Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed Joan Wilson the new executive director of the Alaska Alcohol & Marijuana Control Office, effective May 8. The current executive director, Glen Klinkhart, is moving to the Department of Revenue this month.
Wilson is a senior assistant attorney general in the Alaska Department of Law, where she serves as an advisor to Alaska Alcohol & Marijuana Control Office. During the transition period between Klinkhart and Wilson, AMCO Licensing and Records Supervisor Carrie Craig will serve as the acting executive director.
Wilson has 25 years of experience in civil and criminal law in both the private and public sectors. She is a contributing author to the Attorney General Alliance’s Cannabis Law Deskbook, an in-depth accounting of the evolving field of cannabis law, and is currently working on the second edition of the book. She earned a law degree from the Northwestern School at Law of Lewis and Clark College.
Wilson is a board member on the Municipality of Anchorage’s Board of Ethics, and the Bear Valley Community Association.
The website 49Writers elaborates on Wilson’s background:
“Joan Nockels Wilson is a writer and a Senior Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alaska. Joan has served the State of Alaska in both a civil and criminal capacity for more than half of her 25 year legal career. As a criminal prosecutor, she achieved the longest sentence for animal cruelty in the State and recently convicted the ‘hoverboard dentist’ of over $2 million in Medicaid fraud and reckless endangerment of a host of his patients as part of a mass sedation scheme.
“A native of Chicago and a forever-learner, Joan has studied at Northwestern University, University of California Berkeley, Lewis and Clark College, and the University of Alaska. In addition to her law degree, she holds a Master’s of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction, is a Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist award winner, and is a member of the Bread Loaf community of writers. Her work has appeared in literary journals and audio shows, most recently Entropy Magazine.”
The governing board of the social media and liberal political activist giant Twitter made it difficult for Elon Musk to purchase more than 15 percent of the shares of the company without triggering a policy that would crush the value of his shares. To block him, the board voted for something called a “poison pill,” a dilution of the company shares by authorizing the dumping of shares on the stock market at a discount price for existing shareholders, if Musk was able to get more than 15 percent of shares. That would cost the billionaire billions by diluting the value of his proposed $43 billion investment. Twitter’s board met Thursday to review the world’s richest man’s offer, which was $54.20 per share.
Earlier this year, Musk had acquired more than 9 percent of the company and started teasing on the platform that he was considering taking a controlling interest in the left-bias company that eliminates the accounts of conservatives and practices censorship of patriotic points of view. Twitter banned President Donald Trump, but allows Vladimir Putin to maintain an account. Twitter banned the satire account The Babylon Bee, but has allowed the site to be used by Antifa accounts that used it to organize violent protests in 2020.
Fox News’ Lucas Manfredi reported on Friday, “Under the plan, which is also referred to as a “poison pill”, shareholders’ rights will become exercisable if an entity, person or group acquires beneficial ownership of 15% or more of Twitter’s outstanding common stock in a transaction not approved by the board. In the event that the rights become exercisable, shareholders will be entitled to purchase additional shares of common stock at a discounted rate.
This was the board saying it would not approve the Musk purchase, as it attempts to “reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders.”
“The goal is to force anyone trying to acquire the company to negotiate directly with the board. Investors rarely try to break through a poison pill threshold, according to securities experts — one said ‘it would be financially ruinous, even for him.’ But Mr. Musk rarely abides by precedent,” The New York Times wrote.
A press release from Twitter noted, “The Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders.”
The stock closed at $45.08 at the close of markets on Thursday.
After Tuesdays theatrics at The Palmer City Council, the public has a clear indication that the recall of the three council members who violated the Open Meetings Act has reached a boiling point.
I was the intended target of those theatrics from an incoherent Councilman Brian Daniels. Why? I stood up for local businesses during the attempt by the Chamber of Commerce and a group called Moms for Social Justice to rebrand the Colony Days and Colony Christmas festivals. I asked for prayers of civility during that debacle, so we as a community could find a path forward.
