Charlie Pierce, a Republican candidate for governor, at the Governor’s Debate on Resource Development on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. (Photo by Matt Faubion/Alaska Public Media)
Independent Bill Walker and Democrat Les Gara have called on their fellow gubernatorial candidate, Republican Charlie Pierce, to drop out of the race for governor following a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Pierce on Friday. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has encouraged voters to rank Pierce second in next month’s election as recently as last week, has not condemned Pierce because he says he is “waiting for more facts to emerge.”
Meanwhile, Pierce’s running mate Edie Grunwald dropped out of the race Tuesday afternoon citing concerns about the sexual harassment suit, and threw her support behind Dunleavy. Pierce told public radio station KDLL that he is not dropping out.
Pierce placed a distant fourth in the primary for Alaska governor in August. In Alaska’s first ranked-choice election for governor, candidates have encouraged their supporters to rank like-minded candidates as their second pick. Dunleavy and Pierce have done that for each other.
In a series of statements this week, Dunleavy has not withdrawn that support. Instead, he said “it would be inappropriate and unfair to all parties involved to make any snap judgments or draw any conclusions from a complaint filed just days ago.”
On Friday, Pierce’s former executive assistant Pamela Wastell filed a lawsuit against Pierce and the Kenai Peninsula Borough alleging “constant unwanted physical touching, sexual remarks, and sexual advances” while Pierce was borough mayor. Before the lawsuit, in July, the borough received a report revealing that Pierce was the subject of a “credible” workplace harassment complaint.
Dunleavy campaign spokesman Andrew Jensen said the governor’s response this week is “neither an endorsement of Mr. Pierce nor a dismissal of the merits of the recent lawsuit.”
In another statement late Tuesday, Jensen wrote Grunwald’s exit means Dunleavy and his running mate Nancy Dahlstrom are “the only viable ticket for voters to choose from.”
Walker and Gara were quick to call on Pierce to drop out of the race and criticized Dunleavy’s middling response. Gara said Dunleavy shouldn’t need more proof to withdraw his support.
“You can’t come any closer to knowing this is a legitimate sexual harassment claim than the city’s own attorney saying that the claims are credible,” Gara said. “So I don’t think the governor can hide behind this argument that he doesn’t know what happened.”
Walker said he was surprised Dunleavy hadn’t distanced himself further from Pierce.
“When you’re in a position of power, I think you need to make sure that you’re taking the high road on these things and sending a message,” Walker said. “We’re number one in the nation on domestic violence and sexual assault. I think you need to lead by example.”
During the 2018 election, Walker’s Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott abruptly resigned after he propositioned a woman in an Anchorage hotel. Walker announced Mallott’s resignation the day after Walker said he learned of the incident. Three days later, Walker suspended his campaign, less than three weeks before Election Day.
The candidate withdrawal deadline was almost two months ago. If Pierce drops out, his name will still be on the November ballot.
Charlie Pierce is one of two Republicans running for Alaska governor. (Elyssa Loughlin/Alaska Public Media)
The running mate of Republican governor candidate and former Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce has dropped out of the race — four days after Pierce was sued by a former assistant for sexual harassment.
Edie Grunwald’s name will still appear as a candidate for lieutenant governor, on the ballot next to Pierce’s, since the deadline to drop out of the race has passed. Pierce said in a text message Tuesday that he’s staying in the race.
But Grunwald said she decided that she’s no longer running alongside him.
“My withdrawing is not a reflection of guilt or innocence,” she said. “I really just have to just stand up for the general idea of respectful treatment of women in the workplace.”
Grunwald said she’s encouraging people to vote for incumbent Republican Gov. Dunleavy.
Her decision comes after Pierce’s former executive assistant sued him for sexual harassment, and more than a month after the Kenai Peninsula Borough publicly confirmed for the first time there were “credible” workplace harassment claims made against Pierce. In the lawsuit, the assistant, Pamela Wastell, alleges the harassment from Pierce was “constant” over the year and a half she worked in his office.
