Alaska Beacon

A Republican Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly member is challenging the four-term incumbent to represent Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Coffman Cove and other communities of southern Southeast Alaska in the state House.

In Jeremy Bynum’s first time running for state office, he got 44% percent of the votes in the August primary to Rep. Dan Ortiz’s 52%. Both live in Ketchikan. Four percent of voters chose Wrangell resident Shevaun Meggitt, who has since withdrawn and will not appear on the general election ballot.

Ortiz said he’s feeling good going into the general election but not 100% confident. He noted that he is a nonpartisan independent and most voters in the district usually vote for Republicans.

“And so, the fact that I have a Republican opponent is always a threat in terms of making sure that you do everything you can to put yourself in the best possible position, but then in the end, it’s going to be up to voters,” said Ortiz on Monday.

Bynum said he’s running to “bring a different voice.”

“We have to have a choice and we also have to have a competitive spirit when it comes to these kinds of races, so that we can elevate the conversation for those important issues that are within our region, whether it’s energy, or education, or housing, marine highway. And I didn’t feel that there was a strong conversation happening within our election cycle,” he said Monday.

Incumbent has education background

Ortiz, 64, wasn’t born in Alaska, but has spent 54 years in the state, primarily calling Ketchikan home. Before his time in the Capitol, Ortiz spent about 30 years as a teacher at Ketchikan High School. He mainly taught social studies and history and spent his last eight years as a coach for the drama, debate and forensics team. That’s what led him to becoming a legislator.

“We were debating things like the Pebble Mine or we debated oil taxes, all things that were in front of the Legislature at the time and, you know, by hearing both sides, which you always do in debate, it got me charged up in terms of trying to make a difference in a real, more concrete way in terms of policy at the state level,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz first ran for the Alaska House of Representatives in 2014, the year he retired from teaching. He narrowly beat Republican candidate Chere Klein by 104 votes in the general election. Ortiz has held the seat ever since.

Several bills he’s sponsored or cosponsored that have passed are related to the fishing industry, one of the main economic drivers in his district, he said. Recently, Ortiz sponsored House Bill 41, which allows nonprofits to pursue mariculture enhancement or restoration projects involving shellfish species, like red and blue king crab, sea cucumber, abalone and razor clams. It became law over the summer.

“In Alaska, we have the most coastal area of any other state by far and it’s ripe for mariculture and the products that come from mariculture, and the market’s not going to go away,” Ortiz said. “So I was really excited about that, but I’m proud of the fact that my legislation has always come from my constituents, my constituents’ needs. They bring me the idea and we go with it.”

In an Alaska Beacon questionnaire, Ortiz identified “maintaining vital government services” as a top priority, including the Alaska Marine Highway System. On Monday, he said it’s important for the Alaska Marine Highway to “return to a reliable, predictable schedule that residents can come to depend on, businesses can come to depend on.”

Ferry service has been significantly reduced for several years due to things like funding cuts, an aging fleet and, more recently, finding people to hire, Ortiz said. With the federal infrastructure bill, though, “it’s a new ballgame.”

Ortiz hopes funding from the bill will go directly to operations and to repairing and building ships. “I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to restore the system back to where it was before the 2018 budget level of service.”

Challenger points to hydropower experience

Originally from Oregon, Bynum, 47, moved to Ketchikan in 2016 after spending summers in the community. He’s acting manager for the electric division of the City of Ketchikan’s public utilities and has been on the Borough Assembly since 2020. Both these experiences will help in state office, he said.

“I’m really involved in my job and I’m also really involved at the assembly level,” Bynum said Monday. “Having a really good fundamental understanding of our local governments will give me an advantage when I’m in Juneau, to understand how decisions that we would make in Juneau directly impact the local communities.”

Bynum credits his community involvement for giving him visibility, which helped him get 44% of the vote in the primary. He goes to or watches almost every City Council meeting, referees high school basketball games, is on the University of Alaska Southeast’s Ketchikan Campus Advisory Council and has been on the board of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency.

“A lot of people in the community recognize that I care and that I’m engaged,” Bynum said.

