Alaska News Saturday Night, October 31, 2026

"An airplane forfeited for a six-pack." That's how one pilot's lawyers describe his case, which the U.S. Supreme Court hears December first. From the Last Frontier, this is Alaska News Saturday Night. It's Halloween, and the week was full of things that aren't what they look like: a windfall that may vanish by spring, a medical list with almost no Alaska on it. Outside, most of the state got a warm, foggy end of October.

0:27Alaska oil nears its highest price since 2008, far above what the state budgeted

North Slope crude was priced at a hundred twenty-nine dollars and seventy-one cents a barrel on Wednesday. That is near the highest since two thousand eight, by the state Department of Revenue's daily numbers. The state built this year's budget on seventy-five. So the oil is running about fifty-five dollars a barrel ahead of the plan. The plan has been notified. What it adds up to depends on who's counting and how long it lasts. A group called Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets projects the state could take in about one point seven billion dollars more than expected this year, if prices stay high. In July that same group's number was under half a billion. In late September, about a billion. Now one point seven. Their estimate is the only thing in Alaska that has grown that fast since July. Somewhere tonight, a capital budget just sat straight up in bed. Back in the spring, the Department of Revenue did see this coming, sort of. It said the state may receive a temporary windfall from higher prices. One sentence. That is the whole warning. Then the spring forecast went ahead and assumed oil would start above eighty and drift down. Oil went up every single month instead. July, August, September, October. It's the most reliable thing in the state budget, and the budget is the one thing it was not invited to. And before anybody starts spending it in their head... extra oil money does not raise the dividend automatically. Lawmakers set the dividend every year in the budget. Meanwhile diesel averaged six dollars and fifty cents a gallon statewide Friday, about two and a half dollars more than a year ago, according to AAA. In a lot of rural Alaska, diesel runs the power plant and fuel oil heats the house. So the same barrel is a windfall in Juneau and a light bill in a village. Same oil. Depends which end of the pipe you're standing on. And much of that projected gain depends on prices over the next eight months, which the federal Energy Information Administration expects to come down by spring. So the state is rich, provisionally, pending what traders think oil costs in April.

2:34Legislative Council urges U.S. Supreme Court to uphold plane forfeiture over beer

The Alaska Legislative Council has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let the state keep an airplane. It is a 1969 Cessna, valued by the trial court at ninety-five thousand dollars. In twenty twelve, troopers in Fairbanks found seventy-two cans of beer aboard before a flight to Beaver, a Yukon River village of about eighty people that voted to ban bringing in alcohol. The pilot was convicted of a misdemeanor. State law has made forfeiting the aircraft mandatory on conviction since two thousand four. The pilot's lawyers say that is an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment. Their brief sums it up as "an airplane forfeited for a six-pack." The six-pack is not rhetoric, by the way. The trial court found him willfully blind to one visible six-pack, and an aviation group on his side notes it made no finding about the other sixty-six cans. The Alaska Supreme Court looked at all this last year and ruled the forfeiture constitutional, noting the plane was worth "only 9.5 times the maximum fine." Only. That is a hardworking word. That word could get a Cessna off a gravel strip by itself. The Legislative Council's side is serious, and it's worth hearing. Its brief walks through decades of the Legislature trying to keep alcohol out of villages that voted to be dry, and argues courts owe deference to lawmakers on how serious a crime is. The federal government agrees, and so do four regional tribal organizations, including Tanana Chiefs Conference and Maniilaq. The council voted ten to nothing to spend up to fifty thousand dollars on outside lawyers for the brief. Fifty thousand to help keep a ninety-five thousand dollar plane. That's a ratio of about two. By the Alaska Supreme Court's standard... that's barely even an only. Arguments are December first. The plane has been in the legal system since twenty twelve, which is a long time to sit on the ground for a Cessna that, all agree, never actually flew toward Beaver.

