An interview with Gov. Mike Dunleavy

WASILLA – Gov. Mike Dunleavy stopped by the Frontiersman offices on March 29 to discuss his budget with members of the Frontiersman editorial staff. Dunleavy was joined by Department of Revenue Commissioner Bruce Tangeman, Office of Management and Budget Director Donna Arduin, Communications Director Maryann Pruitt, Press Secretary Matt Shuckerow, Special Assistant to the Governor John Espindola and Attorney General Kevin Clarkson.

Jeremiah Bartz - Frontiersman Managing Editor

Obviously there's a lot of talk about cuts and PFD and what not, but what’s your vision for Alaska (for the next) four years? What’s kind of your vision?

Mike Dunleavy - Governor

So we get this budget under control that’s bedeviled us for the past several years, we get it under control. Our approach is reductions. The previous administration looked at taxes and the PFD and using savings. So the past four years we spent $14 billion out of savings to support this budget that can no longer be supported by the revenues it’s bringing in and so our approach was to stop the hemorrhaging out of savings. We still have $2 billion in the CBR. Hang on to that in case there’s emergencies like earthquakes, which of course happen, floods, fires etc. and close that budget gap through reductions. So once that’s done, the word I get, I was down in Houston about two weeks ago talking to investors. Once we get this budget under control, people can see how we’ve dealt with it and then investment looks like it will be coming off the sidelines to invest more in the slope. We talked to a whole bunch of folks in Houston. We do have investment from Conoco and others happening, but we could probably get a lot more after that. One of the primary focuses that I want to take on is reducing our electrical costs. We are awash in energy, yet we don’t receive a premium in terms of the people of Alaska, individuals getting cheap energy. Whether up in Fairbanks or out in rural Alaska or even here in the railbelt, we can drive down energy costs. If we can drive down electrical costs, I believe that given our prime location on the globe, we’ll be able to attract even more investment. That will bring more jobs to Alaska.

Bartz -

I’m curious about the discussions that you guys have had just about the pressure and the impact potentially on the municipalities because of the cuts.

Dunleavy -

There is impact and pressure on everyone. All aspects, all sectors of Alaska whether you are a municipality or an unorganized borough or the state itself, because the $1.6 billion deficit is of such magnitude it’s going to impact everybody. So there certainly could be impacts at the local level. I oftentimes believe that a lot of these issues are solved better at the local level. So there’s no doubt there’s going to be impacts across the board including municipalities.

Bartz -

Did you feel like that you had to be super aggressive when proposing these cuts?

Dunleavy -

I had to be super realistic. If it was a $1.6 billion deficit, we had to reduce $1.6 billion and so that’s how this budget was formed. We had only x amount of revenue and that’s, our revenue commissioners here and we had x amount of expenditures at the time and so in order to close that gap, we went through every department, every program, every service and that was what went into the budget but closing the gap was the most important thing.

Tim Rockey - Frontiersman Reporter

There were a couple of specific projects, one that was just mentioned by the Mat-Su Borough Assembly was a school bond debt reimbursement package that Mayor Halter said that you were on the board when it passed and then was repealed and he was particularly distraught, salty. He was kind of upset that that was being renegotiated and I was just wondering why, having such intimate knowledge of that program specifically, why did that end up on the chopping block?

Dunleavy -

Because again across the board it is of such magnitude that it is impacting everything we do and so in order to close that gap, we’re looking at a whole host of expenditures and outlays by the state and so we’re going to need help across the board. The entire state is, everyone is going to have to give a little to get a lot, which is finally a balanced budget. So this was not just focused on the Valley. This was not just focused on rural Alaska. All of these reductions impact the entire state in one way or another.

Dennis Anderson - Frontiersman Publisher

What Mayor Halter said was he was really disappointed and he felt like the state was reneging on the 70/30 on the bond issue. Can you comment on that?

