Alaskans remember Valley legislator

PALMER — Carl Gatto’s colleagues in the Legislature took time to remember him this week after he passed away Tuesday.

Gatto was a native New Yorker who moved to Alaska in 1968 and, together with wife Cathy, raised four children here — Kip, Antonia, Samantha and Gabriel. Rep. Gatto died around 11:30 p.m., Alaska time in a Washington-state hospital after a 10-year battle with cancer. He was 74.

Chief of staff Karen Sawyer said she immediately notified Rep. Gatto’s colleagues on the floor of the House of Representatives and Rep. Bill Stoltze (R-Chugiak) made a formal announcement.

“I know those that talked to Carl knew he was at peace with his maker. We know about Carl’s spirituality. We know about his peace that he had with what he had faced since he began his service here. I would also like to extend our sympathies to his wife Cathy, who I am so grateful that he got to spend his last days with, and his two daughters and his son,” Stoltze said in an audio recording of that floor session.

Sen. Fred Dyson (R-Eagle River) made remarks to that body the next day.

“He was the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman’s Most Trusted Elected Official in 2006. That was probably well-earned, I never saw the guy cutting corners or misleading anybody,” Dyson said, before saying of Gatto’s fight with cancer that “he faced it with great grace and had no illusions about where it was going.”

Gatto was first elected to the Legislature in 2002, and in late February, he told the Frontiersman he would not seek re-election. Cancer factored into his decision, but was not the biggest factor. It was something he battled throughout his legislative career.

He missed part of this year’s session getting cancer treatments and his trip to Seattle wasn’t planned.

Sawyer said the reaction to the news of Gatto’s death Tuesday was swift.

“As soon as I told the speaker and they announced on the floor, it’s spread like wildfire,” she said by phone from Juneau Tuesday. “He was well-loved.”

Mat-Su Senior Services’ Rachel Greenberg said Gatto was a staunch supporter of the senior center.

“Ever since he got into office he’s just been a huge, huge supporter of ours,” she said. “And we’re big fans of his. It’s been a heartbreaking day today.”

She said seniors at the organization’s center in Palmer put together a photo album for his staffers to use as part of a retirement party they were planning.

“I’m hoping that he got a chance to see it before he passed away,” she said.

In Gatto’s first year in office, he secured a badly needed new oven for the center. He also was instrumental in securing funding to build the newly opened, larger senior center in Palmer. He’d stop by every other week when he wasn’t in Juneau.

The center even has a van with his name on it. The van was purchased in part with unexpended campaign cash Gatto was legally required to spend.

“He didn’t know what to do with it, so he gave it to us, and we named a van after him,” Greenberg said.

She said Gatto was worried about it though, because he said he wasn’t allowed to give money to have things named for him.

“We said, ‘Yeah, but if you give us the money and we decide to put the name on it, then they can’t be mad at us, right?’ He said, ‘OK, but I’m not supporting it.’”

Gatto’s Valley colleagues in the House — Stoltze, Mark Neuman of Big Lake, Wes Keller of Wasilla and Eric Feige of Chickaloon — released a joint statement expressing their condolences.

“We’ll miss his buoyant laugh, quick wit and common-sense approach to legislating. Carl worked tirelessly for the Valley and never once let his condition affect his work or efforts on behalf of the state and community he so loved,” their statement said, in part.

Over in the Senate, Linda Menard (R-Wasilla) said Gatto had an impressive career.

“He will be missed in these halls for his tenacity, but above all I feel at peace that he is void now of his pain and suffering,” Menard said in a prepared statement.

Sawyer said Gatto’s entry into politics coincided with her own. She’s been with him for three and a half years.

“It’s so hard to imagine that he’s not here,” she said.

According to Gatto’s resumé on his Republican Party webpage, he was born in New York City, went to college in Brooklyn, Arizona and California, and moved to Alaska in 1968. In various times and places he was an aircraft engineer and a school teacher. He was a paramedic and a firefighter with the Anchorage Fire Department before being elected to the House.

As for public service, the list is long. Gatto was a commander with the Civil Air Patrol, a Mat-Su Borough School District board member, a Road Service Area Supervisor, a member of the borough’s Parks and Recreation Board, a member of the post-secondary education commission and served on the Valley Hospital board of trustees.

“This man served his apprenticeship long before he ever got here,” Dyson said in his remarks.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.