The opinions expressed on this show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 1050. Take it on. Amy Demboski. The show starts now. Our lines are open at 907-522-0650. This is The Morning Drive on NewsRadio 650 KENI. All right, good morning. Amy is out today. It's Bernadette filling in for you. And boy, do we have a good show planned. You're looking at education. Was it a legitimate?
mishap with the legislator who cast the wrong vote or is he indeed putting the BS and BSA the state is nine billion dollars in debt with defined benefit The legislature would like to return us back to it. And meanwhile, the Anchorage Assembly is building landfills all over Anchorage. They're not permitted. We're going to get into that a little bit later.
If we can get Jeff Landfield up and out of bed, paging Jeff Landfield, your alarm is going off. And coming up a little bit later on the show, Representative Jamie Allard, who sits on that education committee, will be breaking down for us what happened here just a couple days ago. And coming to you live from New York, we have a House rep who has said that Flag Day should be a federal holiday also honoring Donald Trump's birthday.
What do you think? 907-522-0650, 522-0650. What do you think, Daryl? You know, so just initially right off the bat. We got too many holidays already. Okay, and I know this sounds horrible, but... Oh, well, we give out. Yeah, I mean, we hand out federal holidays now like candy, right? I'm an hourly person, so holidays, like, I don't usually get paid holidays. So it's kind of like, I have to take the day off. Yeah, no, I'll work. It's okay. But in general, yeah, they just, we're starting to get.
either too many holidays or they're appropriating holidays. Now, this one I don't have so much of a problem with, you know, Donald Trump birthday. We could move him into that category. I don't even remember what day flag day is, to be honest, isn't it? June, June, June 14th. So June 4th, oh.
See, now that kills me right there because already we've got the new holiday in there. What's it called again? I can't remember it. The new 4th of July. So we've got our 4th of July. I still celebrate the regular... Fourth of July. I don't know what DEI stuff is going on over here, but I still celebrate them. Literally, it is slipping my brain because I'm not...
a celebrator of it, but it's Juneteenth. That's what it's called. Oh, there you go. Juneteenth, which I believe is June 15th. So having a holiday June 14th, June 15th, July 4th, I'm looking at A, some serious money loss.
but also we're now we're taking away the whole point of holidays I think just just as a personal thing well she's she's a house rep from New York for those of you listening you can call your representative hear from Alaska, the great Congressman Nick Begich, and give him your opinion on whether or not you think he should support the bill, sign on to the bill.
But she says, quote, just as George Washington's birthday is codified as a federal holiday, President Trump's birthday should also be celebrated to recognize him as the founder of America's golden age. I love it. And of course, they've been talking about there's been the chatter on social media that we should put him up with the presidents on Mount Rushmore. Now that I find, I don't have an issue with that. I find that quite interesting, except for I'm trying to figure out who is going to.
do all this for so little because it's going to be that that's a big money to build Mount Rushmore faces you know I would just like to point out the guy is just the goat all right whether whether you like him or you don't like him You cannot dispute the fact that everybody talks about him, whether they like him or not, right? The left side, the right side, it does not matter. The guy has come through.
like a wrecking ball and just completely dismantled things that we did not think were going to be able to to be dismantled and broken apart and he is exposed so much in the when the biggest cry from the left is well you've got a guy helping you who doesn't serve an elected office when that is the that is the biggest complaint I mean, you're doing something right. Well, you're doing something right. And obviously, if they're complaining that he's looking, just looking at things.
he's doing right that that means he is doing the right thing if they're complaining about what he's doing yeah there has been no other president in recent history in recent memory where we have talked so much about hey by the way let's put them up on Mount Rushmore, right? Even the Democrats wouldn't dare. They would not have dared to have that conversation with Clinton, Obama, Biden.
They wouldn't even dare. Nobody, even if it is a bill that you say, well, you know, it's not going to go anywhere. It's just a house rep from New York. Fine. But even then, nobody was going to bring up and say, well, we should make Obama's birthday. A national holiday. Of course, you know, we've got all that controversy. Didn't somebody, though, recommend or ask about getting Biden's face put on the Sleepy Mountains? What?
I don't know. The Sleepy Mountains. If you're going to put Biden's face anywhere, find a little butte on Sleepy Mountain Range and be like, yeah, there's Sleepy Joe Biden. He's that part of it there. You know, I got to say, like I said, enjoy Donald Trump. Lots of fun.
The greatest thing, and this is going to sound stupid, that he's done, though, is he's brought back the McKinley Mac. Yes! I love the McKinley Mac myself. Oh, I love it. Well, like I say, whether you like the guy, whether you don't like the guy, you cannot dispute. He has got the attention of everyone. He has gotten to Washington, D.C. He's been the disruptor. And even now, I will have people say to me.
You know, Bernadette, I just don't know if that can be done. I don't know if that can be done. And, you know, I don't know if he gets this particular person confirmed at the FBI or at health or whatever it is. Can they actually get in and do what needs to be done? And as I have told people, if you watch based off of what he has done so far and how quickly he has moved.
And Hillary Clinton joins us in the studio. You were talking about the great friend of, you know. So Daryl has put on his Hillary Clinton mask over here across the aisle from me. But when... you look at how much he has disrupted already and how much he has dug in and he has found it is shocking the billions of dollars of your money that has gone to projects that quite frankly we didn't even know were out there, random studies that they've done, random condoms over in...
Different, various countries. I mean, the coffee cups, I read one article said that we were spending, we had a couple government departments that were spending more than $1,000 per disposable cup. like coffee cups like you'd have in your office, right? Like you go and you buy them all at Costco and they're like five cents, right? Five cents a piece. I mean, it is incredible. And the biggest argument or the biggest complaint against Trump is, well,
Elon's not elected. Well, guess what? Neither was Fauci. Neither, quite frankly, is any other government bureaucrat outside of your president and your legislature, your House and your Senate. Obviously, I'm talking in Washington, D.C. But yes, if they are not an elected official, of course they're there without being elected, which is, by the way, the majority of the government. And I find it so odd.
that simultaneously back here at home we have people that are complaining about those federal cuts well we're going to lose these jobs alaska is going to lose these jobs well you know what it's about time that the federal government cut back
There is so much waste, fraud, and abuse there. And if you did not believe that before, you sure as heck better believe it now. Otherwise, you've been under an absolute rock. But yes, that means that cuts are going to come here at home. And quite frankly, it's time for the...
for state of alaska to learn to live without the federal government you can't turn around and say well there's waste fraud and abuse and this is terrible and then pitch a fit because federal workers in alaska are going to get laid off We have an incredibly high number of federal workers in this state and state workers, just government employees in general. And yes, some of them are going to get laid off. And quite frankly, it's about time. It's about time.
And hopefully it will spur the governor and our state legislature to have a conversation, and quite frankly, even our congressional delegation, to have a conversation. about how we spur Alaska's economy. What can we do to bring in other industries? What can we do to make sure that the resource development industry especially is thriving? And I can tell you, it is not by the latest Rob Yunt.
