Alaska Beacon

In Chris Bye’s preferred campaign photo, the Libertarian U.S. House candidate is ripping open his dress shirt to reveal a T-shirt that says, “Do Good Recklessly.”

After Republican fourth-place candidate Tara Sweeney abruptly withdrew from Alaska’s November U.S. House race, Bye will fill a spot in the state’s top-four primary election, an act that will put him alongside Democratic candidate Mary Peltola and Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III in the race for a two-year term in the House.

Bye, a fishing guide from Fairbanks, spoke about his campaign on Friday while waiting to take his next client fishing. He said his picture encapsulates his message.

“I mean, we don’t have to be Superman to do good. I mean, I can just be a fishing guide and pick up garbage along the way. This isn’t complicated,” he said.

Bye, a former U.S. Army officer with deployments in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, said he isn’t wealthy and doesn’t have a traditional political background, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do the job as Alaska’s lone delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Born in Oxford, England, to an Air Force family, Bye said he “moved every two to three years” while growing up and went to two different high schools before joining the U.S. Army and going to college.

He served in a variety of roles, including as an infantryman, in armor, and as a cavalryman before his career took him to Alaska with the 172nd Infantry Brigade.

While deployed to Iraq, he said he wrote to Alaska’s congressional delegation frequently.

“I’d be like, ‘Why am I in Iraq? Like, can someone please tell me why you voted to send us here? Because there is absolutely no constitutional emergency for us to be here,’” he said.

He said he was disillusioned by the “really dumb, canned responses” he got.

“I just knew that I didn’t fit in either (Republican or Democratic) party,” he said.

On a subsequent fishing trip with a fellow officer, the other man gave him a copy of Ron Paul’s book, “Liberty Defined.”

Paul was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988 and has espoused a philosophy of limited government intervention. Reading Paul’s book “absolutely changed the way I look at governance,” Bye said. “Overnight, I realized I had been part of the problem by settling for the lesser of two evils.”

Bye retired from the military in 2017 and stayed in Fairbanks but didn’t run for office until this year. The decision came with a high cost: Bye had to give up a civilian job on Fort Wainwright because federal employees aren’t permitted to run for office.

The inspiration behind his decision, he said, was the passage of the federal infrastructure bill, known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Bye was dissatisfied by the cost of that measure, which was supported by former Congressman Don Young. He briefly considered running as a Republican or Democrat but decided to run as a Libertarian after receiving an email from the party.

“They welcomed me with wide arms, even though we’ve got some differences,” Bye said.

An example, he said, is drug policy. Bye favors continued restrictions on some controlled substances, such as fentanyl.

Answering a candidate questionnaire from the Beacon, Bye praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade but said contraception and other medicines should be available “for all people without a doctor’s prescription.”

He has advocated restrictions on deep-sea trawling and the gradual elimination of the practice in order to reduce salmon bycatch.

Answering questions from Ballotpedia, he said his “top goal,” if elected, is to accelerate the transfer of federal land to individuals and the state.

On his website, Bye advocates a 10-15% cut in federal spending and a 15% cut in the number of federal employees.

By phone, Bye said that if elected, instead of the hunting trophies and memorabilia that adorned the office of former Congressman Don Young, he would “go down to IKEA … and we’re going to get the biggest damn table — because we represent Alaska — and we’re going to put as many seats around that table as possible, and everybody, every Alaskan is invited to sit at that table.”

“Because I’m not just a representative for the people that voted for me, but for everybody, even those who have conflicting views,” he said. “I mean, if we can’t be courageous in front of people who have different views, our future generations, they’re going to be sucking.”

Bye acknowledged that he faces an uphill campaign toward November. He’s received little media attention to date, his competitors have raised significantly more money for advertising, and he’s on pace to finish with less than 1% of the vote in this month’s primary election.

Still, he said, it’s important for him to not only run but also be considered a candidate on the level of the Republicans and Democrat who also are finishing in the top four.

“I’m just a fishing guide, but if we don’t have normal people in there, Alaskans are stuck with the status quo,” he said. “And the status quo so far has failed us, failed miserably.”

A former senior level employee at Juneau’s hospital was arrested early Thursday evening for allegedly stealing $108,000 from the medical institution. Bradley Grigg, former chief behavioral health officer at Bartlett Regional Hospital, was indicted in Juneau Superior Court on Thursday on two counts of theft in the first degree.

