Pacific Fishing, a Seattle publication serving the North Pacific commercial fishing industry from Alaska to Hawaii for more than 40 years, has stopped publication, it was announced Sunday by editor Wesley Loy.
“The owner and publisher of Pacific Fishing magazine is retiring. We are actively pursuing a new owner to carry on the publication,” the magazine announced, according to Loy’s Deckboss.com blog. He said the magazine’s last issue was in December.
The daily Fish Wrap news service also will be suspended, Loy said.
Pacific Fishing provided “news and features for predominantly commercial fishermen readers engaged in a dangerous and often economically tumultuous industry,” according to the announcement by Loy, who previously wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
“Pacific Fishing is the premier monthly magazine serving owners and operators of commercial fishing boats throughout the world’s most profitable ocean, from Alaska to the tropical Pacific. Our readers include crew members, processors, fisheries managers, suppliers, seafood brokers and distributors, educators and others who want serious information about the business of hauling up – and selling – food from the Pacific,” the magazine says on its “About” page.
The magazine’s owner and publisher is Mike Daigle, of Seattle.
Last week’s Juneau School District Board of Education meeting, expected to be perfunctory, was far from routine.
The Thursday, March 7 special meeting was called for the first reading of the adoption of the FY 2025 Budget. The budget had been hammered out after months of many long (sometimes contentious) meetings needed to reach consensus on how to deal with the potentially crushing structural deficit facing the district.
The final budget incorporated a plan to close three schools and consolidate grades 9-12 at Juneau-Douglas High School (JDHS), consolidate grades 7-8 at Thunder Mountain High School (THMS), and move grade 6 back to neighborhood elementary schools. The plan was approved by the Board by a 5-2 vote on February 23, but merging the two high schools had been seriously considered since January.
Despite that, dissident board members, led by board member Amber Frommhertz, supported a motion to consider an amendment to that plan at their next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, March 12. The amendment (which eventually passed 4-3 with Sorenson, Mackey and Siddon dissenting) did not provide details or state its purpose but it later became apparent that it was laying the groundwork for consideration of a grade 7-12 plan that would keep both high schools open by adding middle school grades into JDHS and TMHS.
Frommhertz and board members supporting her motion claimed there was a lack of transparency in the board process and that “additional information” needed to be considered before budget final approval. However, they were either unwilling or unable to present that information during the meeting.
The contention that the public process was flawed is belied by the facts. JSD held fifteen public meetings on the budget since January 9. Input was solicited through multiple community and staff engagement meetings. Almost 600 responses were received to the JSD Budget Survey. JSD launched a public budget newsletter supplementing public announcements on the district web page and social media. Superintendent Hauser was available at all public meetings to answer questions.
What no one could explain is how, in the few days remaining before Tuesday’s meeting, a fully researched budget with reliable numbers can be produced for new configuration models when it took weeks to flesh out the details and fiscal impacts of the currently approved model.
Ironically, Frommhertz admitted during the meeting that she hadn’t had time to review all the information presented for the current model and was having problems following it. Yet, she apparently has no difficulty presenting a brand-new budget for two different models to board members on Tuesday with even less time to review it or consider it for approval.
This new plan, if adopted, would completely reverse the reorganization model presented to the Juneau City and Borough Assembly. This is not insignificant as the board must provide a balanced budget by March 15 to leave enough time to meet state statutory deadlines.
Timelines aside, under a 7-12 model, high school and middle school students crammed into the same building would be forced to compete for gym and library time, and seats in the lunchroom.
Besides the problematic logistical and social issues created by sending this year’s 6th and 7th graders to a school populated by 18-year-old seniors, the 7-12 plan will exacerbate a glaring problem that previous Juneau school boards have neglected to formally acknowledge.
Dilution of core course offerings and electives has plagued both Juneau high schools for years but has been ignored until now. Scores of students are required to take correspondence courses or summer school to graduate because classes are full or not offered. But combining our two high schools means their teachers would be under one roof. This will result in more core class availability and more Advanced Placement (AP) and Career & Technology Education (CTE) electives.