But that wasn’t good enough for the Palmer Three. The anti-recall group interpreted my call for civility and prayer as blasting the volunteers and board members who attempted to, by fiat and with no public input, change the name of Palmer’s signature festivals to “Braided River Festival” and “Hometown Holidays.”
In a previous council meeting, the deputy mayor had called for the code of ethics to be brought forward, as I had heard from six businesses in Palmer who came forward, asking for anonymity, reporting about extreme intimidation from members of the MatSu “Moms For Social Justice” group, and the four sitting council members (one is now gone), pressuring council members to get onboard with the mask mandate or be labeled and boycotted by the group.
The deputy mayor asked, “Why would these businesses be so afraid to come forward with their names? Please explain this to me.”
The recall of the Palmer Three has brought out truth, and people have become more confident, fed up, and are speaking their minds about events that occurred. This is precisely how we got here two year later.
After reading through all 2,000 screen prints provided by a whistleblower, it’s clear to me this recall of Sabrena Combs, Brian Daniels, and Jill Valerius has merit. What they did with this private Facebook group, “MatSu Moms For Social Justice,” was not innocent or an accident. It was calculated and manipulative. I didn’t want to believe it. I never thought they wanted to harm or damage Palmer and were acting simply as just citizens being involved. But then it became very clear.
During their attempt at a mask mandate, Julie Berberich, who was on the council (and who is now gone from the council), jumped down the throat of anyone in opposition, in that Facebook group. Even after being told by business owners that they did not support being the enforcement arm of the mandate, the four council members pushed it forward anyway.
There was blatant contempt in the Facebook group posts and a collective agreement that conservatives are brainless scum. If you had Christian values, the vitriol against you would only ratchet up.
Here’s what wasn’t in the attorneys’ report in relation to over 2,000 screen prints from the exclusive Facebook group that the council members were part of. You can read more about this at the RecallPalmerThree website and decide for yourself.
1. Councilwoman Sabrena Combs posting her proposed mask mandate into the private Facebook group (before was even on the agenda) and telling the group members to wait for it to be “set” before sending letters in that would be read into the record. This was Sabrena Combs holding secret strategy meetings with other council members outside the public process, a violation of the Open Meetings Act. 2. The post from one member tagging the four council members to get help with how to proceed with the police oversight commission. Additionally there were Sabrena Combs’ comments about the Open Meetings Act and the administrators responding that they would facilitate serial communication. Serial communications are an explicit violation of the Open Meetings Act. 3. Julie Berberich’s post about the need to fill up the boards and commissions with progressives, and subsequent serial communications about that endeavor. 4. Julie Berberich’s asking a group member to get businesses to sign the pro-mask mandate letter and subsequent serial communications about that topic, which was a policy discussion held in secret. 5. The post in which the group talks about “it all comes down to 4 votes.” 6. The post in which they recap the meeting on police oversight and say a council member was advising them on the subject.
I think back to the chaos created and constant front page stories in the news over a two year period, and it’s clear to me that power and influence were brokered through the four council members within an ideological group on Facebook, who had their woke tentacles operating in very impressionable organizations across the Valley.
I’m done with the one-sided publications, with whom these remaining council members have created a cozy relationship and that try to steer the narrative in their favor. It’s time for truth, as painful as it may be.
As long as I am in a position to fight, I will do so. We must never let this happen again. Not in our town and not on my watch.
Pam Melin is the deputy mayor of the City of Palmer.
In what historically has been a perfunctory exercise, Juneau’s city budget deliberations this year could be just the opposite. Facing a multi-million-dollar deficit, a stagnant economy and population, declining school enrollments, and the expiration of federal and state pandemic support, the Juneau Assembly has some critical choices to make that will affect Juneau taxpayers for many years to come.
Yet, when the Assembly recently approved the introduction of a staff-recommended ordinance to increase the property tax millage rate next year, you have to wonder whether our assemblymembers understand basic economics.
