Three of the four candidates for governor appealed to Southeast Alaskans for support at a forum in Ketchikan on Tuesday.
The Alaska Marine Highway System and its role connecting Southeast communities took much of the spotlight during the roughly 90-minute forum at the annual meeting of the economic development group Southeast Conference. All three candidates underscored the vital role the ferry system plays in connecting communities across coastal Alaska.
Republicans Treg Taylor and Dave Bronson each endorsed a long-range plan greenlit by the ferry system last year to boost service and modernize the fleet, calling for six new vessels and a more than 25% boost in port calls by 2045.
Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins said he’d like to insulate the ferry system from political pressure by making the Marine Highway’s leadership more independent, akin to the University of Alaska’s Board of Regents. Kreiss-Tomkins repeatedly criticized outgoing Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy during the forum, who is barred from seeking another term.
“It's just a completely broken down system, and it has really suffered from neglect, I think, from political leadership,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “Operating funding has been vetoed and jeopardized by this governor. Southeast Alaska and coastal Alaska have borne the brunt of that, and we need to turn that around.”
The three candidates at the forum also touched on fisheries.
Taylor said he’d support the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and work to fight what he said was an uptick in fish falsely labeled as Alaska-caught.
Bronson said he’d look to take on the trawling industry, which is often blamed for scooping up valuable species like salmon and halibut as bycatch. Bronson said he’d look to prioritize sport, subsistence and small-boat commercial fishing ahead of industrial trawling.
“They say, ‘Well, we're inside our quotas,’ and I go, ‘Well, maybe your quotas are way too high,’” Bronson said. “Because this is textbook overfishing. That's what we're doing.”
Kreiss-Tomkins said he “directionally agree(d)” with Bronson on the bycatch issue. And he said he’d look to boost the value of Alaska salmon by publicly spotlighting the shortcomings of what he called “oligarch-owned, fish trap-harvested Russian salmon.”
The three candidates also threw their support behind Southeast Alaska’s largest economic driver: tourism. But they offered different approaches.
Kreiss-Tomkins pointed to public investments in what he called “basic infrastructure” like docks and housing as ways the state could help expand the industry.
Bronson, by contrast, said government was too often an obstacle to growth and worried more state investment in infrastructure would create an inevitable need to tax the industry.
Taylor echoed Bronson and said the state should defer to local communities and the tourism industry.
“They need to be partners with industry, not antagonistic to industry,” Taylor said. “Yes, we have a regulatory duty as the government, right? But that regulatory duty does not mean that you have to constantly be an antagonist to everything that industry is trying to do.”
The fourth candidate in the race, Republican Bernadette Wilson, did not attend the forum. The conference agenda noted she’d attend Wednesday instead, though without a defined speaking slot. Wilson's campaign said the candidate had a conflict on her schedule.
"We’ve traveled to Southeast Alaska several times throughout this campaign because we believe the region is critical to Alaska’s future. I’ve had the opportunity to talk directly with Southeast Alaskans about the issues that matter most to them, from fisheries and tourism to the high cost of living, supporting the timber industry, and improving education," Wilson said in an emailed statement.
The candidates are set to meet for more debates in the coming weeks, including Alaska Public Media’s Debate for the State on Oct. 8.