Changing to an unvetted dual high school configuration that houses as many as six different grades in each building with only days to evaluate the financial, educational, and social consequences is foolhardy.
Protecting one high school at the expense of Juneau’s middle school students is not the way forward.
The Juneau School Board can get back on track by adopting the currently approved budget plan, a plan that has been scrutinized thoroughly with input from all stakeholders through a deliberate process.
After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.
President Joe Biden on Monday released his $7.3 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 with $5.5 trillion in tax increases that continues to increase the national debt.
While the budget is only a recommendation from the White House that has almost no chance of becoming an actual budget, it lays out the president’s priorities for spending and which tax increases he is willing to publicly get behind.
“Specifically, the Budget reduces the deficit by around $3 trillion over the next decade, compared to deficits without the President’s policies,” the White House said in a statement. “The deficit reduction in the Budget increases over time, with over $500 billion of deficit reduction in 2034.”
Despite the claims of deficit reduction, the White House’s own numbers say the national debt under the budget plan would rise to $45 trillion by 2034.
The White House plan, though, would increase the debt slower than the existing trajectory and pay for it with several tax increases, including a 25% minimum tax on billionaires, as well as ramping up audits on Americans to increase IRS collection.
“While the level of borrowing under the President’s budget would be unprecedented outside a war or national emergency, it would be $3.3 trillion lower than under OMB’s baseline over the FY 2024 through 2034 budget window,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in its analysis of Biden’s budget.
The budget would also repeal large parts of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax reform legislation.
“[The budget] also proposes taxing capital gains at the same rate as wage income for those with more than $1 million in income, closing the capital gains loophole that allows the wealthy to avoid ever paying tax on their appreciated investments, and finally closing the carried interest loophole that allows some wealthy investment fund managers to pay tax at lower rates than their secretaries,” the White House said in a statement.
Experts have continued to raise serious concerns about the ballooning national debt, which is currently over $34 trillion and quickly growing.
“Over the next decade, we are on pace to grow our debt to an all-time high as a share of GDP, fueling record interest costs,” Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said in a statement responding to the budget. “Meanwhile, critical programs including Social Security and Medicare are in significant danger of automatic cuts for all beneficiaries, and we can’t let that happen. Without action, all Social Security recipients will face a 23% cut in 2033 — that would mean a $17,000 reduction annually for the typical couple. In only 7 years, Medicare faces an 11% cut to providers that would affect more than 77 million enrollees.”
Budget analysts concerned about the soaring national debt welcomed some of the tax increases, but said it is not enough.
“This budget is an important step in the right direction, but it’s still too little,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement. “The budget lacks a plan to put the debt on a downward path, to pay for its proposed tax cut extensions, or to prevent the 23 percent across-the-board Social Security benefit cut – the equivalent of a $17,400 cut for a newly retired couple – scheduled to take effect around 2033.”
Specific provisions of the bill took fire, though the massive budget is still being poured over. Biden’s budget would cut subsidies for oil and gas companies to save money, though critics say those costs will be passed on to consumers.
The plan would also eliminate tax breaks for cryptocurrency and real estate, another of a range of proposals in the large budget plan.
House Republican leadership, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Whip Tom Emmer, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. released a joint statement blasting the budget.
“While hardworking Americans struggle with crushing inflation and mounting national debt, the President would increase their pain to spend trillions of additional taxpayer dollars to advance his left-wing agenda,” the group said.
It’s not often Alaskans can spot a fellow Alaskan at the Oscars. Quannah Chasinghorse was in attendance at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday, wearing a red gown from the Red Berry Woman couture design house, a Native American-owned company that blends Native styles with other styles.
For those who missed the red carpet event, Red Berry Woman posted photos of D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai of “Reservation Dogs” and Chasinghorse, described by the design house as a model and actress. She is the daughter of Jody Potts, who thanked Vogue and Allure magazines for rocketing her daughter to the top of the “best beauty looks from the Oscars.”