As a backdrop, Juneau businesses are emerging from two years of struggles to stay afloat after pandemic-related losses. Property taxes have already climbed dramatically due to increased assessments. Cost of living components remain high, housing prices continue to rise while supply tightens. Several long running businesses have already thrown in the towel or are on the verge of shutting down. The most recent ones mentioned are Rejuvenation, the Southeast Alaska Animal Medical Center, Juneau Mercantile and Armory, and possibly J & J Deli.
Instead of addressing these immediate issues, the Juneau Assembly is focused on raising taxes even more to help fund two mega-projects totaling over $100 million. At the same meeting the Assembly proposed a property tax increase, they also introduced an ordinance for $6.3 million for initial funding to build brand new offices for city staff. That project is estimated at $27 million but could go higher. Last month, the Assembly approved $2 million to advance the Capital Civic Center/New JACC project that has an initial guesstimate of $77 million.
Neither project has any kind of a firm price tag nor have they received voter approval. In fact, in the Capital Civic Center’s previous incarnation (the New JACC), voters soundly rejected contributing $4.5 million to the project. But since the city has taken over the venture by combining it with a renovation of Centennial Hall, the sky is the limit.
To be clear, if Juneau’s economy and population were expanding, consideration of projects like this might make sense. But the only thing growing seems to be the city budget. Eventually, this results in even higher taxes and will necessitate balancing the budget with savings.
Obviously, inflation is playing a part in budget deliberations this year. But the Assembly takes for granted that whatever we spent last year is the base and increases get added to that.
Proposed budget increases are partially offset by higher projected revenues from the recovering visitor industry and rising property values – resulting in a deficit of around $4 million – if property taxes are not increased as recommended. Notably, however, the budget does not forecast any negotiated wage or benefit increases. The city is currently bargaining with all three labor organizations, and the Assembly alone has the authority to authorize increases. Any pay or benefit increases awarded by the Assembly could deepen the deficit by as much as several million dollars.
The argument that the pandemic is at the root of Juneau’s difficulties doesn’t hold water. Ironically, the $47 million in federal pandemic support that flowed into the general fund is the only reason the city has such a high reserve balance. The question that needs to be asked is how can these reserves best be used?
Using savings to disguise deficit spending or adding debt to finance speculative expenditures on government-owned facilities does little to stabilize or grow Juneau’s economy, yet that seems to be where the Assembly is headed.
Serious discussions of expenditure reductions, facility consolidations or closures, elimination of tax exemptions, along with targeted use of savings to help lower the cost of living and grow the economy are rarely heard.
City Manager Rorie Watt believes the municipal budget has a structural deficit – one that cannot be solved with one-time expenditures. As he has correctly pointed out in his budget message, “the Assembly can only balance the budget by reducing expenditures or expanding revenues.”
Juneau residents need to weigh in during Assembly Finance Committee budget discussions during the next month if they want to impact the result. Growing the budget without corresponding growth in the community and economy isn’t the answer.
That’s been proven.
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.
Fitch Ratings revised the outlook on the State of Alaska to stable from negative and affirmed its A+ rating on the state’s general obligation bonds. Fitch has also revised the outlook to stable from negative, and affirmed its ‘A’ rating, on state appropriation and Alaska Municipal Bond Bank Authority bonds.
This is the second improvement to outlook by credit rating agencies within the last 30 days, reflecting capacity to replenish budgetary reserves driven by rising energy prices and the structured draw on the Earnings Reserve Account of the Permanent Fund.
Ratings for Alaska from the major ratings agencies are:
Moody’s Investors Service: Aa3.
Fitch Ratings: A+
S&P Global Ratings: AA-
“I remain encouraged with the recent credit outlook improvements but want to continue to advocate for long-term fiscal restraint in the face of heightened energy prices. We remain cognizant of energy price volatility and want to ensure we’re prepared for the future with sustainable management of the state’s reserves,” said Alaska Department of Revenue Commissioner Lucinda Mahoney.
The Republican National Committee has voted to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, the commission that controls the general election debates. The vote was unanimous.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said on Twitter that the Republicans will “find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people.”
