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The Permanent Fund dividend ranks among the most divisive issues in Alaska politics, along with such longstanding battles as oil taxes, salmon fisheries catch allocations and subsistence rights. Sadly, the dividend has grown in political importance in recent years, overwhelming all other issues confronting the state. Candidates scramble to find a dividend flag large enough to wrap around themselves for campaign speeches, reasonable voices get drowned out by chants of “I want my PFD,” and state budget work is held hostage by advocates for a sup...
This isn’t about a time-out for misbehaving children; it’s about adults who behave as children, or worse. The federal law requiring face masks on airplanes is no longer in effect. That means big changes for flyers. For travelers who had grown tired of masking up before heading into airports and boarding planes, they are free to show their smiles and put away or throw away their masks. For travelers who remain concerned about catching COVID-19, they are free to keep wearing masks in their best efforts to protect themselves and others. What it sh...
Just when we thought Alaska politics couldn’t get any sillier, we now have so many candidates running for Congress that debate organizers will need to borrow the microphones from all the karaoke bars in the state to accommodate everyone on the stage. Just imagine harmonizing 48 voices in “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Almost twice as many candidates have filed to run in the June primary for the late Don Young’s seat in the U.S. House than lost to the congressman in his unbroken streak of 25 consecutive election victories. If you believe in heaven,...
Awards are always appreciated, and thank you to the chamber members who honored the Sentinel as the business of the year, announced at the annual dinner last Saturday. I’d like to dream that the award means everyone agrees with every opinion I have shared on these pages in the past 15 months since I bought the Sentinel. Or at least agrees with me 90% of the time. I’d also like to dream my arthritis will magically go away, but then the doctor would need to treat me for being delusional. Truth is, I’d probably settle for people agreeing with me h...
I’m not anti-Facebook. Well, maybe a little, but more agnostic than antagonistic. I see its purpose and its benefits to connect people, providing something akin to a community bulletin board, a soapbox for ideas, a scrapbook for the town. Just because I don’t maintain my own Facebook page doesn’t mean I am ignorant of its value. I don’t own a pickup, but I can see where a truck would be better for moving furniture than my 2006 VW Beetle — though not as cute. I don’t own an Apple Watch, but I certainly understand that some people like having a $...
This year’s switch to ranked-choice voting in Alaska is something new, maybe even surprisingly new for those who missed or forgot about the 2020 statewide ballot initiative that put forth the change. But new, while exciting for some people, can be scary and disconcerting and disruptive for others. This coming from a 70-year-old who is stuck so deep in his own comfort zone that I wear the same button-down cotton shirts (never white), same two-tone saddle shoes, use the same hair shampoo and same original flavor Crest toothpaste. Hey, nothing w...
No, this column is not directed at oil producers. They are not the guilty party in this tale of cost escalation. Nor is this column about the many businesses around the world stressed by energy prices that have shot up faster and higher than fireworks on the Fourth of July. As crude oil has jumped, surged and spiked from just over $65 a barrel on Dec. 1 to painfully over $100 a barrel this month, consumers have been paying more at the pump — whether the corner gas station for a dozen or more gallons to fill up a car or pickup, a couple h...
Many Alaskans will be hurting under $5-a-gallon gasoline, and rural residents who pay even higher prices will hurt even more. The state treasury, meanwhile, is flush with higher oil production tax and royalty checks, depositing tens of millions of dollars more each month than expected at the start of the year. Oil at $100-plus a barrel is guilty on both counts — making people poorer and making the Alaska checkbook richer. To use one to help the other, many Alaska lawmakers seem to be nervously coalescing around the idea of using much of the a...
It’s not often you hear political debates that invoke religion and booze but have nothing to do with temperance, the social ills of alcohol or strict adherence to church teachings. In Alaska, those points are being offered in the context of the state budget and oil prices — both of which are similar to alcohol and religion in the 49th state. They can be intoxicating, debatable and divisive. High oil prices of recent months — and even higher in recent days after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — have made Alaska rich again, for now....
Look at the post office package shelves, the boxes left at people’s doors and the empties stuffed into the trash and it’s clear that Wrangell — just like the rest of the country — is primed to shop from Amazon. Free shipping is the biggest incentive to sign up for Amazon Prime. That, and the website sells everything anyone could ever want or need, plus millions of items we never knew we wanted or needed. And maybe don’t need, but free shipping is such an enticement. No minimum purchase, no hassles, just click and wait for delivery. Let Amazo...
If at first you don’t succeed, it’s not always better that you try, try again. But try, try again is what we do well in Alaska. Well, not so successfully, but we are consistent in trying the patience of common sense and fiscal restraint. For Alaskans, that could apply to the long-proposed, longingly dreamy North Slope natural gas pipeline project — a $39 billion quest in search of customers, partners, investors and lenders. Other than that, it has all the free political support it needs. The state has poured about $1.5 billion into vario...
I don’t propose anyone take away the former president’s phones, his internet access, his rights to call outrageous press conferences or give loud speeches. I don’t suggest denying him the privilege to fleece supporters who want to click on his fundraising websites, or his prerogative to endorse outlandish candidates for public office. And I would never propose challenging his First Amendment rights to call anyone who disagrees with him a litany of names that only a child would appreciate. Just last week Donald Trump called the former head...
