My 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.
Read MoreArizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming joined the Federal Trade Commission’s federal lawsuit against the proposed Kroger acquisition of Albertsons, the company that owns Safeway and other brands.
Washington and Colorado have filed their own lawsuits.
Alaska Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor, who joins every right-wing lawsuit that aligns with his personal political views, did not join this one.
Read MoreIt is more than generous to refer to the planning on the West Susitna access road project as slipshod.
The version of the project that popped into the STIP was thrown together last summer without real analysis.
It had been a project of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, envisioned as a 110-mile access road to promote mining. Some estimates put the cost at $450 million, but the final price could be much higher because detailed engineering work has not taken place.
Last summer, the Dunleavy administration decided to disguise the cost of the project and use part of the federal windfall in highway dollars to pretend it was no longer a single road project, but two projects.
Read MoreThe mishandling of the STIP, the most serious management failure of Dunleavy’s time in office, has put hundreds of millions in federal highway funds and thousands of Alaska jobs in immediate jeopardy. The entire road-building season is at risk.
This, from the governor who complains about people who don’t say yes to every idea about using public resources for private gain. He should have said something about saying yes to getting the STIP done on time so that the road construction season is not canceled.
Read MoreWhile Alaska Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor is occupied elsewhere polishing his right-wing political image, there is an important disclosure in the Washington state lawsuit against the Kroger-Albertsons case that is relevant to Alaska.
The disclosure adds weight to the notion that pledges to keep Alaska stores open after the merger are meaningless.
Read MoreThe mishandling of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan by the office of Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson is a real problem.
Anderson is now claiming he did not know about the rule requiring that projects in an area with a Metropolitan Planning Organization, such as Anchorage and Fairbanks, must have those projects included in the local plan to be in the state plan.
He also claims it is a new rule.
Anderson did know about this rule. And it is not a new rule.
Read MoreAlaska Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor has signed onto another federal court case that has nothing to do with Alaska and everything to do with bowing to Donald Trump and the Trump followers who rule the Republican Party.
Taylor used state resources to add Alaska’s name to a Supreme Court amicus brief supporting Trump’s bid to delay a federal court case against him.
Read MoreThe trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation voted 5-1 last week to release what they are calling “Trustee Paper No. 10.”
Trustee Paper No. 10 became a public document when the trustees voted February 16, but the staff of the corporation has yet to release the paper to the public.
Read MoreI found it disturbing that two trustees, Craig Richards and Gabrielle Rubenstein, were quick to claim that the fund did not want to borrow money to make investments, dressing up their comments with gibberish.
Contrary to their claims, the strategic plan memo released by the corporation to explain the plan to the public said that the borrowed money would be used for investments. Perhaps they failed to read their own report.
Read MoreLargely ignoring the substance of the public comments they received on a proposed strategic plan, the six-member Permanent Fund board of trustees pushed ahead with a proposal promoting the idea of borrowing billions to make more billions.
They did scale back the size of the proposal, however.
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