Senator Rob Yunt, oil tax, which we will also talk about later in the show today. But coming up next, is he putting the BS in BSA? As our dear friend Suzanne Downing over at Mustard Alaska says, or was it an honest mistake, an honest flip of the switch? I'm Bernadette filling in this morning for Amy Domboski. It is 6.15. You're listening to KENI. 522-0650. We'll be right back.
Looking at your Alaska total traffic cameras on a Friday morning. Traffic's light currently inbound on the Glen Highway. No major stoppages or slowdowns out there. Would like to let you know, though, 4th Avenue is going to be closed between 8th Street and Cordova due to the fact they're setting up for the Rondi. So we need to find a different way.
going through downtown from the swickard chevrolet anchorage traffic studios i'm daryl dean this report is sponsored by positive coaching alliance got issues with youth or high school sports positive coaching alliance can help PCA, a national nonprofit, offers more than 1,000 free online resources for youth and high school sports coaches, parents, students, and administrators.
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It's 620. I'm Bernadette filling in for Amy this morning. The headline reads, putting the BS in BSA, House Forces Massive Education Funding Increase, out of committee. That is the headline in Mustard, Alaska. The question at hand, Representative Mike Prax from up in Fairbanks says that he cast his vote on accident. It was just a big error. He broke with the Republicans.
And he voted for the massive education spending bill that has zero accountability. This will increase the base student allocation. We call it the BSA. We'll increase it by $1,000 next year. and then has incremental increases, automatic increases, where they can indeed commit the future legislatures, or so they think they can, with automatic spending increases for the next couple years. The cost of this bill.
And fiscal 2026 is expected to be $356 million. In a state that already spends record amounts of money on education. We are at the top for spending, yet we are at the bottom for results. Pick the statistic that you want. Fourth grade, eighth grade, reading and math, we're coming in 48th, 49th. We have dismal results.
Yet our spending is up at the top. Depending on where you look across the state of Alaska, obviously education out in rural Alaska more. But even here in the Anchorage School District, some of the numbers that I saw... even a couple years ago, were $18,000 per child. That's what the average was to educate them in the Anchorage School District where they cannot read or write at grade level.
They're absolutely not proficient. And now you have a Republican legislature, legislator, I should say, who says that he voted on accident. It was just it was an error. That is a bunch of crap. It is complete BS. So in the conversation of is it a legitimate argument or not, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to stake my ground right now and tell you.
That is a bunch of crap, and I will tell you why. They pulled this bill out of education. It did not get a vote in the education committee. They put it to the House floor vote in front of the entire body. Now, when legislators do that, we call that the nuclear option. When legislators decide to go nuclear, they know that there are one of two outcomes.
Either A, you're going to take your own bill, which you support, and you are going to just burn it to the ground. Let it explode. And it's just going to go to hell. And you just wipe your hands clean and say, you know what? We weren't going to get the votes. We weren't going to get it done. anyways this year, and we're going to make a statement. We want to put people on the record. We want to have the chance for all of our members to speak on the floor and drone on and on and on for hours. Or B,
you know that you have the votes to get it done. So it passes on the House floor, and what passes, just to be very clear with you, is not the bill itself, but it is the bill to move it to the next committee. And it passes.
in a vote of 20 to 21 with representative mike prax saying that he took the vote on accident bs Because when you take that nuclear option, you are now telling me if you took that vote on accident that the Democrats risked if they had the votes to get it through or not and thought that they're their baby. They're arguably one of the biggest topics of conversation for the state of Alaska. This legislative session, you're telling me that they thought that they would torch it to the ground?
That's absolutely not accurate. 522-0650, 907-522-0650. We'll get your thoughts here. I don't buy that at all. There's no way that Democrats thought that they were going to just take a bill and... light a match to it. They knew darn well that Mike Prax was going to vote that way. We know that legislators were getting his attention. And by the way, they asked legislators, they asked them, would any member like to change his or her vote?
And let's just say that on a random one-off chance that he did legitimately, let's just say that you want to tell me, Bernadette, you got to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he did it on accident. Maybe he did. then that means that you are not paying attention to a piece of legislation worth hundreds of millions of dollars affecting the lives of tens of thousands of children across Alaska. Then you're not qualified.
to be sitting in that seat and punching that button to begin with. If you are asleep at the wheel while you're driving, get out of the damn driver's seat. Go retire. And like I said, just to be very clear, I'm not buying that. I don't buy that argument one bit. But even if there were just an itty bitty tiny piece of that.
And if he is going to maintain that he did that on accident, then that needs to be the next question. If he's going to hold the line, if Representative Mike Prax is going to hold that line and dig his heels and say, no, I did it on accident. then his minority colleagues in the House, his constituents up in the North Pole area of Alaska, the Republican Party, all of them, everybody.
needs to go to that representative and ask him, if you were asleep when one of the biggest votes was coming down that was going to impact this, and you, quote, weren't paying attention, then you're not up for the job. It's probably time for you to step down and go hang out with sleepy Joe Biden. That's just the reality of it. But I'll tell you, the problem in all of this, he did not do it on accident.
And he had coordinated with the Democrats ahead of time. You don't put a bill and not put it through a vote in committee and then all of a sudden put it on the House floor without a significant, not minor, a significant amount of coordination behind the minority caucus's back that you would indeed give the vote. 907-522-0650. 522-0650. And then the question becomes on education, how much is enough? That's the question that I want an answer to. How much is enough to get the job done?
We're going to jump into that. 522-0650. We've got Larry with us this morning. Good morning, Larry. Hey, Bernadette. You're a breath of fresh air. Just getting so sick of that other guy. I'm just kidding. Would that be me, Larry? You're not the other gal. Oh, he only got the G part of it out. Okay. I love Amy, but it's good to have you on. Yeah, I like that you're getting down to the brass tacks of...
It's something so important as that legislation for blunt, as those names, yunt, yunt to pull the wrong handle or press the wrong button. Well, this is Representative Mike Prax, but we'll get into the Rob Young issue also. But this was Representative Mike Prax who accidentally pushed the wrong button and voted yes. And by the way, I stand corrected. It was...
18 to 21, obviously not 20 to 21. That math wouldn't have made sense. It was 18 to 21. Also, I did want to ask you, if you recall on Must Read Alaska, gal that wrote the article about the ADEC's new regulation in Fairbanks regarding having every house required to, before it's sold, to have it at a, what do you call, efficiency rating? Oh, an efficiency rating, right. I wanted to hear your thoughts on that, but...
