Category: Alaska News

A group of Juneau residents linked arms around a small fire pit outside Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall on Tuesday evening, concluding a ceremony to honor lost loved ones and hold space for grief and healing. At the center, the fire burned cedar chips with dozens of names of those lost. 

May 5 is recognized as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples, recognizing the disproportionate rates of violence, murder and disappearance among Alaska Native and American Indian communities nationwide and globally.

The day highlights Alaska’s high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous people, particularly Alaska Native women and girls, the ongoing efforts and gaps in law enforcement response, and efforts to address violence prevention and justice for families. 

Marches and events were held in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Bethel, Nome, Juneau and across the country on Tuesday. 

In Juneau, the day was marked with dozens gathering for a rally and march through downtown, a dinner and panel discussion with community leaders, and a space for grieving for those who’ve lost loved ones or are still seeking answers from law enforcement on open investigations. 

A mother and daughter, Lyric and Melody Ashenfelter of Juneau, took a moment to rest on the curb after the march. They said it felt empowering to be a part of the demonstration, and want to see more events and public attention paid to the crisis of violence and missing Alaska Native people, especially Alaska Native women. 

“It was good to see the amount of people that showed up. It was powerful,” Melody Ashenfelter said. They both said they are always thinking of Lyric, who is 20, and her safety. “It’s on my mind, always being careful,” she said. 

During the march, demonstrators held signs to commemorate missing or murdered people, including Tracy Day, who went missing in 2019 in Juneau whose family is still searching for answers, and Benjamin “Benny” Stepetin, who went missing last June. At a dinner and panel discussion at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, a table displayed photos of more than a dozen people killed or missing going back to 1993.  

According to new FBI data released Tuesday, rates of Alaska Native or American Indian people reported missing declined slightly to 9,687 people nationwide in 2025. The majority were minors. Roughly 55% of the total were women, and 45% were men. 

In Alaska, the Department of Public Safety releases quarterly reports of missing people, but not annual reports. Numbers fluctuate as cases are resolved and people are found, officials said, but approximately one third of cases in 2025 involved Alaska Native people missing, while Alaska Native people represent roughly 16% of the state’s population.  

The non-profit Data for Indigenous Justice has established an independent database to provide updated case numbers and resources for family members. In 2025, the group reported adding 170 new names and counted the total number of documented MMIP cases in Alaska at more than 1,250 people. 

Alaska ranks fourth in the nation with the highest number of cases, and Anchorage has the third highest of all cities in the nation, according to a 2018 report. 

Paulette M. Moreno, vice president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, which helped organize the Juneau event, said each data point represents a life and someone’s family and community affected.

“These are relatives, our sisters, our daughters, our aunties and our family members. So this issue is not abstract. It’s not something that’s happening elsewhere, it’s something that’s happening in Alaska, in our communities,” she said. 

Alaska Native and American Indian women and girls experience disproportionately higher rates of violence, and are murdered at rates ten times the national average, according to federal data. 

Federal and state officials say addressing MMIP is a top priority

Also on Tuesday in Anchorage, federal officials and advocates gathered for a roundtable focused on MMIP hosted by Cook Inlet Tribal Council. Participants represented tribes, law enforcement agencies and the state and federal government. U.S. Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as well as two Department of the Interior officials, Bryan Mercier, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Billy Kirkland, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, attended.

“We can’t lose momentum,” Murkowski said, and applauded the announcement of a new national Task Force to Combat Violent Crime in Indian Country. 

“We are here to work with the administration, hand in glove, on these initiatives to ensure that women in this state, women across the country, do not fear in their own homes,” Murkowski said. “So we have work to do, but we have many, many good and willing partners.”

Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell said the biggest barrier for state law enforcement response is timing, particularly in rural Alaska. “Getting to a place in time to either save the person or be able to do a good investigation, to hold the person accountable for their actions,” he said.

“So we need to continue to focus on prevention and really timing investigation, and we need people to help us,” he added. “We need people to step up and say, ‘this is what happened.’

Cockrell said growing the Village Public Safety Officer program has been an ongoing priority of the department, and he sees those officers as essential to be on the frontlines in responding to incidents. “Our goal is to have a VPSO in any village that wants a VPSO. Currently, we have VPSOs in 57 villages, and again, they’re the boots on the ground,” he said.  

Cockrell emphasized that investigations for missing people are most successful when launched quickly. “If you know somebody’s missing, tell somebody right away. Don’t wait 24 hours. Don’t wait 48 hours. We have to have information as quickly as possible. The more information we get, the better chances are we’ll find this person.”

