In the Fairbanks North Star Borough, all Assembly seats are elected “at large.” As long as you are registered to vote in the borough, you can vote on a seat. The election ends at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 1.
The race for Seat A could determine the balance of the assembly.
Incumbent David Guttenberg, long-time Democrat activist and career politician, argues that the tax cap is broken and needs to be tossed, while in reality he wants government to have an even bigger footprint.
On Feb. 15, he voted with the leftist majority on the Assembly to hold a special election to increase taxes, despite six hours of testimony and hundreds of emails opposing the election.
He was stalwart in his support for enacting “vote by mail” elections in the borough, despite three Assembly meetings filled with testimony opposing it.
Guttenberg then voted for the censure of Assemblywoman Barbara Haney, a conservative, despite the fact that the Ethics Committee had returned a “no punishment” recommendation after a political activist form the left launched a complaint about Haney writing a letter to the editor.
Guttenberg has supported the Marxist Assembly Presiding Officer Savannah Fletcher, a lawyer who fights for radical extremist causes, every step of the way.
Guttenberg uses his position on the Assembly to further his family’s well-known political fortunes. He attempted to use the borough’s attorney to go after the redistricting board to defend his nephew’s district.
Who is that nephew? Mayoral candidate Grier Hopkins, a Democrat who is son of the former mayor Luke Hopkins and who is related by marriage to notorious Alaska election attorney Scott Kendall.
Guttenberg has taken expensive junkets on the taxpayer dime to attend meetings of the Alaska Municipal League. He has been a driving force in keeping the borough involved with other expensive membership organizations, where he uses the platforms to damage conservative elected officials around the state.
Guttenberg, who was in the Alaska House of Representatives from 2003 to 2019, participates in activities that damage the relationship between the borough and the current governor. He was an active in the Recall Dunleavy effort.
He was also an activist with “Friends of Fairbanks Schools for PROP A,” the group that attempted to raise property taxes on local residents and he participated in protest marches to encourage residents to vote to increase their property taxes by $10 million.
Just this month, Guttenberg was on the street corner with a handful of protestors displaying their displeasure with the governor.
Guttenberg’s opponent is Miguel Ramirez, a retired combat veteran who served with the Marines and the Army with 20 years, including two tours of combat zone in Iraq and Afghanistan.He retired as a logistician, and understands government operations.
Ramirez works for the Department of Defense’s housing office. He has a tremendous knowledge of the needs of military housing in the civilian market. A fiscal conservative and a home owner in West Gate area of Fairbanks, he is new on the political scene. He supports preserving the tax cap and has a reputation for listening to the public.
The voters in the Fairbanks area have a clear choice in this race.