A “formal invitation” for Goldbelt Inc. to discuss taking over operations at Eaglecrest Ski Area has been offered by city leaders, who say the two key conditions are the city must retain ownership of the land and any deal can’t be tied to approval of the company’s proposed cruise port in West Douglas.
“Aside from these non-negotiables for CBJ there are almost endless variations of what a partnership could look like,” an undated letter from City Manager Katie Koester and Eaglecrest Board Chair Brandon Cullum to the company states.
Goldbelt President and CEO McHugh Pierre, in a brief June 17 response, states “Goldbelt welcomes the opportunity to engage with the City Manager and the Eaglecrest Board Chair regarding the future of Eaglecrest.”
“As a first step, I’d like to suggest an informal meeting where Goldbelt can learn about Eaglecrest’s needs, CBJ’s goals, and expectations to achieve desired results for the community,” he wrote.
An update about the offer is scheduled to be presented to Eaglecrest’s board of directors during its meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The board is also scheduled, after that presentation, to interview Julie Jackson Piper as its only finalist to be the ski area’s new general manager after Craig Cimmons announced his resignation in January.
Eaglecrest has operated at a loss for many years, with the city providing funding to help balance the books. But those losses have increased in recent years due to extensive maintenance needed to aging infrastructure at the 50-year-old ski area, extended periods of poor snow conditions and other factors.
A plan to achieve long-term stability by installing a used gondola, thus allowing an expansion into year-round operations that would include mass tourism during summer from cruise passengers, fell through earlier this year due to project costs being far higher than initially estimated. The Juneau Assembly, as part of its abandonment, refunded a $10 million payment provided by Goldbelt (plus more than $2 million in interest) to help with the project.
However, city and ski area leaders said they remained interested in Goldbelt — and/or other entities — reaching a new agreement on a gondola and possibly taking over some or all operations at Eaglecrest. Initial discussions this spring included the possibility of the city turning over some land to the Alaska Native corporation as part of a deal.
The recent invitation by Koester and Cullum spells out more specifics about what is and isn’t acceptable. An outright sale of the property is deemed “expensive and time…(and) not in the public interest,” although “a long term lease that meets the fiscal needs of investors in the property” is agreeable.
Described in more detail are considerations involving Goldbelt’s plans to build a private two-berth cruise dock on land the company owns along the west coast of Douglas Island, with the hope of opening it for the 2028 cruise season. Pierre has said the port, which might receive up to 500,000 passengers a year, could be the first phase of development on a larger section of land the company owns there.
“The City appreciates that for Goldbelt the success of Eaglecrest summer operations (and therefore the ability to provide winter operations) is deeply connected with Goldbelt’s proposed cruise ship dock development on West Douglas,” the letter by Koester and Cullum states. “However, the City cannot make one (taking over Eaglecrest) conditioned upon the other (approval of the West Douglas development). The project is currently under review by the Community Development Department for a conditional use permit. In CBJ code the Planning Commission has the sole authority to approve or deny this permit.”
Another issue is how the port will affect the overall volume of tourism in Juneau. The city has voluntary agreements with the industry imposing a five-ship-a-day limit and a daily limit of 16,000 passengers (12,000 on Saturdays). But whether Goldbelt’s new port will result in up to seven ships a day arriving or redirect a significant percentage of traffic away from downtown is an open question.
“There is strong public interest in a Master Planning process that demonstrates the impact of the development on the greater Juneau community,” the letter by Koester and Cullum states. “The number one priority for respondents to CBJ’s 2026 Tourism Impact survey was to maintain the 5-ship limit within the boundaries of the CBJ.”
Abbey Jackson Ferree crossed the English Channel on June 21. Her husband and crew followed alongside aboard the fishing vessel Masterpiece. Her solo swim covered 40 miles in 14 hours and 23 minutes. (Courtesy/Eric Ferree)
Abbey Jackson Ferree, from Petersburg now living in Fairbanks, swam solo across the English Channel on June 21, crossing from England to France – around 40 miles in 14 hours and 23 minutes.
The swim is Ferree’s second leg of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, following her completion last August of the 28.5-mile 20 Bridges Swim around Manhattan Island. A third event – the Catalina Channel, off Southern California, which she has a window to attempt in September – would complete the set, a feat that few swimmers worldwide have ever managed.
These endurance swims are all the more remarkable for a athlete who, around three years ago, could barely walk after being hospitalized for months with a grave illness that her doctors were not sure she could survive. Ferree, a former Petersburg Viking Swim Club competitor who walked away from the sport in her twenties, has said that surviving that 2023 health crisis is part of what led her back to the water and, ultimately, to this crossing of the English Channel.