Austin McDaniel, communications director with the department, said in an interview Wednesday that the department responds to missing persons investigations as homicides until they are proven otherwise. “So that’s certainly our priority, is aggressively and quickly investigating new homicides that come in regardless of the area of the state or the race or gender of the person involved,” he said. 

McDaniel said the state is focused on investigating both new cases and unresolved cases, or cold cases. He said the state has five investigators, including four focused on MMIP cases. He said those investigations include new uses of forensic science, like DNA testing, and also rely on new information or witnesses coming forward.

Following legislative action in 2025, Alaska established a new nine-member MMIP Review Commission to review unsolved cases and submit a report to the Legislature every three years with its recommendations and findings. McDaniel said the commission began meeting last year and is continuing to prioritize cases to review. 

But the state does not respond to cases in local law enforcement jurisdictions, unless called upon to assist, McDaniel said. 

Advocates, families and supporters have raised concerns and criticisms at local police departments they say have failed to respond in a timely manner, lack communication with families and lack transparency in the process of investigations. 

McDaniel said families can’t petition the state directly, but can urge their local police department to request assistance with investigations. “We recognize and understand that some, especially small police departments, don’t have the resources, training or equipment to do highly complex technical investigations, and we always will come in, and whether it’s providing maybe some crime scene response or specialized forensics or digital forensics, we do that,” he said. 

Isolation, lack of trust and support services driving factors

Moreno echoed the issue of isolation as one of the biggest driving forces behind the extent of missing and murdered people in Alaska, which she called a human rights crisis. 

“I think that one of the things that really, really makes this such a high number in Alaska is that there are patterns that then have been able to develop. And these patterns have set up systems, unhealthy systems, to allow there to be the ongoing cases, the ongoing people and families that go missing,” she said. 

She said the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes is working with community partners and other tribal governments and organizations to raise awareness and support for resources and community support services for people experiencing violence, or for situations that may make them vulnerable to going missing, as well as for grieving families. 

“And some of the reason for that, may be that there hasn’t been an establishment of trust or awareness that these services exist,” she said. 

Moreno said that more public awareness, law enforcement and media attention is important. “A lot of times they either go undetected, unreported or unresolved, and the treatment of that has caused, I think, a higher number of cases,” she said.

“Our people, Alaska Native people from all the different tribes, are the original inhabitants of this land, and we need to be treated with the respect that that brings forward on our own ancestral homeland,” she added. 

Moreno said the Central Council is planning to hold future events to support grieving families of those missing or murdered. 

“Space where families can come together and talk with each other and have that safe space that’s uniquely created, even though it’s your tragedy, that’s created to help each other, the person right next to you, with healing.”

Yereth Rosen contributed reporting to this story from Anchorage. 

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A commercial fisherman in Kodiak will plead guilty to stealing 16 yellow cedar trees from the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.

Mitchell Keplinger, charged with theft of government property in April, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Wednesday for his formal arraignment.

Keplinger signed a plea deal the day after he was charged. Under the terms of the deal, he will avoid jail time but will pay $85,682.17 in restitution and be on probation for three years, a term that may later be reduced to no less than 18 months.

That would be significantly lower than the maximum penalty for theft of government property, which can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Keplinger’s attorney did not return a phone call seeking comment on Wednesday.

According to the text of the plea deal, Keplinger and his boat, the 54-foot seiner Alinchak, were working in the Sitka herring seine fishery in late March and early April 2024. After the fishery closed, Keplinger used his boat and crew “to harvest Alaska yellow cedar trees on U.S. Forest Service lands near Sawmill Creek, Sugarloaf Mountain and in and around Sitka Sound.”

The plea deal states that Keplinger knew that a permit was required to cut the trees and knew that he did not have that permit.

“Keplinger’s crew, who were cutting the trees at his direction, had covered one of the stumps with moss to conceal the theft,” the plea deal states.

Paul Robbins, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service in the Tongass, said by email that yellow cedar “is important culturally, ecologically, and economically. Its strength is seen in durable wood products from canoe paddles to engineered timber frames and the unique rot-resistant chemistry of its heartwood allows it to live for over 1000 years and to persist long after death as sequestered carbon.”

The 16 trees allegedly taken by Keplinger yielded 22 logs, “belonging to the United States, with a market value of $4,476.25,” according to the plea deal.

