The City Clerk of Palmer has approved a petition request to recall Mayor Steve Carrington, who has suffered withering criticism for using a Ketchikan attorney to craft a separation agreement with the most recent city manager, who was driven out after he fired the police chief.
The petition by Palmer resident Cindy Hudgins, long a watchdog of city government, states Carrington broke the law because his hiring outside counsel to help with the removal of the former city manager required the approval of the city council. Carrington used outside counsel because the city attorney had been involved in outlining complaints against the city manager, who lasted two months before upsetting much of the community and staff of the city.
“This abuse of executive power by Mayor Steve Carrington constitutes unlawful behavior by a public officer in relation to the duties of his office, willful in character,” Hudgins wrote.
Alaska law outlines the grounds for recall: “misconduct in office, incompetence, or failure to perform prescribed duties.”
The application approval means a petition may be approved by Dec. 17, and will require at least 71 signatures, or 25% of those who voted in the last regular election, no later than Feb. 16 before a recall election would be held.
When Anchorage voters agreed to sell Municipal Light and Power to Chugach Electric Association, the municipality lost its voting rights on the Eklutna Hydro Project Operating Committee, of which it was one of the former owners.
The Anchorage Assembly has wanted to renegotiate the deal and get back to the decision making table, as the current mayor and Assembly leadership have a goal of dismantling the dam that provides power and water to Anchorage.
Eklutna produces electricity that power around 25,000 homes in Anchorage and Mat-Su and is the lowest-cost renewable energy in Southcentral Alaska.
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has considered the Anchorage Assembly’s request to be returned as a voting member of the power project, and has said no, no, and no: The city is not represented in decisions about the hydro project and won’t be for the next 35 years.
Getting voting rights back has been a priority of Assembly Chairman Chris Constant and leftist members who control Anchorage government, who want to dismantle the Eklutna Dam — but on their own terms, which involve waiting until there is a Democrat governor in office who might make the decision to put them back on the ownership team. They want to put salmon into the Eklutna River, which has had dams in various places since 1927.
The decision by the RCA is sweeping: “We grant the motion to dismiss filed by the Office of the Attorney General, Regulatory Affairs and Public Advocacy Section (RAPA) in part, and dismiss the Noticeand Request for Acknowledgment of Anchorage Hydropower’s Acquisition of ExpertiseRequired to Participate as a Voting Member of the Eklutna Operating Committee (Notice and Request) filed by the Municipality of Anchorage d/b/a Anchorage Hydropower (AHP) on July 18, 2024. We deny the motion to dismiss in part. We vacate the remaining procedural schedule adopted for resolution of this docket, including the prehearing conference scheduled for November 18, 2024, and the public hearing scheduled to begin on November 18, 2024. We deny the motion to compel discovery responses jointly filed by Chugach Electric Association, Inc. (Chugach) and Matanuska Electric Association, Inc. (MEA). We deny the request by AHP to construe its Notice and Request as apetition to modify the conditions on AHP’s certificate of public convenience and necessity (certificate). We provide guidance to AHP for its consideration should it make future filings related to reinstatement of Eklutna Operating Committee (EOC) voting rights. We close this docket.”
The short version is that the RCA denied the Municipality’s claim that it should be among the voting members of the project.
As the RCA decision explained, the RCA originally approved the transaction under which Chugach Electric acquired the service obligations and most of the ML&P assets, subject to conditions.
One of these conditions required ML&P to surrender its voting rights on the Eklutna operating committee prior to the effective date of the agreements under which ML&P’s successor (Chugach) would be providing part of its share of the Eklutna Project output to Chugach (the Eklutna Power Purchase Agreement and selling the remainder of its share of the Eklutna Project output to Matanuska Electric Association.
“We required that this surrender must have a term at least equal to the term of the Eklutna PPA and the MEA PPA, as those agreements may be extended, and cannot be lifted until such time as MHP has shown to our satisfaction that MHP has acquired the expertise required to fully participate as a voting member of the EOC. This does not prohibit MHP from attending EOC meetings, but may not allow MHP any ability to delay or change the Eklutna Project decisions made by the Chugach and MEA representatives on the EOC,” the commission said.
To comply and sell off ML&P, the Municipality of Anchorage relinquished its Eklutka voting rights effective Oct. 30, 2019.
Five years later, once the environmentalists and Eklutna Village started pushing for destroying the dam, the Assembly, with its new mayor that complies with its wishes, wanted back in.