Bartlett Regional Hospital is owned by the City and Borough of Juneau, which conducted an internal investigation that ultimately led to Thursday’s indictment.

“We became aware of this particular issue and problem through our internal whistleblowing process, and we’re grateful to the employees that raised those concerns,” said Robert Barr, the deputy city manager.

Barr did not say when the internal investigation took place or how it was conducted.

“It was a fairly lengthy investigation, and we provided the details and the results of that investigation to the district attorney for their use in the current active criminal case,” he said.

Barr said no other hospital employee was involved in the alleged theft.

The city has since put additional expenditure checks and balances into place at Bartlett. The hospital’s interim chief financial officer Bob Tyk is overseeing the changes.

“Examples of that sort of thing include that Mr. Tyk himself personally now reviews all credit card expenditures on a monthly basis and has put in a more robust process for the use of purchase orders as opposed to the use of credit cards,” Barr said.

Barr would not say more on Grigg’s arrest: “We are sensitive to the fact that it is an ongoing, active criminal case.”

Grigg left as part of a senior leadership shakeup at Juneau’s hospital that began in September 2021. The chief executive officer at the time, Rose Lawhorne, was fired after just six months in the position for having a relationship with a subordinate, as reported by KTOO. On the same day, Grigg also resigned.

More senior leadership members either resigned or left the hospital this past January. At that time, the city said Grigg’s expense reports were part of a criminal investigation.

Grigg was chief behavioral health officer at Bartlett for four years. Prior to that, Grigg was executive director for Juneau Youth Services for one year. According to KTOO, he left the nonprofit “under unclear circumstances.”

Grigg has also previously worked for the state’s Division of Behavioral Health for more than eight years and Juneau Alliance for Mental Health, Inc. for two years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

University of Alaska administration did not accept the latest proposed contract from its faculty union during a federal mediation session on Monday. Instead, it responded with another offer, which is confidential.

University associate vice president of public affairs Robbie Graham, speaking on behalf of the administration, said the administration and faculty union United Academics have been presenting package proposals, which are accepted in total or not at all.

“There were many elements in the most recent [United Academics] proposal that we agreed with, but we didn’t find the package entirely acceptable. So while we were unable to accept the union’s package in this ‘all or nothing’ format, our team did respond to it,” Graham said.

“Our team has been and will continue to work toward solving the remaining issues. We’ve already resolved 14 of them, and there is a genuine sentiment that an agreement is close,” she added.

Abel Bult-Ito called the administration’s rejection “very disappointing.” Bult-Ito is professor of neurobiology and neurophysiology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and president of the faculty union.

With the federal mediation sessions confidential, neither party could say what the sticking points were – whether it was the union’s proposal to receive any salary increases paid to other employee groups, the items that don’t deal with money, or other issues.

In the union’s latest contract proposal, the union made a concession by accepting the administration’s compensation offer. The administration’s original “best and final offer” included increases of 3%, 2.5% and 2% over three years. After further federal mediation, the administration upped the increases slightly in mid-July to 3%, 2.75% and 2.5%.

The union originally asked for salary increases of 5%, between 3% and 7%, and between 3% and 6% over three years, with the latter two years’ increases determined by the consumer price index. The union has said it wanted to see real cost of living adjustments that match inflation.

Still, it conceded at the end of July, accepting the administration’s salary offer in its new contract proposal. There was a caveat though: Any future, higher raises given to other employee groups will also be given to United Academics faculty.

Union members have received one 1% increase over the past six years.

What was still on the table going into the Aug. 22 mediation session were issues regarding disciplinary procedures, academic freedom issues and inclusion of all bargaining unit members in all elements of the contract.

“Everything is still on the table”

Contraction negotiations are poised to enter its second year with more mediation sessions scheduled for Aug. 31, Sept. 1, 19 and 28. In an update to its roughly 1,000 members, United Academics said it would continue to work on members’ behalf “towards a fair and equitable agreement.”

Even with the next federal meeting scheduled for Aug. 31, Bult-Ito said, “everything is still on the table,” options like filing a complaint against the administration of unfair labor practices with the Alaska Labor Relations Agency. Striking is another possible avenue.

“That’s our last resort because it’s going to harm our students. So, it certainly is on the table, but we’re trying to avoid it,” Bult-Ito said.

