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Rep. Reinbold files for Eagle River Senate seat

Suzanne Downing
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Rep. Reinbold files for Eagle River Senate seat

JAMIE ALLARD HAS FILED FOR DISTRICT 14 EAGLE RIVER

Rep. Lora Reinbold has filed for the Eagle River District G Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Anna MacKinnon.

Reinbold hinted that she might file for the Senate earlier this year, but had kept people guessing until today. Meanwhile, MacKinnon made her retirement official immediately after the legislative session ended in mid-May, after having served for 19 years a district that has grown up around her and is now one of the most conservative districts in Alaska.

Reinbold needed a couple of weeks to decompress after session and to reconnect with her family.

Fairbanks-born Reinbold said she had not made a decision during session because “I wanted to focus 100 percent on my job, and the roles I had on Judiciary and Rules committees (she also served on Armed Services and an alternate on Ethics). And I wanted to make sure I could find a replacement I can endorse.”

Allard

That person is Jamie Allard, who went with Reinbold today to file for House District 14.

Allard has lived in Eagle River for eight years. She served in the U.S. Army, leaving service in 1999 after nine years as a sergeant. Married to a retired Special Forces master sergeant, Allard has two children.

Eugene Harnett has also registered as a Republican candidate for the seat. A Democrat, Oliver Scheiss, has filed as well. Rep. Dan Saddler is said to be considering a run for Senate but had not filed today.

[Read: Sen. Anna MacKinnon: All done with Senate]

[Read: Dan Saddler jumps into Senate G race]

Who’s filed? Costello, Talerico, Lincoln, Fields…

Suzanne Downing
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Who’s filed? Costello, Talerico, Lincoln, Fields…

Sen. Mia Costello (Senate District K), Reps. Dave Talerico (District 6), John Lincoln (District 40),  have all filed to run for the offices they currently hold.

Mia Costello, a Republican, is completing her first four years as senator for the Anchorage seat. Previously, she served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015.

 

Talerico

 

Talerico, a Republican, represents an Interior House seat from his hometown in Healy. Many have looked to him for possible future leadership positions in the House.

Lincoln

Lincoln, previously an undeclared voter who filed to become a Democrat this winter, was chosen by the governor to replace the disgraced Dean Westlake in District 40. His campaign deputy treasurer is Shea Siegert, formerly with the Ship Creek Group, Gov. Bill Walker’s campaign, and until recently was an aide to a member of the House Democrat-led majority, Jason Grenn.

He had waffled about whether or not he would file again, but finally said on Facebook he had resolved to return to Juneau:

Savok

Patrick Savok is also going to run for House District 40, and filed as a nonpartisan candidate who will collect signatures on a petition for the General Election. Until April he was the chief of staff to the mayor of the Northwest Arctic Borough.

Fields

Zack Fields has now filed  for the District 20 downtown Anchorage seat. He has the support of Mark Begich, Vic Fischer, Les Gara, Vince Beltrami, Leslie Ridle, Heidi Drygas, Joelle Hall, Joey Merrick, and Laborers Local 341. Also, he claims Jane Anvik, Kay Brown, Bill Wielechowski, Hollis French and Kevin McGee in his camp.

Rojas

Elias Rojas, also a Democrat, had previously filed for the downtown Anchorage District 20 seat that Rep. Les Gara is releasing.

Bob Bradley, a nonpartisan from the Government Hill neighborhood, has just filed for District 20. He will either have to run on the Democrats’ primary ballot.

Treadwell

MEAD TREADWELL ALERT?

Word that Mead Treadwell may be thinking about a run for governor has been making the rounds in political circles. Treadwell was lieutenant governor under Gov. Sean Parnell from 2010-2014, and ran a competitive statewide campaign for U.S. Senate in 2014, coming in third after Sullivan and Joe Miller.