In August of this year, the city filed a request for reinstatement of its voting rights, asserting that Anchorage Water and Wastewater General Manager Mark A. Corsentino had been appointed to be the General Manager of Anchorage Hydropower and that AWWU Engineering Director Mark Schimscheimer would provide support to Corsentino, both appointees by the Mayor LaFrance Administration. The Eklutna Village agreed with the city’s request to rejoin the operating committee.
But Chugach Electric Association and Matanuska Electric Association wanted further investigation, and that investigation did not favor the Anchorage municipality. A deal’s a deal, said the RCA.
The news is good for ratepayers, who would end up with the short end of the deal if the Assembly got back on the operating committee.
The municipality has 30 days to appeal the RCA ruling, which was rendered Nov. 14.
Pete Hegseth, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary, has been making the rounds of the offices of senators who will be voting on his confirmation. On Monday, he met with Sen. Dan Sullivan in the senator’s D.C. office, and the senator had good things to say about the nominee, who is being trashed by Democrat partisans on Capitol Hill and in the legacy media.
“I had a productive meeting with SecDef nominee @PeteHegseth today,” Sullivan wrote. “We focused on the importance of restoring lethality and warfighting as the core mission at the Pentagon as well as the strategic importance of Alaska. I’m confident Pete will work to refocus our military on lethality and peace through strength, as well as getting rid of the damaging woke policies of the Biden admin, some of which I witnessed firsthand as a Marine Corps Reserve Officer.”
Hegseth might eventually visit Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, but that may be down the list for him, along with Maine Sen. Susan Collins. Those two Republicans are seen as hostile to the incoming administration. After all, it was Murkowski who voted to convict Donald Trump after he left the presidency in 2021, and it was Murkowski who believed the “me too” stories about now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and refused to vote to confirm him.
Murkowski, who flunked the Alaska Bar exam four times, had already signaled she would not vote to confirm Matt Gaetz as the next U.S. Attorney General because he was not “a serious candidate.” Gaetz has withdrawn his name.
Hegseth is facing accusations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017, although neither the local California district attorney nor the local police found the claims to be credible and the case never went to prosecution. Hegseth has indicated he was being stalked by the accuser.
Rep. Elise Stefanik and Sen. Dan Sullivan
Also visiting Sullivan this week was Rep. Elise Stefanik, whom Trump nominated for United Nations Ambassador.
“It was great meeting with Rep. @EliseStefaniktoday and I’m looking forward to hosting her back home in Alaska. It has been a pleasure working alongside Elise in Congress to combat antisemitism, which has been disturbingly on the rise around the world and pervasive in the UN for decades. I have full confidence Elise will do a great job representing the American people, will bring much-needed American leadership to the UN, and will hold those with anti-American and antisemitic views in the body accountable. Peace Through Strength!” Sullivan said.
Today, the Trump-Vance transition team signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Justice, the next step in the ongoing preparation of senior administration officials for the purpose of serving in President Donald Trump’s second administration.
The MOU allows the transition team to submit names for background checks and security clearances and will afford the transition process additional insights, and it facilitates the transition landing teams gaining access to the information they need to prepare for leadership of the federal agencies and departments.
“This agreement with the Department of Justice will ensure President Trump and his team are ready on Day 1 to begin enacting the America First Agenda that an overwhelming majority of our nation supported on Election Day,” said Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff.
Trump has a testy relationship with the FBI, which is under the Department of Justice, with good reason. The agency raided his home in Mar-a-Lago, and many believe the intrusion into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was, in part, an agency operation. The FBI has come under criticism and suspicion for its “woke” agenda and possible involvement in other civil unrest. The FBI, for example, raided the home of a Homer, Alaska couple who had been outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The agency said it was looking for then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop computer, which it believed the couple had stolen.
Other incidents, from Antifa riots to Black Lives Matter mayhem, have raised questions about whether the agency has been compromised. Trump has nominated Kash Patel to take over the leadership of the agency and start cleaning out the corruption.
The Department of Justice itself has been on a several-year witch hunt against Trump. Recently, Jack Smith, the special counsel who has been in charge of taking Trump down politically through the Justice system, has dropped the case.
The inflection point, the moment things really started to turn around, was in October of 2013. That’s when Obamacare was introduced to the American people. Politically, it was catastrophic for the Democrats. A policy they’d been pushing since Truman actually went into effect and began to impact people’s lives. And people were pissed. They’d been told, repeatedly, that if they liked their health insurance, they could keep it. But that was always a lie,
When I saw all this happen, I decided to get back into politics after a 13 break. I figured things were going turn to around, and a lot of things might be possible. A red wave was coming, maybe big enough to enact an Article V amendment!
