Whoever wrote the column in the Wall Street Journal published under the name of Alaska Revenue Commissioner Adam Crum has him puffing himself up for a national audience, claiming that he manages more than $138 billion for Alaskans and state retirees.

“I manage more than $138 billion in fiduciary assets as Alaska’s commissioner of revenue and as a trustee of the state’s retirement management system and the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.,” says Crum, who earned a master’s degree in environental health sciences in 2015 at Johns Hopkins.

As a legislative candidate in 2016, Crum described himself as a “business owner, truck driver and carpenter.” He also said gold could be a significant revenue source for the state.

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Suzanne Downing has yet to retract the story on her website that falsely claims Larry Persily, one of the most accomplished political reporters in Alaska, can’t be trusted when he talks about taxes because he doesn’t have a current Alaska business license.

“Take your tax advice from this guy???’ Downing said on Facebook.

Better to take advice from someone with Persily’s strong credentials than a person who can’t look up a business license on the state website.

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Three Fairbanks school board members are taking issue with assembly candidate Tammie Wilson’s claim that Hunter Elementary School provides such a poor education, based on standardized test scores, that no students should be attending school there.

I asked all the school board members to comment and receieved responses from Brandy Harty, Meredith Maple and Bobby Burgess.

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Fairbanks financial planner Josh Church complains in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that I quoted him out of context, but fails to give any specifics to back up his claim.

I did not quote him out of context.

Here is what I wrote on May 18, an opinion column in which I said that Church has extreme views on education and politics that he concealed from the public.

Church was the spokesman for the group Tammie Wilson created to oppose the education ballot proposition and to participate in the October municipal elections.

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The most important piece in the Financial Times story is that Rubenstein is now directly contradicting—through her father’s spokesman—claims made in emails by two of the leading executives of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.

She claims she did not set up an APFC meeting with her dad and that she did not attempt to get investment associate Catherine Hatch, a corporation employee, fired. Her spokesman claims these are “falsehoods.”

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It’s not the leak that matters, it’s the substance of the leak, the conflicts of interest.

But the trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation want to focus on preventing future leaks, ignoring the behavior of trustee Gabrielle Rubenstein as documented by Marcus Frampton, the chief investment officer of the corporation, and Allen Waldrop, the director of private equity for the fund.

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Borough Assembly candidate Tammie Wilson claims the standardized test scores at Hunter Elementary School are so low that no students should be going to school there.

"Would you attend a school in which 15.69 were proficient in English, 9.8 percent was proficient in math and 28.26 in science?” Wilson lectured the Fairbanks school board Tuesday.

“I don't think many of you would send your kids there and I don't think we should be sending any kids to there or find out why they're so low."

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If you are going to compare a court proceeding in the United States to the regime of murderous dictator Joseph Stalin, you need to be careful or you will expose your ignorance of history.

Sen. Dan Sullivan is a case in point, now claiming that Trump’s trial is “eerily similar to the show trials Stalin launched against his political opponents.”

Sullivan’s claims are eerily similar to those made by all the GOP handmaids debasing themselves in the obsequious Trump sweepstakes.

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Prioritize efficiency in spending. Fiscal responsibility and accountability. Allocating resources wisely. Responsible budgeting. Developing budgets that align with taxpayer expectations. Proactive planning. Careful consideration of spending priorities. Allocate resources effectively. Prioritize improving student outcomes. Embrace change. Make tough decisions. Drive meaningful changes that elevate our education outcomes. Equipping students for success. Work together to enact positive change. Engaging actively in the education process. Enact positive change,

The tsunami of empty phrases quoted above are all from the opinion column the Daily News-Miner printed by Josh Church, the right-wing spokesman for Tammie Wilson’s campaign group, Citizens for Transparent Government. Wilson’s group is facing a fine for failing a campaign transparency test.

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In the history of the Golden Valley Electric Association, few members in the cooperative have done as much to advocate for GVEA transparency and communication as Gary Newman, who is running for re-election to the GVEA board.

Over a period of many years, Newman attended hundreds of monthly GVEA meetings and showed the dedication necessary to educate himself on utility matters. And that was all before he ran for the board and was elected in 2015.

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When the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority releases its long-awaited $250,000 study praising AIDEA, the report will highlight the Red Dog zinc and lead mine as an AIDEA success story.

In November 2022, AIDEA said it wanted a consultant to "document the authority’s impressive economic and investment history” and its “central role” in supporting economic development. It said the report would be done by June 2023.