Dunleavy -

Some have said that we are reneging on long time programs and long-term services, long time services. Again, running out of savings in 14 months, we’ll have nothing in the CBR at this rate of spend and so again this is the reason for the budget. This is the reason for the reductions. There’s, if the House and the Senate can come up with other ideas to reduce the budget, I don’t think they can, because we’re all facing the same deficit. We’re certainly eager to see what they come up with, but the long and the short of it is across the board we tried to, to some extent look at as many services and outlays as possible to see where we could reduce and pull back so that we can close this deficit and move forward. The issue is do you reduce or you tax or you take the PFD. Governor Walker was faced with this his first year and he decided to try and tax and taxes, the legislature was not in favor of supporting the taxes to cover this. So he had somewhat of a luxury of using savings. We’ve used $14 billion of that savings in four years and so we’re out of time and so again, this is not something that I or anyone else takes great joy in, but we’ve got to work across the board to get this thing under control.

Anderson -

How flexible will you be on the PFD payout if the legislature comes back with an alternative?

Dunleavy -

If the people of Alaska want to use their PFD to cover this deficit, I am perfectly fine with that, but I have always contended that the people of Alaska have to be part of this permanent fiscal plan by getting a vote on this. Whether it’s through a constitutional amendment change that no changes to the PFD without the people of Alaska, or at the very least an advisory vote. I keep hearing everyone saying, well not everyone let me rephrase that. I keep hearing some people say everyone is willing to use their PFD. Well if that’s the case, that’s great. Let’s send it out for an advisory vote and get that taken care of and behind us and the reason, the reason you want an advisory vote actually better, a chance to vote on a constitutional amendment is because we’re only one of 24 states in the country that have a repeal and initiative process embedded in its constitution. So if the people of Alaska don’t like what we’re doing on the front end with the budget, taking the PFD, trying to tax etc. they can repeal whatever we do on the back end and this has happened before. SB21 in 2014 was almost repealed. The people of Alaska opposed the cruise ship tax in 06. There’s a whole host of things that have happened over the last several decades in Alaska with regards to initiative and repeals, referendums. What I’m trying to do is get the people up front on board. So that if it is a ‘let’s use the PFD,’ fine. Do that through an advisory vote. If the majority of Alaskans want to do that, then we have a green light to use the PFD to support the budget. If not, then we also can engage them in taxes if they want to take a look at taxes, and if they don’t want to, we do this for the people of Alaska. We’re not doing this for the special interests or for the quote government or bureaucracy. We’re doing this for the people. Engage them now. See what they want, and if they want taxes, if they want to use the PFD, we’ll quickly implement that because that’s what the folks want. But what I’m getting and have gotten for some time is that they don’t want that. They want lower, they want reductions across the board in the budget.

Rockey -

How much is the red pen going to come out, and again we don’t know what the legislature’s going to do with your budget, but it looks like from what the House Finance Committee is doing already that they’re going to be putting a lot of stuff back in. How, can you give me any hint of how crucial are you going to be with the red pen?

Dunleavy -

If the legislature does not want to pass the three constitutional amendments that we put forward, to me that means they don't want to engage the people of Alaska. So then that leaves me little choice but to use the red pen.

Anderson -

You will use it?

Dunleavy -

If we don’t get constitutional amendments from the legislature to close this budget gap once and for all and keep it closed, and we don't get constitutional amendments that allow the people to vote on taxes and change to the PFD, there’s little choice left but to use the red pen.

Anderson -

So you, so when this pressure comes back to the municipalities, it really comes back to personal property owners and taxes to people who own properties. Do you think that’s fair for them. Everybody gets their PFD, and I’ve always said that cutting the PFD is an unfair flat tax on everybody. A state income tax that would be more fair with a little more to those who make a little bit more money and less to those who really can’t afford it, but do you believe that it’s fair for the property owners if they’re going to have to pony up for local services as opposed to the state through the PFD?