In 2020, C-SPAN’s Steve Scully was chosen to moderate a debate, even though he had worked for Joe Biden when Biden was a senator. Later, it became known that Scully reached out to former Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci, then lied by saying his Twitter account had been hacked.
“Debates are an important part of the democratic process, and the RNC is committed to free and fair debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates is biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help ensure fair debates including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage,” McDaniels said. “Today, the RNC voted to withdraw from the biased CPD, and we are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people.”
The commission has sponsored presidential debates since it was founded in 1987.
The RNC criticized the CPD for biases, including:
Waiting until 26 states had begun early voting before hosting the first presidential debate in 2020.
Making unilateral changes to previously agreed-upon debate formats and conditions, in some cases without even notifying the candidates.
Selecting a moderator in 2020 who had once worked for Joe Biden.
Failing to maintain the organization’s strict nonpartisanship, with a majority of its Board Members publicly disparaging the Republican-nominee.
Refusing to make changes despite numerous requests by the RNC.
Jharrett Bryantt, an executive in the Office of Talent for the Houston Independent School District in Houston, Texas, has been named the new superintendent for the Anchorage School District.
“He articulates specific and innovative plans to improve proficiency in reading and math,” wrote School Board President Margo Bellamy in a letter to parents. “He is laser focused on students and their academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs along with a sincere desire to ensure adequate resources are directed to the classroom to support educators and support staff.”
The Houston Independent School District spends $9,691 per student each year. It has an annual revenue of $2,678,729,000, according to U.S. News.
He comes into a district that spends more than $19,000, according to the ASD’s audited report. Anchorage’s school revenues are $741,692,000, including $88,207,000 of federal money and $225,524,000 in local revenues. The Anchorage School District has 42.2% of students scoring proficient or above in English, while in math, 39.4% of students scored at least proficient this year. The district has set a goal of having 50 percent of students proficient.
The Houston school district serves about 194,000 students on 276 campuses; Anchorage schools have about 43,000 students on less than 100 campuses.
Bryantt will arrive before his start date of July 1 to work on transition with exiting Superintendent Deena Bishop. For his three-year contract, he will make $250,000 a year, the same that Bishop was paid for her contract.
“Serving the Anchorage community as superintendent would be the privilege and honor of a lifetime; I want to put down roots here, and unite our complex, multicultural community around our schools. I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and partner with the community to create a shared vision of educational excellence. I have a track record of leading academic gains and attracting top talent into one of America’s largest and most diverse school districts; I am prepared to lead the Anchorage School District into a bright, exciting new chapter,” Bryantt said in his letter of introduction to the district.
Bryantt began his education career as a high school mathematics teacher. In 2019, he was named to Forbes Magazine’s 30 education leaders to watch, and then to Forbes’ 2021 national list of 50 champions for advancing communities of color.
Bryantt is an alumnus of the Cooperative Superintendency Program at the University of Texas at Austin, and also completed numerous national future superintendent fellowships. He holds doctoral and master’s degrees in education leadership and policy from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor of Science from Yale University.
Bryantt was among three finalists, including Frank Hauser, who is a former Service High School principal and who serves as the superintendent for the Sitka School District; and Mathew Neal, superintendent of Woodland Park School District, a district with 2,600 students in Woodland Park in Colorado.
In 2021, Bryantt was among the three finalists for superintendent of the Salt Lake City School District.
The national mean tenure for a superintendent is five to six years and the annual turnover rate for superintendents is between 14 and 16 percent, according to the national School Superintendents Association. Bishop has been superintendent for six years for Anchorage.
The latest front in the Left’s battle for the states is Alaska.
If you haven’t heard ofStates Newsroom, you soon will—the network of left-leaning outlets posing as just-the-facts news sites is expanding in force, with new offices in Juneau, Anchorage, and elsewhere in the state.
Though it presents itself as apolitical, States Newsroom is actually the invention of the most powerful liberal lobbying force in Washington, DC: Arabella Advisors.