And now, 100 years after the first woman ever crossed the Channel, Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle in 1926, Ferree continues to swim her own way into history.
Her crossing began at a beach near Dover, England in darkness near 3 a.m. on June 21 and finished over 14 hours later on the French coast at Cap Gris-Nez.
Leaving nothing to chance
Growing her strength and preparing for this swim has propelled her life for three years and dominated almost every day of the last nine months.
“After three years of just obsessing about it,” she said, “you think you’re going to show up just ready, or more knowledgeable, or something magic. And I showed up and I was like, man, this just feels like every other day – but I have to pull out this incredibly epic swim.”
Her training built methodically. She would wake at 4 or 5 a.m. to swim before starting work at 8, spent lunch breaks on running, strength work, and a rotating schedule of physical therapy, chiropractic, massage and acupuncture to manage the lopsided muscles that come from breathing on one side. She built her mileage in four-week cycles, each month ramping toward a bigger week, until a peak around Mother’s Day when she logged roughly 80,000 yards in seven days and completed a 10-hour swim. All told, she estimates she swam more than 1.1 million yards – over 625 miles – since July of last year.
“I was leaving nothing to chance,” she said.
Channel-specific work meant stacking hard efforts to learn what her body did when it was already tired – back-to-back six-hour swims at the end of April, big swims followed the next day by medium ones. She even added a nighttime ballet class to her schedule through the dark Fairbanks winter because, she said, it forced her brain to work in new ways.
Most of her cold-water conditioning came in Alaska – cold plunges and cold showers at first, then big weekend swims in Fairbanks-area lakes once they thawed, plus sessions back home in Petersburg in roughly 55-degree water. By the time she reached the Channel the cold was a known quantity. However, this year the Channel ran unusually warm. “Anything above 60 degrees is a pretty toasty swim after you’ve done something like Cork Distance Week,” a cold-water training camp she completed last year.
A rehearsal in the dark
Four weeks before the Channel, Ferree did something she had never done before: a big swim in the dark. On Memorial Day, she flew to Connecticut at the urging of her crewmate and mentor, accomplished open-water swimmer Liz Fry – whom Ferree had met at Cork Distance Week in Ireland. She got into a cold saltwater cove at dusk with Liz and Liz’s friend Chris kayaking alongside. It was a deliberate rehearsal, so that the Channel wouldn’t be her first ever night swim.
It was valuable mental preparation. The water was about 56 degrees and falling, and as it turned black she felt bursts of water tugging at her from below. “My brain thought: was that something big swimming under me?” she wrote in an account of the swim. It turned out to be the wash from the kayak paddles. She cycled through every worry – her sore shoulder, whether it would recover in time, the mile of dark water, “what was that shadow?” She caught herself “wishing I didn’t have a degree in fisheries biology.”
When Ferree stopped to clear her goggles, tense and fighting the dark water, Liz urged her to look up. “Abbey, look at the sky,” she said. “Not everyone gets to do this.” By the time they turned for the beach, Ferree was picking out constellations between breaths. “I went in feeling like a weenie and got out feeling strong,” she wrote – the same shift she would need a month later, when the dark, the cold and the doubt all came back in the Channel.
The first 10 hours
She arrived at the boat in England on no sleep, still partly on Alaska time, running on adrenaline. Fry assured her that was normal.
“I told her, ‘I’m not ready for a big swim,’” Ferree recalled. “And she said, ‘Congratulations – everybody feels like this before their big swim. You never go into swims like this fully rested. Once you get in the water, everything’s okay.’”
Ferree started in the dark, near 3 a.m. The pilot boat a few hundred yards offshore guiding her with a faint spotlight; she raised her hands and set off at the blast of a horn, the white cliffs of Dover behind her. She spent the first two hours alone in the dark before the sun came up.
And for about 10 hours, conditions were pretty good. The hardest part early on was the boat’s exhaust, which hung over the water in the soft wind; at one point to avoid the fumes she swam some 25 yards off the support boat, watching ferries and barges “the size of buildings” pass nearby. Jellyfish – lion’s mane, compass, moon and a couple she couldn’t identify – were a near-constant presence. The stings, she found, weren’t as bad as the stories she heard growing up had led her to fear. She tried to turn the unavoidable stings into a game, treating each one as a bit of good luck. In her written account she called them “spicy kisses.”
One particular jelly tested her patience. Eric, who was texting updates to a WhatsApp group following the swim, had coincidentally just fielded a question from the group – any jellyfish yet? – when he looked up to find Ferree stopped dead mid-stroke, both fists clenched over her head. “You could tell they were just fists of anger,” he said. She clawed a big lion’s mane off her face with both hands, took the next couple of strokes “real mad,” and settled back into her rhythm. Ferree wrote that she “threw a silent fit” underwater and flung the thing behind her but is glad that Eric got a good laugh out of the deal.
