Natasha Von Imhof's Mayoral Kickoff Campaign

I feel pretty good about this.

So you know how sometimes you have these dreams and you like, you wonder, you show up to the front of the classroom naked and you're like, "Oh my God, I can't believe it," you know? You all freaked out. I was like, "What if people don't come? Oh my gosh." Thank you! Thank you!

Woo! This is the most amazing crowd ever. It's like, I know everybody, and this is— there's so many familiar faces, so many people representing business and real estate and communications and transportation and hospitality. I mean, we have the who's who of Anchorage, Alaska here in this room. This is— this blows me away.

Woo! So I have a few prepared remarks and then open question and answer. I don't want to keep anybody too long because it's such a beautiful day, and what happens in Anchorage when it's a beautiful day? You go outside. Yeah.

So, um, I am Natasha. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah. And I do want to just, uh, my mom's here. Yay, Kathy! And my best, amazing, most man apartment— or partner in life, my husband Bruce.

And then my brand new son-in-law Paul. As of this Friday, this weekend, I think my daughter's here, Liesl. And then McGrath and his whole entire family, so Liesl's fiancé and his whole family from Boston just showed up. Yay! Alaska's a family affair, Anchorage is a family affair.

There's several people that have been here for many generations. Our family's been here for 4 generations. Liesl and Nick are the 5th generation. Anchorage is an amazing place to live, work, and play. And whenever I travel, I appreciate things to do outside.

And sometimes they might have better weather— not today, though. But you know what Anchorage has? That's so unique is we have the Chugach Front Range. I mean, you can ski, hike, bike, run, you name it, all year round. We have the Hilltop Ski Area.

That is an urban ski resort within a 15-minute drive, not to mention Girdwood and Arctic Valley. We have Kincaid Park. There is no other place like Kincaid Park. Frisbee, soccer, biathlon, skiing, running, hiking, you name it. It's 50 kilometers of trails.

The Torey Knowles Coastal Trail, the, what is it, the Park Strip. We have ship— Cruise ships.

Ship Creek has 5 species of salmon. You can go downtown, catch your dinner, and go make salmon tacos that night. We have the Fur Ronde. Think about running with the reindeer. We have the Iditarod ceremonial start.

We are the official mushing district. And we have Lake Hood Seaplane Base. I mean, it's the craziest airplanes flying year round. That's what makes Anchorage so special. And in fact, what a lot of people say, Anchorage is kind of like this big city opportunity with small town vibe.

Mm-hmm. I mean, that's how cool that is. We have our problems, no doubt. As we're driving here, I saw a bunch of homeless just right there on Benson. Homelessness is a problem.

A lot of young people are leaving the state. You look at the Department of Labor, ages 18 to 50, they're leaving, they're looking for other opportunities. Businesses are closing their doors. We're not building enough houses. There is a problem.

But it doesn't have to be that way. What this city needs is an injection of vision, of vigor, of energy— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] of passion, and we need a plan. We need a vision and then a plan on how to get there. I'm your gal. Woo-hoo!

Yeah! Really quick, easy slogan: Fix and grow. Fix and grow. Is there any more room in there? There is, come on in.

All people, come on in. Let me move out of the way. Absolutely. Yeah, okay. I'm coming in.

Keep coming. It's a little warm. You might have to open a door, I don't know. Excellent. Thank you.

So fix and grow. We're going to fix homelessness for real. It's not just beds. Some folks in this town really need help. And we're going to grow this town.

It's not just we're going to build more houses. We want to bring more businesses. We need to build more roads. We need to build more trails. I want to see all sorts of cool stuff in this town.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Because here's what's coming down the pike. This is what keeps me up at night. This is what makes me really excited. We have 3 big things happening. And I don't know if our current administration is doing anything about it.

Number 1, J-Bear. $7 Billion is coming to our state called the Fighter Town Recapitalization Project. J-Bear's going to get a bunch, Fairbanks is going to get a bunch. Are we building houses? Are we— what about all the support staff?

There's so much money coming in for military, it's staggering. Number 2, if Donlin Creek goes through, and I think it will—. Woo! Yeah! Donlin Gold, that's 3,000 jobs.

Jobs that they're going to need, I want them to come from as many— from Anchorage as possible. If this AK LNG line goes through, that's going to be about 7,000 to 8,000 jobs as well. That's a big deal. So what else is happening? Did we see that Terra Coal just got $89 million from the Department of Energy?

That's just right across there on Susetna. Mm-hmm. Did you see that our Ted Stevens Cargo is the busiest in the United States. Did you know that it's going to actually hit its capacity at about 2035? Then what?

There's talk about maybe having it grow the cargo part over on McKinsey Point. So that's— so hold that thought. The Department of Defense gave NovaGold $42 million about 24 months ago to build an antimony plant right there across McKinsey Point. It's going on right now. Antimony.

Tomahawk missiles, ammunition, drones. So that's actually happening. So we have a lot happening right now. So one of my— you've heard this big audacious hairy goal, a BHAG. I really want to see not only the AKLMGs, but I think we're ripe for a Kinnickarm Tunnel.

Ooh. Because what's happening is Governor Dunleavy commissioned $1 million in November of 2024 to do a study. The study's out. You can find it online.

$7 Billion— no, what is it? $3 Billion in 7 years. If we connect Anchorage to Mat-Su— and I'm just talking big, hairy, audacious goal here— we can become kind of like Seattle-Tacoma. We can kind of come Minneapolis-St. Paul. Anchorage-Mat-Su.

And the reason why I'm saying this is that if nobody is thinking about these things, and we're just looking at, well, can we just build an ADU dwelling in your backyard— good stuff, but we need to think about all of it all the way up and down the pole. And that's why I want to be your next mayor, because I want visitors to become repeat guests, and I want residents to become wonderful ambassadors. I want kids to live, not leave. Mm-hmm. I want to see Anchorage vibrant, where we have a salmon bake downtown.

We have— remember Experience Alaska? Well, let's think bigger. Let's get everybody in those really cool— you're kind of like in a ride where you get strapped in, you've got the big dome, and you're circling around like this. You've got the drone pictures all in the Chugak. I mean, how cool is that?

Like, experience— let's experience Alaska. Let's have a kids' museum where they're putting on booties on, like, you know, stuffed sled dogs or something like that. I mean, let's just make it— let's just make more things to do for families. So— That's my speech. Really appreciate you being here.

Just quick housekeeping. What's going to happen is that we're going to campaign a little bit and then we're going to allow the senator, the senior senator Dan Sullivan campaign. We're going to allow the congressional campaign. We're going to allow the gubernatorial crazy house campaign and the legislature. So we can kind of chill for a little bit until through August and November.

And then we're going to pick it up January, February, March hard because the election is next April. I think it's April 6th, 2027. So we've got a little bit of time. Thank you. But I'm going to be listening, learning, and planning, and I'm going to count on every single one of you to help me figure out what's going on with the city and how we can make it better.

I'm on board. Thank you.