I was 68 years old, but figured I still had some gas left in the tank. I started a blog at ReaganProject.com, and did an internet search for an Article V movement. Any Article V movement. I found the Convention of States project (CoS), called them up, and they explained their proposal.
I told them that it would never work. You don’t combine three controversial proposals into one package and try to pass them all at one fell swoop. Politics doesn’t work that way. There are different majorities for all three ideas, but they don’t correspond to each other. This isn’t the way majorities are assembled.
So I did a little research, and found out Lew Uhler, an 80-year-old Reagan veteran in Sacramento, was still pushing a balanced budget amendment. I’d last seen Lew in Orlando at an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) meeting 24 years earlier, when I was in the Alaska legislature, and was pushing a term limits amendment.Here Lew was, still growing strong.
He had Mark Meckler, the head of Convention of States, and Mecker’s wife, over to his office. They lived just up the road in the foothills. Lew asked him to explain where he came up with the three ideas, (balanced budget, term limits, and cutting back the federal government). Meckler said he just asked the people who came to his Tea Party events, and these were the most popular ideas.
This is a stupid and sloppy way to put together a political initiative. It’s not how you draft a proposal that you try to pass in a state legislature. But it’s a good way to raise money, and that was Meckler’s principal goal. He’d learned how to raise money online for the Tea Party Patriots, which he co-founded. Naturally enough, Meckler has found his three-headed idea a tough sell. He’s raised and spent a fortune (taking a nice bite out for himself, thank you very much) to get around half the states he needs. These are the low hanging fruit, and he has little hope of getting any further.
It’s a waste of money, but it’s worse than that. Meckler actively seeks to undermine and destroy any rival Article V organization. He’s a snake. Other proposals are a threat to his. His whole operation is kept going so that Meckler can continue in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed.
But things are about to change, fairly quickly. Meckler’s scam will soon be exposed, and he’ll need to find another line of work.
I’ve been at this a long time (since 1983, actually), and I’ve never felt better about our chances. The wave hasn’t crested. An Article V Convention will be called. And I will live to see it.
Fritz Pettyjohn was a prosecuting attorney for the City of Ketchikan, Alaska in 1973 and served in the Alaska Legislature in the 1980s. He blogs at ReaganProject.com
Sen. Mike Shower of Wasilla will be minority leader of the incoming Senate Republican minority in the Alaska Legislature.
During the past two years there hasn’t been a minority because the Democrats peeled off enough Republicans to have a super-majority of nine Democrats and eight Republicans, leaving three Republicans — Sens. Mike Shower, Shelley Hughes, and Robert Myers — out in the cold with no voice in the Senate.
But now there are six Republicans in the minority, which leaves the Republicans left in the majority outnumbered by Democrats 2-to-1.
In addition to Shower leading the minority, Myers of Fairbanks-North Pole will be minority whip. Other members of the minority are Sen. James Kaufman of South Anchorage, Sen. Shelley Hughes of Wasilla, and Senators-elect Mike Cronk of Tok-Interior and Rob Yundt of Wasilla.
Although Republican Senators Kelly Merrick and Jesse Bjorkman are both on the record saying they would only stay with a bipartisan majority if the numbers were even, they appear to have gone back on their word and put the Democrats clearly in charge, as they have done the past two years.
Shower was appointed by Gov. Bill Walker to serve out the term of then-Sen. Mike Dunleavy, starting Feb. 22, 2018. Dunleavy had resigned to run for governor and Shower has held the seat ever since.
The caucus extends an open invitation to any senator who wishes to join in opposing government expansion and advocating for common sense solutions for Alaska, the group said in a statement.
“Our caucus is focused upon small-government, conservative principles that a majority of Alaskans support,” said Myers. “We look forward to working with members of all caucuses who share our commitment to sustainable and responsible budgets.”
“With the new federal administration, there will be opportunities for the state to be a partner in new resource development projects, education reform, and greater state control over our own destiny,” said Sen. Hughes. “As the Senate Republican Caucus, we stand poised to advance great things for Alaska.”
“I’m a firm believer that Alaskan values and ways of life should be reflected in everyone having a voice at the table. By putting our differences aside, we will work together for all of Alaska,” said Senator-elect Cronk.
“Alaska’s economy has been buffeted by national inflation, while also being stressed by local economic stagnation. Now more than ever, we need a caucus that is clearly focused on enabling the private sector, which is the force that can lift all boats by providing increased economic opportunity. State government can help, and has an important role to play, particularly by getting out of the way whenever possible, and by efficiently delivering infrastructure projects and services that are outside of the private sector’s reach,” said Sen. Kaufman.