Throughout the swim, she relied on small mental tricks to keep the negativity spirals away. When her mind started to slip, she counted her breaths to her lucky number, 105, then let herself look up to see where she was.
Sometimes Liz communicated that she wanted her to pick up the pace by making a circular motion with her hand.
“‘Do the thing,’” Ferree said, describing a fast-then-easy stroke pattern Liz had taught her. “And then I guess I picked up my pace enough, and it made the pilots happy.”
A good crossing, she is quick to say, is partly just luck. “Everybody has a great first part of the English Channel, unless you’re really unfortunate,” she said. “The weather window is truly luck. Your pilots do the best they can, but when you schedule, there’s no way of predicting what the weather will be.”
The last four hours
During the final four hours the wind came up – gusting 20 to 25 knots, by her husband Eric Ferree’s account from the boat – and it opposed the tide and current. “You get wind-driven chop, and then that opposes the current, and it turns it into a washing machine,” Eric said. Ferree swam the final stretch through three and four-foot slop.
Like she had during the difficult Hudson River swim last year, Ferree tried at first to make a game of the choppy waves – timing the catch and the breath to the waves, “trying to still look like a graceful swimmer.” Before long, it stops being fun. Ferree said the 20 Bridges swim, where she’d fought four brutal hours of crosswind chop on the Hudson, was what mentally got her through these windy hours on the Channel.
There was pain to manage, too. Her elbow -diagnosed, after 20 Bridges, as tennis elbow – flared so badly around hour 11 that she briefly feared it would end the swim. She took her scheduled painkiller early and swam straight-armed until it kicked in. The salt swelled her nose completely shut. Mid-Channel, with cold but still-dexterous hands, she pulled out her nose ring, tossed it carefully to Liz without touching the boat, and switched to a nose plug for the first time in her life.
Turns out she loved the nose plug. Before then, “I had just refused to look like that much of a nerd,” she said. “But oh my god, it was a game changer.”
From the boat, Eric worried about the waves and found her missed breaths hard to watch. “She’d turn her head to take a breath and she was completely underwater, and there’s just nothing you can do about it,” he said. “You’re just hoping the next one’s better.” His worry, he said, wasn’t that she would drown – there was too much support on the boat for that – but that any one wave could be the thing that ended the swim. “Every wave was a bit of a challenge to her entire swim.”
A swimmer friend kept texting Eric the same line on the way across: your Channel swim doesn’t start until you’re two miles from France. “He was right,” Eric said. “That’s what separates you from finishing or not.”
By then Ferree had passed her own ceiling and kept going. “All it takes is one bad leg cramp and your whole body can seize,” she said. But she had decided the only way she would come out of the water was if the crew pulled her – “because I was going to die, not because I wanted to quit.” A favorable shift in the tide finally helped push her toward the finish, but only after what Eric estimated was an hour and a half of absolute, all-out effort.
“There’s definitely a cruising speed you can do all day,” Ferree said. “But the thing about the Channel is that the weather’s so unpredictable, the currents are unpredictable – you have to be ready to sprint. If you’d told me at the beginning that I’d hold a really solid threshold pace for the first hours and then finish by sprinting for four hours, I would have told you there’s no way.”
The finish
The final stretch gave her one more unforgettable jellyfish kiss. In the final strokes, with Eric and Liz cheering her in and the dinghy rowing ahead, a small lion’s mane wrapped a tentacle around her nose plug and would not let go, slapping her across the lips. “I cannot finish with this jellyfish on my face,” she remembers thinking. She stopped, ripped off the nose plug and the jellyfish together, and looked up to Eric and Liz waving her on – “What are you doing? Keep swimming!” She put the plug back on, took a few strokes, and the same jellyfish lodged in her armpit and rode along until she gave up trying to shake it.
She pushed through those final 500 yards and arrived at a beach of algae-covered rocks, not quite the dreamy pebble beach she had imagined when visualizing the finish during training.
She dove down to gather pebbles and stuffed them into her suit, a keepsake for the family sauna at Fielding Lake back home – a rock-collecting tradition started by her husband’s late Uncle John.
Then “I just started ugly crying, like, so bad,” she said. She picked a big rock to climb out on, “this little mermaid rock,” tried to stand, and nearly went down.
“You should not try to stand up on a slippery rock after swimming for that long,” she said. “I almost fell – and luckily Eric did not see it, because I thought I’d never live it down.”
She sat, raised her arms, and the swim was over. One of the boat captains, Harry, rowed the dinghy to her, and rather than haul her exhausted body into the dinghy, he towed her back to the boat; she flipped onto her back to take in the French cliffs and the seabirds on the way.
