It’s safe to say Mike Dunleavy is the least popular governor in state history, and for good reason.
He ran for office on a wave of dark money, with the phony promise every Alaskan would get a $6,700 PFD check. Then he locked arms with the billionaire Koch Brothers and their front group Americans for Prosperity to parade drastic budget cuts around the state – cuts to education, veterans, health care, ferries and other things he never mentioned at election time.
And with his highly partisan and ideological Attorney General, Dunleavy has wasted untold state dollars while taking aim at state employees, opponents of the Pebble mine and kids and teachers.
It’s no wonder the effort to recall Mike Dunleavy is only gathering steam.
But apparently the Governor simply cannot stop himself from poking a stick into the eye of everyday Alaskans.
Tomorrow (Dec. 5, 2019), the Alaska Department of Fish & Game will announce a rulemaking process to allow jetskis and other “thrillcraft” into the Kachemak Bay Critical Habitat Area. Alaskans went through a laborious public process to install the jetski ban in 2001 – and then reaffirmed it again in 2011 and 2016.
But this isn’t about the substance of the issue here – though jetskis and other thrillcraft have no place in a critical habitat area.
Instead, this is about basic, fair, public process. In an email obtained by Inletkeeper recently, ADFG staff writes the “governor’s office has decided to repeal the [personal watercraft] prohibition for Kachemak Bay.” (emphasis added).
So, before any public notice, before any public comments, before any public hearings, Mike Dunleavy has already decided what’s best for Alaskans. In other words, the public process that will unfold around jetskis in Kachemak Bay will be a farce, because Mike Dunleavy has a pre-determined outcome.
Is that good government?
Of course not. Mike Dunleavy is taking his marching orders from special interest groups who get access to the Governor’s office other Alaskans do not. But it’s still amazing in the swirl of a growing recall threat, Mike Dunleavy has decided, yet again, to throw Alaskans under the bus.