He has been working on Arctic issues and investments with PT Capital since then. This week he hosted a gathering of Americans for Tax Reform at his Anchorage home, with nationally known tax slayer Grover Norquist in attendance, along with dozens of others from around the country who work on tax issues. That’s where some of the buzz finally got out into the wild about Treadwell’s possible interest in running. When Must Read Alaska spoke with Treadwell, he said a number of people have asked him to run for governor and he’d get back to us on his decision.

Permanent Fund dividend applicants drop by 2,118 this year

Suzanne Downing
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Permanent Fund dividend applicants drop by 2,118 this year

The number of people applying for an Alaska Permanent Fund dividend this year dropped by 2,118 from last year.

668,588 Alaskans applied in 2018 by the deadline, March 31, according to Sara Race, director of the Permanent Fund Division.

That is down from the 670,706 who applied in 2017, although only 615,590 of those were found qualified to receive it.

The state’s population is thought to be about 737,000, according to the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

The number of people applying for the dividend has dropped for several years after reaching a high in 2012 of 679,633.

This year’s dividend will be $1,600, as set by the House and Senate and agreed to by the governor during the session.

Since its inception in 1982, more than 22.1 million applications have been received by the Permanent Fund Division, and 21 million of those Alaskans have been paid a total of $21.9 billion.

This year, if it’s like recent years, about 6 percent applications are likely to be rejected for various reasons, usually due to residency requirements. Last year, 8 percent of applications were not paid, a more than 20 percent increase in rejected applications over the average.

If 40,000 applications are rejected (6 percent), more than $1 billion will be sent to the qualified Alaskans in October. The first Permanent Fund dividend check, in 1982, was for $1,000 and was sent to 487,841 Alaskans.

Democrats exodus the House

Suzanne Downing
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2

MORE THAN A THIRD HITTING THE EXITS

Being in the majority is not all it’s cracked up to be. We’ve been counting. More than one third of the House Democrats will turn over this year:

Sam Kito, Dean Westlake, Zach Fansler, Les Gara, Dave Guttenberg, Justin Parish are all being replaced, (Westlake, Fansler, and Parish all got sideways with women and were forced out). 

We’re still waiting to see if Chris Tuck and Harriet Drummond join the exodus, which would bring it to just one shy of half of the Democrats heading to greener pastures.

BREAKING: John Lincoln has told some people he’s not going to run for the District 40 seat that he was appointed to after the disastrous one year of butt-grabbing Rep. Dean Westlake.

Lincoln has, however, filed for that seat.

Will the Republicans be able to field sterling candidate Tiffany Scott (Sheldon)of Kotzebue? She was just appointed by the governor to the Board of Education and was a delegate to the Alaska Republican State Convention. Hmmm … Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Fields

MORE BREAKING: With Les Gara dropping out of the Alaska House, and Elias Rojas already filed to run, another Democrat has joined the fray.

Zach Fields announced he is running for the District 20 seat. He has lined up the big name support of Mark Begich, Vic Fischer, Les Gara, Vince Beltrami, Leslie Ridle, Heidi Drygas, Joelle Hall, Joey Merrick, and Laborers Local 341. Also, he claims Jane Anvik, Kay Brown, Bill Wielechowski, Hollis French and Kevin McGee in his camp.

Fields works for Laborers Local 341; previously he worked for the Department of Labor and was the communications director for the Alaska Democratic Party. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in economics. He is a take-no-prisoners partisan, and has been the Democrats’ reliable attack dog for several cycles. Many had speculated he would be leaving to work on a Mark Begich campaign, but it appears it’s his own.

Rojas checks the diversity box, but evidently that’s not going to be enough for the party faithful. They’ve lined up for the East Coast white guy.

Mayhem like me: Torey Tuttle wrecks three police cars in five minutes?

Suzanne Downing
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Mayhem like me: Torey Tuttle wrecks three police cars in five minutes?

AND HE WRECKS A STOLEN SUBURBAN, TOO

Anchorage police were called to the 600 block of East 16th Ave in Anchorage on May 21 because a vehicle was reported to be there, and it was known to be stolen. By the time the incident was over, four cars were damaged and one was on top of a patrol car.