Chasinghorse, who is also known as Q, “works with the most amazing artists for hair and makeup in the industry! Paula Perlta is creative hair design for Paul Mitchell, of which Q is a global ambassador,” her mother wrote on Facebook. “Q loves working with Katy Denno for makeup. Katey who always has the best most natural products, which works best with Q’s natural skin. At this point after working with both Katey and Paula several times now, they both know what Q likes and how to best work with her lovely features. Its so fun to see what they come up with!”
Born in Tuba City, Arizona, Chasinghorse is part Han Gwich’in on her mother’s side and Sicangu-Oglala Lakota from South Dakota on her father’s side. She moved to Alaska when she was six and started identifying with her mother’s tribe and politics. She lived in Kenny Lake and Fairbanks and is a climate change activist and model. On her Oscars gown she wore a “cease fire” red pin, a popular accessory at the Oscars on Sunday.
Before President Joe Biden’s angry and loud State of the Union address on Thursday, Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola put out a brief statement saying that rich people don’t pay enough in Social Security. She wants them to pay even more than they already do.
Peltola is going after the pipeline workers, the pipe fitters, plumbers, and fishermen of Alaska, not just the super-wealthy, although she’s going after them too, including the CEOs of Native Corporations. She wants working, wage-earning Alaskans taxed to the max.
“Did you know that high earners only pay social security tax on the first $168,600 they make in a year? If millionaires paid into Social Security at the same rate as the rest of us, we could afford to protect and expand benefits for everyone. It’s time to #ScrapTheCap,” Peltola wrote on X/Twitter on Feb. 29.
These were talking points passed around by the Biden Administration and parroted by Democrats on Capitol Hill to prime the pump in the class warfare theater of the nation’s center of policy and power. Sure enough, in his speech on March 7, Biden said that millionaires should pay more Social Security tax.
But there’s a problem with that, according to Reason magazine writer Eric Boehm. “Raising the payroll tax cap could generate up to $1 trillion over 10 years, but Social Security faces a $2.8 trillion deficit.”
What’s more, it’s not millionaires who would be hurt, but anyone making more than the cap of $168,600 a year — less than 17% of what another person who makes $1 million a year makes. The two different income earners are in different categories altogether. In fact, millionaires often make much of their money through investments, not necessarily wages.
Peltola herself makes more than $174,000 a year and House of Representative staff members are capped at $199,000 per year, also not in the millionaire category, considering the cost of living in Washington, D.C.
Reason Magazine’s writer acknowledges the $168,600 cap is arbitrary. “In trying to draw a contrast between his own plans and what he claimed Republicans are aiming to do, Biden claimed that ‘working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It’s not fair.'”
To be fair, it was not just working people who built the country, but risk-taking investors, business owners, and job creators. Also others, from soldiers to scientists.
Biden said he plans to “protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share.”
“Though he did not spell it all out in Thursday night’s speech, those two comments seem to be pointed toward the same aspect of how Social Security is funded. Under current law, the payroll tax that funds Social Security is capped so that, for this year, only the first $168,600 in earnings are subject to it,” Boehm wrote. That cap went into effect in 2024.
To be fair, $168,600 in New Mexico is not the same as $168,600 in New York City. But eliminating the cap is the Democrats’ idea to stop the bleeding for Social Security, or as Peltola would have it, expand Social Security to more people.
The Social Security growing deficit is set to create a major insolvency problem in nine years, which could mean a 23% benefit cut. Peltola and Biden want a massive tax that would not guarantee the insolvency would be fixed, because, as Peltola puts it, she wants to expand benefits.
There’s no doubt that raising the cap would generate more revenue that could be used to help keep Social Security afloat, Boehm explained in his article. “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that applying payroll taxes to higher income levels could raise $1 trillion in revenues over a 10-year period (though the amount of revenue would depend on how the cap was altered, and whether benefits increased as well).” It’s just not enough to close the $2.8 trillion gap.
