Wealthy hunters, both in Alaska and Outside, bestowed hunting gifts worth $55,000 or more on Gov. Mike Dunleavy last year, equal to more than one-third of his salary.
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As I wrote here last summer, nothing that John Espindola did during his years of working for the state as a “personal assistant” and policy analyst for Gov. Mike Dunleavy qualifies him to serve on the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.
And it is doubtful that the work Espindola did in New Mexico in the years before he hired on with Dunleavy in 2018 meet the minimum educational and professional requirements spelled out in state law about the people entrusted to regulate Alaska’s utilities.
Read MoreMore and more, the agency is becoming the most powerful branch of the governor’s office, one that operates with little or no legislative oversight.
Read MoreA patsy parade of 20 Republican legislators sided with Gov. Mike Dunleavy in blocking the bipartisan education bill that most of the 20 voted for last month.
Nearly two-thirds of the Legislature voted to override the veto of the bipartisan education bill, one vote shy of the margin needed to enact the measure into law. The vote was 23-16 in the House and 16-4 in the Senate.
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Erin McKittrick of the Alaska Energy Blog convincingly dismantles the recent report by Frank Paskvan, who has a contract with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, that claims a new coal-fired power plant is a surefire solution to many of our energy woes:
“These days in Alaska, it’s fashionable to claim any project you want to build will solve both the Cook Inlet Gas crisis and climate change. The West Susitna coal plant idea claims to do both, and would actually do neither,” she writes.
Read MoreIn November, before Gov. Mike Dunleavy concluded that the state school board should be allowed to authorize charter schools, Education Commissioner Deena Bishop praised the current system in which school districts are central to the process.
One of Dunleavy’s major complaints about the bipartisan education bill he vetoed is that it did not allow the state school board—whose members serve at the pleasure of the governor—to create charter schools in local districts.
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Ranting and raving at another unhinged press conference, Gov. Mike Dunleavy aired his usual grievances about legislators, school board members, PTAs, superintendents and teachers who supported the education bill he vetoed.
Every legislator except for Reps. Mike Prax and David Eastman and Sen. Shelley Hughes supported the bill. Legislators will consider an override Monday. At least some of the Dunleavy Republicans in the House will go along with the veto.
Read MoreWith no public notice and little discussion, Republican legislators who identify themselves as conservatives slipped $300 million in borrowing authority for AIDEA and $58 million in borrowing authority for the Alaska Railroad into a bill.
The $358 million in borrowing authority was added to a bill that would also allow the railroad to borrow $90 million more to rebuild the Seward passenger dock and terminal. It is House Bill 122.
Read MoreRegarding the Cook Inlet natural gas situation, they suggest that conserving natural gas with more efficient use of natural gas would be simple and effective and they provide this clear-headed statement about the way forward:
Read MoreThere are assumptions piled on assumptions and monumental subsidies in a so-called University of Alaska Fairbanks study proposing a coal-fired power plant in Southcentral Alaska to replace natural gas.
I say so-called because on page 2 of the report, it says the document was prepared by the Energy & Environmental Research Center of the University of North Dakota. It says that “economic results were developed by UAF with guidance from EERC,” the research center of the University of North Dakota.
Read MoreArmed with the David Eastman playbook, right-wing Reps. Jamie Allard and Sarah Vance attacked two people who have served the state well for decades—ethics committee volunteers Joyce Anderson and Dennis “Skip” Cook.
Anderson and Cook deserve an apology for the confirmation hearing, in which Allard and Vance, acting as if they were auditioning for “Law & Order,” embarrassed the Alaska Legislature.
Read MoreThe new Anchorage office of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, located just across from the Memorial Park Cemetery on Cordova Street, should be shut down to save about $170,000, according to draft budget language moving through the Legislature.
The proposed intent language from lawmakers is aimed directly at the trustees of the fund:
“It is the intent of the Legislature that the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation will not establish or maintain new office locations without corresponding budget increments for that purpose. It is further the intent of the Legislature that the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation shall provide a report to the finance committee co-chairs and the Legislative Finance Division by December 2024 that details any actual expenditures to date related to the Anchorage office.”
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In his latest harangue calling for the U.S. to use more military force directly against Iran, Sen. Dan Sullivan quoted a Tom Friedman column from January 25 about how Iran is not paying a price for the actions of its proxies.
Friedman, a New York Times columnist, has an excellent grasp of the complexity and the danger in that part of the world.
His columns reflect these qualities and do not promise the simple military solutions that Sullivan invariably calls for.
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He should be in Juneau working with the Legislature. Working on education, the future of energy supplies in Southcentral, the cost of electricity in Fairbanks and elsewhere, a short-term fiscal plan that does not mean creating a $1 billion deficit and a long-term fiscal plan that does not mean the end of the Permanent Fund and the end of the Permanent Fund Dividend.
Read MoreThe cover letter by Commissioner Ryan Anderson attached as part of the so-called “STIP narrative” asserts that this is a “transparent resource for the public” and provides a “clear overview of planned projects.”
Sorry, it’s not that at all. Alaskans need a simple explanation of what has changed and what went wrong.
Read MoreJohn Skidmore, deputy attorney general in the criminal division, gave legislators what sounded like a reasoned argument to add $502,000 a year to the state budget to pay for investigative grand juries.
But Skidmore was not telling the full story. He didn’t mention the thirst for vigilante justice and mob rule.
The mess created by Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor, Skidmore’s boss, with the runaway David Haeg grand jury is the best argument to kill this budget request.
Read MoreThe state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities says it filed a new version of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program with the federal government Friday, but as of Sunday the department had not posted the changes online.
“Links coming soon! Thank you for your patience,” the transportation department says on its website.
The Federal Highway Administration has a month to review the document, which means that Alaskans won’t know until the end of March if there will be a normal road construction season this year.
Read MoreFrom his perch in Anchorage, Gov. Mike Dunleavy hectored legislators and Alaskans who don’t agree with his ideas on improving education, sounding like an exasperated junior high principal addressing juveniles who refuse to do as they are told.
He tried to ridicule those who have other ideas on education, calling them special interests. He said he would veto the bill that nearly every legislator supported because it did not include provisions he wanted on charter schools, reading, and teacher bonuses.
Read MoreChronic complainer David Haeg, given an official forum by the Dunleavy administration to spread his baseless personal whining that the world is conspiring against him, has received the legal defeat he deserves.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews has tossed the hopelessly tainted grand jury indictment against retired District Court Judge Margaret Murphy.
The case will be dismissed if the state prosecutor, hired under a state contract, doesn’t act within 10 days to try to get a new indictment. A new indictment would only prolong an embarrassing and inept sideshow that has brought shame to the Alaska Department of Law.
Read MoreMy initial review of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto threat on the education bill is that it encapsulates his four greatest weaknesses as governor—his lack of trust for others with expertise, his lack of respect for those who don’t agree with him, his arrogance and his inability to compromise.
Dunleavy does not trust local school boards, which are in a far better and stronger position to decide how to improve education than he is.
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