When asked about the biggest needs for his district or what issues people care about, Bynum listed several things that he called “interconnected.” For instance, the Alaska Marine Highway System and the transportation of goods, housing, and what Bynum called “a people resource problem.”

“Our industries that are in our communities are really struggling because of a lack of personnel and qualified people. And I think that the state needs to really evaluate what their role is in helping solve that problem,” Bynum said.

His ideas include “incentivizing our secondary education to have a shift in focus on vocations and trades and certificate type programs,” Bynum said. “So that our kids, when they’re coming out of high school, have a better vision about what those kinds of jobs offer them, and how they can positively impact our communities.”

Bynum, a licensed professional engineer, spent time in the U.S. Air Force as a power generation specialist. In college at Portland State University, he studied electrical engineering and served in the Air National Guard. He sees his background in engineering and hydroelectricity as something that sets him apart from Ortiz.

“I’ve been working in, specifically, clean renewable energy the majority of my career, over 20 years in hydropower. It is one of our strongest resources in our region, and one of our paths to enter energy independence in Alaska is water energy systems,” he said. “So, we all recognize that energy is our future. It’s going to spur business. It’s going to allow electrification for homes going on to air source heat pumps, buses going to EV, electric ferries, EV cars on our islands, energy produced locally for the local community.”

Campaigning

Both candidates are actively campaigning and raising money. As of Sept. 4, Bynum has raised almost $22,000, the vast majority from personal donations either from him or his spouse. Other donations from individuals have ranged in the $40 to $250 level. He recently received two $1,000 contributions from Steven Becker and Leslie Becker. Republican Leslie Becker unsuccessfully ran against Ortiz in 2020, losing by almost 1,900 votes.

As of last month, Ortiz had raised close to $33,000. He’s received $1,000 donations from several labor unions, including those representing building trade workers, teachers and many public employees, and from dental groups. Numerous donations from individuals are in the $25 to $1,000 range.

Editor’s Note: This article was partially inspired by a collaboration with Alaska Public Media, which reached out to voters across the state online and in person to find out what you want to know this election season. To learn more, see the end of the article.

Because of a federal court decision last year, the state’s failure to appeal that decision, and the Alaska Legislature’s failure to approve a new law, candidates for Alaska state Legislature and governor can accept unlimited amounts of money from individual donors.

Those donations may be unlimited, but each must be disclosed and published as public information. Donations to federal candidates — those running for U.S. House and U.S. Senate — do have limits, but they are public information, too. So are donations to third-party groups, such as unions, or groups supporting a particular ballot measure or industry.

Here’s what you need to know.

Why does it matter?

Campaign finance records — listings of who donates, how much a candidate has raised, and how much a candidate has spent — can show the strength or weakness of a political campaign, a clue to whether a candidate will win or lose.

When it comes to the U.S. House, for example, the candidate who raises the most money wins 90% of the time.

Tracking where donations come from can show whether a candidate’s support is in their own district, or if they’re receiving large amounts of money from people who don’t live in a particular place and can’t vote for that particular candidate.

Tracking who donates can reveal whether a particular corporation or industry believes a candidate is likely to support its interests. Looking at how much a person donates can show if a candidate is being backed by just a few wealthy people or if their ads are being bought with the small contributions of many people.

When to look

The Alaska Public Offices Commission, a state agency, regulates state-level races and publishes campaign finance reports on its website.

Anyone who intends to raise or spend at least $5,000 while running for state office needs to register with the commission by filing a letter of intent.

These letters are searchable and sometimes are filed a year or more before an election. They’re useful for determining who is thinking about running for office but not a guarantee: Until someone registers with the Alaska Division of Elections, they’re not an official candidate.

When someone registers, they need to disclose their campaign spending and donations at different points: the start of the calendar year, 30 days before the primary election, 7 days before the primary, 30 days before the general election and 7 days before the general election.

Any donations within 7 days of an election get special reports.

Any of these times are good ones to look at records, because they’ll have the most up-to-date information available.

For this year’s Nov. 8 general election, all candidates need to report their fundraising on Oct. 10 and Nov. 1.

Even after the election, candidates can still accept donations to pay outstanding debts or to save for their next campaign. The deadline to do that is Dec. 23, and the final election report — including everything raised and spent — is due Feb. 15, 2023.