Dunleavy -

I think it’s unfair that the property owners will have to pony up for local services? I’m a property owner. I pay a hefty tax in the Borough as you know. I would like to see reductions and I would like to see the Borough as we go through this process, evaluate what is important. What’s an important service that impacts everyone and adjust accordingly. Just like the state has to adjust, but a $1.6 billion deficit again, it’s a mathematical issue and the question is, like you said Dennis, is it fair to take the PFD? Is it fair to impose a $1.6 billion tax on folks? We’ve done some preliminary estimates and we’ll have better information next week when an institute that we’re working with comes out with some information on taxes and tax behavior, but if you’re looking at lets say 300,000 people who are working individuals in the state of Alaska to close this $1.6 billion gap. That’s $5,000 on each individual that's working. That’s a $10,000 tax on a working couple. Some people might say that's not fair. It might precipitate an outmigration even greater than we have now. It’s not an easy situation that we’re in and so it’s going to be a difficult decision no matter which way we go on this.

Anderson -

Governor Hammond, when the income tax was repealed, his position was it should’ve been suspended and then reinstated for, I would say times like this. Are you aware of that?

Dunleavy -

I’m very aware of that. I'm also aware that there was a citizen initiative that was happening at the same time and it was by all indications the citizens were going to repeal that bill. As I mentioned there’s a repeal process in the constitution. They were going to repeal the income tax and so the legislature in special session did it before the citizens did.

Bartz - Frontiersman

We’re just curious about what the MSBSD might look like under your budget.

Dunleavy -

I’m going to be meeting with Dr. Goyette here, I believe it’s early next week. Monday I’m going to be meeting to sit down with her. Again, I don’t know what it’s going to look like because the 54 school districts are governed by a local control model. I was President of the MSBSD. Everyone, all of the districts are going to have to have discussions as to what their school districts are going to look like. Currently on average across the state 54 percent of the funding goes to instruction in the classroom. That means there’s approximately 46 percent that’s some type of administrative overhead, either in administrators, in buildings, in maintenance, that sort of thing.

Rockey -

I hate to interrupt you, but they specifically [MSBSD] used those numbers in kind of a rebuttal right after your budget came out… Dr. Goyette said that there had been efforts over the last decade to make sure that they cut every cost in that district office building that they could so that they weren’t fat at the top like everyone seems to claim that they are.

Anderson -

I’m pretty sure it was 77 percent of the dollars go to instruction for the Mat-Su Borough

Dunleavy -

Can I finish? Yeah, what I started out with saying was, on average across the state it’s 54% that goes to instruction. What I’m saying is that all school districts are going to have to take a look at their budgets and see what programs in their opinion are value added under this scenario. Do they reduce travel, do they reduce some type of administrative overhead, do they consolidate programs. For example in many of our schools across the state, you’ll have AP courses being taught by some of the best teachers with the smallest class sizes. So theoretically you’ll have a class taught, AP US history, by a teacher with a class maybe of 12 or 14 kids. Next door is a US history class being taught by a brand new teacher with 34 kids in it. We’re going to have to make a decision if we want that type of practice to continue. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening in the Mat-Su, but the point I’m trying to make is we’re going to have to look at all kinds of possibilities. I was administrator at the Mat-Su Central school. It’s got about 1,800 kids in it. We have a middle school concept. There may be discussions that may need to occur with students and parents in which there’s encouragement for those independent learners that can learn on their own to sign up. For example with the Mat-Su Central schools so that they can get on an ILP, get an allotment, take courses at the College, take courses what I think they have over 1,000 vendors, if not hundreds close to a thousand vendors in an independent fashion so that some of those kids that really need to be in front of a teacher have that opportunity in smaller class sizes. So there’s a whole host of things that can be done. When I was a superintendent and a principal, we often got budgets that were less than we had hoped and sometimes much less and we dealt with it. You adjust. In 1986, 87, 88 when I was out in rural Alaska, we had to adjust considerably when oil went from $32 a barrel to $9 a barrel in a few short years. So we’re all going to have to adjust. Do I think it’s easy? Do I think it’s great? Do I think it’s fun, of course not. But what people do not dispute is that we have a $1.6 billion deficit and fewer and fewer people dispute that we need to deal with it sooner than later and even less people believe that we should spend our last $2 billion out of the CBR to pay for it.

Bartz -

So is there discussion or concern about how potential job loss could affect the economy, both locally and statewide? Again not to keep on the school district thing, but they’re predicting 360 positions cut nearly 200 full time teachers.

