by Cook Inletkeeper | Feb 20, 2019 | Civics, Clean Water, Government
BACKGROUND: In January 2019, Governor Dunleavy lopped-off $20 million in education funding in the state’s supplemental budget – an amount approved through bipartisan negotiations in the Alaska House and Senate last year, and money school districts relied on in...
by Cook Inletkeeper | Feb 5, 2019 | Clean Water
Few people noticed a recent op-ed by a guy named Rick Whitbeck, who holds himself out as the Alaska Director for a group he calls Power the Future. The piece was unremarkable for the most part, but it caught my eye for its unhinged and juvenile attacks on anyone who...
by Cook Inletkeeper | Jan 11, 2019 | Clean Water, Healthy Habitat, Pebble Mine, Salmon
I attended a presentation this week in Homer by Mark Hamilton, Vice President of External Affairs and mouthpiece for the Pebble mine, and it was remarkable on a couple fronts. First, the tone. Hamilton spoke down to the crowd like a seasoned used car salesman,...
by Cook Inletkeeper | Oct 23, 2018 | Clean Water, Healthy Habitat, Salmon
I spent 38 yrs. managing fisheries from California to the Arctic, and I support Ballot Measure 1. My career included: Salmonid (salmon, steelhead, trout) management as a Pacific and North Pacific Fishery Management Council member; developing amendments to the Forest...
by Cook Inletkeeper | Oct 2, 2018 | Clean Water, Healthy Habitat, Salmon
Desperate times call for desperate measures. What else could explain the choice of Randy Bates – former ADFG Habitat Division Director – as a prominent spokesman in folksy TV and video ads for the corporate campaign against Alaska salmon? Inletkeeper had a front...
by Cook Inletkeeper | Sep 11, 2018 | Clean Water, Climate Change, Energy & Alaska, Salmon
It’s no secret the corporate campaign against the Stand for Salmon ballot initiative has amassed more than $10 million to try to stop Alaskans from updating our 60-year-old, one-sentence-long salmon habitat law. But there’s a darker effort unfolding behind the scenes,...