Federal candidates report their fundraising and spending with the Federal Election Commission, and they do have a limit. Candidates can only accept $5,800 from an individual during an election cycle – $2,900 for the primary and $2,900 for the general.

Federal candidates report each quarter, plus a report before the election and a report after the election.

This year, a quarterly report is due Oct. 15, and the pre-election report is due Oct. 27. Post-election reports are due Dec. 8 and Jan. 31, 2023.

Because there was a special election for U.S. House this year, candidates needed to file some extra reports, the most recent being Sept. 15.

The FEC website is fairly user-friendly, but APOC searches are more difficult.

How to search state candidate information

When you open the APOC website, you’ll see a whole list of options. Clicking “Campaign Disclosure Reports” lets you search for specific candidates, specific donors, and even things candidates have spent their money on.

Other links — such as for “income” and “expenditures” – allow you to search all donations, regardless of candidate, or all spending, regardless of candidate.

All of the searches work roughly the same.

First, select the year you want to search. If you use the default “any year,” you may get results from prior elections that aren’t relevant anymore.

Second, select a date range, keeping in mind when candidates submit their reports. You can leave this blank, but you’ll have to look through all the reports a candidate has filed for an entire year.

If you’re just looking for the latest report, do yourself a favor and narrow it down. If you’re searching around Oct. 10, for example — because that’s when the next report is due — just search for reports filed between Sept. 10 and Oct. 10.

Next, use the drop-down menu labeled “any name” to select “candidate name.” This allows you to enter who you want to search for. Leaving it blank will show all the reports filed by every candidate for every office.

There’s another drop-down menu to the right of the candidate name, and that allows you to limit searches by the type of election — if you wanted to search for city election filings, for example — but it’s generally unnecessary.

How to read the filings

As a test, I’ve done a search for all reports filed by independent governor candidate Bill Walker between July 15 and Aug. 17. That range is big enough to include every report filed for the Aug. 16 primary election. You can see the result below.

Clicking on the “filed” link at the right of each entry will bring up a copy of the report. Click on the seven-day report filed on Aug. 10 as an example.

Each candidate report is broken down into roughly four parts. At the top is information that tells you who filed the report, who the candidate is, what election it’s for and what information is included in the report.

Here, for example, we can see under “report information” that this includes everything from July 16 — when they filed their 30-day report — through Aug. 6.

The part after that, called “financial summary,” shows the financial health of the candidate’s campaign.

The first line, “beginning cash on hand,” tells you how much money the campaign had on July 16, the day this report begins. The second line, “total income reported,” lists how much money the candidate received in donations from July 16 through Aug. 6, the period we saw under “report information.”

The next line, expenditures, shows how much the candidate spent from July 16 through Aug. 6.

If you add cash on hand to income, then subtract expenditures, you get “closing cash on hand,” which is how much money the campaign had on Aug. 6.

If the candidate has any debts — things it’s bought but hasn’t paid for yet — those are listed on the report, and subtracting those from “closing cash on hand” gets you “surplus/deficit,” how much money they have available to spend.

Off to the right are entries for how much money the candidate has raised and spent for their entire campaign, not just the period covered in this report.

The next part of the report, “income,” lists who donated to a campaign, where they live, and how much they gave. State law requires all of this information to be collected by the campaign and published. Again, this example lists only donations between July 16 and Aug. 6; other reports will cover other periods.

The last part of the report, “expenditures,” lists all the things a candidate has bought with their donations during the period listed on the report.

If a listing in either “income” or “expenditures” is blue instead of black, it indicates that someone donated an item to a candidate — usually airline miles or airline tickets, but silent auction items or campaign signs donated by a candidate to themselves (needed if they’re recycling items from a prior campaign) show up in blue.

Other searches

If you’re looking for a specific donor or want to search for all donations to a candidate, regardless of when they were made, go to the APOC site and click “Campaign Disclosure Reports – Search Income.”

There’s a similar expenses-only search if you’re trying to figure out, say, how many candidates have spent money buying candy.