Dunleavy -

There will be job losses and like there has been in the private sector the past four years when thousands of jobs shed from the private sector. We have an outmigration of people right now because our economy’s in the tank. We’re still in recession even after supporting this budget the last four years of $14 billion of extra spend above our revenues. We still are in a recession, the longest in the state’s history going past four years going on five years. We still have people leaving the state of Alaska. This is private sector before we do any reductions, and that’s the point is the private sector’s on it’s back in the state of Alaska. Lower 48 is booming. People are leaving to go to the Lower 48 to get jobs. There’s no easy solution to this. If it was, we wouldn’t be having the conversation.

Bartz -

Are you guys concerned about folks leaving the state?

Mike Dunleavy - Governor

We’re concerned about all aspects of this budget. We’re concerned about all the potential ramifications of this budget, the ramifications of taking $1.6 billion out of the economy through a PFD take from people across the state that use that money for everything from taking care of health care costs, to fuel oil, or repairing their cars and groceries. Of course $1.6 billion will soon leave this economy because we no longer have the savings to support it. The question is how do we want it to leave. There’s no easy best solution, per se, but some of them may be worse than others, PFD take, draconian taxes. There’s no way around this. There’s no miracle that’s going to save us. It’s tough decisions.

Anderson –

So the biggest driver here in the economy in the last three or four years has been medical and with cutting Medicare and so forth that’s going to be a devastating effect on the medical growth. Do you believe that or am I off on that?

Donna Arduin - Director of the Office of Management and Budget

A lot of it was similar to spending government money was through the Medicaid expansion, so health care has expanded in Alaska as a result but a lot of it is government driven.

Bartz -

The Valley’s actually one area that’s actually seen some growth and seen some positive things and I think a big concern of that is the Medicaid and the health care and losing that potential business, does that make sense?

Dunleavy -

Yeah it does. Can I ask you a question? Have you heard anyone talk about any concern about taking the PFD or taxing folks to keep this going. In other words is there any talk about what that does to 660,000 people that apply for the PFD or 300,000 workers that will be taxed $5,000 a piece. Is there much discussion going on about that?

Bartz -

Yeah, and it’s certainly warranted.

Dunleavy -

No easy answer.

Rockey -

What are some of the fruits of these conversations, because 140 days in, there’s got to be some things that you’ve identified as common among people who are making good suggestions. What are coming out of these conversations and going into the budget?

Dunleavy -

The audience seems to be divided into two parts. One part are those folks that are intimately connected to state government money. Whether it’s school district, whether it’s medical, whether it’s something related directly to state and then the other is the person that is not. They have a small business, they’re working for a private individual, they’re private carpenters or plumbers, etc. etc. Those folks have been adamant that they would like to see no more money taken out of the private economy because, like I said they’re on their backs. They’re having some serious issues, both the small businesses and the individuals that work in private enterprise. The folks that are plugged in, there is a fair number of those folks that would like us to take and reach into your wallet and get your money out of it to pay for that, but there is also a fair number of those folks that understand where the money has to come from and it has to come from other people and they understand that and they’re not necessarily pounding the tables too to say give up the money. We’ve been all over the state like today, for example, there will be protesters out there, 100, 200 protesters, 300 maybe. There’s 730,000 people in the state of Alaska. It’s not representative of everybody in the state. So the takeaways …. The takeaways are that you’ve got two groups of folks but the feedback we’re getting from the average person associated with the private economy is please don’t damage the private economy any more than has happened. Please don’t take any more money out of it, because we’re hurting as well.

Anderson -

I’ve been reading and one of the accusations is that you’re wanting to depopulate the state. Can you comment on that?

Dunleavy -

Yeah that, I’d put that in the category of I’m a racist, I don’t like women. My wife’s native. I’ve got all girls. It’s nonsense, Dennis. You know I would say that the people, wait wait a second wait.

Anderson -

In your inner circle there in the governor's office you have a lot of like minded people. In your circle there with Amy Demboski and Jeremy Price and Tuckerman, who plays devil’s advocate with you? Who tells you like, I don’t know governor, this is not probably a good idea. Who’s that voice for you?