Eric briefly lost track of her. Busy clearing the deck for her return – gathering dry clothes, a towel, hot water – he looked up as the dinghy came back and didn’t see her in it. “Where’s my wife? You left her in France?” he remembered thinking, until he spotted “eight little white fingers hanging on to the transom,” where she was being towed alongside. “I was like, oh, thank God.” When the dinghy reached the boat, after more than 14 hours in the water, she climbed the boat’s ladder under her own power. “I was pretty happy that she was able to climb a ladder,” Eric said. Ferree herself was surprised she could manage it. Once she was aboard and in dry clothes, Eric added, she seemed barely affected by what she’d just done. “I was pretty impressed.”
On the boat, “when I saw [Liz] smiling for me,” Ferree said, “that was better than [finishing] the English Channel.”
“I felt like I hadn’t been fully happy for nine months,” she said. “I just remember getting on that boat, and it was just sweet relief.”
On the boat Ferree talked nonstop for half an hour – pretty reasonable after 14 hours of barely speaking a word. The crew video-called Ferree’s mother, Pat Johnston, at home in Petersburg, to prove she was safe and sound on the boat. Then Abbey slept for two and a half hours all through the wet, bumpy ride back to England.
Her crew
It was a forty-mile solo swim, but Ferree is emphatic that she didn’t do it alone. Her husband, Eric, handled her feeding and “knew the inner workings of my mind better than most.” Liz Fry, the mentor who had also served as her crew during Manhattan, was for Ferree the calm, experienced presence that she can totally trust. The boat, the Masterpiece, was piloted by Fred and Harry Mardle, fifth- and sixth-generation local fishermen.
“As soon as I found out [that they were commercial fishermen], I was like, yeah – these are the guys to take me across the Channel,” she said.
Up next
Ferree has a September window for the Catalina Channel – Sept. 10 and 11 – a roughly 20-mile crossing she’ll begin around 10 p.m. as a night swim from Catalina Island to the Southern California mainland near Long Beach. Finishing it would complete her Open Water Triple Crown.
It would also make a small piece of Alaska history. By records kept by the Marathon Swimmers Federation, only two Alaskans have ever completed the Triple Crown: William Schulz of Ketchikan, the first, who finished in 2018, and Anchorage’s Jordan Iverson, who in 2024 became the first Alaska woman to do it. Should Ferree complete Catalina in September, she would become the third Alaskan to ever earn the distinction. It was Iverson who alerted Ferree to the unexpected 20 Bridges opportunity last year that started this own Triple Crown bid.
Her plan between now and then is mostly maintenance: keep the fitness she built, add a little more running to help with the late-swim sprinting, and get in some saltwater time, possibly back in Petersburg or in California, before the swim.
Then “hopefully,” she said, “my Triple Crown.”
A worthy cause
Ferree paired her Channel crossing with a fundraiser she calls “An English Channel Swim for AS Awareness,” for ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory autoimmune disease her sister lives with. The idea took shape, she said, after a training swim at Crane Lake near Petersburg where her sister – neck and hips fused, sore everywhere – hiked to the lake on her own to watch.
“In my brain it was a bigger deal that my sister hiked to that lake by herself,” Ferree said. “That was a way bigger win than me being able to endure 55-degree water.”
The contrast stayed with her. “A lot of my swim was chosen suffering,” she wrote in an email to the Pilot. “I chose the cold water, the long training days, the discomfort, the nerves, and the uncertainty. But people living with chronic illness do not get to choose when their pain shows up or how long they have to keep going. They just have to keep going anyway.”
Money raised goes to the Spondylitis Association of America, which funds research, physician education, advocacy and support programs for people with the disease. Ferree set a goal of $5,000, but said awareness matters more to her than the total. “Even one more person understanding what AS is means something to me,” she wrote.
The fundraiser – and the story behind it – is at spondylitis.org/an-english-channel-swim-for-as-awareness, and a link is also posted on Ferree’s Facebook page.
Reflecting on the swim
A few days after her crossing, Ferree shared her final thoughts on the swim by email with the Petersburg Pilot, and she offered this advice:
“If anyone walks away with anything from my swims, I hope it is this … We are capable of more than we think. Maybe not all at once. Maybe not in the way we imagined. Maybe not without pain, comparison, doubt, fear, or the parts of ourselves we wish were prettier … But keep going … Focus on what you can … Do not marinate in the rest.”
WASHINGTON — What’s more American than apple pie? Capitalism. And an array of merchandise and influence is on sale for the 250th birthday of the United States.
An America250 $275 Liberty Lux American Prosperity decorative throw pillow, anyone? How about a $25 Freedom 250 youth tee?