When police approached the 2005 green Chevy Suburban Chevy parked in front of an apartment complex, they were looking for one person, said to be lying in the back seat.

 Officers discovered two people inside the Suburban, and blocked the vehicle from behind with their two squad cars. They then used their loudspeaker to order the people to exit the vehicle.

That’s when police say Torey Tuttle took the wheel of the Suburban and put it in reverse and rammed the patrol car. He then pulled forward and repeated the action, at a higher rate of speed, forcing one patrol car to slide and hit the second one.

But Tuttle wasn’t done. He pulled forward again and reversed for a third time and hit the patrol cars again, causing them both to move.

At this point, another patrol car arrived and blocked the Suburban from the front. Its final resting place was with its rear end on top of the front end of the first patrol car.

Tuttle was taken into custody, handcuffed, and his female passenger was also arrested.

Tuttle, 38, had a warrant out on him for a felony, and he was charged with three counts of Criminal Mischief III, two counts of Assault III, and Theft II.

Passenger, Nicole M. Webster, 33, went to jail on an outstanding felony warrant and was also charged with Criminal Mischief V and Misconduct Involving a Weapon III.

Three police cars and the Suburban all sustained damage.

WHO IS TOREY TUTTLE?

He’s got a long rap sheet, filled with domestic violence and protective orders, guns, beatings, and evictions.

In 2002, he was with a group of men who robbed another man. Tuttle was found by the judge to have shot several rounds at the victim, although he missed. Seven men, including Tuttle, were indicted for first degree robbery.

One of the co-defendants told the court that Tuttle had yanked the gun away from him, saying “he didn’t have the balls to use it.”

There was an incident of resisting arrest, and having a gun in the house; as a felon, there are laws about that.

There was a car theft in 2016, and he was out on the streets causing trouble while he was awaiting trial. But he failed to show up on May 9 for a court appearance and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Then, this week, he wrecked three police cars and a stolen vehicle before being sent back to jail. Must Read Alaska will keep an eye on his case to see how he fares under the “tightened” catch-and-release policies.

A look at his recent rap sheet:

 

 

 

 

Gara signals he’s out; Rojas has filed for Downtown Anchorage

Suzanne Downing
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Gara signals he’s out; Rojas has filed for Downtown Anchorage

One big-city Democrat in the Alaska Legislature may be replaced by another as Rep. Les Gara, who represents the second-most liberal district in the state — District 20 — has signaled he’s done.

Democratic Party operative Elias Rojas has filed for his seat.

According to the Pride Foundation, Rojas is a communications and marketing professional with an extensive background in legislative campaigns, media relations, public relations, communications, marketing, and advertising. He owns Alaska Digital Strategies, an Anchorage-based digital marketing agency, after bouncing around several marketing jobs over the past few years, according to his LinkedIn account.

Rojas grew up in California and lived in New York, where he was a senior field organizer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He has a B.A. from San Diego State University (go Aztec Warriors!) and earned his MBA from Alaska Pacific University.

He can often be found in a coffee shop, and often at Steam Dot in the Sears Mall, and has served on the Pride Foundation board since 2009. He has worked on many Democratic campaigns since moving to Alaska.

Gara announced his intentions on Facebook on Monday. By next January, he will have served 16 years in the House.

“After many years working as your Legislator, I’d be honored to have a bright, hard working person take the turn to represent our district and state. I’m not necessarily dropping out of the 2018 race, but I’d truly prefer to have a great new candidate, who honestly shares the values of the large majority in our district, represent us. I will keep my name in this race because I do have the energy for another 2 years of this job IF a committed person who will work to win and represent our district’s values doesn’t run.”

That was enough for Rojas. Within 24 hours, he’d filed a letter of intent with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, possibly seeking to crowd out other potential applicants.

District 20 covers downtown, Government Hill, Mountain View, Fairview and South Addition. During the past two election cycles, Gara has not faced a primary challenge nor a Republican opponent in the General Election.

The district is reliably anti-private sector. In the 2014 primary election, voters in District 20 voted to repeal SB 21, oil tax reform, 2826 to 1897. Only District 33 downtown Juneau voted against oil tax reform at a higher rate, 4,769 to 1,906. The repeal effort was defeated, however.