Here’s where it gets tricky: Taxing people who are clearly not millionaires is a penalty on hard-working Americans to transfer their wealth to both retirees and the expanding federal definition of disabled people.
“A significant portion of that tax increase would fall on people making less than $400,000 annually—remember, the cap is currently set around $168,000—a cohort that Biden promised again in Thursday’s speech would not face tax increases,” Boehm wrote. Thus, anyone making $400,000 would pay a Social Security tax on the next $231,000, or at least $17,700 more in taxes, or nearly $36,000 more if self-employed. The Peltola-Biden Plan is especially hard on small business owners.
The announcement of the increase of the cap came in October when the Social Security Administration announced that the maximum earnings subject to Social Security tax would increase from $160,200 to $168,600 in 2024 — an increase of $8,400. It wasn’t the only change. Due to the cost of living going up, Social Security recipients received a 3.2% cost-of-living increase for 2024. For most recipients, it means less than $100 a month more than last year.
Peltola and other Democrats started their coordinated #ScraptheCap campaign in lockstep in the days leading up to the State of the Union. It went like a virus through the Democrats on Capitol Hill and she was just another vector among many.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist from Vermont, parroted the same phrase: “At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, we have a radical idea that maybe the people on top should start paying their fair share of taxes … #ScrapTheCap,” he said.
"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, we have a radical idea that maybe the people on top should start paying their fair share of taxes" – Senator @SenSanders (I-VT) #ScrapTheCappic.twitter.com/72LfC6Xw4f
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the socialist sympathizer from Seattle, also used the phrase the same day that Peltola did:
“Did you know that Saturday is when millionaires stop paying into Social Security for the year thanks to arbitrary caps? That’s not right — they need to contribute all year, just like the rest of us. It’s time to #ScrapTheCap and make the ultra-rich pay their fair share,” she said.
So did Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin: “Millionaires will stop paying into Social Security for the year on Saturday, while the rest of us continue to pay into the system with each and every paycheck. It’s time to #ScrapTheCap to ensure the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share!”
The list goes on and on, with representatives and senators from the Left using almost the exact same phrasing in the days and week before Biden’s speech.
At the Manhattan Institute, senior fellow Brian Riedl has written about the myths surrounding these fixes:
“Eliminating the tax cap would either raise benefits as well (reducing the proposals’ savings), or—if the accompanying benefits are canceled—turn Social Security into a true welfare program by delinking contributions and benefits,” Riedl wrote in The Dispatchin “Ten Myths Sabotaging Social Security Reform.”
As a former Senate budget staffer, he has studied the problem for years: “Moreover, eliminating the cap would not bring permanent solvency or avert the need for benefit changes….The system would return to deficits by 2029. Lawmakers would still need to reform benefit levels and the eligibility age.”
The contribution salary cap has been around since the beginning of the program. When Joe Biden was born, only the first $3,000 a person made was taxed by the Social Security Administration. By the time Peltola was born, that had gone up to $10,800. It kept rising with inflation. In 2016, it was $118,000. By the time Biden took office, it had risen to $137,700. Now, people are taxed all the way up to the first $168,600, and Democrats want it all now — Social Security tax on every penny earned.
A bill to be heard on the Senate floor on Monday would modernize public notice regulations and eliminate the requirement that some public notices for the sale, appropriation, or removal of water will not need to be published in newspapers. They can be published online at the state’s public notice website.
For decades, budget hawks have said that the “legal notices” in newspapers are costly and unnecessary, since everything else in the world, including the Legislature itself, has migrated online. Newspapers are increasingly just another online source of information, but no longer dominate the news landscape like they did even 25 years ago. For example, the Juneau Empire now only prints two editions a week. While it once printed 9,000 copies six days a week, it’s down to 1,595 print copies on Wednesdays and 1,802 on Saturdays.
The Anchorage Daily News is down to printing five days a week. It’s protective of its print circulation numbers but during the bankruptcy proceedings of 2017, it was down to about 28,000, and likely is half that in 2024. It says to advertisers that its circulation is 57,000 daily, but that’s due to its digital edition and reach, and it does not break out the closely guarded numbers.