4:30Three out-of-state donors have given Kreiss-Tomkins $480,000, including $120,000 Tuesday

The election is Tuesday, and on the Tuesday before it, four donors gave Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins' campaign for governor a hundred fifty thousand dollars. That's from Alaska Public Offices Commission records. Three of those donors, from New York and California, gave forty thousand apiece. Those three have now given the campaign four hundred eighty thousand dollars combined. That's legal. Right now Alaska has no limit on what one person can give a candidate, because a federal appeals court struck down the voter-approved limits in twenty twenty-one. So in the August primary voters approved new ones. Ballot Measure 1 caps what one person can give a governor's ticket at four thousand dollars an election cycle. It takes effect after the November third election. So the cap is... it exists. It's approved. It's sitting on the porch with the light on. It just doesn't answer the door until Wednesday. One of those three donors has given two hundred fifteen thousand dollars since April. Under the new cap, that is about fifty-four election cycles. Governor's races come every four years. That's a little over two centuries of contributions, paid in advance. The campaign itself reported about five point three million raised through October twenty-fourth, and debts that went from about ninety-six thousand to about six hundred sixty-seven thousand in three weeks. Through Monday, any contribution over two hundred fifty dollars has to be reported within twenty-four hours. So the filings will keep coming. They're the only trick-or-treaters guaranteed to still be knocking on Monday.

6:04Alaska's workers' comp tiebreaker doctors are almost all out of state, new list shows

If you work in Alaska and get hurt on the job, this one is yours. When your doctor and your employer's doctor disagree, the state can order what it calls a second independent medical evaluation, generally from a provider on a list kept by the Workers' Compensation Division. The division published the new list Wednesday. It takes effect tomorrow, November first. There are fifty-two providers on it. One has an Alaska address. Forty are in California. Five in Hawaii, which, if you have to commute somewhere to settle a dispute about a frozen shoulder. And the one Alaska address belongs to a psychologist in Anchorage. So if the argument is about your knee, the only Alaskan on the list specializes in the part of you that is not the knee. State rules have the board ask four Alaska groups to recommend providers: the chiropractors, the dentists, the optometrists and the State Medical Association. This year, according to the bulletin, none of the four recommended anyone. It is the fifth straight year. The last time anybody did was 2021, when the optometrists sent four names. The bulletins don't say why. So for five years the state has knocked on four doors and gotten nothing. Tonight, a house like that... you just skip it, you move on to the next street. In workers' comp, the next street is California. That's mine. North of Normal is next, with Maggie and Bill. Keep your porch light on and your receipts handy.

7:33Haines would lease the old Mosquito Lake school to a nonprofit for $58.80 a year

Thanks, Walter, and happy Halloween. The Haines Assembly voted this month to lease the old Mosquito Lake school to a nonprofit for fifty-eight dollars and eighty cents a year. The lease posted for Tuesday's hearing says fifty-eight eighty per square foot, which comes to about three hundred sixteen thousand a year. Depends whether the nonprofit is renting a school or a welcome mat.

7:57Fairbanks airport's control tower is closing overnight because of FAA staffing

The FAA has been closing the Fairbanks airport control tower every night since mid-October, from ten at night to six in the morning. The airport stays open. Pilots announce their own takeoffs and landings over the radio, to whoever is listening. The good news is everyone on frequency is suddenly a great listener.

8:19Soldotna opens a student seat on its Planning and Zoning Commission

Soldotna is taking applications for a student seat on its Planning and Zoning Commission. The student joins the discussion and casts a vote that goes in the official minutes and does not count. The student cannot make or second a motion. So roughly the same toolkit as half the room after a three-hour plat debate.

8:39Sitka hires Gerrie Cotter as municipal administrator at $200,000 a year

The Sitka Assembly voted seven to nothing to hire Gerrie Cotter as municipal administrator, at two hundred thousand dollars a year. Gerrie Cotter's application asked why she was leaving her township job. She wrote: desire to relocate to an area with more natural beauty. Everyone else just buys a calendar and a ferry ticket.

9:01North Pole council splits over adding a $110,000 chief of staff with director job vacant

North Pole Mayor Larry Terch put about a hundred and ten thousand dollars in next year's budget for a new position in his office, possibly a chief of staff. Some council members would rather rework the city's vacant director job. Councilman Santa Claus noted that city code requires a director. Hang on. Councilman who? Councilman Santa Claus. That is his name, and that is his seat. When Santa says you need a director, you do not open a chief-of-staff tab in the budget.