In an Aug. 22 letter to the UA community after mediation that day concluded, university President Pat Pitney wrote, “We are committed to a positive outcome and to ensuring that the needs of both the university and the faculty are addressed in the final contract.”

This is the second week faculty have been on contract as they prepare to welcome students into the classroom next week. Bult-Ito, who’s teaching two courses this semester, is looking forward to it.

“Teaching is my highlight of my job,” he said.

Even though morale among faculty is low, Bult-Ito said he won’t be bringing that energy into the classroom.

“My students will not know that we are in a difficult position because students come first. Students will not know in my day-to-day interaction with them that anything is wrong. I will always smile. I will always be available. I’ll always help them,” he said.

Classes start Aug. 29.

At least 26,400 votes are still left to be counted in the Aug. 16 election in Alaska. Democrat Mary Peltola currently leads the special general election race to fill the remainder of the late Congressman Don Young’s term with about 38% of the votes counted so far ranking her first. The remaining more than 60% of votes are mostly split between two Republican candidates.

Whoever comes in third place in this race will be eliminated first under the state’s new ranked choice voting system. While it remains to be seen how the uncounted votes might shape final results, it’s highly unlikely third-place finisher Republican Nick Begich will overtake former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for second place. But how his voters completed the rest of the ballot could determine the winner.

Of the absentee votes that have come in and been counted, about 44% of them ranked Peltola in first place, said Robert Hockema, a political organizer, data analyst and campaign manager for Cliff Groh for state House. Hockema predicts that trend will continue.

“I think that a lot of the districts that we have coming in with their absentee votes are going to lean overwhelmingly towards Peltola. I think the special primary from June – and just the general electorate that we have to deal with – definitely shows that the absentee ballots are going to be overwhelmingly favorable to Peltola,” he said.

Current second-place finisher Palin has so far received about 29% of the absentee votes that have been counted and Begich 26.5%. Begich would need to get about 37 percent of the remaining ballots to overtake Palin, which Hockema said is exceedingly unlikely.

“Palin would have to only be winning 18% of the remaining ballots. Unless Palin just gets obliterated in some landslide in these districts in a way that she didn’t in the June primary, I don’t see Begich winning 37% of the remaining ballots. That’s a pretty slim possibility,” he said.

Begich optimistic that distance from Palin will tighten up

Begich said Friday he’s optimistic about how the remaining votes will impact how he finishes. He said his campaign made an effort to reach early and absentee voters.

“We remain optimistic that we’re going to see things tighten up. How far they tighten, we’ll just have to wait and see,” Begich said.

His campaign’s main focus is on the November general election.

“The vote that’s out there has already been voted, right? There’s nothing that we can do to change what’s already out there. So, just like everyone else, we’re waiting to see how the returns come in, and clearly remain hopeful. But our focus is on November,” Begich said.

If Begich remains in third place, as is expected, who wins the race will come down to who Begich supporters ranked second. It’s anybody’s guess, he said, adding that he made his second choice clear.

“I was asked many times who I would put second and I made clear I would put Palin second on my ballot. The other two candidates did not, at any point to my knowledge, make clear who they would put second if they would put anyone second at all,” Begich said.

Hockema said that doesn’t match the toxic campaign environment. He said both Begich and Palin ran negative campaigns against each other, which didn’t benefit Begich.

“I think he’s retroactively being generous to Sarah,” Hockema said.

Ballot exhaustion

What’s going to decide the race for Peltola, Hockema said, is the issue of ballot exhaustion, or bullet voting. That’s when voters don’t rank their ballot completely; for instance, only filling in the bubble next to one name and not ranking anyone else. Those ballots are not counted towards the final total once their preferred candidate gets eliminated.

On average, 30% of ballots in ranked choice voting elections nationwide are exhausted, Hockema said. On the lower end, around 15% of ballots were exhausted in the New York mayoral primary.

“So somewhere between maybe 15 and 30% of Nick Begich’s voters are not going to get transferred to Palin. Maybe they will,” Hockema said, “but I think a lot of people are just going to not rank the second Republican because the energy between the campaigns is really, really bad.”

The Palin campaign did not reply to interview requests.

What Peltola’s campaign wants to see

Within the more than 26,000 votes still left to be counted, Peltola’s campaign wants to see the Democrat increase her lead.

“The benchmark that I’ve been working on is, if we can hit 40% that really puts us in a good position for the next round of ranked choice voting,” said Burke Croft, data manager at Ship Creek Group, which is a contractor for the Peltola campaign. “We’re hoping to make sure we have a strong enough lead to be able to win when Begich’s votes get recycled to stay in that lead.”