But what bugs me about that, I know it's a Fairbanks issue, and Fairbanks does have problems with the colder temperatures, as do other areas, you know, in a valley or when it's like well below zero, you've got standing. carbon monoxide, and smoke from fireplaces. But to add this regulation is redundant in my mind because homes are inspected before sale. Buyers and sellers have the option to negotiate back out of the deal, what have you. There's all sorts of redundancies already in place.
for fireplaces. Insurance companies want to know what kind of fireplaces in there. And that's a local issue. But if the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is trying to impose that, which apparently they have, in Fairbanks, what would stop them from doing that for the rest of Alaska? One of our greatest resources, besides oil and minerals and fish,
As wood. And what I've seen in other information I've read is they try to force you onto these pellet stoves, and they're selling you back your own product. in pellet form and they claim it's more efficient, but it's creating a new worthless industry that detracts from Alaskans' independence of cutting their own firewood.
Yeah, well, and I, first of all, I most certainly agree with you. Let them cut their firewood, let them burn the coal. But I'll tell you just overall on government regulations, we have so many damn government regulations. We do not need another one. If people want to debate all day about whether or not we need to have an efficiency rating, if you are not sure or unclear of where you stand on that, then if nothing else, ask yourself, really? Do you?
Do you really think that we don't have enough regulations already? Look at the cost of buying a home already. Exactly. It is astronomical. And every time that you start adding another... you know, another report that's got to be done, another inspector that's got to come out, all of these other things, and you start layering on bureaucracy, you're going to increase that cost to purchase that home. You're going to delay the time for somebody.
They can purchase that home? If I may, the delay will be not months, but years. They do not have enough inspectors. I mean, I've had those efficiency ratings done in the past for my homes. And they don't have enough inspectors. And for the amount of homes that are sold in Alaska or in Fairbanks, they'll never get it done. It'll be a year plus before you can sell a home.
Yeah, well, and I'll add, Larry, thanks for the phone call. But I'll add, if you're going to purchase a home and the buyer wants to go request an independent efficiency rating. then more power to you. I think that the buyer should be allowed to do that. And if the homeowner says, hey, I don't want to do that or I'm not going to do it, then they can find another buyer and the buyer can find another seller. That's just the principle of free economics operating right there. Let them go for it.
All right, well, he says that the vote was on accident. Are you buying the BS? And then I want to know how much money is enough. And I'll tell you why I think this conversation is completely misplaced on education, right out of the gate. Republicans are to blame. Democrats are to blame. There's plenty to go around. 522-0650. We'll be right back. This is News Radio 650, KE&I, Anchorage.
An Anchorage man arrested in connection to a hit-and-run crash that killed a pedestrian has made his first court appearance. Alaska's news source reports J.B. Matha appeared in court yesterday to be read his charges. He's charged with second-degree murder, felony DUI, felony refusal, and leaving the scene of an accident for the crash Tuesday night.
The alleged leader of a cult-like group linked to multiple murder cases reportedly has ties to Alaska. The BBC reports 34-year-old alleged Zizian's leader Jack Lasota earned a degree in computer science from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2013. Police in Maryland arrested Lasota Sunday afternoon.
Along with another apparent member of the group, investigators described the Zizians as a Bay Area based fringe militant vegan group. And a watch is in effect for the Atka volcanic complex following a small explosive event last night. The Alaska Volcano Observatory says the explosive activity happened just before 730. The observatory has changed the aviation color code and alert level to orange watch. That's the latest. I'm John Fink.
Looking at your Alaska total traffic cameras on a Friday morning. Traffic's light currently inbound on the Glen Highway. No majors. Reach out to Amy now, 907-522-0650. That's 907-522-0650. It's Amy DeBoski on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Vote on accident. I'm telling you, he's trying to dupe you. He's lying. There is no way that he was the determining vote breaking or excuse me, tie breaking vote.
And he did it on accident. 522-0650. I'm Bernadette filling in for Amy Domboski. We're talking about the House Education Bill. And it'll start out with an initial $1,000 base student allocation increase per pupil funding. It's got a price tag of $356 million in fiscal year 26. and could go up to $500 million just by 2027. So you get into the question of who's going to pay it. But then the bigger question, the question that seems like...
We are talking about, we'll have lots of debate in Juneau about, well, who's going to pay for this bill? We don't think that we can afford the bill. That's fine. That's a fair argument. There's a lot of debate on should it be a thousand dollar BSA? Should it be a six hundred dollar BSA? I've had legislators tell me the Senate's already decided it's going to sit right about six hundred something dollars. That's where this is going to land.
The Democrats in the House know it. But the conversation that we're not having at all, or at least very little, legislators, I've watched them. They'll sit in committee and they will debate the amount. They will debate how we're going to pay for it. And it's the wrong conversation on both sides of the aisle. Because I will tell you this. If you could come to residents in Alaska and say. For.
$10,000 increase per kid every single year. We are going to guarantee that we can be number one in the country on every single metric known to mankind. I promise you that Republicans and Democrats alike would come together and say, really? All right, how can we figure this out? Our kids are going to walk away geniuses. They're going to be coming back.
doctors, lawyers, the highest IQs, everything's going to thrive because we're going to have the brightest and most brilliant kids across America are going to hail from the great state of Alaska. And if somebody could say what that price tag is, I guarantee you we would figure out how to pay for it. The problem with the conversation now is this is a number that just got plucked out of thin air.
Nobody can tell you. The education bureaucracy, the teachers' unions, legislators, Republican and Democrat alike, nobody can tell you why $1,000. Why not $1,100? Why not $50? Nobody can tell you other than this argument that, well, we haven't increased the BSA, which quite frankly is a complete fake. of actual education funding in Alaska because the BSA is only one component. It is one small piece to the puzzle when we look at education funding as a whole.
The education bureaucracy doesn't want to talk about all of the other pieces that you need to complete the puzzle. They just want to talk about this one little piece. And nobody can tell you how they even came to that amount and why. Why that amount? What are we going to get for that amount? For $1,000 BSA increase, which is currently being proposed, does that mean that our kids are now going to come in in the 50th?
percentile when it comes to proficiency? Does it mean that they're going to come in at 70% proficiency? What is the number? And that's the question that I want asked is, how much do you need? I want to know from the education industry, how much money do you need to guarantee that these kids are going to be at the top? And then how many years is it going to take you to get them there?
522-0650, 522-0650. So then the bill ends up in House Finance, and Finance has already passed it out. This has got to be one of the most irresponsible legislatures.
that we have seen in Alaska in a long time. There used to be a point in the state of Alaska where it was recognized that good policy, good processes said that these bills would go through each committee, that they would have a robust discussion on how they were going to be funded, that they would have actuarial analysis, that you didn't just put it straight to the floor that you didn't try to circumvent a committee vote. That was, you know, 10 years ago was recognized as poor decorum.
And as I stated earlier, it was recognized as the nuclear option. Now we have legislators, they just think it's not a big deal. Holy crap. The bill ended up in finance, in finance, where they're supposed to be studying. all of the how we're going to pay for this and do the numbers make sense? Do the finances make sense? And then the legislature decides, again, even with the help of Republicans, well, we'll just push it out. We'll let.