Senate Bill 68, recognizing that most newspapers have most of their readers online anyway, calls for publishing the notices in the Alaska Online Public Notice System, by mail, and by “other means as deemed necessary.”
There would be no cost to the state for the change, says the Division of Mining, Land and Water. In fact, there even might be substantial savings.
The executive director of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner opposes the change. Virginia Farmier wrote that many in the Fairbanks area do not have access to the internet. “The bill will do a disservice to our community and the state as a whole,” she said in her letter of opposition. “The public has relied on community newspapers to keep them informed and to publish public notices. If the state government publishes their own notices, where’s the transparency in that? I took an informal poll of people in Fairbanks asking if they knew the state had an ‘online public notices’ website and they did not.”
Ryan Binkley, publisher of the Anchorage Daily News, wrote, “The current law, which requires notices to be published in newspapers of general circulation, ensures that the public is informed and has the opportunity to provide feedback and input on matters that affect their communities. Newspapers (and their websites, which include all the notices published) have a vastly wider reach and are more accessible to Alaskans who may not have access to the internet or are not frequent users of government websites. This change would disenfranchise these individuals and limit their ability to participate in the decision-making process.”
The Alaska State Chamber of Commerce supports the bill: “For a number of years, the Chamber has had a position that supports the automation for processing of titles, liens, notary signatures, and other paper-based processes to improve access, delivery turnarounds and lower cost of operations. SB68 streamlines an antiquated process and provides for a common-sense efficiency as it relates public notice for water rights.”
The bill would update, but not substantively change, any other requirements for notice by the commissioner to determine the rights of persons holding existing appropriations, removal, or sale of beneficial water use rights, the bill sponsor says.
“Eliminating the newspaper notice requirement would prevent delays in the water permitting process and save the applicants a significant amount of money required for newspaper notice. The changes would utilize the state’s existing online public notice system, which is available to most Alaskans at no cost. All public notices posted on the online public notice system are permanently retained for future reference by interested parties, whereas newspaper notices are much more difficult to retrieve. Utilizing the online public notice system ensures that each Alaska resident has equal access to public notices rather than just newspaper subscribers or residents of an affected area. Further, elimination of coordinating newspaper publications reduces the permit processing timeframe,” the sponsor statement says.
SB 68 says that the public can use the subscriptions feature on the Alaska Online Public Notice System website (https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/) to either register for all notifications through the system, or to tailor what notifications from which departments they wish to receive.
“The Department of Natural Resources is eager to educate the public on the benefits of using the online notice system; SB 68 enables notice to be delivered to Alaskans through the power of the Internet,” the statement says.
Other states are dropping the newspaper option for public notices.
Last year, Florida Gob. Ron DeSantis signed the first law in the nation, which took effect Jan. 1, allowing local governments to post exclusively on either government websites or in free newspapers or other publications that have been cut out of the lucrative business of publishing public notices.
This year has seen more legislatures moving away from newspapers. There are bills in both Indiana and Iowa that provide government websites as an alternative to newsprint, which is a dying medium.
The newspaper industry is fighting the trend, trying to claw back the revenues that are supporting smaller and smaller publications, staffed by leftwing operatives. ThePublic Notice Resource Center is a website operated by American Court and Commercial Newspapers, Inc. to help newspapers stop the bleeding off of taxpayer dollars from their enterprises. PNRC even created a suite of ads that newspapers can use to promote how interesting and essential these legal ads can be.
And PNRC advises publishers to make sure their reporting staff does not disparage legal ads.
“Pay close attention to reporting on public notice issues and you may begin to observe that some papers have adopted certain rhetorical habits that tend to undermine the goal of preserving newspaper notice. They’re mostly innocent mistakes made by people who are unaware that what they’re doing may be counterproductive. But it’s fair to say that if those habits could be eliminated it might enhance the policy environment for maintaining newspaper notice,” PNRC wrote this month.