Wastell also sued the Kenai Peninsula Borough, since she said there were not sufficient reporting procedures in place for Wastell and other employees to make harassment claims. Attorneys for Pierce and the borough both have declined to comment on the case.
Grunwald lives in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and ran as Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in 2018. She was picked to be chair of the Alaska Parole Board by Dunleavy in 2019 and has been a victims’ rights advocate since her 16-year-old son was kidnapped and killed in Palmer in 2016.
Grunwald said she’s not calling for Pierce to drop out and still believes he’s done a lot to protect Alaskans’ freedoms.
“That’s a decision he’ll have to make,” she said. “But for me, given the content of the report, let the courts work that out. And it’s just a general statement from me that I support the respectful treatment of women.”
Dunleavy, for his part, has previously encouraged his own supporters to rank Pierce and Grunwald second on their ballots. In an email Monday , a spokesperson said the governor would not make any “snap judgments or draw any conclusions from a complaint filed just days ago.” Other current and former candidates for governor have called for Pierce to drop out.
Grunwald said she has no direct knowledge of the instances alleged in the suit. She says she hasn’t been a target of inappropriate behavior from Pierce on the campaign trail.
“98% of his time he’s been with his wife. And the times he hasn’t been, there’s always been other people. And his behavior has always been respectful,” she said.
Pierce has previously declined to answer reporters’ questions about the allegations. In response to request for comment on Tuesday, he said by text: “I am not dropping out of the race and continue to look forward to the November 8th election.”
Absentee ballots have already been mailed out and early voting started Monday, statewide.
Alaska gubernatorial candidate Charlie Pierce, former mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, at a debate in the Egan Center in Anchorage on Oct. 11. (Photo by Bill Roth/ADN)
In a lawsuit filed Friday, a former executive assistant to Alaska gubernatorial candidate Charlie Pierce said Pierce sexually harassed her when he was Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor.
The complaint, filed in state court by Kenai resident Pamela Wastell, accuses Pierce of “constant unwanted physical touching, sexual remarks, and sexual advances” and says the borough government failed to protect her. The 19-page filing names Pierce and the borough as defendants and claims the borough provided no way to report harassment or discrimination without fear of reprisal.
Wastell worked as an executive assistant to Pierce including in 2021 and the first six months of 2022, according to the lawsuit.
Pierce is one of four candidates for governor, and one of two Republicans, to advance to the Nov. 8 general election under Alaska’s new voting system. Gov. Mike Dunleavy has urged voters to rank the fellow Republican second on ballots in the state’s new ranked choice voting system.
Pierce had one year left in his term as borough mayor when he announced his resignation on Aug. 26. He said at the time that he was leaving the job to focus on campaigning for governor.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly later revealed that Pierce had been the subject of a “credible” harassment complaint made in July, and had been asked to consider resigning. But the identity of the employee who made the complaint and the details of the alleged harassment were not made public until the lawsuit Friday.
Pierce did not respond to emailed questions about the lawsuit and Wastell’s accusations, and later referred questions to his attorney. The attorney whom Pierce told a reporter to contact, Richard Moses, said he could not comment until he had had time to review the complaint.
All four candidates for governor attended a forum Saturday at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage, where the subject of the lawsuit did not come up during the debate. Afterward, Pierce again declined to answer questions.
“I have no comments about future litigation,” he said.
Kenai Peninsula Borough attorney Sean Kelley wrote in an email Friday that he had not been served with the lawsuit yet and therefore could not comment.
In a state with the highest rate of sexual assault in the nation, several Alaska political leaders have resigned in recent years following accusations of inappropriate interactions with women, sexual harassment or worse.