America250, a commission created by Congress a decade ago, and Freedom 250, President Donald Trump’s entity formed last year, each operate on their own respective tracks as a nonprofit and as a limited liability company. Both are employing staff, soliciting corporate donors and spending taxpayer funds.
That means people, businesses and nonprofits are getting a slice of the semiquincentennial pie, some bigger than others. But there is no clear accounting of which entities are getting the bigger shares and no one associated with either organization offered a full explanation to States Newsroom. Reports also show at least $10 million in taxpayer money flowing from America250 to Freedom 250, and some Democratic lawmakers claim more has been redirected.
The commission’s nonprofit arm, America250.org, lists 850 items available from its official online store: apparel, toys, games, eyewear, housewares, challenge coins, holiday ornaments, and a premier collectible line including an $8,000 painting by Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based “speed painter” Cody Sabol.
America250 and Freedom 250 merchandise for sale at Metro Variety store inside the McPherson Square Metro Station in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, June 30, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
America250 Chair Rosie Rios said the nonprofit arm receives a portion of the profits.
“It’s a licensing arrangement, so we get a percentage of the merchandise sold,” Rios told States Newsroom during a June 22 interview.
When asked how to differentiate between America250 the commission and America250 the nonprofit, Rios said “Think of it as one entity. America250 is one entity working together on the planning side and the implementations.”
An America250 spokesperson declined to specify what percentage of funds from merchandise that America250’s nonprofit arm received in 2025 and 2026, but provided a written statement.
“America250 is proud to be partnering with numerous household brands to bring the America250 logo and merchandise to communities across the country. These partnerships and merchandise are designed to help expand public awareness of the commemoration and give Americans additional ways to participate in the Semiquincentennial,” according to a spokesperson, adding the list of merch has grown in recent months.
“Our partners help bring the celebration to Americans through the brands they know and trust, advancing our goal of reaching all 350 million Americans as part of our ‘350 for 250’ initiative,” the statement continued.
In its 2025 legally mandated annual report to Congress, the America250 commission touted “a strong portfolio of strategic licensing agreements” that generated new revenue.
States Newsroom reached out to the offices of bipartisan members of Congress who currently serve as commissioners, and several staff replied they did not have information about how much money is being generated by merchandise.
The commissioners include Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., as well as Reps. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., Maria Salazar, R-Fla., Dwight Evans, D-Pa., and Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.
America250 t-shirts and other merchandise for sale at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on June 5, 2026. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
Freedom 250, the Trump entity, offers 62 branded products for sale on its website store, including shirts, hats, can koozies, stickers, pins and a colonial model flag with “250” featured inside the circle of the 13 stars.
At least two booths selling merchandise are open at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, one of Freedom 250’s main events.
Freedom 250 press officials did not respond to States Newsroom regarding where merchandise profits are directed.
Merchandise representing both America250 and Freedom 250 has been spotted in tourist shops in Washington, D.C., and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, just over the Virginia border.
Millions in spending
Congress initially appropriated $79.8 million over several years to the America250 commission, beginning in 2019, according to the entity’s annual report.
Most of its spending in 2025 — $17 million — went to America250 programs, according to the report.
That included field trips for roughly 550 students, $250,000 in grants for young entrepreneurs, an America250 time capsule to be buried in Philadelphia on July 4, a “Giving Forth” initiative to raise awareness about mid-year donations to nonprofit organizations, and New Year’s Eve-style ball drops to ring in Independence Day in every U.S. time zone and territory, among other initiatives.
“We are driven by purpose, not politics and our bipartisan Commission focuses on serving the interests of all Americans as mandated by our legislation. If the 250th anniversary is going to mean something to all Americans, it needs to be nonpartisan and belong to every American,” an America250 spokesperson said.
The organization awarded $935,000 in grants to state and local entities between 2021 and 2025, according to the report. A 990 nonprofit tax filing for 2025 was not yet available on the website.
A branded bag is seen at Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., on June 30, 2026. (Photo by Sam Gauntt/States Newsroom)
The report also showed the White House Task Force 250 — the precursor to Freedom 250 — spent roughly $31 million of the America250 funds last year, with most, $22 million, paying for the June 2025 military parade that occurred on Trump’s birthday, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Army.
An America250 spokesperson said a comprehensive list of private donors was not readily available, but the annual report identified new private-sector sponsors as The Coca-Cola Company, Starbucks, Walmart, Kraft Heinz, JPMorgan Chase, General Mills, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and RAM, BNY, and Leidos.
According to America250.org’s most recent 990 tax filing, the entity ended 2023 with just under $14.6 million in revenue — $11.1 million of which was program service revenue, and roughly $3.3 million of which came from other gifts and contributions.