Arabella is a consulting company that quietly controls a nonprofit nexus which raked in a stunning $1.7 billion in 2020 alone—that’s over $3 billion since 2015—to advance the activist Left’s agenda across the country.
One of the Arabella network’s nonprofits, the Hopewell Fund, launched States Newsroom in 2019 with funding from an unknown donor. Back then, the group didn’t try to hide its bent—one job posting proudly proclaims it a “progressive political journalism startup” based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Why North Carolina? The Tar Heel state is the focus of a years-long, well-funded campaign to flip the battleground state to Democrats using a blueprint developed in Colorado—a rural state that no one thought could turn blue, until it did.
That’s the professional Left’s top goal, flipping reliably red areas of the country to blue. And the Arabella network has a lot of money to get the job done, thanks to funding from wealthy left-wing donors, many of whom share the same last name: Foundation.
These donors—like the Gates, Ford, and Soros-funded Open Society Foundations—are anything but centrist, which is why they’ve invested heavily into making the Arabella network the Left’s go-to machine for funneling secret money into politics.
Amazingly, this multi-billion-dollar operation went totally unnoticed by the “dark money”-obsessed media until my colleagues and I at the Capital Research Center exposed it in 2019.
Since then, Arabella’s become the poster child of “dark money,” a well-earned reputation. The network’s most famous brainchild, the court-packing group Demand Justice, effectively lobbied judge Ketanji Brown Jackson from obscurity into the Supreme Court in a scant few years. And at least two Demand Justice alumni, White House counsel Paige Herwig and Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki, have made it into President Biden’s inner circle.
States Newsroom isn’t far behind. The group’s board includes Courtney Cuff, a Colorado activist who used to lead the Gill Foundation, the biggest funder of the campaign to legalize gay marriage. Not coincidentally, foundation funder Tim Gill also co-founded the Democracy Alliance—a potent club for major leftist donors which created the blueprint for taking over states, beginning with Colorado. Another Democracy Alliance co-founder, Jared Polis, is now the state’s governor.
A steady stream of partisan news masquerading as anything but was essential to that campaign. No wonder that Swiss billionaire and top Arabella donor Hansjörg Wyssis funding the same effort in other states via States Newsroom.
Wyss, who resides in America but isn’t a U.S. citizen, has been trying to build a foreign owned, left-wing media empire for years—most recently in a failed bid last year to buy the Chicago Tribune, which even the New York Times decried as a partisan takeover.
States Newsroom took on a more centrist face when it became independent in 2019, but its leadership still comes from the permanent activist class. Chris FitzSimon, the group’s director, worked for 13 years at NC Policy Watch, a front for the Justice Center, which spawns new activist groups trying to tilt the state left.
States Newsroom’s board also includes Ezra Reese, a longtime lawyer for the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie and now Clinton crony Marc Elias’ Elias Law Group, a partisan litigation firm whose goalis “electing Democrats, supporting voting rights, and helping progressives make change.”
Curiously, States Newsroom doesn’t mention that fact either on its website or IRS Form 990 disclosure.
Alaska, don’t be fooled by wolves in sheep’s clothing. The most effective activist campaigns always rely first and foremost on deception, which is why my colleagues and I created InfluenceWatch.orgto help you follow the money and expose these secret special interests.
The star that is illuminated every winter over Arctic Valley has gone dark for the season. Known as the JBER Star or Arctic Valley Star, the 360 light bulbs that create a five-point star are left on all winter and are usually turned off when the last racer from the Iditarod Sled Dog Race crosses the finish line, which was March 19 this year. Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson, which operates the star as a gift to Anchorage, left the lights on for a few more weeks.
A lit star has been on the face of Mount Gordon above Anchorage since before statehood. Previous version were smaller and the earliest version, 15-feet wide and sitting atop the gatehouse at the U.S. Army Nike Hercules missile installation, wasn’t visible from Anchorage. The current star was built in 1989 and is maintained by JBER.