It's Democrats bill. They can figure out how to pay for it. It is irresponsible. And even for the Republicans who sit on finance, your job in that moment is to dig your heels in, ask the questions. and try your damn darndest to slow that bill down until you get those answers that is the job of that finance committee
And so there is equal blame to go around and different blame to go around on both sides. We'll talk with Representative Jamie Allard coming up here a little bit. We'll talk to her about that bill moving out of the Finance Committee and the whys. But traditionally, that bill would be sitting there in finance, and there would be a robust discussion, if an actuarial analysis, whatever it is that is needed. 522-0650, 522-0650.
Ken, good morning. Hey, good morning, Bert. It's been a long time since I've seen you. I bet you're on a hill to give you some signs about, gosh, 12 years ago. But anyway... I must have been like eight. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because we're both very young, right? That's right. You know, I had to run a couple things I've heard past you because I don't want to regurgitate them unless they're... accurate, it's harmful to do that to the cause of reality.
that these people that pass this thing get a lot of contributions from the people who have benefited from it, from the unions. Is that correct or not? Well, when people say that, what they're talking about is the fact that many of these individuals took campaign contributions from the PACs for the unions, yes. So it is quid pro quo. Okay, I got you. And then secondly, the students, I've had a lot of educators tell me the money is not the issue and their efforts become not the issue.
in the problems of the scoring and the student performance because it's the parent involvement and the parent caring, and that's their biggest gripe. You have to talk to any teacher. They can do anything. short of duct taping a kid to the desk and taping their eyes shut like clockwork orange to get them to learn. But if the parents aren't involved, then back them up and make them do their homework and show that they care, that this is important.
You can throw all the money you want at it. And so we have, and this is what I was going to bounce off of you, I heard that some of these students are getting $60,000, $70,000 per student. while the folks down here in the boroughs that pay taxes, they're not getting this money. They're paying it, but they're not getting it. It's a humongous distribution of Marxist or socialist effort. Am I wrong on that?
No, I mean, I don't necessarily disagree with you. I mean, you look at the whole, the education industry is just, it's turned into a giant cabal. I mean, Ken, you pointed out, right? Look at the money that the union is paying into these campaigns. And then they're turning around. They're taking bizarre...
votes, right? There's totally circumventing process. Our kids were not getting results. We're spending money up the yin yang. We can't seem to get anybody to ask the right question. And meanwhile, they're down in Juneau, just add a committee, add a committee, add a committee. Ooh, let's go.
Somebody else will figure it out. Each committee thinks that the next committee is going to figure it out. Well, you know what this feels like and what it actually is? It's contempt for us. It really is. They don't care.
And that hurts. It really is bad. Yeah. Well, thanks for the phone call, Ken. I appreciate it. But when you look at these kids, you have to ask the question, If the school system in Alaska, the public school system, is fighting so hard, they're fighting so hard against charter schools, they don't like the private schools. But yet we're seeing much better results come out of there. And I'm not saying that that's the answer for every kid. Just to be very clear, there are some areas of this state.
where it would not matter how many, you know, you could have full-on school choice, you could have charter schools like crazy, and there are areas of the state where those options just simply do not exist for those kids. in that area of the state because there is only one school right that's fine it is not there is not one single thing that is going to be the one solution to the problem but the question that we need to be asking is
is how many different solutions are there that need to come together? And the question legislators need to be asking is, how did you come up with this amount? Why? Why this amount? And what are we going to get for it? Where is it going to put us with our results? What can we expect from it? But to be passing money where we don't know where the dollar amount came from, there's no accountability attached to it. And then we've got...
People like the principal over at Golden View High School, we're here just a couple weeks ago, put out a letter to parents saying, well, call your legislator because I'm telling you what, based off what they do. I'm going to have to cut nine teachers and cut your kids' sports programs. That's BS. No legislator told the president at Goldenview that he had to go cut nine teachers or that he had to cut the sports program.
They're making that decision. That's where they are deciding to make the cut, and they're deciding to make those cuts in those areas on purpose because they want to hurt those kids. That's why. Because talking about cutting, you know, janitor positions, that's not sexy. Sports is sexy. 5-2-2-0-6-50, 5-2-2-0-6-50. We'll be right back. Looking at your Alaska total traffic cameras on a... Now, back to the boss, Amy Demboski. Call 907-522-0650 and be a part of the show on NewsRadio 650. KENI.
All right, good morning. I'm Bernadette filling in for Amy, 522-0650. What is the number? That's the question I want to know. How much number? How much money? I want to know from the head of the NEA. the legislature to pull in every single principal across the state of Alaska, sit them down in front of committee and say, how much money do you need to make our kids number one in reading?
And math, how do you make sure that they come in number one in every single score so that across the great land of America, everybody knows that up in the last frontier, they have the best and they have the brightest? I want to know that number. That's where we need to start the conversation.
I don't want to have the conversation about some random number that legislators pulled out of thin air and no one's really sure where it came from. Why 1,000? Why 600? What results is it going to get? Nobody really knows. And then we'll have this big, long debate and everybody gets stuck in this little debate.
Meanwhile, across the country, they're talking about funding students, not systems. Whether that means that the kid has a charter school, maybe it's a private school option, a homeschool, a homeschool pod, whatever that option is. Across the country, Tennessee most recently just passed legislation that would make sure that that money followed the student and not the system. We've seen it in Florida. Texas is working on it. We've seen it in Arizona.
And meanwhile, up here, true to Alaska, we're going to have the conversation. We'll be a couple years back behind the national average. 522-0650. I know we've got your phone calls backing up. Good morning, Carrie. Good morning, Bernadette. Ken was speaking my language this morning. I'm a teacher. I have roughly half of my students reading three or more grade levels behind.
I can't fix that. All I can do is try and move them forward. The person who has the most pull in helping those students become more proficient is exactly what Ken said. It's their parents. And of my roughly half of my students that are reading three or more grade levels below, Not many of them have parents who are involved. I only have them for six and a half hours a day, and that's how much time they're in the school building, not how much time. I mean, that doesn't...
Count, you know, lunch and recess and the pullouts. And that education and that educational process needs to come from the most important educator. And that's their parent. It's not the person in the school building with them. Yes, the first and primary educator of that child is indeed the parent. Thanks for the phone call, Carrie. We're up against a hard break here. I know we've got your phone calls backing up. We will get to you on the other side of the break. 522-0650. It is 656.
The opinions expressed on the show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to News Radio 650 KENR. Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio.
on News Radio 650 KENI. Good morning. It is 7.06. I'm Bernadette filling in for Amy Domboski. Well, while the legislature is down there passing... education and education funding bill in the most bizarre disorganized fashion meanwhile your local assembly here in anchorage is letting landfills be put in all over anchorage they're not permitted
They haven't been approved. They haven't been discussed particularly. Not the fact that they're a landfill anyhow. But yet there are landfills going up all over Anchorage. Joining us now. Jeff Landfield with the Alaska Landmine. Jeff, good morning. You went out just literally a couple days ago, and I've seen a lot of these videos of what I'm calling landfills, okay?
