'We've got to get it done now'

WASILLA — Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in the Valley this week, signing bills on Saturday and attending the Alaska State Fair on Sunday. Prior to his bill signing of SB 40 with Senator Josh Revak at the AM Vets post 9 in Wasilla on Saturday, Dunleavy granted an interview to the Frontiersman. The direct transcription has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Tim Rockey: The Alaska State Fair is back it was gone last year for the first time since 1942 which is an incredible economic stimulus in the Mat-Su Valley, using that as an example you mentioned during a lot of press conferences last year we had a health pandemic and we had an economic pandemic, how are Alaskan businesses and is the Alaskan economy beginning to rebound if it is beginning to rebound?

Gov. Mike Dunleavy: I think they are, right, we have a lot more tourists back this year than we did last year for obvious reasons, all of our towns are open, so I think our economy is rebounding now. The question is right, as we know, this virus still keeps kind of doing it’s twists and turns we don’t know what it’s going to do and how it’s going to impact everything, but I think what you’re finding is a lot of experts, that varies, but there seems to be a coalescing of the idea that it’s going to be with us for a while if not forever and we’re going to have to learn to live with it. So you have places like New Zealand that are totally shut down, their vaccination rate is at 10 %, I think ours is approaching, ours is in the 50’s approaching 60 and I do think you’re going to see an increase in the vaccinations because more and more people are knowing folks that are getting the virus and going to the hospital so I would say that we’re going to have to learn to live with it. It’s probably going to be with us, it may change into something else less dangerous over time but nonetheless we’re going to have to live with it.We’re going to have to keep moving forward, use the tools that are available to us. I know there are people asking about mandates, to be honest with you mandates don’t necessarily really work. If people don’t want to do them, they don’t do them but I would say that, I would say that we’ve got the ship pointed in the right direction. Are we going to see more cases? We’re seeing more cases. This delta variant is much more contagious than the original variant but I think people know what to do. If they want to get a vaccine, they get a vaccine. If they want to stay away from people, they stay away from people. If they want to mask up, they mask up. That’s their choice

TR: Are you going to the fair this year?

MD: Yeah, tomorrow.

TR: What are you looking forward to?

MD: Well, we’re doing a renewed push on agriculture in the state of Alaska because I think the pandemic has taught a lot of us that globalism has its weaknesses. This idea that we can rely on others to feed us and so forth is kind of a precarious position to put ourselves in, so we’ll go there, we have a bill we’re going to sign on raw milk. It seems like a small bill but actually in some ways it’s a big step… Then we’ll talk to some folks, hang out in the Fair for a while, but we’re also we’re getting our agriculture project up in Nenana up and going, 160,000 acres.I think Alaska does have a future in agriculture and I don’t mean that kind of just a small scale, which is important as well, but I think there’s a real opportunity for us including our proximity to Asia and especially if the drought situation continues in the Lower 48, I think Alaska could be primed to be a real player in agriculture going going forward.

TR: The census numbers just recently came out earlier this month and Mat-Su had a big bump, state had a small bump as well. When you see those 3.3 % across the state and 20 % in the Mat-Su, what do those numbers say to you?

MD: I think you’re going to see Alaska more and more as a place that people want to go to live. We didn’t have any riots or lootings, we were one of only two states that didn’t. We work hard at trying to get along here in Alaska. I think you have a climate that is, I think conducive for folks that don’t necessarily want to live in 90 degree temperatures all the time. It’s a big state, it’s got southeast Alaska which is a different climate, the interior, southcentral. I think there’s a place for everybody to live in Alaska and I think that the best days of Alaska are really ahead of us, they really are ahead of us.

TR: How was your drive over here from Palmer, did you run into any traffic?

MD: We were going the opposite way of traffic so we were okay but we saw long lines and people want to get out. They’re coming up from Anchorage and this week my understanding is it’s supposed to be nice weather this entire week so I think you’re going to see a lot of people coming out for one of the last big hurrahs of the summer.

TR: The Mat-Su Borough just passed, without the accompanying tax, the 63 million dollar bond package with 15 projects on it. Their hope from what many of the Assembly members said was that there’s these Federal monies out there that would be available for that...What are the infrastructure needs and how do you guys work to meet those needs of crumbling roads that are all over the place?

MD: Roads are a priority, bridges are a priority. There’s discussions happening on the ports as always, rail extensions, ports in southeast as well. You know it’s interesting, Skagway is the port for the Yukon, most people don’t realize that from the mining district in the Yukon and so even though we’re getting private investment at the international airport down here in Anchorage which is now the 4th busiest in the world, it went up from five to four, we still have a lot to do in terms of our roads, widening our roads, fixing our roads, our bridges, getting ready I think for what is going to be I think a very positive future not just in resource extraction but as you know we’re making a renewable push as well in the state of Alaska, and to capitalize on our renewable potential. So I think you’re going to see a lot of money from Washington coming in renewables but also infrastructure and I think the Mat-Su is right to start to plan for more roads and we’re going to do what we can at the state level to position some of that Federal money to help out.

