Alaska News Saturday Night, November 14, 2026

Managing under a billion dollars? In business under three years? As of Tuesday, Alaska's state development authority will consider your bid for twenty-five million dollars of its money. From the Last Frontier, this is Alaska News Saturday Night. It was a week of the state rewriting its own rules: new limits on your records requests, and one quietly waived for its own investments. It stayed mild across most of Alaska, and wet in Southeast.

0:30Alaska proposes letting state agencies stop work on records requests after 15 hours

The state of Alaska would like to put a timer on your curiosity. On Wednesday the Department of Administration proposed new rules for public records requests. Under the proposal, a state agency could stop working on your request after fifteen hours of staff time, or after reviewing two hundred and fifty records. The agency would still have to hand over whatever releasable records it had ready. So you would get the first two hundred and fifty pages of the story. Like a library book with the last chapter missing, but with a regulation number on it. Those fifteen hours would include the time spent going through records for the parts the agency has to hold back. The Department of Law's current guidance calls that review "by far, the greatest time burden on agencies." So the slowest part of the job is the part that runs your clock. The black marker is on the meter. There is more in the proposal. Right now agencies generally cannot ask why you want something. The proposal would repeal that rule. Agencies could put Alaska residents ahead of nonresidents. And you could not use a third-party service or anything automated, including artificial intelligence, to submit a request. You would have to confirm you had not. Filed by a person, read by a person, at whatever speed people go. Then the clocks. Under the proposal an agency would still owe you a first response in ten working days, but that response could be an estimated date for your records, and the proposal sets no limit on how far out that date could be. So, ten days to tell you... well, to tell you a date. If you want to appeal, your window gets cut in half. The agency's window to decide the appeal gets more than four times longer. The department says the changes are about efficiency and modernizing, and its filing puts the cost to the state, to private persons and to local governments at zero dollars. Records you never get are very affordable. Written comments are due December eleventh.

2:29Panelists warn two-thirds of Alaska village corporations face a Red Dog revenue cliff

This next one matters a lot more than it is going to get talked about. At an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act forum at UAA on Tuesday, panelists talked about the resource money regional corporations share down to village corporations. The moderator, a former head of the village corporation association, said about two-thirds of Alaska's one hundred seventy-six village corporations are, her words, "100% dependent" on that money. And she said Red Dog Mine payments alone make up fifty to ninety percent of it. A Bering Straits Native Corporation executive on the panel said Red Dog will probably make its final payment through NANA in twenty thirty-two. He called it a giant fiscal cliff. His message to village boards without a business already built was this: "I hope you are starting to save money." That is financial advice you usually get from an aunt. Not from a panel at a university. So, what replaces it. Teck is exploring two deposits that could extend the mine. NANA says both are on state land, and the sharing only covers land conveyed to Native corporations. So the mine might keep going and the... the sharing would not. The one near-term replacement the panel named was Calista's Donlin gold project. Calista's CEO said that lease began in nineteen ninety-five, and he hopes partners decide to build in the next few years. The Bering Straits executive said he fears where some village corporations will be in seven or eight years "unless Donlin Creek or something magical pops up." Every budget I have ever seen has that line in it somewhere. It is usually near the bottom. The fix Calista's CEO liked best was mergers. Under Alaska law, a merger between Native corporations in the same region needs a majority of all outstanding shares, not just the shares that vote. He said Congress and the state would need to change those thresholds. So the way off the cliff runs through Congress. Good luck to everybody.

4:25Alaska refuges lost 38% of their field staff, the steepest drop of any region, review finds

A federal review out Friday says Alaska's national wildlife refuges lost a bigger share of their field staff over the last twelve years than any other region. Thirty-eight percent. Over the same years, the report says, the Fish and Wildlife Service's Alaska regional office grew, from forty employees to fifty-two. So fewer people out on the refuges, and more people in the office about the refuges. Which, I suppose, is also a kind of habitat. Most of the report's Alaska section is about airplanes, because Alaska accounts for about sixty-five percent of the agency's flying. The report says, and I enjoyed this, "Aircraft in Alaska are the pickup trucks of the Lower 48 states." The region has eleven pilots. Three of those eleven also work as biologists or law enforcement officers. The thirty planes average forty-six years old, and some date to 1952. So yes. Exactly like the pickup trucks around here. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed an order the same day telling the agency to plan how to cut administrative overhead and move people and money out to the refuges. The report recommends recruiting more pilots in Alaska. It does not put a dollar figure or a timeline on that. It also says a pilot typically needs three to five years to build the skills for survey flying and landing where there is no airport. So whenever the hiring starts, the pilots arrive... a few years after that. Seventy-six million acres. Eleven pilots. Somebody is getting a lot of flight hours.

5:56AIDEA waives size and age rules for firms bidding to invest $25 million of its money

And the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. AIDEA wants outside managers to invest about twenty-five million dollars of its money in bonds. Its own investment policy, adopted by its board in April, says a manager needs at least a billion dollars under management and three years in business. On Tuesday, ten days before proposals were due, AIDEA told bidders it was waiving that. It applies to every bidder, and it came before any proposals arrived. Every other requirement stays. A memo from AIDEA's internal investment committee cited "the lack of firms that would be able to meet the requirement." Which is one way to find out a rule works. That committee, AIDEA employees appointed by Executive Director Randy Ruaro, voted for the waiver on October ninth. The request for proposals went out on October twenty-ninth, still listing the rule as a minimum qualification. So for a few weeks the rule was waived, and also printed. The policy lets the committee do that by majority vote, no board vote needed. AIDEA used the same April policy last month to put twenty-five million into a nuclear startup that was not on the board's agenda. AIDEA plans to announce its picks December fourth, three days before Governor Mike Dunleavy, who is term-limited, leaves office. Contracts get signed after the new governor is sworn in. AIDEA says it wants to diversify based on, its words, "an excess of cash savings." An excess of cash savings. A state agency in Alaska said that, out loud, in writing. I would have it framed. That is my week. Maggie and Bill are up next with North of Normal.