Candidates and individuals aren’t the only ones involved in elections. Groups supporting or opposing ballot measures have to follow similar reporting schedules and rules as candidates. Their filings will show up under “Campaign Disclosure Reports” if you search the name of the group. In some cases, the best way to learn that name is to look for the fine print at the bottom of a printed ad or to listen for the quickly-spoken disclosure at the end of a TV or radio ad.

These groups are limited by law, but there’s another category of political group that’s worth knowing about.

So-called “independent expenditure” groups are allowed to accept and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they don’t coordinate directly with a candidate or campaign.

Independent expenditure groups are required to file reports within 10 days any time they collect or spend money.

To search those filings, click “independent expenditures” at the top of the APOC website. Using only a date range will reveal everything filed within a given period of time.

Find more elections coverage and voter resources at Alaska Beacon’s Election 2022 webpage and at Alaska Public Media’s Election Coverage webpage. Learn more about Alaska Public Media’s voter outreach and their collaboration with other local news organizations here. Remember – you have until Oct. 9 to register to vote or to update your voter registration. Find out how here.

North Slope oil prices are expected to run well below spring predictions, endangering a bonus year of K-12 school funding approved by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and state legislators.

The change to the state’s outlook was made public in a notice published Monday by the Alaska Department of Revenue. The notice was part of a department procedure that calls for a forecast update if prices vary by more than 10% from what was expected.

In March, Revenue officials said they expected prices to average $101 per barrel between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, the period known as Fiscal Year 2023.

Through the first two and a half months of the fiscal year, that forecast was accurate: The price of a barrel of North Slope Crude averaged $103.09 between July 1 and Sept. 15.

But on Monday, revenue officials — relying on global futures markets that trade in oil from Europe’s North Sea — said they expect the average annual price to drop to $91.96 per barrel by the end of the fiscal year.

“While this update does not incorporate the level of rigor and detail that we put into the official spring and fall revenue forecasts, it does give an indication of how revenues are expected to perform based on the most currently available information,” the new estimate said.

If the forecast holds true, it would not significantly affect state services, but it would erase most of $1.2 billion in bonus funding for K-12 public schools.

This spring, state lawmakers earmarked $1.2 billion for public schools in the 2022-2023 school year. Because oil prices were expected to be high, they set aside another $1.2 billion in bonus funding — an advance payment for the 2023-2024 school year — calling it a way to save for the future.

That bonus funding comes with a financial trigger — if oil prices fall, the amount is automatically reduced to an amount the state can afford. At $89 per barrel, the bonus funding would be entirely eliminated. If oil falls below $89 per barrel, the state would have to spend from savings to balance the budget.

A Sitka assemblymember and a former Hoonah mayor are competing for the Alaska House of Representatives seat being vacated by five-term Sitka Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. Though nonpartisan candidate Rebecca Himschoot had an edge over Republican Kenny Skaflestad in last month’s open primary – about 54% to roughly 46% – it’s a difference of 373 votes.

Voters in Sitka overwhelmingly favored their assemblymember – 1,059 votes for Himschoot to 552 for Skaflestad. Voters in Hoonah cast more votes for their former mayor and city council member, but not by as big of a margin – Skaflestad got 86 votes; Himschoot got 73.

In other communities in the Southeast Alaska House district, Himschoot captured about 60% or more of the votes in Hydaburg, Port Alexander and Tenakee Springs. Skaflestad did that in Craig, Kake, Klawock, Pelican/Elfin Cove and Thorne Bay.

When asked to identify the biggest need in the district, Himschoot, an educator, listed, “strong schools, consistent and dependable marine highway service, accessible housing, and thriving waterfronts that support small-boat fishermen,” on the Alaska Beacon questionnaire.

To address these, Himschoot wrote she’ll “work to stabilize school funding, transition the Alaska Marine Highway to a public corporation model that offers consistent and dependable service, and invest in infrastructure that supports working families, organized labor, and Alaska’s small business ecosystem.”

For Skaflestad, a commercial fisher, “economic diversity through resource availability and industrial innovation” was the biggest need for the district.

He wrote the state government needs to refresh its policy to encourage private innovation: “Local planning efforts should be incentivized where devised frameworks for short and long term plans are provided. Local government then submits entries within the frameworks, which are then scored and rewarded per state policy,” he wrote.

