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Walker’s stealth fish meetings disenfranchise Board of Fisheries

Suzanne Downing
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Walker’s stealth fish meetings disenfranchise Board of Fisheries

BACKROOM POLITICS, PAID FACILITATOR, NO AUTHORITY

BY CRAIG MEDRED
CRAIGMEDRED.NEWS

With the fishing season beginning in the 49th state, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker has been holding private meetings to forge an agreement between commercial, sport and other fishing interests on how to manage salmon in Cook Inlet.

The reason why is unclear. 

By law, the regulation of state fisheries falls solely under the jurisdiction of the Alaska Board of Fisheries. One of the first acts of the Alaska Legislature after Statehood in 1959 was to establish a Board of Fish and Game – later split into the separate boards for fish and wildlife management – to insulate resource decisions from backroom politicking.

“Under the Alaska Constitution, the Board of Fish and Game was founded in 1960 to provide for public discussion (of) the state’s fish and wildlife management,” according to a legislative history. “Public involvement is one of the most essential aspects of the board process.”

Alaska Outdoor Council executive director Rod Arno on Friday accused Walker of playing politics with Inlet fisheries in direct violation of the intent of the state’s founders. The AOC is the state’s largest fishing and hunting organization.

Were Walker’s secret dealings not enough, Arno added, what the governor and a state-paid facilitator are  doing makes no sense given that Walker has no authority to alter fishing regulations. Even if Walker could broker a deal on management of Inlet salmon in secretive, closed-door meetings, Arno noted, the deal would need the approval of the seven-member Board of Fish.

The board members are appointed by the governor, but must be approved by the Legislature. The board is not scheduled to consider Cook Inlet salmon issues until the 2019-2020 session. The state votes on a new governor this fall.

Walker is running for re-election. Arno and others have speculated that what is really going on is an effort by the governor to craft something he can claim has brought peace between warring fishery factions in Upper Cook Inlet (UCI) in the hopes this could win him some votes.

But even if Walker could broker such a deal, which seems unlikely, Arno said, it would set a bad precedent.

“It gets right back down to the (fish and game) advisory committees,” he said. “They feel they’ve been disenfranchised.”

[Read more at CraigMedred.news]

Dan Saddler jumps into Senate Seat G race

Suzanne Downing
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4

Rep. Dan Saddler bumped into Lora Reinbold in the lobby of the Division of Elections on Thursday, as he filed for Senate Seat G, which is an open seat representing a military-heavy portion of Eagle River.

Saddler is the current House representative for District 13, and has lived in Eagle River since 1992, with roots in Alaska that stretch back to the 1970s. He has served in the House since winning his seat in 2010. His prior experience includes being a legislative aide in the Senate, and as House Republican majority press secretary. He was a newspaper reporter for the Anchorage Times, and worked as a special assistant to the Department of Natural Resources. He has a career in journalism, and in public relations with a Native Corporation.

Saddler, who was unopposed in his House race in 2016, will compete against Rep. Lora Reinbold of District 14, who had filed just minutes earlier in the day.

Saddler served on the Community and Regional Affairs committee this session. When the House was run by Republicans, he served on Finance, Education, Labor and Commerce, Resources, Military and Veteran Affairs, Energy, and Joint Armed Services (co-chair for six years). He was co-chair of Resources during  the highly charged SB 21 oil tax reform (which passed).

Legislation he has gotten through to law includes the Veterans’ Driver License bill, where you can prove your veteran’s status without having to carry discharge papers. He sponsored the digital fishing license law, so sports fishers don’t have to carry papers on them. Saddler won passage of legislation to allow disability savings accounts, allowing families to take care of their disabled family members without those disabled Alaskans losing their benefits.

Fred Dyson, longtime senator who had served this district (before reapportionment it was District F) from 2003-2015, has endorsed Saddler.

Saddler’s District 13 seat could be filled by Craig Christenson, a Republican who filed for it earlier this year.

[Read: Lora Reinbold files for District G Senate]

 

Rep. Reinbold files for Eagle River Senate seat

Suzanne Downing
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1
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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0
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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9
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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8
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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2

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.

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