I think it's time we call this what it is. These are not homeless camps. These are landfills. Tell me exactly where you went when you took this video. Good morning, Jeff. I feel like you're saying landfill because of my name. When I was a kid, they used to always make fun of my name. You've triggered me. Landfills all over. Now, you took this video, and it is... Jeff, I was shocked. I was born and raised in this state. I grew up in Anchorage. I've seen a lot of...
the mess around town, the homeless camps. But your most recent video that you took just a couple days ago completely caught me off guard. Walk our listeners through exactly what you saw back there.
Well, I was over on Diamond near Victor and Arlene behind the Fred Meyer gas station. And for me, it wasn't actually surprising at all. In the last five years, we've made three... kind of made many documentaries about homelessness we did the first one in 2019 we called it this is anchorage and then two years later we did another one called this is still anchorage and we looked at you know the homeless camps and
over town. And that one, we also went, I say that I'm in the Sullivan Arena. They had spun up, you know, during COVID for the homeless shelter. And then this last summer, we did a third video called Somehow This Is Still Anchorage. And that one kind of focused on, you know, when I first started doing this back in 2019, you go to these camps, you feel bad for people, you know, you're seeing this stuff and it's very kind of heart-wrenching. And then the more time you spend in these things...
And that was what the last video really focused on was a lot of these people, and they're very honest about it. I mean, they aren't like savvy political people with spin. They just say, we like being out here. Nobody bothers us. We can drink. We can use drugs. There's no rules. You know, oftentimes there's massive theft going on, bike parts, frames, tools, all kinds of things.
So for me, it wasn't really a shock because I've been around these camps so much. But because of these videos we've been doing, this coverage over the years, people have become this kind of clearinghouse or this place for people to report. homelessness and problems and fires and trash. And so I got a tip from somebody and they said, there's a homeless camp over there. And I knew there was some camps near that Campbell Creek, Campbell, you know.
We were there this summer filming, but this was kind of a new one. Right. Someone gave me a tip, and I said, there's a camp back there, and there's a lot of trash going into the creek. So I said, okay, I'm in Juneau for the session, but I happen to be back in Anchorage for the weekend. So I go there, and I mean, this baby is right off the diamond. I mean, you can literally, there's a gas station there, you can walk.
just there's a little trail right off the road right by that the fred meyers gas station right there correct yeah yeah or by the entrance to the to the campbell um creek trail And, you know, it's just very typical of what I've seen of these cams that are located all over town. Mounds of trash, stolen, I mean, dozens or more bike frames, tools, generators running.
The one thing I've noticed this last summer is a lot of these camps, especially over in Davis Park and Mountain View and some of the ones in the Campbell Creek area and other parts of town, They've resorted to building full-on permanent structures, one on Pine and DeBar we went to. I mean, I'm talking about wood, pallets, lumber, you know, permanent structures with...
chimney pipes and generators. Oh, yeah, they've got generators running. The video that you just took a few days ago, there's a generator running. Oh, that's very common. I mean, you know, you have stoves inside these things. You know, I've been posting videos. People have been sending me from the big, big, big camp over on Mountain View in Davis Park where there's been, you know, in the last few weeks, big fires. One had a big plume. But, you know, so there's, you know, tools and bike parts.
Mounds of trash and there's buckets, human waste. Well, and Jeff, it goes on. I want to be really clear for listeners here. When you hear, I think most people right now, you obviously have... seen a whole other side to this issue which most certainly makes us look is bad if not worse than Seattle but when most people hear homeless camp they're thinking and this is bad so I don't want to downplay this but I think most people are thinking
okay, it's the little cluster of four or five tents, you know, right off of 36th and New Sword Highway, or it's the little cluster of tents over back there by Mulcahy, and it's the four or five of them, and yeah, there's trash, and it stretches out 10 feet. The video that you took, there is mounds of trash. And it goes on as far as you can see in that video.
You can see garbage. In both of the examples you gave, we actually filmed in those locations on 36 and Seward. That was very dangerous. There were some very shady characters back there with a lot of weapons. And there was clearly, you know, drugs being sold. And the one over there by Mulcahy also tons of trash. But, I mean, you're right. I mean, a lot of people think, oh, it's a few, you know, and those do exist where there's...
you know, a handful of tents. And I mean, some of them are, I've been around a few where it's a little more organized or they try to clean up. But for the most part, I mean, it's just huge amounts of trash. You know, we oftentimes go back there, you see drug needles, alcohol bottles, cans of alcohol. And it's just, we just kind of...
allow this. And I mean, people always ask, what's your solution, Jeff? What's your solution? And I say, well, one, we need to stop tolerating it. I mean, we need to stop telling people this is okay. You can't do this in our public areas. And there's a court case, a Supreme Court case last summer.
called Grants Pass. It's a town in Oregon. And it kind of overturned almost a decade of this Ninth Circuit ruling where they kind of said, if you don't have enough shelter, you really can't do anything. And all these... Towns got kind of hamstrung because nobody really knew. Is there shelter available? Is there not shelter available? And Western cities used it as an excuse to not do anything. But that was overturned. So, I mean, you have to stop tolerating it.
Well, not only that, but Jeff, you got to enforce the laws that are on the books. OK, now it's one thing to say somebody is homeless and the courts to say, well, there's homeless. There's nothing that you can do that they put a tent up. First of all, I disagree with that. But second of all. when they are stealing things, when they are doing drugs, when there's abuse that's happening.
All of those things are against the law, whether you are homeless or not. Last I checked, all of those things are still illegal. Well, it's not just that. I mean, there's laws about, you know, open, you know, kind of fires and, you know, all these.
all these sleeping in the parks or sleeping in public areas, you know, past, you know. Yeah, enforce the laws that are on the books today and call it what it is. And there's a big difference. People say homeless. There's a lot of people that are, you know.
homeless that are tough on their luck or that are having some problems or they're staying on someone's couch or they're friends or, you know, they don't have a house. But what's going on outside with the camping, many, many, many of these people.
They tell you. Some of them actually are honest and they say they have a place to stay, but their friends are out there in the woods or they're out there camping and it's fun. Like I said, there's no rules like in the shelters where they have rules and people can drink and do drugs. And you're right, there's a lot of... Assault is people praying on other people. I actually argue it's more cruel to let people do this because they can be assaulted, they can get exposure, frostbite, hypothermia.
So I think, one, you've got to stop tolerating it. Two, the people who, if they want help, and some people I think do want help, I think we should offer people help. If they want help, if somebody really wants help, I think we should find ways to help them. But for the people who don't want help and who choose to, you know,
be outside and camp and do these things and because we tolerate it we make it you know when you subsidize something when you allow something you get more of it um i think we should start what you said we should you know give some you know you get a warning and then if you
Refuse to stop camping or living in public areas. You know, you get a fine and you go to jail eventually. If you're mentally ill, there's a lot of mental illness out there. And we need to institutionalize people who choose to. Because what happens is... It's worse for those people, and it's worse for the public who are afraid to go to the trails, afraid to go to the parks. I mean, Davis Park, it's in a lower-income area in Mountain View. It's a great park.