When dueling Facebook videos give true polling data

Suzanne Downing
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TWO RETRO-LOOKING ADS, BUT VERY DIFFERENT RESULTS

Political campaigns gauge voter interest in different ways, and strategists from the competing teams try to explain and massage the results to suit their purposes.

This became evident in a recent Patinkin Poll released on behalf of the Bill Walker campaign, which showed Walker in the lead over Mike Dunleavy, 51 to 44 percent, among likely General Election voters.

Two video ads that appeared on Facebook in recent days have created their own kind of polling results. They are messages reflecting the values of Walker and those of Dunleavy, both running for the state’s highest office.

WALKER NOIR VIDEO

The first black-and-white ad came from the Walker camp. It’s the “Why I Ran” video described in this “Noir vision is Walker’s strange theme” story earlier this month on Must Read Alaska.

Click here to see the video. 

It was posted to Facebook on April 24 and has been seen 99,000 times, according to the social media site. That many views in a Facebook universe comes with a high-dollar advertising spend from the Walker-Mallott campaign.

But in spite of the high spend and the entire month it has been running, the “Why I Ran” video has only received about 300 “likes” from viewers.

That means only 3 out of about 1,000 people indicated they “like” the video message.

Well, maybe the “shares” are better. Some 74 people shared the post with their friends on Facebook, and several of those are Walker insiders. Others shared it along with several negative comments, such as this one:

“The good people of Alaska better not be bamboozled again by this guy.”

DUNLEAVY ‘FATHER OF FUND’ VIDEO

Dunleavy for Alaska posted a video this past Saturday, starring Jay Hammond speaking about the Permanent Fund. It’s also a retro video and has lots of real black-and-white and faded color footage of what Hammond actually said about the Permanent Fund and the dividend, and a screen shot of what Walker actually did.

In just four days it was seen by nearly 49,000 people, and received 653 “likes” and 582 shares. We could find no negative comments associated with the shares.

See the Dunleavy video here.

STRIKING NUMBERS OFFER STARK FUTURE FOR WALKER

What’s unusual about the two videos is that, while presumably both camps paid for Facebook to show their videos to more people, the dark vision that Walker presented had nearly zero “organic” appeal, which means people didn’t share it.

But the old footage of Gov. Hammond, as presented by the Dunleavy camp, garnered an enviable organic reach with its 669 percent more “shares” in four days than the Walker video had in an entire month.

People sharing the video are not comparing Hammond to Walker. They’re associating Hammond and Dunleavy.

Dunleavy for Alaska is not the actual Dunleavy campaign, but a political action committee set up by several major contributors, including Francis Dunleavy (Mike’s brother), Bob Penney, Josh Peppard, and Al Haynes, to name a few.

Is media coverage creating more school shootings?

Suzanne Downing
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Is media coverage creating more school shootings?

CONTAGION EFFECT: IS IT A THING?

The front page of the New York Times on Saturday featured expansive coverage of the boy who shot students at his high school in Santa Fe, Texas, killing 10 of them and injuring several others.

The stories of the victims were featured, but large on the page was the photo of the troubled young man, now a killer, who had spared some students “so he could have his story told.”

The New York Times and news media around the world obliged him and fed what appears to be a contagion of mass shootings at schools around the country.

 

Two days before the Santa Fe shooting, a former student of Dixon High School in Dixon, Illinois, opened fire with a 9 mm semi-automatic rifle, a common firearm, but was stopped by a police officer. The 19-year-old suspect is now in jail.

In Anchorage last week, a Dimond High School student was arrested after making a verbal threat to shoot up the school.

THE CONTAGION THEORY

Newspaper editors have long honored the requests of suicide prevention experts, who theorize that reporting suicides actually cause more suicides to occur. But does news coverage and social media also increase the incidences of mass shootings?

