So here we have Arkansas lawyer and Christian nationalist Bob Ballinger claiming he knows that the late Vic Fischer would support a constitutional amendment to allow state funds for private and religious schools. I can guarantee you that Ballinger, who never met Vic Fischer, doesn’t know what he is talking about. A visitor to Juneau this spring who still lives in Arkansas and has his law practice there, Ballinger is on the state payroll right now courtesy of Homer Rep. Sarah Vance, who hired him for guidance. Plus, he lost a bid to stay in the Arkansas Legislature and he needed a job. He is “p ..read more

“I don’t have any experience whatsoever in commercial fishing. And as I looked at the statutes and as everyone else looked at the statutes, that’s not a requirement to do this job,” said Mike Porcaro when Sen. Scott Kawasaki asked him about his experience in fishing and his job on the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission. “I think it’s actually a benefit, since I have no entangling alliances. I have no preconceived ideas. And I’m learning and believe me I’m learning every day, just as most people do, what’s going on. And I’ve got some excellent teachers. And I’ve got some incredible staff mem ..read more

Bob Griffin, who describes himself as “kind of a numbers-driven guy,” always coats his opinions with a steady stream of percentages, rankings, jargon and raw numbers, speaking with the complete authority you would expect from any long-time Alaska Airlines 737 captain. Griffin, a campaign supporter and close ally of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, has been nominated by the governor for a second five-year term on the state school board. He faces a Senate Education Committee confirmation hearing Monday. His appointment will be among the many decided at a joint session of the Legislature in the next few weeks ..read more

The Senate Resources Committee has set a confirmation hearing for radio talk show host and adman Mike Porcaro Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. Porcaro, who has no experience in fisheries, was granted a state job as a fisheries commissioner on the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Porcaro, who is in his mid 70s, has said he did not ask for the $136,000-a-year job, and that he would continue to run his business and do his talk show while working full time for the state. “And the first question that people ask is ‘Well you don’t know anything about fish.’ Well, apparently that’s ..read more

“Bach's Prélude from Suite No. 2, amidst the melting permafrost on Lower Tanana Dene lands in Fairbanks, Alaska, where I was brought by Princess Daazhraii Johnson,” says Yo-Yo Ma, who traveled to Fairbanks last summer. KUAC had this coverage at the time ..read more

The contradictions and hypocrisy of the Dunleavy administration on charter schools are embodied in the political statements and opinions of Alaska Airlines pilot Bob Griffin, the longtime Dunleavy ally who is up for legislative confirmation for a second five-year term on the state school board. Griffin claims he supports local control of charter schools by locally elected school boards. “Local control is paramount,” he said about charter schools during a confirmation hearing April 17. Then he contradicted himself by supporting the Dunleavy vision to give the state school board the power to cre ..read more

The Alaska attorney general and his wife were involved in changing the policy of a former Anchorage charter school to pay for private school tuition in ways that haven’t been fully disclosed or examined. Attorney general Tregarrick Taylor’s recusal on May 21, 2022 from the topic occurred many months after the Taylor lobbying campaign began. When Taylor recused himself, he created the impression that a column his wife had posted on May 16, 2022 was the first sign of her active engagement in pushing for public funds to be spent on private schools. But on September 13, 2021, Jodi Taylor was one o ..read more

When Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor said that an outside attorney has cleared him of any potential conflict of interest in the landmark private school funding case, he refused to provide details, claiming those are secrets under the attorney-client privilege. He did say that “the situation with my kids schooling has changed significantly.” Perhaps the most significant change in the past two years is that that the Anchorage Family Partnership Charter School that his family planned to get $8,000 from no longer exists. And public money from the Anchorage School District is no longer available ..read more

Alaska school districts did not call it a voucher system for private schools, but that’s what some of them have created, using a system that a state judge has declared unconstitutional. Few of the districts have spelled out the working details so clearly as the CyberLynx Homeschool & Correspondence Program based in Nenana and largely state funded. It had about 1,500 students statewide in 2022-2023, according to the Alaska Policy Forum, which promotes using state funds for private tuition. The school provides a $2,700 allotment for every student. In a staff memo two years ago, after the wif ..read more

Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor reinserted himself into the debate over using public funds for private schools, almost two years after his wife announced plans for she and her husband to seek $8,000 in state funds to pay most of the cost of private school tuition for two of their children. He says his conflict of interest no longer exists, hinting that it is because his family is not longer seeking public funds to pay for private school tuition in Anchorage. Two years ago, his wife, Jodi Taylor, a right-wing activist and chair of the Alaska Policy Forum board, wrote: “My two youngest school ..read more