TR: On a statewide level, what do you think we could be doing from a transportation infrastructure standpoint to improve the lives of Alaskans?

MD: So we made a push to work at making our ferries sustainable for the long term and to improve our customer service. We signed into law a bill here recently that puts into place a working group that will be permanent that will help advise the administration and the legislature on fiscals regarding the ferries, but also management, so that’s going to be big. We increased the funding from a 12 month schedule to an 18 month schedule, which will allow the ferries to capture reservations and then project out fares. We’re going to continue to work with the ferries, we’re going to have to have discussions as to what boats need to be repaired and replaced as time goes on but the Alaska Marine Highway is going to be a part of Alaska for some time to come, we just want to make sure it’s running and functioning properly and is delivering the service that people expect. With regard to the other infrastructure projects you named it, the Richardson has got some work that needs to occur. The Tok cutoff has been a horrible road for some time, that needs work. We have the Seward Highway that is a very dangerous road and even though we’ve done some work on it, I think we need to look at that and have a multi year plan to make sure that that road can be widened where we can and make sure we’ve got a couple extra lanes going north and south and again, I don’t want to sound redundant but our ports need work. Our port in Anchorage, port in Mat-Su we did work on. Some rail, we have a rail extension bed that we put down here a couple years ago but nonetheless you’re going to see more renewed discussion in that as well so I would say that with the Federal infrastructure money coming you’re going to see a lot of money going to broadband across the state, you’re going to see money going to roads and bridges, you’re going to see us work on making sure that the ferries are sustainable and we’re going to work on our ports and harbors.

TR: From the state level, are there things that can be done to increase the trail usage and maintenance of trails and providing those for Alaskans to use and for visitors to use?

MD: Well sure, I mean there is always a positive to be had with trails. The question is how do trails compete at this point with some of the other infrastructure that we have to put into place and so that’s going to be the question. We’re more than happy to have dialogue with folks that can make their case that certain trails in certain places will be a benefit to a lot of Alaskans and visitors, were not opposed to that. Again, it’s just going to be, we have a lot of needs in this state and it’s going to be an issue of what’s competing against what are considered priority needs by most of the folks in the state of Alaska including the legislature.

TR: (In) 2006, the School Bond Debt Reimbursement first goes through the Mat-Su School Board and Mayor Halter has talked about it just about every meeting that he wishes it would never have been altered by Walker first. I just want to ask you your perspective on that from 2006. What were your thoughts on that project when it went through while you were a member of the school board?

MD: That was a tough, that was I think a one vote that that went through. That was difficult because folks were wondering if we were going to be able to, that was a large sum of money to repair our schools and there is no doubt that we’ve got a growing student population here, you just cited the increases this year. The issue with the bond debt reimbursement was again the budgetary issues that were dealing with here recently. We have appropriated 50 % to that bond. I’m sure there’s going to be discussions occurring right now in Juneau with regard to whether the legislature wants to add more to that package, we just have to be careful going forward to look at our infrastructure projects including schools and see in fact as we look out over the years, do we have as sustainable budget with sustainable revenue to be able to incorporate some of these discussions on bonding. I think that’s going to be important but I think the discussions on School Bond Debt Reimbursement will continue here over the next couple of weeks and we’ll see where it lands.

TR: For this year’s pfd what teamwork do you and the legislature have to come together on to get folks a PFD this year?

MD: So this is the year if there was any one year where there should be a PFD that the people expect, it’s this year. Given what happened with the pandemic, businesses having still a difficult time finding workers, workers trying to find daycare, paying mortgages, paying bills, this is the time, especially when you went from 65-66 billion dollars last year to 82 plus this year. So a lot of us don’t understand, we were just in a conversation and you’ll see some legislators up here, at a bill signing earlier the majority of legislators from our perspective want to deal with this permanent fund issue now to get the people of Alaska a permanent fund that they expect. There’s a handful in key positions that don’t want that to happen and those folks have voiced that they are concerned about the long term fiscals of the state of Alaska. We’re all concerned about the long term fiscals of the state of Alaska, but if we don’t help folks today with a permanent fund that they expect you’re going to be dealing with, in my opinion, the effects of this pandemic for years to come, and so our goal is to come up and we’ve offered a plan, a 50 50 plan that would take about 3 billion dollars out of the billions of dollars that we just made this year and use that as we call it bridge funding to bridge ourselves to where our projections are that our permanent fund revenues as well as traditional revenues will actually be able to support government without broad based taxes such as income taxes or sales taxes. Some in leadership don’t like that idea, some do. I think what you’re going to see this week, this week will either tell whether the people of Alaska will get a permanent fund form this legislature or whether they won’t and what size that will be and whether we have a sustainable fiscal plan. We had a special session in May, we wanted to deal with the permanent fund in May. We said we would come back in August and have discussions on the size of budgets, revenue, etcetera. We didn’t get it done in May, in June, we’ve got to get it done now, that’s the bottom line.