But when I was there this summer, we were filming. I mean, the grass is overgrown. There's a baseball field no one's using. There's people walking around screaming, very mentally ill. There could be kids going to that park. That's the other piece to this problem. The first thing is enforce the laws that are on the books. You can't be putting up with theft and everything else. The second thing is
Before you can solve a problem, you have to properly identify the problem. And when you have a drug and psychiatric problem, and you continue to call it homelessness, you're never going to be able to solve it because you have misidentified what the problem is. And then we hear, well, it's expensive, though. So if we put him in jail or we just haul him off,
It's expensive. Well, guess what? Go tell that to all the people whose generators those are and whose kids' bikes they've stolen and people whose businesses have had equipment stolen and fuel siphoned off and everything else. Well, that's exactly right. I tell people, what's the cost of doing nothing? What's the cost of not letting people feel safe in the city or use the trails or go to the parks?
I mean, frankly, I would say I really don't care. I think we should spend whatever we need to spend to make our city livable and safe because there's other things you can't even measure. We're losing population. People are going to the Valley or leaving the state. Right. Jeff, do you disagree with my assessment that... they indeed resemble landfills more than they do even homeless camps? I mean, many of them, yeah, many of them are just extremely, yeah, they're crash, full of crash.
We were at 1-1 by downtown over there, Elderberry Park this summer we filmed, and that was one example, but there's many where it's just, sometimes the smell is so overwhelming.
whether it's human waste or sometimes they're burning copper wire to sell the copper. They're sometimes just extremely... putrid kind of foul smells and some of these well and as you say a lot a lot of them are commenting but we like being out here right but we we like it we don't have the rules all these things so if you go and you start cleaning it up
and then you clean it up again and again and again, and you make it inconvenient for them, they're not going to like it half as much. That's exactly right. You have to make it uncomfortable. for people and they send the message that we're not going to tolerate this and we're not a city where you can do this. But unfortunately, for many, many, many years, this goes beyond his current mayor and Bronson and Berkowitz. I mean, even just all of it. There was a consent decree.
signed, I'm not sure why, with the ACLU about this. And we've just kind of, for, you know, more than a decade, I moved to Anchorage in 04. I was 19. Yeah, no, it's been... There's always kind of the guy, you know, there might be somebody out there, kind of the bum, you know, we think about. But it's just gotten so... It has gotten so bad that you say 36 and Seward, or there's a place on Tudor.
They're kind of federal or state areas. And I mean, DOT just mowed down all these nice trees. All the trees. They're clearing out the trees. They weren't dead trees. They weren't like, you know, Spruce Park dead trees. They were nice trees. And now they're just gone. Yeah. They wanted to prevent, which that's really commentary kind of in our state of our city. And like I said, ultimately we just need to, I wish we could send a message to people and say, this is not okay. We're not going to.
allow this. And if you choose to break the law, you're going to face a consequence. Right. Well, I know we are, we are way behind for our break, Jeff, but I want to thank you for the phone call. And I'm going to encourage people. If you go to the Alaska landmine, on facebook it was just from just a few days ago the video is up and i promise it will shock you and i say that as someone that has stood in front of this assembly testified multiple times on this very issue
seeing the homeless camps, and this video will still shock you. Jeff, thank you so much. I woke up really early for you, Bernadette. I'm in Juneau. I know. We woke up your beauty sleep. I know. We did. Thank you, Jeff. Go check it out. It more resembles a landfill. So I know we're a little bit behind here. When we come back, Representative Jamie Allard, we're going to talk to her about this education bill and get some updates from Juneau when we return.
Looking at the Alaska total traffic cameras on this Friday morning. Traffic still moving well around the Anchorage Bowl. No major stoppages out there. Do want to let you know, though, 4th Avenue has got some closures on it due to Rondi coming up. So you're going to want to make sure you avoid that area and find a different way through downtown. From the Swickard Chevrolet. Anchorage Traffic Studios. I'm Darrell Dean. This report is sponsored by iHeartAdvertising.com.
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All right, good morning. I'm Bernadette filling in for Amy Domboski, who is out for today. Well, it comes with a hefty price tag, $356 million projected for fiscal year 2026. And then it only goes up. 2027 500 million joining us now representative jamie allard who sits on the education committee in the house sits on the finance committee in the house jamie we have so many questions
Thank you for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to talk with us today. Oh, you're welcome. Can you hear me okay, Bernadette? We can hear you great. Okay. Just a correction. I'm actually on Veterans Affairs. Not education this goes on. That was torturing the last legislature. Gosh, I'm like so eight months behind.
You're good, and you are correct. I do sit on finance, and I was able to get on finance without joining the Democrats. I just wanted to point that out. Yes, and you should be on education, by the way. I know, but they wouldn't let us be on all the committees. I know, I know. You know, it's just, there are so few good ones down in Juneau, and when you have a good one, you just wish that they could sit on every committee.
And, you know, once you know that's against the rules, right? Yes, but I guess I have some explaining to do. So I have a couple questions, but I want to ask you the first question. Okay. Has anybody explained to you? Or does anybody know where the dollar amount is coming from to increase? So the current proposal is $1,000, right?
Why $1,000? Why not $1,100? I mean, we've been told and I've heard from legislators, well, when it gets to the Senate, it'll get knocked down to six something, right? We've had a 680 BSA before. It appears. These numbers are just kind of like, you know, we're playing a game of roulette, right? And it's like, oh, there we go. We rolled the dice and it landed on. What's it going to land on? Oh, bingo, $1,000. Everybody wins. Where's this number coming from?
And what do we get for it? I can only tell you where the 680 originally came from as far as what this one has, and I disagreed there too. But if you look at what they proposed this time, I have no idea. I've asked them. We've all asked, where do they come? They just threw the number out there. It's like they just picked it out of a hat, like a magic trick. That's what they did. That is exactly what they did, Bernadette.
Just think about how bizarre that is. I don't know what else. Now, Jamie, I said earlier on the show that I think, and I'd like to know if you would vote with me on this, right? If the NA were to come to us and all the... the bureaucracy in the education industry and say, listen, it's going to cost
you know, some exorbitant amount of money, but we are going to guarantee these kids are going to be the most proficient in reading, writing, and math at every single grade level across America. They're going to look at Alaska and say, you know what? Up in the last frontier, they have the best, the brightest, and the smartest. If we could guarantee that, I think I would be willing to bet that we would say, okay.
We're going to be the best, the brightest. We're going to lead the country in every single... metric for education. Let's figure out how we can make this work. Let's figure out how we can make the dollars and cents. Wouldn't you agree with me that even Republicans, conservatives, that we would say, okay, how can we do this if we knew that that's what we could get?