“I’m excited to work with this dynamic group. Our caucus, made up of the majority of elected Republican Senators, will be the team who offers a fiscally and socially responsible path forward that benefits all Alaskans,” said Senator-elect Yundt.
The 12 jurors in the election misconduct trial of former Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux were not able to come to a decision on the 12 counts against her. The judge declared it a mistrial due to deadlock. Whether Department of Law prosecutors will try the case again is yet to be determined.
LeDoux, who moved from Kodiak to the Muldoon area so that she could then run for state House, was accused by the state of encouraging people to register and vote in her district when she knew they didn’t live in the district. The charges included five felony charges.
The case had many twists and turns, with one key witness and campaign employee, Charlie Chang of California, dying in 2018. He had been hired to bring in the vote of the Hmong community.
But two associated with the case did not die. One, then-legislative aide Lisa Simpson, pleaded guilty and testified against LeDoux, as did Caden Vaught, who is Simpson’s son who was apparently taken advantage of in the alleged scheme.
In her defense, LeDoux had testified that she never wanted her campaign to do anything illegal, arguing that she was misunderstood. But after a two-year investigation, which involved the FBI due to federal candidates being on the ballots during the timeframe of the elections, the State Department of Law concluded that there was actual election fraud taking place.
Even Sen. Lisa Murkowski would not vote for the 2021 confirmation of Tracy Stone-Manning, who had been with EarthFirst! and was tied to a tree-spiking terrorism incident decades before President Joe Biden brought her on as the director of the Bureau of Land Management.
But she was confirmed by the Democrats in the Senate anyway, and has been in charge of the agency for four years, converting it from a multi-use land agency to one dedicated to complete preservation of land, including the 70 million acres the agency owns and controls in Alaska.
Now that the Biden Administration is coming to an end, Stone-Manning is heading back to the environmental non-governmental organization industry, also known as ENGOs.
She’ll be taking over the leadership of The Wilderness Society, which opposes and litigates against all oil and gas leases on Alaska’s North Slope, against all mining, and against all forestry.
President Biden nominated Stone-Manning to direct the BLM in 2021, taking over from Acting Director William Perry Pendley, who served under the Trump Administration.
While she was being confirmed, her past actions with EarthFirst! came to light. Republicans argued against her due to her work as an environmentalist who supported the driving of spikes into trees in order to discourage logging, knowing the spikes would do deadly harm to loggers working in the forest, she was a poor choice. Stone-Manning is on record saying she “retyped” a letter detailing the attacks and sent the letter anonymously to the U.S. Forest Service so that logging would be halted.
Stone-Manning had also been a senior advisor at the National Wildlife Federation in Montana, and was chief of staff to Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock. She was a senior aide to Democrat U.S. Sen. John Tester.
The Coast Guard said Monday afternoon that it suspended its search Monday morning for five people after their fishing boat reportedly capsized near Pt. Couverden Point in northern Southeast Alaska, pending the development of new information.
Coast Guard crews searched for nearly 24 hours, covering more than 108 square nautical miles. Survival suits were found empty and the life raft from the vessel was found, but may not have been inflated.
“We stand in sorrow and solidarity with the friends and family of the people we were not able to find over the past 24 hours,” said Chief Warrant Officer James Koon, a search and rescue mission coordinator at Coast Guard Sector Southeast Alaska. “I am deeply grateful for the swiftness of our crews and other search assets who came together to amplify our efforts and completely saturate our search areas. Our collective hearts are with the friends and families of the who are experiencing the effects from this loss.”
Involved in the search were:
Coast Guard Sector Southeast Alaska
Coast Guard Air Station Sitka
Coast Guard Station Juneau
Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20)
Coast Guard Cutter Douglas Denman (WPC 1149)
Alaska Marine Highway System motor vessel Hubbard, which was first on the scene.
U.S. Coast Guard Sector Southeast Alaska watchstanders received the mayday call at approximately 12:07 a.m. on VHF-FM channel 16 from the crew aboard the fishing vessel Wind Walker reporting they were overturning. The watchstanders attempted to get more information but no more communication was made by the Wind Walker, which was battling six-foot seas, heavy winds snow and possible icing conditions in frigid temperatures of -8 degrees F.
The Wind Walker is based out of Sitka and is well known in the fishing community.
The search area was around Pt. Couverden near Hoonah, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The last-known sighting was west of Rocky Island, about 15 miles west of Juneau, around Icy Strait/Chatham Strait.
Anyone with new information about this situation is requested to contact Coast Guard Sector Southeast Alaska watchstanders at 907-463-2980.
