In Sen. Dan Sullivan’s quest to create a federal judge to his liking, his questionnaire of leading questions stops just short of asking applicants, “Who’s your favorite Alaska senator?” and “What are the three things you like best about him?”
Read MoreThe Permanent Fund trustees rejected key measures in a proposed strategic plan Monday, declining to raise the investment target rate of return or approve borrowing additional billions to increase private equity investments, the main elements in an attempt to try to speed the growth to a $100 billion fund.
Read MoreDeven Mitchell, the executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund, should tell Alaskans if he believes the claim on a document prepared by someone on his staff—that the Permanent Fund is harmed by public discussion and should be allowed to meet in secret.
Anyone who believes that should not be working for the Alaska Permanent Fund or serving as a trustee.
Read MoreThe trustees, all appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, are behaving as if speed is essential. They have misread the moment.
Read MoreThe document package just posted in advance of a Monday meeting demonstrates to me that the six trustees of the Permanent Fund have no business in trying to approve a new strategic plan that incorporates fundamental changes in policy. The Legislature and the public must be more involved.
Read MoreNo one wants to admit that the Dunleavy administration screwed this up big time. No one wants to admit how easy it would have been to fix this problem in state regulation months or years ago by amending the language to legalize the Kinross trucks on Peger Road and the Johansen Expressway.
Read MoreWith Vic’s passing at 99, the key players are all gone now, though we are left with a priceless record that will allow future generations to hear directly from those who helped create the state.
Read MoreFar-reaching changes about future operations of the Alaska Permanent Fund—aimed at turning the $75 billion fund into a $100 billion fund—are on the table for the Oct. 30 special meeting planned by the six-member board of trustees.
Read MoreThe latest draft report from the Dunleavy energy task force makes a stronger pitch for subsidizing our old friend—the gas pipeline—and injects the phrase “regret cost” into the debate about importing LNG to Alaska.
Critics will say that this has become a bullet line task force, which is no surprise. Enstar needs natural gas to survive as a utility and will be the bullet line champion.
Read MoreThe Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation trustees plan to meet Oct. 30 to decide on a future strategy to accelerate the process of turning the $75 billion fund into a $100 billion fund.
Just about every step the six trustees are talking about, however, should not be taken without support from the Legislature and a great deal more public involvement.
Read MoreThe trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation approved a proposed $900,000 travel budget for the next fiscal year, but it turns out that some travel is not in the budget at all—with business class travel paid for by private investment managers the fund has contracted to do business with.
Read MoreThe Kinross ore hauling operation has landed in court, as expected.
A new nonprofit, Alaska Committee for Safe Communities, filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking a court order to force the state to follow a variety of laws and regulations the group says have been ignored by the Dunleavy administration.
The state should be “enjoined from permitting the ore haul operation to proceed,” the lawsuit claims.
Read MoreThe Transportation Advisory Committee examining the Kinross ore hauling plan voted 5-4 Thursday to ask the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to pause the ore haul until the state has implemented safety recommendations.
In another motion, the committee voted 7-2 to ask the transportation department who approved having Kinross start its ore haul work before the advisory committee work is completed
Read MoreMunicipal elections in Fairbanks will remain in October.
The lame duck assembly did the sensible thing Thursday, killing Tammie Wilson’s plan to move the municipal elections to November Thursday on a 4-4 vote.
Read MoreThe editorial “we” of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner concludes that it’s a great idea to end the tradition of holding municipal elections for local government in October and move them to November.
It’s a bad idea for many reasons, as I wrote here last week.
Read MoreAt a minimum, state transportation officials could have directly answered the simple question asked Tuesday by Patricia MacDonald, a former truck driver and a member of the committee analyzing the highway corridor on which fully loaded Kinross ore haul trucks will start running this month.
Some of the 95-foot Kinross trucks are already running from Tetlin now, but they are not loaded with 50 tons of rock. The plan is to transport about 10 million pounds of rock daily.
Read MoreAttorney General Tregarrick Taylor has signed off on the disputed plan to allow him to provide free legal help to the governor and lieutenant governor in ethics cases, while allowing the governor to do the same for the attorney general.
All of the public comments were against the proposed regulation, which Taylor had resurrected after it was first proposed and rejected in the face of unanimous public opposition in 2020, when former AG Kevin Clarkson pushed the proposal.
Read MoreGov. Mike Dunleavy has already used state funds to build a website—one that the public was never allowed to see—that opposes abortion, encourages people to have children and portrays his vision of Alaska as the most pro-life state in the nation.
The imaginary “Alaska Office of Family & Life” that Dunleavy promoted last spring —before dropping all mention of it in the wake of the Jeremy Cubas debacle—may be reborn as a new website, “Strong Families—Strong Alaskans.”
Read MoreThere is a lot of good background information in the report by James Brooks republished below from the Alaska Beacon about an inherent problem within the Alaska Permanent Fund—the antiquated structure set up by a 1976 constitutional amendment that envisioned an interest-bearing savings account with predictable and guaranteed returns.
The Alaska Constitution requires a split between an unspendable principal and earnings, a theoretical division that doesn’t match the diverse mix of worldwide investments today.
Read MoreThe Legislative Budget & Audit Committee voted Aug. 30 to move ahead with a third audit, though some legislators said they wanted a stronger response, given the clear language in state law that the Permanent Fund should be handling investments for the trust.
The memo mentions allegations “that the commercial real estate properties are not subject to independent audits, and it has been alleged that related financial information is not accurate.”
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