Dunleavy -

What was the question?

Rockey -

Who plays the opposition on your team.

Dunleavy -

Everybody has that opportunity. We have leadership team meetings where I have said to our people, I don’t want to hear, I don’t want yes people. I want to have people question every single thing we do. Every time we do something, I want it questioned, and when we have meetings we’re all equals at the table and then when a policy call has to be made I make the policy call, but I’m looking all the time, constantly, what are your thoughts? What do you think? What are the pros and cons? What’s going on here? But I ask people across the board, I’ll walk into a department and ask the same questions. I’ll see workers walking down the hall and ask the same questions.

Rockey -

It’s pretty common for a governor to spend a lot of their time on the 3rd floor and not to interact with legislators that much, but I know you’ve been and confident and proud to talk about the discussions you are having with legislators. I’m wondering, we want details it’s a newspaper, who you’re talking to, what you’re talking about, what comes out of these conversations, when do these conversations happen. Do you have coffee with Wielechowski? Do you go to the shooting club with Coghill. What are some of these conversations that you’re having?

Dunleavy -

Good question. I wish I had time to go to the shooting club with Coghill.

Anderson -

You and Bill are friends right?

Dunleavy -

I get along with everybody Dennis...No I mean I get along with everyone. This is a business. I mean people get emotionally wrapped up in these things, I don’t. This is a business. This needs I think cool heads and logic to get us through this thing, but that so that’s just my attitude on just about everything in life but in answer to the question, we have meetings I think we have meetings next week again, two meetings next week with House and Senate leadership separately. We meet almost on a daily basis if not every other day and of course we haven’t this week because we’re on the road but with individual legislators we meet with our with the Republican Minority, we meet in the House ... This idea that we hide out on the third floor and that we don't meet with folks, I was there for four years with Walker and two years with Parnell and I never saw those guys just stroll through and hang out and sit down in the hall and whittle sticks and slap people’s backs, because it’s hard for some people to believe but you wouldn't believe that the budget is part of the job. There’s a thousand other things that happen non stop 365, seven days a week 24 hours a day.

Bartz -

Not as governor but as a man who raised his children here, what would you like to see from the Valley, from our borough in the future?

Dunleavy -

What do you mean?

Bartz -

As far as, what do you see as far as the future of the Valley, positive or negative?

Dunleavy -

I see the Valley growing. Other than being a beautiful place and resources in terms of timber and mining, Point Mackenzie a possible industry setting up shop in this Valley. I see huge potential for the Valley. Again one of the things I want to do is get this budget thing dealt with quickly and then work on our energy costs and our health care costs. I think if we do that we could attract a lot of businesses to this state. Our access to the Pacific is not unnoticed by those investors I talked to in Houston. Our access to the entire northern hemisphere by plane 8-10 hours is not lost on those folks, and the tons of oil that we still have on the slope and not just theoretically but actually actual oil that they know that exists that can be recovered is in the billions of barrels. Not to mention our mining etc. so I’m real bullish on Alaska, this thing has been bedeviling us now for four years going on five years. That’s how we’ve missed out on a whole bunch of things because we’re so focused too many of us on the government side of the economy that we don’t even talk about the private sector that’s basically been decimated by thousands and thousands and thousands of job losses and businesses closing. So that’s what I want to see get this thing done now.

Anderson -

What are the producers saying about the natural gas pipeline? I know I’ve been speaking with AGDC and I’ve been covering it quite a bit. Are they like Exxon and so forth, are they starting to feel like they can come back and be a part of this program or is this thing doomed? I know that when you campaigned you and I spoke at a luncheon once that you were not in favor of this pipeline. You didn’t see the value of the end revenue. What are you hearing when you were talking in Houston?

