Candidate Dunleavy creates new 'Office of Food Security,’ saying it won’t cost the state an extra dime

For today’s edition of “Dunleavy campaigns with state funds,” take the new “Office of Food Security” that the governor created Friday through an administrative order.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the new office on social media with a YouTube video identical to a campaign ad, created and distributed by the State of Alaska.

Dunleavy will say the timing has nothing to do with the election in November. Just like the timetable for the Nenana land sale, this has everything to do with the election.

The administrative order, larded up with platitudes, buzzwords and jargon, calls for immediate action to figure out what needs to be done to grow more food in Alaska.

Food security is a real problem in Alaska. It can’t be solved with campaign ads and happy talk. It requires leadership, actual work, knocking some heads together, state subsidies and compromises that some people will not like. Bloviating is the smallest piece in the puzzle.

Dunleavy’s order says that “consistent with law and available appropriations, the Office of the Governor shall use existing personnel and monetary resources to implement this Order.” That tells you he is not serious.

The office is asked to recommend “methods to improve the coordination and implementation of the programs, policies, and regulations” dealing with growing more food in Alaska.

The state already has a 22-member “Alaska Food Security and Independence Task Force” created by Dunleavy in February. The administrative order setting that group up is remarkably similar to the edict creating the Office of Food Security.

The task force, which seems to have created a bureaucratic process for itself, is supposed to go out of business a few weeks after the November election. But we won’t be without a task force. The Legislature approved a 27-member “Alaska Food Strategy Task Force” this year with overlapping goals.

Meanwhile, the head of the Division of Agriculture was forced out of his job during the summer and that position has yet to be filled. The new office is supposed to do things that the Division of Agriculture is responsible for.

The Dunleavy plan to study agriculture comes with no specifics, no cost estimates and no recognition that the transportation advantages that exist to move food by air, barge and truck over thousands of miles at a relatively low cost are a benefit to Alaska consumers. And those same economics of transportation and distribution are a severe handicap to those who want to do more than talk about food security.

The Dunleavy Office of Food Security is 100 percent pure campaign fodder, fresh from the barnyard. The easiest thing in the world is for a politician to say he wants “food security” and to announce plans to study the matter, pledging it won’t cost any extra money.