9:38Bethel's landfill score drops to 69.6% on its state inspection, down from 90.9%

Bethel's landfill scored sixty-nine point six percent on its latest state inspection, down from ninety point nine. Inspectors were most worried about vehicles sitting there waiting to be drained, and about no one checking each load of trash as it comes in. No one. They did not miss a few points. They left whole cars on the curve.

10:00FAA hires contractor to put a $1.6 million roof on McGrath's navigation beacon

This week the FAA hired a Georgia company to replace the roof on the navigation beacon at McGrath's airport, for one point six million dollars. On Christmas Eve, the FAA revokes an airway that ran from that beacon, as it moves Alaska's routes to GPS. We used to call that keeping the light on. Now we call it a line item.

10:21Company says Skagway's old Starlite Room isn't historic and asks to move it

A Skagway company says the little building once known as the Starlite Room is not historic, and wants to move it out of the historic district. The company's application says it went up around 1999 or 2000. The Historic District Commission takes it up Monday, and I would fight for that building. Nineteen ninety-nine, Bill. The last year of a millennium, Maggie. Nobody is building those anymore. The company's case: if your building is younger than some of the seasonal hires, it is not a landmark.

10:56Ketchikan weighs $63,750 more to design a tank for Ravenwood's low water pressure

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly votes Monday on sixty-three thousand seven hundred fifty dollars more to design a water tank for upper Ravenwood, where the pressure drops when demand spikes. The borough first identified the project around 2006. Most of the new money is for a control panel and hooking it into the water system. After this many years the panel should just display the words

11:23Juneau reopens Lemon Creek playground with fencing meant to keep out bikes

still designing. Juneau reopened Sigoowu Ye Park in Lemon Creek on October twenty-first. The city had closed the renovated playground in September, about six weeks after it opened, because bikes damaged the new surface. Bikes were already banned. It came back with rails at the entrances to keep them out. City solution: fencing. The kids get a park.

11:48Kodiak commission suggests 25 places, from a fishing boat to a cairn, for history survey

The bikes get a view. Kodiak's Historic Preservation Commission suggested twenty-five places for a new city survey of historic sites. The list includes the fishing vessel Kilkenny, St. Herman Cemetery, the Pillar Mountain cairn, and McDonald's. McDonald's. It is in the draft minutes. Finally, a landmark where the line is older than the building.

12:13Port MacKenzie would freeze 2027 dock rates and add fees for guards and late ships

The Mat-Su Borough's Port Commission is weighing new charges at Port MacKenzie: seventy-five dollars an hour for armed guards, and a hundred and fifty dollars per tide cycle for ships that miss their arrival time. During the review, Commissioner Fred Elvsaas said, we have a problem with no traffic. So who exactly is late? If Commissioner Elvsaas is right, the guards can take turns being the traffic.

12:39Contractor barged in whole plants to repair King Salmon's military airfield

No road reaches King Salmon. So to repair the military side of the airport, a North Pole contractor barged in an asphalt plant, a concrete batch plant, a rock crusher and a wash plant, and made its own pavement on site. Asphalt, concrete, rock crusher. That barge had a stronger economy than some zip codes.

13:02Kodiak bear safety group tells trick-or-treaters to finish by 8 pm and carry air horns

The Kodiak Interagency Bear Safety Group wants trick-or-treaters finished by eight tonight. Bring a flashlight, make noise, stay out of the brush, and carry an air horn in case you see a bear. An air horn. For Halloween. The group says some town bears are already out looking for treats. They did not RSVP. They just showed up.

13:25Week Ahead

That's the desk, and the porch lights are on, so one thing about the week ahead. Monday, the Alaska Marine Highway System revises the Tustumena's schedule because of weather, and if the ferry is your road, that changes your travel, your freight and your connections. On the coast, the weather never reads the ferry schedule. On Monday, it edits it. Kodiak, finish by eight and bring the air horn. This is Alaska News Saturday Night, join us next weekend, Alaska News dot com.