Yeah, well, that hasn't happened. And in fact, the president of the NEA lives in my house district. And I don't even believe his children had gone to public school. I'm not doxing anybody. I'm just saying they didn't go to the same public schools. My kids, they went to charter schools.
So they don't even support the neighborhood schools. But as far as if they were to come and sit down and have that conversation, that would be wonderful. I have not had one teacher, and I'm just going to call them government employees. I haven't had one government employee. in the education field, come or the NEA or the unions and sit down and say, okay, we do need accountability. We want superstars, rock stars graduating from our schools. How do we do that? Let's sit down and talk about it. No?
Well, yeah, and then I would like to know, okay, for this proposed current $1,000 BSA, what does that get us, right? I'm just curious. Does that put us at, you know, 50% proficiency rate? Does it put us at... 60%? Is it going to, are we going to get, you know, 60% proficiency in math, but maybe not reading? What does that get us? And that's the question I want to answer. Just where does the bureaucracy think?
that this is going to improve in what area, at what grade level, and by how much. That shouldn't be hard. Well, it is hard for them. They can't do that. They won't go with the 20, I think we had 25 accountability measures. And even then I wouldn't be voting for a 680, but they still don't have those accountability measures. And when we had the presentation in finance yesterday, when we were discussing it,
Rebecca Hemshoot who is the representative at SICA said well we want all the money to stay in the classroom. Well that's not going to happen. Rebecca Hemshoot has consistently said that the local government needs to decide where those funds go but yet she's preaching that we can try to
go in the classroom. That's not going to happen. It will not happen. Yeah, and then you can say all day, well, we want it to go into the classroom. And we've seen the thread of, you know, I mentioned earlier the principal over at Golden View that said, well, I got to cut. nine teachers in sports, which they always do. Nobody wants to talk about cutting the janitor positions. Nobody wants to talk about the fact that we pay for extra square footage in real estate.
that sits empty. Nobody wants to talk about the fact that especially out in rural parts of Alaska, we could consolidate districts so that we're not paying multiple superintendents because all that stuff isn't sexy. Sports, though. No. I want to state that we have over 2,400 teachers in the Anchorage School District. And then we have...
I believe that was the number for the Anchorage School District. They're hidden. So they're under certified supervisors. So they actually leave the classroom, and they're no longer teaching in the classroom. And there's like 15 different codes for those teachers.
So when you have 43,000 students and the classrooms are growing, and I'm getting emails from parents saying, oh, my God, could you please get our classrooms smaller? First of all, that's not the criteria. It's like rank 10th of how kids learn. But the point I'm saying is that they want...
to cut the teachers first, and if the teachers are the most important, then why would you cut those first? That makes no common sense. So the whole point of saying all this is that if you want the classroom smaller, then put the teachers out of the administrative rules, put them back in the classrooms like the MATSU did.
We don't have a superintendent who actually has a backbone to do anything. He's from Texas. He needs to be deported back to Texas. He's running amok with everything that's happening. The Anchorage School District doesn't even know what they're doing. When you have a... When you go from 50,000 students down to 43,000 students, but you're asking for almost $1 billion, with a B, to provide for an Anchorage school district, that's insanity. It is absolute insanity.
and it is that you know one of the first things you learn in business don't pay for real estate don't pay for the overhead that you don't need and we see it just run I mean, it is absolute crazy. And it drives me nuts that when we have these principles and the education, you know, industry.
come back and say, oh, it's just going to be larger class size. They latch their teeth into that, and it is a complete lie. All right, I know we've got to get to a break. Representative Allard, when we come back, I want to talk to you because this bill... The education bill passed out of, didn't pass out of education, passed on the floor. Then it went to finance where it sat there for a little less than an hour. I want to talk to you about what happened there.
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News Radio 650 KENI. Looking at the Alaska total traffic cameras on this Friday morning. Traffic still moving well around the Anchorage Bowl. No major stoppages out there. Do want to let you know, though, 4th Avenue has got some closures on it due to Rondi. Amy Demboski. 628 Mornings on News Radio 650 KENI. Call now, 907-522-0650. All right, welcome back. Amy is out. Bernadette's filling in. It's great to be back in the driver's seat. Got to give a shout out to...
Kurt, Mike, Shauna, and Anderson down in the great states of Arizona and Texas who are joining us on the live stream today right here on KENI 907-522-0650. We're joined by Representative Jamie Allard. We're talking about the education bill, which would increase the base student allocation with a price tag of $300,000. $56 million for fiscal year 2026. It just goes up from there. $500 million in 2027. No accountability measures tied to it. Alaska comes in.
dead last in the country in multiple metrics yet we continue to spend money nobody seems to really know how much money or where the number came from we know how much money we're spending we're not really sure where the number came from it's like playing a game of roulette
as to how they came up with this number. Representative Allard, you sit on the Finance Committee. The bill did not pass out of the Education Committee. They had to put it to the House with a flip-flop Republican member who I'm... I am saying is total BS that he voted for it on accident or that it was a mistake. Then it goes to house finance where it sits there less than an hour and then passes out.
And the rest of us are scratching our heads going, what on earth is going on? Talk to us. Explain to me. I mean, I watch politics for a long time, especially in the finance committee. Normally, regardless of the political aisle you're on. Normally, a bill would sit in finance, and the finance members are going to just crucify the literal financial impact of that bill, whether it's an actuarial analysis that needs to be done.
How did you come up with these numbers? Where? How are we going to pay for this? All of those things. Walk us through what happened yesterday in that short hour and why. Yeah, I appreciate that, Bernadette. You're right. I've never seen... any party that was in the majority or group of caucus in the majority that discharges their own bill to get it to the floor and then
pull it out of committee and then discharge it. Oh, this is a new low. They're in the majority. What's that? This is a new low. Yeah, this is absolutely a new low. And then so after that, I was shocked too. Everybody was, I could say. Well, the people I knew on the Republicans were blindsided what happened. And then for the Democrats not to rescind the vote, that was deliberate. I haven't talked to Representative Prox.
I don't plan on it because I have my own point of view why that happened, and I'm not happy with it. So anyway, so it discharged, and it went ahead and moved forward, and they took their vote. They had their 21 votes because they had a member missing. It moved very quickly into finance. that we had moved it, that representative staff had moved it out of finance so quickly as they gave us a hard stop at 2.30 p.m.
So when they started Finance Committee yesterday, it started about 1.35. They needed to get through their entire presentation, and they were trying to run out the clock. In doing so, it meant they were going to stall until they brought their other member back. because they still don't have enough votes for it to pass on the floor. So strategically, yes, I was disappointed. Bernadette, I just had all, like, five pages of questions. I really wanted to ask those questions.
Yeah, because you and I talked before it went over to finance, right? We talked about all the different questions and everybody was fired up and ready to go, right? Like, all right, here we go. Jamie's going to make sure we dive in. And then all of a sudden it was gone.
