Three-way race for state House seat that represents Wrangell

In House District 1, which includes Ketchikan and Wrangell, there is a three-way race to replace Rep. Dan Ortiz who served as the district's House member for a decade.

The race is between Republican Jeremy Bynum and independents Grant EchoHawk and Agnes Moran.

All three candidates are Ketchikan residents, as is Ortiz. A Wrangell resident has not held the House seat since Peggy Wilson a decade ago.

Ortiz is not seeking reelection, citing health reasons. The former educator caucused with the mostly Democratic House minority this past session, though the district tends to lean toward Republican candidates.

Bynum earned 49% of the primary vote in August, which is just below the majority share of votes that a candidate will need to win the Nov. 5 general election without the use of ranked-choice voting.

The remainder of the votes were split between EchoHawk and Moran.

House District 1 includes Ketchikan, Saxman, Metlakatla, Hyder, Meyers Chuck, Coffman Cove, Whale Pass and Wrangell. More than a quarter of the district identifies as Alaska Native.

Bynum, 49, is the electric manager of Ketchikan Public Utilities. He has been a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly since 2020 and is an Air Force veteran. After the Air Force, he was a hydroelectric engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Bynum is from Oregon and has lived in Alaska for eight years. He ran against Ortiz in 2022 and lost with 47% percent of the vote.

EchoHawk, 49, is a business loan specialist for Tongass Federal Credit Union and board treasurer of the Ketchikan Tribal Business Corp. He has been a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly since 2021. He was born in Fairbanks and grew up with a fishing family in Metlakatla.

He has spent 19 years in Alaska, according to his candidacy filings with the state. He said that since returning to Alaska he has shifted his focus from the corporate world of maximizing shareholder value to public service.

"I feel like there's plenty of wealth in the state, and I'm concerned that that wealth isn't making it into our communities," he said.

Agnes Moran, 64, was born and raised in Ketchikan and is executive director of Women in Safe Homes, the regional shelter for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. She served for four years on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly, co-founded the Ketchikan animal rescue and has been a board member of First Bank and First City Homeless Services.

Moran studied electrical engineering and worked in aerospace on experimental satellite systems for military contractors in California before returning to Ketchikan.

She said she would be as committed to the district as Ortiz, but more of a fiscal conservative. "I'm very familiar with having to make difficult choices with budgets," she said.

Like Ortiz, all candidates say they support a permanent increase to the state funding formula for public schools, but their approaches to the details will be different.

Bynum suggested lawmakers reevaluate the funding mechanism that is the base student allocation. "You see that the system that we're using doesn't solve all of the educational funding needs throughout the state equally. Some (districts) are doing OK, and other places they're getting wrecked because of the funding."

He said it would also be a priority that the state invest in workforce development through career and technical education programs. "We have an opportunity and we have a responsibility to be making sure that our schools are providing those tracked programs for our kids, so that they will come out of school and be successful right away in our communities," he said.

EchoHawk said he was disappointed in the past legislative session because the state failed in its obligation to properly fund schools.

"It's been devastating throughout the entire state, but I was able to see it here in Ketchikan. We lost educators. It threw our entire community in turmoil, with not knowing what kind of funding we're going to get," he said.

He was critical of education reform proposals if they come at the expense of meeting what he considers a more pressing need for funding. "I feel like the will of the people was overwhelmingly made clear on what our communities needed."

Moran said the conversation about education funding needs to "start with the $1,413 number," a reference to the highest proposed increase to the per-student funding formula last session, in large part because inflation has increased the fixed costs for districts. "That's the spending power the school districts have lost," she said.

The Legislature funded about half that amount, and only for one year.

Moran also said she wants to see competitive wages and a return to a traditional pension system based on years of service to keep teachers in the state. "Alaska has a 25% teacher turnover rate. Teachers are leaving the state and leaving the discipline because they can't afford to live and work here," she said.

Ortiz was a proponent of returning to a pension system for public employees.

Bynum said he would consider it but does not want to overcommit the state's finances on a program it cannot afford.

EchoHawk said he is in full support of pensions. Moran said that if lawmakers cannot agree to bring back pensions, they should at least bring public school teachers into the Social Security system.

All three candidates see fisheries and the Alaska Marine Highway System as critical to their district, but have different ideas for how to support them.

Bynum said the state could start to help fishing communities and the fishing industry by investing more in harbors. He also suggested that sport fishermen and commercial charters pitch in on taxes that support hatcheries in Southeast Alaska.

He also pointed to sea otter management as a priority for fishermen. "I know that we have the (federal) Marine Mammal Act. It's complicated, but we need to be more vocal. ... Let's figure out how we do appropriate management here."

Bynum said restoring reliable Alaska Marine Highway System services, especially to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, are a priority for the southern Southeast district.

EchoHawk said he wants to see fisheries managed with a blend of science and historical understanding of the land and water. "The salmon provide food. It provides jobs. And it is ... deeply rooted in the culture of Southeast Alaska."

Sound decisions include having robust government-to-government conversations with Canada about transboundary mining and the risks that mining infrastructure failures pose to downstream fisheries, he added.

EchoHawk said he supports investment in the ferry system and would like to see the fleet replaced or modernized. "We need reliable transportation."

Moran said that to boost the Alaska Marine Highway System, the state needs to do better with hiring and supporting affordable housing for incoming workers.

She wants to see more funding for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to support fishermen and the fishing industry. "We can't be having their budget cut right when we need them to be promoting and developing national and international markets for Alaska seafood."

Each candidate described different avenues for opportunity in the coming legislative session. All of them said they would caucus with whichever group was best for the district.

Bynum predicted the impending natural gas shortage in Southcentral will be a main focus of the next legislative session, and said his role would be to make sure any policy changes do not have unintended consequences for the district and to make sure that the state makes equal investments in Southeast as it solves Southcentral's problems.

When it comes to opportunities to build revenue in the state, EchoHawk said he would first reconsider corporate taxes. "I'm not a fan of subsidies at all for large corporations, when those corporations are able to realize extravagant profits and also utilize stock buybacks in addition to all the profits that they make," he said. He would consider a progressive personal income tax, but is vehemently opposed to a sales tax.

Moran said there is an opportunity for the state to broaden its revenue base with a tax on short-term rentals that would target tourists and not disproportionately harm working- and middle-class Alaskans.

"That also could help address our affordable housing crisis, because we know when short-term rental companies move into a community, houses and apartments that were once available for local residents to purchase or rent are taken off the market and they're dedicated to the tourist industry," she said.

Bynum did not give a definitive answer to how he would vote on Ballot Measure 1, which would increase the minimum wage in Alaska and require that employers provide employees with paid sick leave. He said he will vote to repeal the state's ranked-choice voting system, which is the other proposition on the Nov. 5 ballot.

EchoHawk and Moran both said they would support an increase to the state's minimum wage and both said they oppose the repeal of the voting system.

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