Croft said with absentee votes skewing progressive, Peltola has a good shot of hitting 40%.

“If Peltola doesn’t get 40%, there’s still a chance that with Begich-Peltola votes or people who only ranked Begich, Peltola could still end up winning the race,” Croft said.

The Division of Elections said the next results update will be on Tuesday. The ranked choice voting tabulation is not happening until Aug. 31, when final results will be available.

Young Alaskans seeking to break into commercial fishing face a lot of the same barriers that confront young farmers in the Lower 48 states, but they have far fewer resources to help overcome those barriers, according to newly published research.

A study by Alaska experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration argues that the fishing industry and the communities that depend on fishing should have support similar to that offered to young farmers.

“The sheer scale, depth, and breadth of programming for beginning farmers makes the comparison to new fisheries entrant programs stark. Yet the lack of a new generation of fishermen poses similar risks to national food security and should be treated with similar urgency,” said the study, published in the Journal of Rural Studies.

The aging of Alaska’s commercial fishing workforce has been a concern for several years. The phenomenon is widespread enough that there is a catchphrase for it: the “graying of the fleet.”

Other coastal states also have problems with an aging fisheries workforce, but the issue is accentuated in Alaska because of the importance of the size and importance of the industry here, said Marysia Szymkowiak of NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, one of the two authors.

“Seafood is our number one private sector employer in Alaska, that makes the potential lack of generational turnover a very big deal for our State,” Szymkowiak said by email. There is actually an ongoing bump in young people entering the fishing business in Alaska, but because of high costs, “they need help to diversify, scale up, and be able to succeed, which is why we wrote this paper. That kind of help exists for farmers and has for a long time. Let’s take that example and help our young fishermen in a similar fashion,” she said.

There is a long list of farming-assistance programs that could be used as models for assisting young fishermen, she said.

For example, there are 349 training programs across the nation to help young farmers enter or thrive in agriculture, but only 14 such training programs in the nation to help young fishermen, the study noted.

The money gap is also huge. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2021 provided $17.5 million for its Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program and $7.2 billion in Farm Service Administration ownership and operations loans, NOAA provided $2 million in funds through the Young Fishermen’s Development Act, a bill sponsored by the late Rep. Don Young of Alaska, and $124 million in its fisheries finance loan program.

The study offers policy recommendations for easing younger people’s participation in commercial fisheries. Those include a national census for fisheries participation, such as that which exists for famers; development of a targeted program similar to the Department of Agriculture’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program; expanded availability of insurance programs; and development of comprehensive low-interest loan programs similar to those provided by the Farm Service Agency.

Within Alaska, difficulties encountered by young fishermen have been attributed in part to changes in fishery management.

A 2017 report by Alaska Sea Grant, a statewide education and research program headquartered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, traced the increase in problems to the transitions of several Alaska fisheries from being open-access harvests, in which anyone could participate, to limited-entry harvests in which participants were required to hold quotas. That report, titled “Turning the Tide,” described both an increase in the average age of quota- and permit-holding fishermen and a decrease in the percentage of those quotas or permits that were held locally.

In 1975, according to the report, fishermen 40 and younger held about half of rural local permits, the report said. By 2016, the typical Alaska fisherman was over 50 years old, and the number of locally held commercial fishing permits in rural areas had dropped by over 30%, according to the report.

Alaska Sea Grant has programs that seek to help younger fishermen. For example, the organization hosts an annual Alaska Young Fishermen’s Summit.

More than lack of money or difficulties with management systems inhibit fisheries participation by younger entrants, Szymkowiak said.

She has heard from many older fishermen who say they are discouraging their children from carrying on in the industry because of a transforming ecosystem.

“They don’t see the same future in it that they were afforded. That’s not just about permit prices and the costs of fishing more generally but the unknowns posed by climate change which has really started to take its toll across Alaska’s fisheries,” she said.

A policy response would be to help young fishermen diversify their harvests, have shifting marketing strategies and be otherwise nimble “so that they don’t go belly up when the one fishery they depend on has a bad year or several bad years.”

With another federal mediation session scheduled for Monday, the University of Alaska faculty union is hopeful it will come to an agreement with the university administration on a new contract. That’s after a year of negotiations and the union agreeing to the administration’s latest compensation offer, which is significantly below what the union originally asked for.