Red Dog, one of the largest lead and zinc mines in the world, is always mentioned as the ultimate AIDEA success story.

What rarely gets mentioned is whether one of the largest zinc deposits in the world would have been brought into production without a state subsidy, meaning without AIDEA.

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This story needs to be told and retold this year so that Alaskans understand exactly how the public process was corrupted to achieve a 67 percent pay increase for legislators and a $31,000 increase for Dunleavy. Legislators have no one to blame but themselves for going along with Dunleavy’s machinations.

Every incumbent will be on the defensive, especially those who will claim they opposed the 67 percent increase but did not make a serious effort to expose the deception that allowed it to happen.

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It’s been eight months since Sen. Dan Sullivan announced his hand-picked “council of Alaskans to improve federal judicial selection.”

I said at the time it was nothing but a delaying tactic by Sullivan. And that’s exactly what it has turned out to be.

Sullivan and his office have had absolutely nothing to say about the Dan Sullivan committee to select right-wing judges since it was launched last fall.

The Alaska federal judgeship has been vacant for nearly 2.5 years because of senatorial stalling.

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The ham-handed attempt to silence the group that supported Proposition A is dirty politics, an attack on freedom of speech and not something to be tolerated.

It also appears to be a laughable attempt to co-opt the name of Golden Heart Strong and use it for a campaign to con voters in the municipal election this fall when the tax cap is up for renewal.

The people who led the opposition to Proposition A—state employee and assembly candidate Tammie Wilson and assembly member Barbara Haney—need to make it clear that Golden Heart Strong has a right to exist.

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The Legislature needs to begin monitoring the APFC and other state corporations as part of the checks and balances essential to preserve or rebuild public trust.

This is not just a task for the trustees, as Gov. Mike Dunleavy has claimed.

The six-member Board of Trustees is clearly divided over how to deal with the behavior of trustee Gabrielle Rubenstein, who has been described in leaked emails as inserting herself into corporation operations in ways that are inappropriate for a trustee.

That’s one of the takeaways from the special meeting Wednesday, which included a sharp exchange between Craig Richards and Jason Brune. Richards referred to inappropriate actions by unnamed trustees, while Brune complained that Richards was making “large allegations.”

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The Alaska Legislature held its annual joint session to consider confirmation or rejection of people placed on boards and commissions by Gov. Mike Dunleavy since last year, rejecting 3 of 81 appointees.

There were legislative confirmation hearings on many of those up for a vote, but the confirmation process is almost always superficial and cursory.

The Legislature rejected three nominees, Bob Griffin, Mike Porcaro and Mark Sayampanathan. Griffin was on the state school board, Porcaro was on the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission and Sayampanathan was on the Worker’s Compensation Board.

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The trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation still have time to correct the serious mistake they’ve made on the agenda for the special meeting Wednesday about the leak of documents related to the meddling of trustee Gabrielle Rubenstein in fund operations.

Missing from the agenda is any chance for public comment at the special meeting that begins at 8 a.m.

The trustees may claim that there is no need for public comment on a matter of internal security that should be kept confidential.

No one has suggested that any of the leaked emails are fakes. What they show is the most serious leadership crisis in the history of the fund. This must be dealt with in the open.

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By ROBIN O’DONOGHUE

Senate Bill 165, sponsored by Sen. Matt Claman, fixes the harm done by Attorney General Treg Taylor last October when he unwisely implemented a corrupt arrangement to benefit only him, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. It simply reads that the Department of Law, including the attorney general, may not represent or advise the governor, the lieutenant governor, or another public officer or former public officer in a matter in which that public officer or former public officer is the subject of a complaint filed under the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

Senate Bill 17 proposes to reset limits to political campaign contributions. Our campaign finance laws are intended to restore the public’s trust in the electoral process and to foster good government. The campaign disclosure law directly limits the influence of contributors on candidates by limiting the size of campaign contributions.

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The spokesman for the group opposing Proposition A, which is on the ballot Tuesday in Fairbanks, says that with “the exception of exceptional anti-faith and anti-family propaganda, our local school board has a dismal record of success.”

Josh Church, who represents Tammie Wilson’s “Citizens for Transparent Government,” expressed his views of the Fairbanks schools last year in a piece he wrote for a right-wing Anchorage blog. He said it’s the fault of the community that the schools aren’t doing a better job.

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The special election Tuesday in Fairbanks is about saving our schools, the quality of which has everything to do with what kind of future Fairbanks will enjoy or endure.

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