Election Candidate Forum: Governor Candidate Les Gara

Nome Nugget: What are the most pressing issues the state faces and how do you propose to solve them?

Les Gara: All people deserve opportunity and dignity, whether born rich or poor, and no matter where they live. I grew up in foster care after my father was killed by a robber when I was six. I was lucky, had good schools and financial aid. Everyone deserves a good school, and financial aid if they cannot afford job training or college. Money should never be a barrier to success. My running mate, Jessica Cook, a highly regarded teacher, agrees.

Jessica and I believe in “liberty and justice for all”, not just for those born with privilege and wealth.

Rural Alaskans have been shortchanged by the state on educational opportunity, public safety, energy costs, a consistent, strong PFD and now on fish and subsistence. We want a state that provides opportunity and safety for everyone. Rural Alaskans deserve fast, affordable internet, and quality affordable housing.

We will reverse this Governor’s hostile policies against subsistence rights, and his efforts to cancel them. This summer, for example, he tried to open a limited king salmon run on the Kuskokwim River to all 750,000 Alaskans, from Anchorage to Wasilla and Juneau, depriving people in the region of fish they need for food and subsistence. Jessica and I believe in a subsistence priority, and in protecting our fish.

Mining is important when done properly, but unlike this Governor who supports the toxic Pebble Mine, which endangers the greatest fish runs in the world, we won’t trade our fish for mines that are not responsible, and that threaten our fish. And we need to reduce the excessive killing of chum salmon and other fish and crab by factory trawlers.

Children learn better from teachers from their own community, and we need to offer job opportunity for people in rural Alaska so they can stay in their home communities and thrive. We have to make sure rural and urban schools can attract and retain the teachers and staff we need so children have their deserved right to succeed. We should make sure people from the region become teachers, mental health providers, power plant operators, and can fil the jobs needed in every community.

It is unequal justice to have over 50 rural communities with no VPSO at all, and a shortage of rural Troopers puts lives and search and rescue efforts at risk. We need to hire the police and Troopers communities deserve.

We need to bolster our emergency response capabilities as Western Alaska is hit with harsher storms.

We should lower the cost of energy with state investment in renewable energy, which creates jobs, can lower energy costs, and address global warming all at the same time.

And this state should stop pleading poverty, making people fight each other between a strong PFD, schools, public safety, energy projects, and what creates a better future. By ending over $1 billion in oil company subsidies this Governor voted for, and that I voted against, we can have the funds for strong PFD every year, and good schools, and needed police and VPSO’s, and renewable energy projects. We have to stop giving our oil wealth away, and then turning people against each other.

NN: What actions would you support to address the climate crisis and how can the Alaska Governor prepare the state to avoid subsequent natural disasters brought on by flooding, erosion and high winds?

LG: We have to act on climate change, and protect communities so people aren’t endangered by rising water and more and more dangerous storms that climate change has caused. We can act on climate change by building renewable energy projects across the state with our oil wealth, in a way that lowers high energy costs and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

By ending over $1 billion in oil company subsidies we can build the things needed to protect communities. Coastal communities need seawalls, back-up power generators, and the infrastructure needed to protect communities before they get hit with storms an suffer damage. We need fast internet everywhere to help with everything people deserve in life, including emergency response. In some communities we need to help move people and good homes to higher ground.

NN: Failing salmon returns cause hardship for Alaskans, especially those who live in rural Alaska where subsistence harvests are crucial to the survival of residents. How do you propose to address the failing fish harvests? Do you believe the importance of subsistence in the rural economy is adequately recognized at the state level and if not, how do you propose to address this?

LG: Jessica and I believe strongly in subsistence, and a subsistence priority in times of fish and game shortage. The current governor is challenging subsistence rights in court, with outside lawyers, and I will not do that.

We need to work to ensure the return of salmon to our streams, and adopt fisheries policies that allow for their return. Killing over 550,000 chum salmon, as this Governor allows, by Factory Trawlers is waste, and harms our communities.

We have to continue our responsible mining history, and approve future mines only where they are safe for our fish. Where future mines can operate safely, and produce needed jobs, we have to demand they are developed in a way that doesn’t endanger fish. I won’t trade our fish for irresponsible projects.

We applaud Senators Donny Olson and Lyman Hoffman and Representative Neal Foster, who voted for needed fish studies in western Alaska. Governor Dunleavy was wrong to veto those studies, and I would not have vetoed them. We need to know everything possible about what is killing salmon when after they leave our rivers.