“It would also help if reporters stopped referring to them as ‘those tiny ads in the back of the paper,’ a description we see in newspaper stories so often it practically qualifies as a cliche. They’re only tiny and in the back of the paper if your paper insists on making them that way. Try taking a different approach by presenting notices in a manner that brings attention to them — the way this publisher didand the way many other publishers try to do with other types of advertising.”
PNRC also reports that at least one newspaper has sued its state government for pulling the ads.
“A newspaper based in Delaware County, N.Y. sued county officials in December, claiming they unlawfully canceled its public notice contract in retaliation for unfavorable news coverage. The Reporter, a weekly newspaper based in the county seat of Delhi, also alleges the county violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by ordering its employees to refer all questions from the paper to the county attorney’s office,” the website reports.
The bill will be in its third reading on the Senate floor on Monday. It’s main sponsor, Sen. Cathy Giessel, had her name removed from the bill and made the sponsor the entire Senate Natural Resources Committee. Information about the bill is at this link.
After the Division of Elections conducted its annual clean-up of Alaska’s voter rolls at the end of February, there are 587,277 voters in Alaska. Before the Feb. 29 data purge, 590,778 voters were on the rolls at the Division of Elections.
It’s a process the state division goes through every year after it sends out two required notices to voters who haven’t voted for four years or who have not contacted the division.
Purging means the voters go into inactive status and do not appear on any voter rolls in coming elections. Later, the voters are completely removed if they don’t make themselves known.
If a voter is in an inactive purge status, they can cast a questioned ballot which is reviewed by the questioned board and their ballot is counted to fullest extent possible based on the residence address/house district assignment they provided on the questioned envelope and the address/house direct assignment we have in the voter registration system. They then are put back into an active status.
In the most recent report 141,240 registered Alaska voters are Republicans, at 24%; 74,769, or 12.73%, are Democrat; Undeclared (those who won’t say) total 258,489, 44%; and Nonpartisans are 82,489, 14%.
It’s an imperfect process, but the division is following state and federal laws that err on the side of not mistakenly removing a legitimate voter. Still, it leaves tens of thousands of names on the list, when mathematically, it doesn’t compute with the number of adults in Alaska.
The U.S. Census says there are an estimated 733,406 residents of Alaska. Of those, 24% (176,017) are under the age of 18, thus ineligible to vote. That leaves a voting age population of about 557,000, if you rule out the ineligible sex felons and noncitizens. (If you have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude or are on probation or parole for the same crime, you are not eligible to vote until the Department of Corrections gives you an unconditional discharge.)
Last year during the annual list maintenance process, the Division of Election purged 15,916 voters from the rolls; the purged numbers vary year to year, as the division tries to keep the list up to date, something that is required by state and federal laws that also limit how quickly the division can remove voters from the list.
The division conducts the main list maintenance process from December through February and at other times throughout the year. It is a process required by state and federal laws, which limit the division’s ability to remove voters from the voter list.
Having too many on the rolls is partly due to people applying for Permanent Fund dividends, who are automatically registered to vote unless they opt out, and the ease of registering to vote when they get a driver’s license, the division says. Alaska voters passed a ballot initiative that automatically registers people to vote when they apply and are qualified for a dividend.
“If someone becomes registered but does not vote and does not contact the division, it can take at least eight years and the return of undeliverable mail to remove them from the voter list. Alaska’s list maintenance law requires more steps to remove a voter than the federal list maintenance law, the National Voter Registration Act,” the division says.
Also, military members may register to vote and vote in Alaska elections even if they are stationed overseas and do not plan to return to Alaska. As long as they don’t register or vote in another state, they can be Alaska voters; many do maintain that residency in order to receive and Alaska Permanent Fund dividend.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed a bill requiring the state to rejoin a voter-registration consortium known as ERIC — the Electronic Registration Information Center. The multi-state compact to maintain voter rolls has seen nine states leave over the past two years, as Republican-led states lost confidence in the neutrality of the system, designed by partisan Democrats with initial funding from George Soros through the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The Virginia bill passed along party lines. Democrats control the Senate and House and wanted Virginia back in ERIC, which shares data from motor vehicle agencies and voter registries across its 25 remaining member states, which include Alaska. It’s unclear if they have the votes to override his veto.