“We have made incredible concessions to make this work,” said Abel Bult-Ito, president of the faculty union United Academics and professor of neurobiology and neurophysiology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“We’re all better off if we have a joint agreement than one that is imposed,” Bult-Ito said.

The union originally asked for salary increases of 5%, between 3% and 7%, and between 3% and 6% over three years, with the latter two years’ increases determined by the consumer price index. The union has said it wanted to see real cost of living adjustments that match inflation. Over the past six years, the roughly 1,000 members of United Academics have received one 1% increase.

In May, the administration said an impasse had been reached and unilaterally implemented what it calls its “best and final offer,” including increases of 3%, 2.5% and 2% over three years. The administration said it was a last-minute attempt to get it in the state budget before the Legislature adjourned, though it didn’t work. The Legislature did not approve funding the unilaterally implemented contract.

The two parties continued to meet in federal mediation and, in mid-July, the administration upped the increases to 3%, 2.75% and 2.5%.

At the end of July, the union conceded, accepting the monetary offer in its new contract proposal, but with a caveat. Any future, higher raises given to other employee groups will also be given to United Academics faculty.

The union, in a recent update to its members, calls the clause “essential to this potential deal and would ensure equal treatment of all employee groups.”

The clause is important, said Bult-Ito, “because we don’t trust the university administration. They may lowball us and give non-represented employees higher rates above our union.”

Bult-Ito said that hasn’t happened before, “but this administration is especially hostile to the faculty and to the union. There’s no trust, that’s for sure.”

What’s left on the table

With the monetary piece agreed upon, what’s left on the table are non-monetary issues regarding disciplinary procedures, academic freedom issues and inclusion of all bargaining unit members in all elements of the contract.

The union wants the administration to accept its proposal at the upcoming Aug. 22 federal mediation meeting.

“I’m hopeful that they will agree. Is there a chance they won’t? Absolutely,” said Bult-Ito.

The administration plans to respond to the proposal, said Robbie Graham, university associate vice president of public affairs. She spoke on behalf of the administration.

“Our team has been working on a response to the union proposal and will be back at the bargaining table ready to find solutions to the few remaining issues. We’re confident that an agreement is possible, and are focused on this outcome.”

If the two parties come to an agreement, several steps would still need to happen before a new contract is in place. The tentatively agreed contract would go to union members for ratification by vote. On the administration side, the university president and Board of Regents, as well as the Alaska Department of Administration, would need to approve the contract.

Then, according to Graham, “a supplemental request for back pay will be submitted to the legislature when it convenes in January. The legislature must appropriate the funds for all monetary terms, including back pay and pay increases, before they are paid. If appropriated, and not vetoed by the governor, then retro pay will be calculated and issued.”

If the two parties don’t come to an agreement, the union is exploring its options, including filing a complaint against the administration of unfair labor practices with the Alaska Labor Relations Agency

“They’ve violated state labor laws specifically related to unilateral declaration of impasse and then the illegal implementation of their last, best and final offer,” Bult-Ito said.

Graham said while the administration is focused on getting to an agreement, it is prepared for all contingencies.

Back on contract

University of Alaska faculty members returned to work earlier this week and are back on contract, though which contract – the one unilaterally implemented by the administration or the contract that’s been in place the past six years – is in dispute.

With instruction beginning Aug. 29, faculty are doing prep work, orientation with new students, research and meetings. Tony Rickard, professor of mathematics education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said morale among faculty and staff is “poor” and “getting worse.” Rickard used to also be chief negotiator for the union, but isn’t any longer due to his full-time professor duties and so few things left to negotiate.

He was one of 24 faculty members who submitted an opinion published in the Anchorage Daily News titled, “University of Alaska administration needs to come to terms with its faculty.”

It cited a faculty turnover rate of “10.8% compared to the national average of just over 8%” and said a “fair contract will help to retain and recruit faculty.”

“Faculty turnover creates instability and less opportunity for students and encourages them to leave Alaska to obtain a degree. Many students who leave never come back,” it said.

Rickard said the goal of the opinion was to let the public know the matter hasn’t been settled yet.

“The people who are supposed to be stewards of this important public institution in the state of Alaska, the University of Alaska, are still fiddling and dithering and have not been able to get their act together to come to an agreement with the faculty of the University of Alaska, even though classes start a week from Monday.”