The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which limits public involvement to whatever it can get away with, plans to act Wednesday on a plan to draw $20 million from a slush fund for new oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Before AIDEA acts, there should be a real public hearing with real public notice. Something far more than the limited opportunity that AIDEA is giving Wednesday at 9 a.m.
Read MoreAt first glance, the obvious hole in the new Dunleavy data center drive is that he started it with a September 5 form letter to top executives of the tech companies, a missive that was no better than a piece of junk mail.
The state employee or employees who wrote the letter for Dunleavy didn’t even bother to revise the text of each letter to mention anything specific about Microsoft, Google, Apple or Meta in the body of the message, simply referring to each company as “your organization.”
It didn’t matter if he was addressing Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook or Satya Narayana Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, the letter was exactly the same.
Read MoreIf Donald Trump wins the presidency a second time, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has an exit strategy from the struggles of state government.
“I would not rule it out,” Dunleavy told reporter Nat Herz when asked about whether he would seek a job under Trump. Dunleavy said he hasn’t had “that conversation” with Trump.
Dunleavy could have responded that he intends to fulfill his duties as governor and that he has no intention of quitting. “I would not rule it out,” is what a politician says when he is dreaming of a new job.
Read MoreThe longer this ridiculous bureaucratic battle goes on, the more money and time will be wasted and the more uncertainty will be created about which road projects will move ahead and which will be delayed or cancelled.
Read MoreFormer Anchorage Rep. Tom McKay should not be drawing his state paycheck as a legislator. Under state law he is no longer a legislator, regardless of House Speaker Caythy Tilton’s claims.
Read the state law—a legislator who resigns immediately cannot withdraw that resignation. McKay resigned when Gov. Mike Dunleavy rewarded him with a new job that McKay is ineligible to take for at least a year.
Read MoreReporter Richard Fineberg won a national business journalism award for a meticulous investigation of an early version of the Alaska gas pipeline dream in 1979.
Fineberg’s trip to New York City to collect the $5,000 cash prize left a lasting impression on Howard Weaver, the Alaska newspaperman who at the time was the editor of “The Alaska Advocate,” where Fineberg’s treatise had appeared.
“Richard, a banjo-playing railroad buff, flew as far as Seattle but then hopped freights from there to New York and back. He told me he kept the check in his shoe for safekeeping on the return leg,” Weaver wrote in his autobiography.
Read MoreRepublican Congressional candidate Nick Begich the Third has tried hard to distance himself from a company owned by his father, Nick Begich Jr., an enterprise that remains one of Begich the Third’s largest income sources.
Begich the Third claims he has nothing to do with Earthpulse Press or any of the ideas promoted on its defunct website about mind control, weather control, government conspiracies, etc. He merely collects money from the company as a 17 percent owner.
That’s not exactly true. For the past 12 years, Begich the Third has been a company director, treasurer and secretary of Earthpulse Press.
Read MoreThe state Board of Education, which has been down two members for months, now lists a resident of Palmer as the representative on the board from the Second Judicial District, which is Northwest Alaska.
On July 29, Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed Kimberly Bergey to the state board, writing to her address in Palmer.
Read MoreGov. Mike Dunleavy has spent $9,640 of state money on partisan political ads, many of which referred to “petitions'“ on education reforms and parental rights.
There were never any petitions. It was a scam.
He was simply collecting names and addresses of people who could be called upon for political support.
Read MoreThe funeral service for Dick Olson, long a mainstay of KJNP radio and television, will be Friday at 11 a.m. at True North Church, followed Saturday by a memorial potlatch at the David Salmon Tribal Hall.
I always enjoyed talking to Dick when our paths crossed in Fairbanks, as they often did for decades. He attended many public events representing the Gospel Station at the Top of the Nation and always did so with a friendly smile and a welcoming presence.
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