The questionnaire highlighted several differences among the candidates: Skaflestad is interested in calling a constitutional convention, Himschoot is not; Himschoot would be willing to join a coalition majority in which the opposite political party controls a majority of seats, Skaflestad would not; Skaflestad doesn’t think Juneteenth should be a state holiday; Himschoot does. Both agree on this though: new public employees should have access to a pension.

When asked what the state should do to improve retention of public employees, including teachers, Himschoot wrote, “By fully funding schools early in the session, communities would better be able to retain educators.” In his reply to the question, Skaflestad wrote the state should “create much higher standards as condition of employment,” “better refine goals and develop incentives/rewards for performance,” and, “better define: ‘education’ as policy.”

The two candidates also show differences on reproductive rights. Skaflestad supports “no funding for elective abortions except for substantiated rape or developed risk of life,” as well as, “heartbeat or other measurable human processes/functions to define autonomous life.” Himschoot wrote that she would “support policies that allow Alaskans to exercise their constitutional rights, which includes a right to abortion.”

While Himschoot isn’t interested in calling a convention, she wrote that she supports “constitutionalizing of a sustainable draw from the Permanent Fund and guaranteeing a Permanent Fund dividend.” Skaflestad wrote that he’d want to see a constitutional amendment on the “PFD formula with emergency options.”

This is Himschoot’s first time running for state office. Skaflestad has run for state House twice before. In 2018, he lost in the Republican primary to former Sitka surgeon Richard Wein; and in 2020, he won the primary but lost to Kreiss-Tomkins in the general election.

Himschoot has some significant political support behind her. Kreiss-Tomkins, outgoing state representative for the district, is listed as one of Himschoot’s deputy treasurers. So is Ira Slomski-Pritz, a partner at Ship Creek Group, the political consulting firm that worked on the campaign of Alaska U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. Ship Creek is listed as running Himschoot’s campaign Facebook page. She’s received $1,000 donations from several labor unions, including those representing teachers and many public employees, as well as from individuals. Her campaign had raised more than $39,000 as of last month.

Skaflestad had raised just over $2,000 as of last month, almost all of it from commercial fisher Robert Thorstenson.

A new agreement with Japan’s leading hydroelectric operator will give the long-planned Sweetheart Lake project south of Juneau a boost toward development, developers promoting the project said on Thursday.

The agreement is between Juneau Hydropower, the corporation planning the Sweetheart Lake hydro project, and J-Power, a major Japanese hydroelectric company.

The Sweetheart Lake project is planned and permitted for a site about 30 miles south of Juneau in the Tongass National Forest; J-Power, which signed the project development agreement in July, built and owns and operates 61 hydroelectric facilities, and it operates 1,500 miles of transmission lines in Japan, representatives of the companies said at an Anchorage news conference held Thursday.

“What it does is it allows us to partner with a team player who’s got an extremely deep bench,” Duff Mitchell, managing director of Juneau Hydropower, said in an interview on Friday.

The Sweetheart Lake project would have a capacity of 19.8 megawatts and promises to boost Juneau’s energy generation by a fifth, according to Mitchell’s estimates. The cost is estimated at over $200 million.

Under the joint development agreement, J-Power will have some ownership share in the project, but that share is yet to be determined, Mitchell said.

The cornerstone user will be Coeur Alaska’s Kensington mine, a gold producer north of Juneau.

At the Anchorage news conference held Thursday, Stephen Ball, Coeur Alaska’s general manager, called the prospect “exciting.”

“From our perspective, the opportunity to bring clean hydropower to Kensington is a root driving force for us. It gives us the opportunity to get off of diesel power and onto clean energy,” Ball said.

Beyond Kensington, Mitchell said, there is an opportunity for Juneau’s electric utility, Alaska Electric Light and Power.

Additionally, it will help bring Juneau closer to the goals of its 2011 climate action plan, which calls for a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2032, Mitchell said.

Construction is expected to start next year, with operations starting two or three years after then, Mitchell said.

The Sweetheart Lake project has been in the works for more than a decade.