7:39Bettles had 39.6 inches of snow in October, the most since its records began in 1944

Thanks, Walter. Bettles got 39.6 inches of snow in October. That is the most for any October since records there began in nineteen forty-four. In October? That is not a monthly total. That is a roof inspection.

7:55Homer finds five missed ballots between dividers, and one is still unaccounted for

Homer's city election count came up six ballots short. On Monday, five turned up between the dividers used to sort them, which is technically where a divider keeps things. One is still unaccounted for. Check the ferry. Unaccounted-for items in this state have a frequent-rider card.

8:15EPA drafts rules on whether used work gloves count as hazardous waste

The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted rules on whether used leather work gloves from Alaska's oil fields and mines count as hazardous waste. That is according to the agency's regional administrator, Emma Pokon, who said the package is waiting to go out for public comment. Gloves. A federal package. Please tell me the hard hat gets a separate docket.

8:39Troopers seek tips after moose found near Palmer with only its antlers taken

Wildlife Troopers are asking for tips about a moose near the Matanuska River in Palmer that they are treating as poached. Someone took only the antlers and covered the rest with brush. The troopers would like to know where those antlers went. In the Mat-Su that is less a tip line and more a home decor survey.

9:00Kenai planners to weigh dropping park status from a lot that never became a park

Kenai's Ahlstrom Park was set aside for parks in two thousand four and has never been developed as one. On Tuesday, the planning commission votes on whether to recommend the city stop calling it a park. So there is no park, and there is a vote. You vote to stop calling it one. The bar for that meeting is refreshingly low.

9:24Kenai Peninsula voters back school board term limits that won't bite until 2032

Kenai Peninsula voters backed school board term limits with about 89 percent in unofficial results. That is a landslide. And the first election it can affect is in twenty thirty-two. The Assembly certifies Tuesday. The consequences certify in a different decade.

9:42Juneau's draft capital priorities list asks $5 million for Highlands drainage study

Juneau's draft capital priorities list asks for five million dollars to begin work on the aging drainage above the Highlands. That first five million goes to scoping, reconnaissance and analysis. City staff put the whole project at ten to twenty million. Five million to figure out what to do. That is not a study. That is tuition.

10:06White Spot Cafe's new owners ask the state for the diner's beer and wine license

The White Spot Cafe's new owners go before the state liquor board Tuesday to take over the downtown Anchorage diner's beer and wine license. The menu they filed says know what you want, order for yourself, and no choice on toast, it's wheat. Honestly, I find that restful. It is the only place in Alaska where the carb is stricter than the liquor board.

10:28Alaska psychology board proposes dropping its state law and ethics exam for new licensees

Alaska's psychology board has proposed dropping the state law and ethics exam for people seeking a license. The board's own FAQ calls the exam a significant barrier to licensure. A barrier to licensure. Yes. That was the point of the exam.

10:47Wrangell-St. Elias keeps winter subsistence moose quota at five bulls

Wrangell-St. Elias is keeping its winter subsistence moose quota at five bulls. Hunters took eight in that hunt over ten years combined, never more than two in a season. So who is the five for? The limit is doing more work than the hunters.

11:05State closes Engineers Cutoff Road in Juneau for the winter, with reopening planned April 1

The state has closed Engineers Cutoff Road in Juneau near Dock Street for the winter. The closure listing names no detour and plans a reopening April first, twenty twenty-seven, at 8:30 in the morning. They know the minute. That is less a closure and more a sabbatical for pavement.

11:25Alaska DPS gets $1 million federal grant to standardize addresses in the unorganized borough

The Justice Department obligated one million dollars to Alaska Public Safety to set standard addresses across the unorganized borough, home to 74,448 people. The department says large portions of it have no standardized physical addresses. So what has been going on the envelope? Mail carrier instructions were basically Alaska,

11:51Ketchikan's Loring Service Area Board weighs dock grants with $60,625 on hand

good luck. Engineers priced fixes for the dock in Loring, north of Ketchikan, at 2.3 million to 63.5 million dollars. The service area has about 60,600. The board discusses grants again Wednesday. Sixty thousand against sixty-three million. They are roughly one one-thousandth of the way there. Ribbon cutting should be any decade now.

12:18Anchorage's viral "jellyfish UFO" was filmed in June, and it may be a kite

That jellyfish UFO all over the international news this week was filmed in June, in East Anchorage. Alaska News went through the video frame by frame, and the camera was pointed southeast, past Russian Jack Springs Park, which is a listed flying spot for the local kite club. Kite fliers online think it was an octopus kite, though nobody has come forward with one. Filmed toward a kite park. The truth was out there, and according to kite fliers, it needed wind.

12:50Week Ahead

Back to me, and to the week ahead. Wednesday, the Division of Elections runs the ranked-choice tabulation for the general election, and the results come out. Every statewide race gets decided there. Friday, public comment closes on the draft Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. That's the package that decides which highway, airport, ferry and transit projects get funded across Alaska, and it's your last chance to weigh in. Also Friday, the Board of Game holds a special web meeting on proposed hunting and trapping closures along the Ambler Road route, in Game Management Units 23 and 24. Anyone in the state can follow by video or audio. So Wednesday we learn who won, and Friday you get to tell the state where the roads go, and what you're allowed to shoot next to one. One Homer ballot is still unaccounted for. This has been Alaska News Saturday Night, come back next weekend, Alaska News dot com.