Dunleavy -

Dennis I don’t know if I ever said I was not in favor of the pipeline, I’ve been skeptical about the pipeline. I’ve always said that I want to monetize our gas in one form or another, but the issue was do you support this project as one understands it. I got to tell you, nobody really understands what the project is to be honest with you. AGDC is working it’s way through it and they’re having a, they’re doing an economic feasibility study that they should be probably releasing some time in 40 to 50 days. That’ll tell all of us if it’s economical. That’ll tell all of us if the numbers work. So I’m eagerly awaiting that. I don’t know exactly what they’re going to say. I can tell you though that when I was in the Lower 48, the Lower 48 and the rest of the world is awash in gas. So that’s why I’m eagerly interested in wanting to find out what AGDC’s report is going to say so we can decide where we’re going to go from there.

Anderson -

And that ASAP line is pretty much that’s not going to happen right?

Bruce Tangeman - Commissioner of the Department of Revenue

The one thing that we did know... was that under the previous administration the state accepted 100% of the risk and we knew we’d spent less than a billion dollars on a project that was probably going to be 40 50 60 billion dollars. So we weren’t on the 10-yard line. We were a long, long way from realizing the resource and so we knew that and we knew that we were 100 percent on the hook for it and that’s not a very comfortable place to be this early in a project. So that’s one thing that AGDC is looking at now is how to de-risk this project and if it’s economic. That’s the bottom line.

Anderson -

You’ve got Joe Dubler in there and he was there from the beginning and talking to him it sounds like he’s got a really good handle on that project.

Dunleavy -

Hey Dennis just a quick question just out of curiosity, when that person or whoever you talked to said I want to depopulate the state, did they explain to you what the logic would be behind that?

Anderson -

The services would match the population?

Dunleavy -

Interesting. Okay, thank you.

Anderson -

There’s been a few people that have said that on social media or whatever.

Dunleavy -

Oh, social media. Gotcha, all right. Must be true.

Anderson -

I know, I know.

Rockey -

We’ve got a more fun question if you’d like to…

Dunleavy -

No let’s stick with these, no I’m kidding go ahead.

Rockey -

I know you’re prone to wearing red flannels, you like to wear red flannels. We’re Valley folk, I’ve spent quite a bit of time making money on farms. We’re very passionate about our farms here, our agriculture industry… Why if agriculture is so vital to not only the economy but the history of the Mat-Su Valley why that fell on the chopping block?

Dunleavy -

What fell on the chopping block?

Rockey -

The Alaska Grown program specifically.

Dunleavy -

Because again, we have a $1.6 billion deficit. Do we need government to have an agricultural program? If you want to be a farmer you can’t do it unless government tells you you can? I don’t understand that. If you want to be a farmer you can be a farmer. One of the things that we’re working on is we’re going to be having a lands program here later this spring or this summer in which we’re going to try and get as much land in the hands of Alaskans so it’s not heavily regulated, so that the farmer can only farm standing on one foot pointing to the east, can’t build a house on more than x amount of acreage or x amount of square footage. But this idea, poor Alaska. When I came up here in ‘83 and it was a whole different state, you really believed back then that you can make something of yourself and the government was an afterthought, but I will be the first to admit over the years it has gotten to the point now where we don’t believe we can do anything including farm without saying jeez how do we do that? How do we plant that lettuce? Let me get down to the co-op and find out. Here we really can do a lot of things without a gigantic government that we have to pay a tremendous amount of taxes to and PFD. We really can’t. New Zealand in the 80’s deregulated an entire state including their agricultural sector, deregulated it across the board. They became one of the most capitalist countries in the world and their agriculture sector grew.

Anderson -

What about the promotional arm of Alaska Grown?

Dunleavy -

No I understand that, but the idea that if you don’t, aren’t pumping tons of money into something. I mean I’ll tell you what, right. Seattle has a homeless problem. They’re pumping a billion dollars into it and you know what, they’re getting more homeless people. So I mean the idea that you pump money into something and that’s the answer, well if that worked, Venezuela would be the best run country in the universe. It just doesn't work this way.

Anderson -

You’ve got Jeremy Price as an advisor and AFP is sponsoring this tour and I know Matt [Shuckerow] explained to me that there's other meetings outside of this AFP tour, but how do you explain or justify to people that are skeptical about AFP sponsoring this and not because of the connection with Jeremy and...