Former Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott resigned in 2018 after a woman said he propositioned her at an Anchorage hotel. Former Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz resigned in 2020 after admitting to an “inappropriate messaging relationship” with a television news reporter. Attorney General Kevin Clarkson quit the same year after a Daily News and ProPublica investigation found he had sent hundreds of inappropriate text messages to a state employee. The attorney general appointee to replace Clarkson, Ed Sniffen, resigned six months later after a woman said he had sex with her when she was 17 and he was a coach for her high school mock trial team. A grand jury in September indicted Sniffen, who has denied any wrongdoing, on charges of sexual abuse of a minor.
The lawsuit by Wastell says the Kenai Peninsula Borough failed to protect employees from a pattern of harassment.
“When an elected official abuses their power and position to sexually harass public servants, they must be held accountable,” Wastell’s attorney said in an email.
It marks at least the third time the borough has faced legal fees or settlements over complaints involving Pierce. Two prior cases prompted the borough to pay former employees a combined $267,000 in settlements.
Those settlements did not involve sexual harassment, although Friday’s lawsuit suggests that if the new case goes to trial, additional borough employees might be called to testify about alleged sexual harassment by Pierce.
“KPB knew or should have known that Pierce was a sexual harasser and bully,” the lawsuit says. “Prior to Wastell’s constructive discharge, KPB, through Pierce, subjected at least four other employees to discrimination, bullying, harassment, retaliation, and/or termination.”
In the lawsuit, Wastell accuses Pierce of:
• Touching her breast.
• Sexual remarks.
• “False imprisonment in his private office.”
• Unwanted and unsolicited embraces and massages.
• Kissing her neck and face.
• Asking questions about the details of her sex life.
• Telling her that only he alone could fire her within the borough and that she would not want to say no to him.
After being largely absent from the campaign trail since the August primary, Pierce has been actively campaigning in recent days, including an appearance in a statewide televised debate Wednesday.
Wastell refused an interview request through her attorney, Caitlin Shortell. Neither Shortell nor the Kenai Peninsula Borough attorney would say how much the borough offered Wastell in any proposed settlements.
Previous complaints
Pierce is a former manager for Enstar Natural Gas who served on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly before his election as mayor in 2017. (Wastell has worked for the borough since 2013, according to the lawsuit.)
In 2019, the borough’s former human resources director, Sandra “Stormy” Brown, filed a lawsuit accusing the borough and Pierce of gender discrimination, disability discrimination and creating a hostile work environment. Brown said in the lawsuit that Pierce fired her after she told him she had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.
Through mediation, the borough agreed to pay Brown $150,000 to settle the case. Of that amount, $15,000 was paid for lost wages and $135,000 was paid for “emotional distress damages,” according to mediation records obtained through a public records request.
The borough agreed to pay $117,000 to settle a Dec. 15, 2021, complaint from a subsequent human resources director. In exchange, the employee agreed he would not “make any further allegations of ‘illegal acts’ by Mayor Pierce” and would “withdraw and rescind any allegations of bullying.”
Wastell, who by then was working directly for Mayor Pierce, served as the notary for the agreement.
Calls for Pierce to drop out of race
Pierce entered the governor’s race the following month. According to the lawsuit, he increased the intensity and frequency of sexual harassment throughout the first half of 2022.
The complaint alleges that two other female borough employees were sexually harassed, including one who reported harassment to the borough attorney, Kelley.
Wastell made a complaint against Pierce on July 11. The borough placed her on paid administrative leave and hired a law firm to look into the allegations. On Sept. 1, the fifth-place finisher in the primary election, Rep. Christopher Kurka, R-Wasilla, called on Pierce to drop out of the race and allow him to take his place on the ballot.
“If Charlie doesn’t intend to run a serious campaign, he still has time to honor the wishes of his supporters who want a conservative alternative to Dunleavy,” Kurka said in a statement emailed by his campaign.
The deadline to withdraw passed, and Pierce stayed in the race and on the ballot.