Alaskans have been anguishing over the price of oil ever since 1977, when the first barrel of crude flowed down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. That was the same year Elvis Presley died. And just as people have been speculating ever since about Elvis’ death, so, too, have Alaskans spent too much time speculating about the price of oil. Some advice: Don’t be cruel, don’t get all shook up about it, and cast aside your suspicious minds. Shake off the fixation, don’t let market predictions rattle you, and roll with whatever happens. Alaska cannot co...
Word choice matters. Thinking through how others will read and perceive words is important, especially when sharing opinions. The Sentinel editorial last week is a case in point. My purpose in the editorial was that the borough assembly could have interviewed candidates for the manager’s job in public. I think they should have, but that’s just my opinion and my view of the law from the perspective of a journalist who has written about public policy and government in Alaska since 1976. I wanted readers to know that the courts have held that suc...
Polite requests didn't work, so I'll try bribery. Not the illegal kind that infects corrupt nations and businesses, but the nice kind, sort of like how your parents offered you dessert if you finished the broccoli on your plate. Think of a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen as that piece of broccoli. And think of a free 2022 Alaska calendar by award-winning Juneau photographer Mark Kelley as your dessert. Just as colorful as and artistic as chocolate cake, an ice cream sundae or a...
The deep snow and strong winds are making the moose in Alaska’s Interior cranky. Who can blame them. More than four feet of snow fell in Fairbanks in December, with over six feet in Denali National Park. Moose have long, strong legs, but those fur-covered limbs need to carry them around until spring, when there is something more to eat for energy than frozen tree bark and scraps of leftover Halloween pumpkins frozen into the ice. Grubhub does not deliver to moose. And even though they don’t have to worry about COVID-19 or wear a face mask or...
It’s helpful to remember the past, to learn from both the good and bad. Neither should be forgotten. Reliving the good can bring us joy and give us a chance to say thank you. Vowing never to repeat the really ugly moments can make us smarter and make our communities better. This week presents just such an opportunity. It was a year ago, Jan. 1, that I purchased the Wrangell Sentinel for the third time, proving that you can pay an accountant for wise tax and financial advice but you don’t have to pay attention. It’s been exhaustively fun, recon...
Maybe we need to pay more attention to what kids are saying. Especially around the holidays, when adults can get wrapped up in ribbons and bows and sometimes forget it is the thought, not the gift that really matters. Youth and innocence make for honest, direct answers. Funny ones, too. No politically calculated holiday greetings from these children. Sure, they’re kids, so they want toys and games and anything electronic. But in their heartfelt letters to Santa, Wrangell elementary school students told us what’s important to them and what sho...
For the sake of this holiday political fable, let’s assume there is a Santa Claus and the all-knowing gift giver tracks your behavior 365 days a year, not just the month or so before Christmas — much like your phone, your web browsing history, Alexa, front-door camera or whatever other electronic tracking device that watches over you. Santa knows who has been naughty or nice long before anyone starts wrapping December presents. And let’s hope that Santa — and coastal Alaska voters — have been making the list and checking it twice for the past...
Sometimes, connecting the dots is the best way to learn. The first set of dots cost $87 million in federal pandemic aid money. That’s the price of the contract the state signed with an Atlanta-based for-profit health care staffing firm to provide up to 470 medical professionals to help out at 15 Alaska hospitals and medical clinics, schools too, for 90 days. The travelers helped relieve the strain during the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak this fall, when Alaska was in record territory for new cases and hospitalizations. The Wrangell Medical C...
I don’t celebrate my own birthday — gave that up when I grew up and mom stopped giving me money to take all my friends bowling at Dom DeVito’s Lanes, where the bar was off-limits but it still felt cool to put our pop bottles in the same holders meant for beer. Newspaper birthdays, however, are different, and they’re worth celebrating. Not only because the newspaper is still alive, despite the growth of Facebook, but because the paper’s age is a sign of strength and stamina, unlike my age, which is a sign that I talk more about arthritis...
It was the same day that Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the state would help hospitals cope with record numbers of COVID-19 patients by assisting with decisions to ration care, and the same day that the state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, said Alaska is “at the worst place in the pandemic that we’ve had this entire time.” It was the same day that the governor announced Alaska would spend $87 million to bring in out-of-state medical workers to help relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospital staff. And it was the same day Alaska set a r...
Could anything be more difficult than getting the Alaska Legislature to settle on a workable, affordable, sustainable fiscal plan for the state? Yes. Getting a clear majority of Alaskans to accept the reality and the need for a workable, affordable, sustainable fiscal plan for the state probably is more difficult - and yet it has to come first. Most legislators understand the numbers, even if they disagree or dislike the math and the choices. Many just need a permission slip from their...
The governor’s office got it wrong when it referred to $400,000 in state funding for the Alaska Legal Services Corp. as a subsidy. Guess they had to come up with a catchy explanation of why Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the long-standing state help for the program which provides legal assistance for low-income Alaskans. Calling it a “subsidy” sounds like an attempt to diminish its value, tossing it into the tainted pork barrel of boondoggles that fiscal conservatives say must end. They are right about that. Subsidies with little or no benef...
This week seems like a good time to explain to readers the different roles of a newspaper. In particular, this newspaper. Actually, any week would be a good time, as I am often reminded that many readers are confused at the different parts of a newspaper. How are news, opinion and advertising different? What are the rules for each? And who decides which is what and when? First and foremost, the Wrangell Sentinel is a newspaper. Which means we try to provide readers with news of the community, its residents, its government, and the businesses...