Dunleavy -

Yeah, I can’t spend a lot of time, Dennis, justifying speculation on the part of folks with regard to this issue. I mean I don’t know, they’re obviously not speculating on the chambers and the mining associations and the business alliances that we’ve also worked with and will continue to work with other groups. I can’t lose a lot of sleep over this because you know the last four years when AFL-CIO and IBEW had free access to the governor’s office, free access to all of his staff, I never saw anything in the papers about that. Having Vince Beltram camped on the third floor, nobody really wrote about that or talked about that but then you get an organization who says you know what we’d like to hear what your plan is and we’ll sponsor it we’ll set up the events and so forth so you can come and speak in front of people. All of a sudden because it’s AFP it’s the end of the world because it’s some type of Antichrist outfit. Not anymore than the chambers, not anymore than IBEW or AFL-CIO, this is all politics. You guys know this, this is all a game. It’s all theatrics for a lot of these folks it just it is. And so I’m not, I don’t lose a second of sleep over 98 percent of this stuff

Anderson -

And to clarify for Tim and everybody in the room when you said you weren’t in favor of the pipeline at the luncheon, you said you weren’t in favor of it the way Walker was, Governor Walker was putting his flag on this thing and making it ‘it’s going to happen one way or the other.’

Dunleavy -

Because there was no pipeline! There was no pipeline at that stage that you could identify. It was more of a political dream and I think what one of the things I think is fascinating and trust me, I’m flattered because there’s a lot of attention on me the last couple of months, but during the campaign when Governor Walker was giving tours at the end of his campaign before he pulled out, there was nary a mention of the pipeline project, even by the governor. That seemed to have just evaporated over time and I couldn’t understand why. So again we’re looking at AGDC to look at it from a business perspective, economics and finances instead of politics. I mean I wish I could fly but I’m not going to crawl up on the roof of the building here and test it out and jump off. I’ve got to make sure that whatever we do with regard to the pipeline, there’s solid economics behind it and I’m not ready to pull the plug or pull the trigger until these guys come out with their own economic analysis.

Anderson -

So I’ve heard from a few people that know you that you told them that you don’t read newspapers or you don’t read media reports.

Dunleavy -

Not often, no. I mean I’ll read the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, some of those papers.

Rockey -

Novels, or is it all government stuff? We’re just kind of curious as to what are you reading, what’s on your nightstand.

Dunleavy -

(laughs) I constantly read issues involving investments, energy, I mean I’m fascinated by the Siemens direct current line from Iowa to Chicago that I think if it ever happens here in the next year that we can look at different types of electrical generation here that might be something coming from the slope. I’m constantly looking at what other countries are doing in terms of their economies and their industries and their businesses, constantly looking at. So it’s non stop internet research on that sort of thing. I know people find it hard to believe that I don’t jump out of bed in the morning and flip open the ADN and read things about me that I already know.

Tm Rockey -

I’m curious, you never read for leisure?

Dunleavy -

I just said.

Rockey –

So Siemens is leisure?

Dunleavy -

Absolutely, as opposed to reading Tom Clancy or some harlequin romance, absolutely I’d rather read about what’s happening all over the world. I’m a historian, I’m a non-fiction guy.

Anderson -

Can we send you a subscription of the Frontiersman for free?

Dunleavy -

I can’t take gifts. You can talk to my staff about them getting a subscription but, thanks Dennis, I appreciate that. You know what, I’d like? I’d love to get a gift subscription to, what is it called, the Anchorage Press. I’d love to get that because I want to keep up on the facts and the truth that’s happening around Anchorage.

Anderson -

Touche governor.

Rockey -

You said you don’t fly. I’m wondering when is the last time Gov. Dunleavy threw down?

[dunking a basketball]

Dunleavy -

About 4 years ago. When you get into your late 50’s it’s kind of time.

Rockey -

See, I’ve never had that opportunity, so I don’t know.

Dunleavy -

I tell you what, there’s a court out back here I can pick you up and you can dunk the ball.

Anderson -

Anything you want to close with for our readers

Dunleavy -

We’ve got a problem that needs to be fixed, the sooner the better.

Anderson -

Good enough.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for readability, but no information was withheld.