A spokesman for Dunleavy, Andrew Jensen, did not respond to emailed and texted questions about whether the lawsuit Friday impacted the governor’s endorsement of Pierce as second choice on the ballot. When a Daily News reporter approached him after the AFN forum on Saturday, Dunleavy stopped talking to bystanders and walked out an exit. Jensen later wrote in a Tweet that by the time the reporter approached, Dunleavy had already finished speaking to everyone who had been waiting to speak with him. Another member of his staff said the governor was too busy to talk to a reporter.
The lawsuit says that the borough has urged Wastell — who has been on paid administrative leave since making a report of sexual harassment in July — to return to work. On Wednesday, Wastell received a notice telling her that if she did not soon return, the borough would “sever the employment relationship due to a refusal to work.”
Shortell said that returning to the office wasn’t an option.
“The borough has not made the workplace safe,” she said. “They have not implemented processes that would make employees, including Ms. Wastell, safe in the future from retaliation, bullying and other harassment.”
Daily News reporter Iris Samuels contributed to this article.
Shelter Supervisor Forrest Clough, Youth Services Manager Jorden Nigro, and Youth Action Board Member Tiana at Shéiyi X̱aat Hít Youth Shelter. Oct. 14, 2022. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
For two long years, there was no dedicated shelter for young people in Juneau who needed a safe place to sleep. But last July, Shéiyi X̱aat Hít, or Spruce Root House, opened. In partnership with Tlingit and Haida Regional Housing Authority, the city designed the shelter with input from youth who had direct experience with homelessness.
In the fifteen months since the shelter opened, Jorden Nigro says dozens of individuals have been helped. If you multiply the number of individuals by the number of nights spent at Shéiyi X̱aat Hít, it’s around 1,600.
Nigro is the youth services manager for Juneau Parks and Recreation, and she runs the Zach Gordon Youth Center and Shéiyi X̱aat Hít Youth Shelter.
“I’ve known kids who have traded, you know, sexual favors for places to stay, who have been exposed to things that they really should not have been exposed to, in order to have a place to stay,” Nigro said. “So yeah, there’s some real sad stuff that will happen when there aren’t places like this for kids to go.”
The kids use the shelter for a few different reasons, Nigro said.
“For the most part, our youth who are coming into the shelter have either run away from home or threatened to run away from home, or they are living at home in an unsafe situation,” she said. “And they come in because of abuse or neglect.”
The average time spent per youth at the shelter is about 13 days.
A large part of the role of the staff of Shéiyi X̱aat Hít is to work on family mediation, Nigro said. So far, more than 90% of the youth who have used the shelter have gone on to a safe and stable place.
“And we do these exit surveys when kids leave and ask them a bunch of questions, but one of the things is like, ‘Would you recommend this to a friend?’” she said. “And 100% of the youth have said ‘yes.’”
Before Shéiyi X̱aat Hít opened, Tiana struggled to find a safe place to stay, when her family home wasn’t safe. KTOO isn’t using her last name due to the stigma attached to homelessness.
She’s 19 now and has her own apartment. She joined the city’s Youth Action Board in 2020, where she has been sharing her ideas about what would help kids who are in situations similar to hers growing up.
The board meets weekly and is open to any youth who want to give input.
One thing that was important to her when designing the youth shelter was that each person should have their own room.
“Maybe if I was in this situation, which I was,” Tiana said. “I wouldn’t want to do that with somebody else, I would want to have the privacy of being able to be alone and sit in my room.”
Another project she pushed for on the Youth Action Board was a place for people aged 18 to 20. So the shelter also hosts transitional housing, a four-room apartment, which is currently rent-free.
Eleven people have used the apartment since the shelter opened. Usually, people stay there for about two or three months, says Nigro.
Shéiyi X̱aat Hít Youth Shelter is more than a place to stay for a while. Nigro said the staff work to foster community with youth by cooking and eating together, encouraging “normal” daily routines, and having downtime when youth can watch TV and play games together.
Nigro said about half of the youth at Shéiyi X̱aat Hít are LGBTQ+ identifying, and a quarter of them are transgender.