The organization spent $12.2 million for the year. A category labeled as “other” clocked in at around $8.3 million. Salaries amounted to just over $1 million, not including employee benefits. Information technology and conferences each amounted to $469,000 and fundraising expenses were nearly $343,000, among other smaller line items.
Nine employees, and one former, are listed on the 990, with salaries ranging from $101,185 to $285,690, including incentive bonuses, the highest of which reached $43,800.
The nonprofit gave out $175,000 in grants to organizations and local governments in 2023, according to the filing. Most of the 16 individual grants were doled out as $10,000 in seed money for state governments, and nonprofit historical societies and foundations, including those in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia.
Congress allocated $150M
In 2025, as part of the “big, beautiful bill,” the Republican-led Congress approved another $150 million for “events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, to remain available through fiscal year 2028.”
The lawmakers directed the money to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum “acting through the director of the National Park Service.” Burgum is an ex offico member of the America250 commission as well.
According to commissioners Coleman and Padilla’s offices, America250 was promised $100 million of the “big beautiful bill” funds.
The commission has only received $25 million to date, according to Padilla’s and Coleman’s offices.
“Freedom 250 siphoned off funding but the details are murky due to their lack of transparency,” a spokesperson for Coleman’s office said.
According to an America250 spokesperson, “The final mix of funding cannot be known at this point as our programs are still in various stages of development and execution, and our fundraising for them continues.”
“However, Chair Rios’ commitment to Congress has been to engage the private sector for a true public/private partnership to engage all Americans and not rely on federal funding only,” according to the spokesperson.
Bracelets are sold at Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., on June 30, 2026. (Photo by Sam Gauntt/States Newsroom)
The Department of the Interior did not provide to States Newsroom, as requested, a breakdown of how the funds have been allocated so far, but offered a written statement.
“As with all of our signature 250 events, resources have been made available to ensure these historic occasions are a success. The Memorandum of Understanding signed with all 250th related entities made that clear and we are proud to be partners in celebrating these iconic events honoring our 250th thanks to the bold leadership of President Donald J. Trump,” according to the statement from a department spokesperson.
Freedom 250 was formed as a limited liability company in late October 2025, according to division of corporation records in Delaware, where it is registered.
The National Park Foundation, a congressionally chartered fundraising arm for the National Park Service, created Freedom 250 as a separate LLC “to help NPS with the execution of these events, while keeping this effort distinct and separate from the day-to-day work NPF does to support our national parks.”
‘From Vanity to Insanity’
U.S. House Democrats slammed Freedom250 in a new report on July 2, calling it “a shadow organization capable of infiltrating the celebrations and injecting America’s 250th with Trump’s extreme, partisan agenda.”
The 55-page interim report titled “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of their 250th Birthday,” said the administration “hijacked” the celebrations.
“Significant questions remain unanswered, beginning with the complete donor lists and the ultimate disposition of the funds that Freedom 250 has raised and spent. But the record already assembled supports a conclusion that should alarm the American people,” according to the report.
Shirts tied to America’s 250th birthday are sold in a stall at Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., on June 30, 2026. (Photo by Sam Gauntt/States Newsroom)
A spokesperson for Freedom 250 dismissed the report Thursday as “categorically false” and “disheartening.”
“This so-called ‘report’ is nothing more than a partisan smear from politicians who would rather manufacture division than celebrate America’s 250th birthday alongside the rest of the country. Congressional members should be ashamed they are spending countless hours fabricating a report instead of joining Americans in creating an absolutely beautiful celebration,” according to a statement provided to States Newsroom by Freedom 250 spokesperson Danielle Alvarez.
Alvarez criticized America250’s use of money, saying they had “nothing to show for it.”
“Freedom 250 was created because the American people deserved better. We stepped in to rescue our nation’s 250th birthday from years of wasted time, wasted money, and failed planning. We are unapologetic about celebrating the greatest nation on earth, and we are delivering the historic celebration Americans deserved,” Alvarez said.
Mobile exhibits funded
According to USAspending.gov, a $10 million grant originally given to America250.org was transferred to the National Park Foundation in late 2025, via the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and directed to Freedom 250 to fund “Freedom 250 Trucks,” six mobile exhibits stopping at libraries and community events.
The trucks provide curriculumresources from the private, Michigan-based Hillsdale College, a Christian institution led by Trump ally Larry Arnn, who spoke at Freedom 250’s “Rededicate 250,” a faith-based, Christian-oriented event held on the National Mall in May.
Freedom 250 did not respond to State’s Newroom’s request for a comprehensive list of donors and amounts pledged to the LLC.
A 250th anniversary flag hangs in an entryway at Union Station in Washington, D.C., on June 29, 2026. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
The watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington published an investigation of sponsorship money for Freedom 250 in May. Sponsors mentioned in their report included January AI, SAP, United Airlines, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Mosaic.