The initial application for a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was filed in 2009. From then until 2016, the process went through numerous permitting steps, including an environmental impact statement. All required permits were completed by 2016, Mitchell said.

To comply with the Roadless Rule in the Tongass, the project was designed with a tunnel to be used as the transportation route for vehicles and equipment moving from the near-tidewater power station to the water-supply lake. After construction, equipment that is needed for operations will be left at the upper end of the tunnel, while construction equipment no longer needed will be driven down to the power station site, Mitchell said. After that, the tunnel will be converted to a line for water transport, he said.

“We had to be a little bit creative,” Mitchell said

Though the project is located south of Juneau, it requires transmission north. The plan is for an 8.6-mile transmission line from the power plant to the existing Juneau grid, and then a 31-mile transmission line north from there to the Kensington mine.

Ketchikan residents still remember the moment when Sarah Palin said on national TV, “thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere.”

The bridge would have linked the Southeast Alaska town with neighboring Gravina Island, home to the city airport and flat land now seen as needed for affordable housing.

“When you mention Sarah Palin, it’s the first thing people think about,” said Jeremy Bynum, a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough and candidate for state House, about the bridge.

“It’s synonymous,” he said.

Palin’s speech was 14 years ago, but as she seeks a full term in the U.S. House of Representatives, that action and others from her time as governor and a Republican vice presidential candidate have overshadowed her campaign for U.S. House.

Polling indicates support for Palin has barely budged since the start of her campaign, and the number of Alaskans who disapprove of her — about 60% of registered voters — has also remained steady.

On Thursday, Palin and fellow Republican Nick Begich appeared at a U.S. House candidate forum in Ketchikan. In an Aug. 16 special election, the pair split Alaska’s Republican votes, helping Democratic candidate Mary Peltola win the race. Peltola was sworn in this week and did not attend the forum.

All three, and Libertarian candidate Chris Bye, are seeking a full two-year House term in the Nov. 8 general election.

In August, Palin had more support than Begich but less than Peltola. Under Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, Begich was eliminated, allowing his supporters to put their votes toward a different candidate. Half chose Peltola or no one at all, denying Palin a victory.

Polling since the election indicates the pattern is likely to repeat in November unless something changes in the race.

During the forum, Begich and Palin were mostly civil toward each other — a change from their campaigns during the special election — but Begich brought applause in the city’s civic center when he reminded attendees of the bridge.

“If we had a bridge in Ketchikan to Gravina Island, maybe we wouldn’t have such a problem with housing down here,” Begich said.

“I will tell you, you know, when you see politicians trying to score political points by canceling the projects that this community relies on, that should tell you everything about where their priorities are. It’s not with you. It’s with them,” he said.

Trevor Shaw, a local resident who formerly served in local government and unsuccessfully ran for state House, said Palin’s handling of the bridge was flawed.

“It wasn’t that it was canceled, it was how it was canceled,” he said. “We found out when the rest of the country did.”

He recalls Palin telling the local chamber of commerce, weeks before her speech, that she supported the bridge.

The Gravina Island Bridge was a priority of former Congressman Don Young, who earmarked millions of dollars in the federal budget for it, only to see Palin reject the money.

Begich and Palin, seeking to hold the office Young once held, both said they oppose earmarks and would not use them.

“Absolutely not,” Palin said. “Earmarks are a problem in Congress. It leads to the crony capitalism, to the favoritism, to the corruption in Washington, D.C., where politicians are trying to bring home the bacon to serve the constituents in order to get reelected and reelected.”

Earmarks by former Alaska officials, including Young and former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, built many projects in rural Alaska, and the Ketchikan audience appeared uncomfortable with the positions of Begich and Palin on the issue.

Attendees of Southeast Conference, a regional gathering of political and business leaders, said housing and child care are among their top needs, and Gravina Island is seen as a place where housing can be built affordably in Ketchikan. Southeast Conference held Thursday’s forum.

Bynum said that local officials know the bridge is unlikely to return, but he and others said there’s still a need to get to Gravina Island, whether by ferry or bridge.

“Access is the biggest thing,” said Borough Assembly member Jaimie Palmer.