The Dunleavy administration is putting all road construction projects at risk with its intransigence and refusal to follow federal highway planning rules on a handful of projects.

The so-called final version of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan should be rejected by the Federal Highway Administration.

I say that because the state has refused to remove projects from the plan that can’t legally be there because they were not approved and reviewed by local planning agencies in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

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When it comes to a discussion of cold weather in Fairbanks, the topic is never complete without recognizing the enduring contributions of the great Carl Benson, who ventured into the cold in the early 1960s in Fairbanks and began to unlock the secrets of ice fog.

Benson, 96, is still pursuing his scholarly studies, thanks to a good constitution and an unending sense of curiosity about the world around him. I can’t tell you how much I admire him.

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Dunleavy, who won’t propose raising taxes, is looking at $1 billion deficits that would be covered in the next two years by spending most of the remaining contents of the Constitutional Budget Reserve on his watch.

After that, Dunleavy will be gone without having proposed any taxes or having tried to fix the state’s finances. And the Permanent Fund will be the only alternative to pay for deficits far into the future.

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The Subway manager was invited to Juneau to serve as the embodiment of a real Alaskan who wants what Dunleavy is selling—big PFDs and great services. She wants safe roads, a safe community, affordable housing and affordable childcare.

The Dunleavy text could have been created by the state Office of Pandering to the Folks.

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The Permanent Fund coroporation extended the period for public comment on the proposed strategic plan “due to popular demand.”

That’s a stretcher no doubt, but let’s not quibble. It’s a good move, instigated by trustee Jason Brune, who agreed it was sensible to keep getting comments from the public until just before the next meeting of the trustees, February 15. He and a couple of other trustees asked for the two-week extension.

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UPDATE: The comment deadline has been extended on the Permanent Fund’s strategic plan.

The Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. has not done a major promotional campaign seeking public comment on the proposed strategic plan drafted by the six trustees.

Comments on the plan opened Jan. 24 and are to close Friday at 5 p.m.

Here is the list of comments submitted as of Tuesday. Considering the important of this document and the lack of public involvement, the trustees should extend the deadline and make a real effort to get public comments from Alaskans.

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“It was the Republicans, I will remind you, that told the Democrats months ago that if you want to try to get your Ukraine funding, you're gonna have to take up the border issue. This is what we asked for,” she said. “This is what we asked Senator Lankford to negotiate. It's what he did. He did it in good faith. So let's take up what we asked for,” Sen. Lisa Murkowsi said, according to CNN reporter Manu Raju.

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In his catalog of what the late wordsmith Don Young would have called “negatism,” Dunleavy forgot a few big ones:

No to bad speeches. No to dumb ideas. No to pandering politicians who claim every choice is a simple yeah or nay. And no to a governor who continues to promise giant dividends, while failing to deliver a fiscal plan to pay for giant dividends.

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Juneau Sen. Jesse Kiehl is one of the few legislators paying close attention to what is happening with the trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation.

“I’ve been very concerned with a real interest in secrecy. I think that decision about the second office appeared to have been taken between board meetings. There was open discussion of having an out-of-state meeting to avoid the Open Meetings Act,” Kiehl said Friday at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the Permanent Fund.

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The Alaska Permanent Fund trustees want state law changed to allow them to keep the names of applicants secret when hiring the executive director or the chief investment officer.

The proposal is part of the strategic plan now out for public comment. Comments are due by February 2.

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