The New York Times reported in February that a donor solicitation obtained by the news organization revealed promises of special access and preferred seating for those who gave $500,000. A private Freedom 250 reception invite was offered, where sponsors who give $1 million can get a photograph with Trump, and the level of $2.5 million reportedly included possible speaking roles at the president’s July 4 program.
Freedom 250 did not respond to a request to confirm the Times’ report.
Freedom 250 also did not respond to questions about staffing. A quick LinkedIn search puts the range of Freedom 250 employees between two and 10.
Conference committee members include House Speaker Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, Reps. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, and Sens. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, and Mike Cronk, R-Tok, who unveiled a draft compromise bill for the proposed AKLNG gas line project on July 2, 2026. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
House and Senate conference committee members unveiled a draft compromise bill on Thursday for the proposed Alaska LNG gas line project, pledging that debate, input and revisions will continue on the state tax break legislation up until a floor vote scheduled for July 16.
“We know we have more work to do,” said House Speaker Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, following the committee hearing. “It’s a complex topic, and our goal today was to first get through the working draft that had, we thought, a lot of areas of compromise between, you know, sort of all the partners involved in crafting the bill.”
The six member conference committee is tasked with negotiating a compromise bill from the versions of House Bill 381, which was passed by the House and Senate in a special session in June.
Amid high political pressure, lawmakers are now in a second special session called by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to hammer out a state tax proposal that is workable for both the state and the project developer, Glenfarne, which owns 75% of the project. Glenfarne executives say the multibillion dollar tax break is essential to the project’s economics — and that it must come before the company determines a final investment decision with investors.GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.SUBSCRIBE
Dunleavy and members of the House and Senate have taken decidedly different approaches to the size and scope of the state tax break for the proposed project. The project would be built in two phases — first, an 807-mile gas line from the North Slope to Cook Inlet, then gas treatment facilities on the North Slope and on the Kenai Peninsula to export gas internationally.
One of the most fiercely debated provisions in the draft compromise is a proposal to apply the state’s corporate income tax to privately-owned oil and gas companies that currently do not pay them. The provision is favored by some lawmakers and was included in the version of the bill passed by the Senate. But Dunleavy has called the tax a “poison pill” and pledged to veto any bill that includes it. Legislative leaders say they will revisit the topic and expect to make changes to the draft.
Edmon called the corporate tax provision the “elephant in the room” and said further negotiation will continue after the holiday weekend. “I’m really looking forward to after this period of what I would call percolation that we come back and make further changes to the bill,” he said.
Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, who chairs the conference committee, said its members will continue hearing input on the draft bill from relevant groups, and many provisions will be further debated and revised.
“We’re going to continue that work, see how far apart the goal posts are, and do what it takes to try and bring those together,” he said. “And again, ultimately arrive with a bill on the floor that we think can be successful, and give this project a chance.”
House Speaker Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, speaks during conference committee discussions on a new draft compromise bill for the proposed AKLNG gas line on July 2, 2026. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
A spokesperson for Dunleavy said his office is reviewing the new draft bill, called a committee substitute, or CS, and repeated the governor’s objections to the corporate income tax provision, known as the S corporation tax, which was included in the draft bill on Thursday.
“Our initial take on the CS is that while it appears to address several of the harmful provisions for the gasline, it still contains the S corp tax that the governor and the developer have said will hurt the project’s ability to secure financing,” said Jeff Turner, Dunleavy’s communications director in an email.
In the draft compromise bill unveiled Thursday, legislators are offering a significant tax break that would replace the state’s property tax with a volumetric tax on the gas flowing through the gas line after five years, or when the gas flow reaches 500 million cubic feet per day, whichever comes first. The plan includes gradual tax increases over time as gas flows from the North Slope.
Lawmakers have proposed extending a deadline for construction to be completed on the gas line and phase one from 2032 to December 31, 2034. The provision allows the Commissioner of Revenue to review the tax deal if there are unforeseen delays outside of the developer’s control like severe weather or litigation.
The draft bill requires the gas price cap for Alaskans to rise with inflation at the national inflation rate, rather than Alaskan inflation rate, and the increase may not exceed 3% annually. It requires a variety of reporting requirements for labor agreements, filings with federal oversight agencies and construction updates on a public dashboard.
Another provision requires Glenfarne and developers to disclose their investment agreements with foreign companies investing in the project. It requires notice of any “significant changes” in the project’s ownership structure, defined as changes in entities holding more than 5% ownership interest of the gas line or 10% of the gas treatment plants.
“We’d like transparency and forthright information on who’s involved in this project and who owns a piece of that pipeline that’s dividing our state down the middle,” Schrage said.