Arizona State University researchers analyzed news coverage of gun-related rampages from 1997 to 2013. Using a mathematical model, they found that shootings resulting in four or more deaths launched a contagion that spread like a virus, lasting an average of 13 days. In other words, when news coverage occurs relating to mass shootings, more mass shootings occur. Some 20-30 percent of extended violence was documented.

Other behaviors have also been theorized as contagious, including disordered eating leading to obesity as well as anorexia, suicide attempts, and psychogenic illnesses.

Researchers from the University of Vermont tracked K-12 school shootings and college mass shootings, along with social media chatter, to establish a causal relationship between the media reaction and what may be a copycat effect.

If that is the case, then Second Amendment proponents have more to point to than just parents needing to take more responsibility for their children’s access to firearms and violent video games. The media needs to do some reflection on coverage. But in an era of social media, how will our society stop the wildfire of online chatter that could be unwittingly influencing alienated, disaffected young people with guns?

Is the fact that schools are staging “active shooter” training with students contributing to the contagion?

[Read The Atlantic Magazine: Mass shootings are spreading like an epidemic]

[Read Malcolm Gladwell: How school shootings catch on]

Add your thought below about whether there is a contagion effect with school shootings.

Catch-and-release: Shane Muse is out again

Suzanne Downing
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Catch-and-release: Shane Muse is out again

Shane Muse is out of jail as of Monday, on supervised release while he awaits trial.

Muse has been one of numerous repeat offenders who have cycled in and out of jail under the the State’s “give crooks a chance” law, SB 91.

He was singled out by Anchorage Assembly members Dick Traini, Fred Dyson, and Eric Croft in a letter drafted to state legislators, pleading with them to strengthen penalties for those repeatedly committing serious crimes.

Muse’s recent criminal career in Alaska includes an incident in October, when he was stopped by Anchorage police in a stolen silver 2003 Cadillac Escalade on West 44th Ave., after careening through Midtown and ramming police vehicles in an attempt to escape.

Officers arrested him and two others in that incident. One person in the car, Crystal Tui, had been released several weeks ago. Muse was released by the judge after being charged with numerous Class C felonies.

On March 6, Muse was caught in a 2006 black GMC Yukon that had been reported stolen weeks earlier. The Yukon was parked next to two other occupied vehicles: a silver GMC pickup truck and a silver Chevy Malibu. The officer who spotted the Yukon knew it to be stolen.

As the officer waited for backup, the drivers of the three vehicles noticed him, and pulled away. With all three vehicles now evading the law, patrol units were dispatched to chase the Malibu and the GMC pickup, while another officer forced the Yukon into a snowbank at 10th and Juneau Streets.

At some point in the proceedings, numerous shots were fired not far from the police officers. No one was hit, but officers found a stolen handgun inside the Yukon, tucked beneath the seat where Muse had been sitting. There was a bullet in the chamber.

Muse was booked, but with the pretrial risk assessment tool the state uses, he scored a 2 out of 10, and qualified for mandatory release in spite of being charged with two counts of theft, vehicle theft 1, and being a felon in possession of a weapon. He also had a prior forgery charge and had been missing his court dates on that charge.

The Assistant District Attorney Kevin Bergt told the judge at the time that Muse was a serious risk to the public. But the judge wasn’t able to keep Muse in jail on the car theft and felon-in-posesssion charges, since he could not afford bail.

However, the judge was able to keep him locked up for the forgery incident, since it occurred before the lenient catch-and-release portion of SB 91 went into effect.  The judge set bail at $5,000, which has now been paid. Muse left jail on Monday.

Didn’t the Legislature fix the quick-release bail system? Shouldn’t Muse be in jail for two car theft charges plus evading officers, plus the hand gun under the seat? Isn’t that enough to hold him?

“The short answer is, the ‘fix’ was superficial,” said Amy Demboski, a member of the Anchorage Assembly who also has a talk show on KVNT. “They put a Bandaid on SB 91 to make it through the election and didn’t even come close to fixing it. It is fundamentally flawed.”

The lenient arm of the law: More ‘catch-and-reoffend’ car thievery

 

 

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