This is consistent with national trends: 28% of LGBTQ+ youth experience housing insecurity or homelessness. But having at least one supportive adult in their life decreases their chance of attempting suicide by 40%.
Tiana says that the adults at Shéiyi X̱aat Hít and Zach Gorden were a lifesaver for her, too.
“I know there’s a lot of kids out there who grew up, or is growing up right now that don’t have a safe place to go and don’t have people to turn to. And that was me,” Tiana said. “And these people are the people that I learned how to turn to, so being involved in this has changed my life for the better.”
Nigro says she wants more people to know about Shéiyi X̱aat Hít, so any youth who find themselves in an unstable housing situation know where they can go.
Correction: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect age range for people eligible to stay in the apartment. It serves ages 18-20.
David Abad demonstrates pod mapping inside Black Moon Koven in Juneau on Oct. 13, 2022. (Photo courtesy of David Abad)
A workshop in Juneau later this month will help LGBTQ+ people learn an intentional approach to getting the support they need.
The strategy is called “pod mapping.” It involves visually drawing out your community so you’ll know where to go for different needs.
Organizer David Abad works for AWARE, Juneau’s domestic violence support organization. He says approaches like pod mapping can help in moments of crisis.
“When I’m experiencing trauma, or when I’m experiencing anything, who do I turn to?” he said. “And I just wanted to see who I turned to.”
AWARE is hosting the workshop with the National Alliance on Mental Illness Juneau. While Abad works in violence prevention, he says the workshop will address harm reduction, too. In other words, when something does happen, it’s important to know who you can turn to for help.
Abad says a pod — pod as in community — map can have friends, family or more official resources.
“Another aspect of this workshop is to identify local resources and or national resources, if that’s more comfortable,” he said.
But those resources may not be accessible for everyone in Juneau.
“Maybe it’s, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go to this local resource. I’ve done it, I’ve gone to it, it’s not a resource. I don’t feel safe,’” he said.
And for some people in Juneau, Abad says it can be hard to find the right resources at all.
“Juneau can sometimes be pretty limiting, and it gets compounded with other things,” he said. “Maybe they’re queer friendly, but they’re not maybe POC friendly. And then having those multiple identities can maybe impact someone’s experiences. ”
Abad says this pod mapping can help fill those gaps by giving a clearer sense of who in your community you can go to for support, before it’s needed.
The Mapping and Building Intentional Support Systems Workshop is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Oct. 25 at the Douglas Library.
A mother and son hold up a sign for Orange Shirt Day in front of a former Bureau of Indian Affairs school on Douglas Island, on Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021, in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/KTOO)
Friday is a day of remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools in the U.S. and Canada, also known as Orange Shirt Day. The day of reconciliation was created by Phyllis Webstad, a boarding school survivor in British Columbia who had her favorite orange shirt taken away on the first day of school.
There were dozens of residential schools across Alaska. Generations of Alaska Native children were also taken from their homelands to attend boarding schools in other parts of the country.
There are a number of events happening around the state to bring attention to the damage these schools did to Indigenous children, and to offer a way to honor victims and begin healing.
“Many people live here on Lingít Aani and don’t know the history of cultural genocide that has happened on this land, as well as the ways in which racism continues to impact families today,” Ati Nasiah said on Juneau Afternoon Tuesday. Nasiah works at AWARE – Juneau’s domestic violence and survivor support organization.
In Anchorage and Juneau, people will wear orange shirts and gather during morning commute times on Friday to wave at drivers and hold signs.
Nasiah said it’s a history that many Alaskans are completely unaware of.
“Understanding what’s happened here and understanding that history allows for us to strive to tend well to the landscape that we live in,” she said. “And to each other in a way that encourages us to support things like native language revitalization.”
In the evening, there will be a formal apology prepared by the Alaska Quakers at Sayéik Gastineau School in Juneau – the site of the former Douglas Island Friends Mission School, which forcibly assimilated Lingít children.
In May of this year, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland released the first report from an investigation into the problematic legacy of federal Indian boarding schools.
