SITKA, ALASKA
State Representative Peggy Wilson says her experience gives her insight and relationships that help her represent Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell and other communities in the State House, along with her status as a member of the Republican majority.
“And I assume we’ll be in the majority again, and it’s just a fact of life that when you’re in the majority you have better opportunities to help your district,” Wilson said.
Democratic challenger and former Sitka Assembly member Reber Stein says Wilson has not been effective in her job, and that her position as chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee has led her to focus on the whole state at the expense of her home district.
As an example, Stein cites Wilson’s support for the Alaska Class ferry project. He says the ferries will run up and down Lynn Canal, which isn’t helpful for District 2.
“I understand Peggy’s support for the vessels,” Stein said. “As chair of the transportation committee, she’s chair for all of Alaska, and as I’ve said in other instances, that neutralizes her ability to advocate directly for District 2.”
Wilson says the ferries, which don’t have staterooms and are designed for single-day sailings, are an affordable option to improve ferry schedules.
“Is it ideal? No,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that aren’t happy with it. But we took input from people all across the state and put it all together, and this is what we’ve come up with.”
So Stein says because Wilson chairs the transportation committee, she’s focused on the state at the expense of her district. When it was time for the candidates to ask questions of each other, Wilson fired back.
“If you don’t think that I should be a chairman of a committee, then does that mean that if you go to Juneau that you’re not going to try to be a chairman of any committees?” Wilson asked.
Stein seemed to indicate it wasn’t chairmanships in general that bothered him so much as Wilson’s chairmanship of the transportation committee.
“When you became the chair of transportation,” he said, “that is where I think your advocacy for the district – and perhaps the rest of the state appreciates what you’ve been doing – but advocacy for the district waned as you became the flag-bearer for the Alaska Class ferries, for the governor as you speak. These are not examples of an improvement to service to Sitka, to Petersburg.”
Later in the forum, Wilson came back to that point.
“You keep saying that I shouldn’t work for the state as a whole, and I personally feel like I’m a state legislator, so I have to work for the state as a whole, plus I do work for this district,” Wilson said. “And actually, this district gets more in the capital budget than almost any other district. And other legislators aren’t happy about that.”
During the live forum, which aired on KCAW, KFSK and KSTK, Wilson and Stein fielded questions from throughout the district, including one from a listener in Petersburg, who asked whether the candidates supported granting state lands to the University of Alaska.
“No,” Wilson said, “I’m definitely against it until we have the access that we in our district and people in Southeast need to have some of that land.”
For example, Wilson says, Petersburg’s attempts to become a borough would require it to have more land.
“We don’t have very much land in Southeast Alaska, because it’s mostly federal lands,” she said. “It’s the Tongass National Forest. So I actually helped kill that bill because I think there are landless Natives in both Wrangell and in Petersburg, in my district, and I want them to be able to pick some land.”
Stein says granting land to the University of Alaska is an important process to continue.
“However,” he said, “I do believe there needs to be a rigorous process to ensure, as Peggy points out, that when we have groups that are owed or have earned land selection rights, that we make sure that those are addressed adequately.”
Another question from Petersburg asked about plans to connect Petersburg and Kake’s electrical systems. The intertie could cost $30 million to construct.
“I don’t believe that it makes sense to spend $30 million to get electricity to Kake to a population of 500 unless it’s part of a larger project,” Stein said. “We really need to keep that in mind. There’s no economic model that will support $30 million expenditures for populations of 500 around the state.”
If Kake is part of a larger intertie, it’s a different question altogether, Stein said. Wilson says that’s how she sees it.
“It’s not just so we can get it to Kake,” Wilson said. “It’s so we can complete the electric grid that we have so that all of Southeast will end up having some kind of more affordable energy.”
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