Last year, the Alaska Division of Elections said it was evaluating its membership in the ERIC database system, but no decision to stay or leave was ever final.
Nine of 33 member states have dropped out of ERIC membership because of concerns about the organization’s partisan origins, current political biases, connections with leftist groups, and various data policies that appear to favor Democrats.
The nine states that pulled out of ERIC are all led by Republicans, including Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Documents obtained through a public records request show that Rep. Mary Peltola, in the capacity of a candidate and not as a U.S. representative, not only used North Pole High School for a campaign stop, but her campaign was trying to put together a fundraiser on campus while she was there, during school hours.
The fundraising portion of her event evidently fizzled, but the school administration actively helped her with the rest of her campaign stop as she was hitting various venues in the Fairbanks area.
It’s a serious offense, according to state law:
“Sec. 14.03.090. Partisan, sectarian, or denominational doctrines prohibited. Partisan, sectarian, or denominational doctrines may not be advocated in a public school during the hours the school is in session. A teacher or school board violating this section may not receive public money.”
In other words, schools that use their facilities during school hours to advocate for a candidate for partisan political office may not receive funding from the State of Alaska.
The trail of documents obtained by citizen activist Jay McDonald shows public employees in the school district continuously coordinating in advance with Peltola’s campaign staff, and eager to help get pictures and promote her campaign activity on the district’s social media pages. The back and forth emails make it clear the public employees knew they were coordinating with campaign staff.
Peltola came through Fairbanks in January. On Jan. 18, she scheduled a campaign stop at North Pole High School for 11 am to 1 pm, while students were in school. Normally, campaigns could rent school space after hours, but it’s against the law to use public facilities during business hours for campaign events.
Along with her, Peltola had a gaggle of campaign staff, including Chris Whitschy, who was Sen. Bernie Sanders’ senior field film producer on the Bernie 2020 presidential campaign and the Friends of Bernie Sanders political committee, from March 2019-September 2021. Peltola also had with her Anton McPaland, her campaign manager who also serves as her chief of staff.
Even the principal of the high school got involved in helping the campaign event, by writing to campaign coordinator Maggie Calico multiple times to maximize publicity before and after the event.
Must Read Alaska wrote about the illegal activity in January, and immediately Peltola’s campaign staff removed all traces of the event on social media. That’s when Jay McDonald dug deeper to see just how much coordination with the school staff had occurred.
The Democrat member of Congress was accompanied by another Democrat candidate — Fairbanks North Star Borough mayoral candidate Grier Hopkins, who posted a photo to his campaign Facebook page of the two candidates, side by side, unabashedly campaigning during school hours.
Although it was not his campaign event, Hopkins was piggybacking on the representative and may have also been breaking the law, since he used the photo in his social media post.
The event was advertised for the school library, but the two politicians toured the school, popped into classrooms to talk to students and visited the automotive class, where Hopkins took the selfie.
In the narrative of that post on Facebook, Hopkins used the moment to promote more funding for schools from the Legislature and the governor:
“In the CTE Automotive Classroom at North Pole High School with Mary Peltola seeing the fantastic work they do here! Education is so much more than just the 3 R’s (reading, ‘righting, ‘rithmatic)! It’s about creating thinking, curious, caring students who are engaged! As the #akleg debates our Fnsbsd and all of Alaska’s schools’ needs, you can see the impacts right here in the classrooms. #RaisetheAKBSA — at North Pole High School.” he wrote.
Hopkins, who is running for a nonpartisan seat (mayor) has left his photo memorializing his campaign tour of the school with the candidate for Congress, but the school itself and the North Star Borough School District erased all evidence of the event on their Facebook pages.