Right. And so what happened was we were supposed to listen to the bill, I think it was Wednesday. They moved it to Friday. So we went ahead and listened to it. Or no, sorry, we were supposed to listen to it, I think, Wednesday. They moved it to Thursday. That was yesterday.
And because we had a hard stop, they wanted to run out the clock. What I wanted to see happen in my other fellow Republicans in finance, what we came to decision is, let's go ahead and move it out this ridiculous amount. Let's show the public how ridiculous this is.
Let's move it out of finance, force them to put it on the floor to take a hard vote. I want to see what Republicans are going to vote for it because they don't have 21. And in order for it to pass off the floor, they have to have 21 votes. So I want to see on that board what Republicans, what Democrats are going to vote to pass this ridiculous bill. And that's what we want to do. It's such insanity going on. Let's see what they do.
We'll have our moments to talk on the floor and get it out there. But when I say a hard stop, nobody was going to be able to discuss it. The Democrats now have to scurry around all week trying to figure out what's going to happen. It might even go across the floor today, this morning. It should have been turned into the clerk's office so that we can see it right across the floor. We want to force their hand. We want this to move forward, and we want to vote it down.
Jamie, is there a chance when this bill was voted on on the floor just, you know, two days ago, it was an 18 to 21 vote because we had representative. Mike Prox from up in the Fairbanks areas, the North Pole area, voted for it. And is is there a chance that that happens again? Yeah, there is a chance. And I want to see that. And quite honestly, I.
I don't have a lot of trust right now for the past three years being in the caucuses I have, and I don't have trust right now at all. I'd probably get blown out of the water by my fellow Republicans for saying that. I'll tell you this.
They could blow you out of the water for that, but I guarantee you every conservative across the state of Alaska that has even a half of a brain does not have that trust right now, and we can see it. And we see it not only in the House, but we also see it right now in the... on the senate side with senator rob yunt from out in wasilla who introduced an oil tax and it is it is things like this senator rob yunt representative mike prox why
You have so many people across Alaska that say, you know what, I distrust all of them. So you are not alone in that sentiment one bit. When somebody sits there and says, well, that was a mistake. That is absolute crap. Yeah, I feel like right now, and not feel, I believe we have some individuals that are going rogue that put out messaging.
And they're trying to drive their own narrative. And there's a lot of things I disagree with. I think that taxing our oil companies is not going to work. We've done it before. We drive them out. The economy doesn't flourish. you can't change the rules in the middle of a soccer game. And that's what we're doing at Hill Corps. I absolutely do not agree with it. When money changes hands in an economy, you flourish. And when we drive Hill Corps out, and I will...
I'll be, I believe this 100%. This will drive Hillcore out. Mr. Hildebrand is not going to put up with this. He will leave. They will roll up the sidewalks. They will leave Alaska. And then we're, this is what we do. We tax and we are not a friendly state. And, you know, Trump's not going to stand behind that. And it's from our own side. It's coming from our own side. It is one thing.
to have an effort like that led by a Democrat who campaigned on that and said, you know what, I'm going to push for oil taxes. And they ran their radio ads and their TV ads and everything, talked and promoted about it, and then they get elected. It's like, well, they told us they were going to do that.
It is a whole different animal when we're talking about someone who did not campaign on that and quite frankly portrayed themselves to be somebody entirely different. Jamie, one of the things that we love about you the most. is that you have gotten down there and staying true to who you are. And we appreciate that so much. Thank you for your time. You're welcome. And listen, I understand when you had said earlier, you know, why would Republicans move this so quickly?
I get it. I understand. But we truly had a hard stop. We needed to make sure this moved so that the votes can be taken on it as quick as possible so the public sees who's voting for what. And that's the strategy on it. That's just what we had to do. We did not have the time because we aren't running. We aren't the chair. We didn't have the time. We had a couple of minutes, and they were just going to stop it to ask questions.
We tried, and we put a couple out there. I said, where are you going to come with the money? And they just stared at us like a deer in the headlight. So I understand the concern of the people, but we really want this to move forward so that we can put those boats on the board and see what happens.
Yeah, well, it's going to get there and we will indeed see what happens. Representative Allard, thank you so much for your time. It's always good to visit with you. You're welcome. You're welcome, Bernadette. Thanks for having me. I'll tell you what, I miss the days of Speaker Mike Chenault.
For those of you that are listening that are old enough to remember, it wasn't even that long ago, by the way, that Mike Chenault was there. I used to love when Mike Chenault was the Speaker of the House. He had the hardball game that he would play. Of course, he was the Speaker, so he had...
significant control at that time but the democrats would want to push and they'd want to get up and they'd want to talk on something and they'd want to talk and talk and talk and think that they were going to kill a bill and all these things and he'd say all right that's great we're going to convene session at 9 p.m tonight
And we would go until 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 7 a.m. And they'd want to beg to take an at ease. And so Chenault would walk out, take a cigarette break. And it was it was great. I miss those days. All right, we've got to get a break. 522-0650. We'll be right back. Looking at the Alaska total traffic cameras on this Friday morning. Traffic still moving well around the Anchorage Bowl. No major stoppages out there. Do want to let you know.
All right, welcome back. It is 7.55. We are coming up against the top of the hour here. I'm Bernadette. Filling in for Amy Domboski, 650 KENI, 522-0650, 522-0650. I know we've got your phone calls backing up, and I'm going to apologize in advance. I know that we could not get to everyone today. We have had a full show. The time with Alaska always goes so quickly. I enjoy being with all of you.
We're going to go to the phone lines. We've got John from Denali. John, are you on the highway on your way back to Denali? Do I understand that correct? I'm actually driving back. I'm driving back up to our property up there in the park. And I really appreciate your efforts to shine light. on, you know, this budget betrayal, the budget betrayal. That's kind of what I call it. And what you're dealing with in Juneau is a ginormous swamp, much like the one in D.C.
And that's really the one that's got my attention. There's the D.C. swamp that's generated almost $40 trillion in debt. Our kids and our grandkids are going to pay a terrible price for this. It's generational theft. And the reason I'm bringing it up is because it's going to take somebody like you with enough fire in the belly. You go live in that swamp and you need to run against Senator Murkowski. She's the problem. You're the solution. Take this to heart.
Come out blazing and help us drain the swamp. Jamie Howard can drain Juneau. You need to get in there and drain D.C. Alaska needs you. As simple as that. Thanks for letting me be on. I appreciate that phone call, John. What a way to go out. I have enjoyed my time with all of you. From way up north, clear down to southeast, all of you texting me that you tuned in today, big thank you to Amy Domboski, who let me fill in the seat, keep the seat warm for her today.
It's always great. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Pleasure to be with you, my friend, who now has on his other mask. All right. Remember to tell a soldier thank you. Your kids, you love them. We'll talk again soon. my name is kyle tequila host of the shocking new true crime