The draft also contains a provision that prohibits the project developer from seeking payment from the state if the project is abandoned, and requires the developer to return all shares and assets to the state within six months in such a case. The issue was spotlighted by reporting on a confidential draft agreement between Glenfarne and the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. that under some conditions, the state could be ordered to pay in order to take the project back.
“It’s very important that if the state is going to offer tax concessions, that those concessions not then be leveraged against the state for a payout to the project developer,” Schrage said. “In the event that this project goes awry and the developer tries to exit, we don’t want to pay them for our concessions.”
Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, raises concerns about the local contribution provision for municipalities and required payments for school districts during discussions on the draft tax bill for the proposed AKLNG gas line project on July 2, 2026. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, raised questions and objections to a provision around how much municipalities’ gas line tax revenue would apply to their school funding formula, known as the local contribution. According to a legislative memo, the Kenai Peninsula would be required to contribute millions more to its school district beginning in 2034.
Ruffridge, a member of the all-Republican House minority caucus, said it was one of several provisions he objects to and cautioned the committee against “putting additional barriers” up for the project.
“We’re seeking maximum government take. I think in here we’ve asked the question, ‘How much can we extract from this project?’ And I think we’ve missed the fact that we are asking potentially to put on the line jobs, cheap energy and potentially a boon to Alaska’s economy in the form of revenue,” he said.
He said the proposal needs more work.
Several members of the House Republican minority flew down to Juneau this week to raise objections to the conference committee process and urge swift action on the bill. A full vote on a compromise bill was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, but postponed. Technical House floor sessions were canceled on Wednesday and Thursday, to avoid what House Speaker Edgmon called “political hijinks or theatrics.”
House Minority Leader Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, and Reps. Dan Saddler, R-Eagle River, and Garrett Nelson, R-Sutton, were among the Republican minority members that traveled to Juneau to encourage urgency on the bill, and attended the conference committee hearing on July 2, 2026. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
“There’s no time for games, and as the presiding officer, I’m not going to play games like this,” he said.
Edgmon said the committee has been deliberating with legislative attorneys, finance officials, various related departments and project developers in a process that would normally take years.
Rep. Donna Mears, D-Anchorage and a member of the House Resources Committee, also attended the conference committee hearing on Thursday and said rushing the process is not in the best interest of the Legislature or Alaskans. She said hammering out a compromise bill that will be approved by a majority of legislators and by the governor is an enormous task.
“Trying to rush through is not feasible. We’re making a lot of big changes, and the details matter,” she said. “And the process today wasn’t obstructionist, it was moving along and making progress, and even without big huge policy decisions, there’s a lot of little things that need to get ironed out.”
Lawmakers said they are tentatively planning for the compromise bill to go before the House and Senate for a full vote on Thursday, July 16. The special session is scheduled to end on July 19.
Photo provided by CBJ following the installation of the HESCO barrier project
Photo provided by CBJ following the installation of the HESCO barrier project
NOTN- City officials said they are nearing completion of armoring HESCO barriers as they race to protect low-lying neighborhoods from the annual glacier‑lake outburst flood season.
City Manager Katie Koester said the work, led by the city and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is being expedited ahead of an early‑August release window the National Weather Service is monitoring.
“It was divided into two projects, and we’re nearing completion of that project, because we’re really racing towards that early August deadline. National Weather Service anticipates an early August release. They’re of course, constantly monitoring this, and you can go to their website.” Koester said, “They’re anticipating something around the release of last year, so the basin is filling out a little bit more quickly than it was last year, but about on pace for the previous years.”
Contractors and engineers have been working around the clock to meet the deadline.
Koester said the barriers are designed to withstand flows of about 63,000 cubic feet per second which is significantly higher than last year’s roughly 49,000 CFS event, and that the Corps used modeling to shape additional protections, including an earthen berm on the Back Loop Bridge that officials say is more efficient for extreme floods than HESCO barriers.
“The Army Corps analyzed it and decided the HESCO barriers would be more expensive and less efficient than doing an earthen berm. The Army Corps did do modeling to make sure that the earthen berm would not adversely effect other properties.” Koester said.
The city remains under a continuing state of emergency that allows crews access to private property to place barriers.
“We really are operating in a continuing emergency because of the unique annual nature of this event, and this is important not just for the city, but also for the Army Corps of Engineers, and the assistance that they’re able to provide under advanced measures. Basically, they’re able to provide this federal assistance because we have this imminent threat of flooding every single year, and it’s unique because most communities have a flood threat that may or may not happen; we have this very, very unique annual event.” Said Koester.
A special committee meeting on July 20 will feature Army Corps presentations on phase two and long‑term options, including a proposed basin tunnel concept.
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