School in 2015.

April 20, 6-8 pm, Anchorage Republican Women’s Club’s “Membership and Mimosas” at Pepperocini’s in the University Mall on Old Seward Highway (at 39th). A club membership building event open to men and women. $25 includes food and mimosas.

April 22, 12 pm, Pro-life memorial at the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery (corner of 9th Ave. and Cordova St.). Participants will walk to the St. John Paul II Memorial site on the Delaney Park Strip.

April 22, 7-11 pm, Treadwell Miners’ Ball, Baranof Hotel in Juneau. Admission $50. Enjoy mining-themed appetizers and dance to the sounds of SuSu and the Prophets. Silent Auction to benefit Treadwell Society historic preservation projects. Vintage attire optional. Commemorate the great Treadwell Mine on the 100-year centennial of the cave-in that signaled the demise of the four-mine complex on south Douglas Island April 22, 1917.

April 23, 2-5 pm, Treadwell Mine cave-in commemoration potluck picnic at Sandy Beach Log Shelter. Walking tours of Treadwell Mine Historic Park.

May 5, 6-9 pm, Join Republican Party Chairman Tuckerman Babcock at the home of Albert Fogle, 5910 W Tree Dr. Anchorage 99507, for the Alaska Republican Party’s Cinco de Mayo Party with Taco Bar, Decadent Desserts, Festive Beverages, even Pinatas to boot. $45 in advance, $50 at the door — tickets. Tuckerman is making his This Ain’t for the Faint of Heart Taco Meat and Paulette Simpson is bringing her famous Pecan Pie. There will be an auction because this is the Alaska Republican Party, after all.

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Events: Pillars of Freedom Brandon Stone, Miners Ball, Mimosas, Cinco de Mayo

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