Keplinger then used his boat to take the logs to Kodiak, the plea deal states. The restitution required under the plea deal includes the cost of transporting the logs back to Sitka and the Forest Service.

“Timber theft by individuals is not common on the Tongass National Forest,” Robbins said.

Court documents do not state why Keplinger took the trees or how the theft was discovered. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska declined to talk about anything not covered by public court documents, as did Robbins with the Forest Service.

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An Alaska Superior Court judge in Anchorage has given the state of Alaska permission to shoot bears in Southwest Alaska as part of a plan to boost a local caribou herd.

In a 22-page order, Judge Adolf Zeman said a cull planned for this month may take place while attorneys proceed with arguments about the constitutionality of the state’s action.

With the order, Zeman declined to issue a preliminary injunction requested by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance shortly before the cull was expected to start. The Alliance has filed suit against the state and sought to stop the cull.

“We’re happy with the ruling. We’re happy that science prevails, and we can continue the program,” said Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang of the Alaska Department of Fish & Game.

May is calving season for caribou in the area, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is planning to kill bears before they can kill caribou calves.

Alaska’s predator control program, which involves killing specific animals in order to boost the number of prey animals like caribou and moose, has been controversial for decades. 

The decision to extend the program from wolves to bears, an act the state says is needed to protect the Mulchatna Caribou herd, prompted a lengthy series of legal challenges starting in 2023, a year after the state killed 180 black bears in the area.

Opponents said the culls violated the Alaska Constitution and did not follow scientific principles. Before Wednesday, two other Superior Court judges had ruled in favor of opponents, halting the program and keeping it halted despite two revisions of a plan authored by the Board of Game and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 

Now, after a third rewrite last year, the state appears to have the permission it needs to resume the cull.

“Our program is based on more than a decade of research that identifies bear predation on calves during calving season as the most significant factor inhibiting the recovery of the caribou herd,” Lang said in a prepared statement.

“Our bear control program is designed to improve calf survival while not impacting the sustainability of the bears. The program has demonstrated significant success through the highest calf-to-cow ratios since 1999 and a population growth of 30% since bear removal began in 2023. Our program is supported by the Alaska Federation of Natives and many locals in the 48 communities who have depended on caribou for generations. We stand by our science.”

In his order, Judge Zeman said a plan by the Board of Game, known as Proposition 1, may eventually be ruled unconstitutional, but “the court is not in the position, nor does it have the authority, to make that determination at this point in the proceedings. The court simply does not possess the technical and specialized skills to do so.”

The Alaska Constitution states that natural resources are supposed to be managed for “sustained yield,” a principle of management for long-term health. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance had argued that the cull violated that principle.

But Zeman, echoing arguments made by a state attorney, said the principle was “designed to be flexible,” and opponents were viewing it as more strict than intended.

Zeman cited a 3-2 decision by the Alaska Supreme Court in 2022, saying that decision “precludes the court from instructing the state on how it satisfies the constitutional mandate.”

Nicole Schmitt, executive director of Alaska Wildlife Alliance, said her organization is “deeply disappointed by the court’s decision to allow the gunning program to move forward today.”

“The state already killed close to 200 bears under a program which was later found unlawful,” she wrote by email. “We can’t undo the slaughter of those bears, which includes dozens of cubs, and I fear history will repeat itself until these issues can be resolved, again, in court.”

Yereth Rosen contributed reporting for this article from Anchorage.

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Kudos to the Southeast Road Builders’ fire brigade along with the all the others who responded to the fiery demise of my beloved SueBeeSue#6 along the highway just south of Klukwan. Thanks to the unknown driver of the blue pickup who I flagged down and dispatched to alert the SERB crew nearby. Thus, all the onboard fire extinguishers carried by SERB vehicles were promptly emptied topped off by the magical powers of Matty and his big hose knocking the flames down before the gas tank blew. Extra shout out to queen of the day, Helena Muench, who possessed the uncanny ability to drop her stop sign, enter the only phone booth south of the border clad as a fluorescent north-end flagger and appear on the other side donned in full fire turn-out gear driving a fire engine! 

Appreciation for the arrival of both fire departments who then followed with mop up, Dakota Strong for the ride home, and all the others who radio relayed and helped with the efforts. It’s always heartwarming to see neighbors taking care of neighbors and this response could not have had a better ending. Many thanks to you all.

Robin Beaudry

The post Thank you to those who helped extinguish car fire on the highway appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Wednesday, April 22

A caller in Haines reported a scam on social media. They were given the information for the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. 

A driver on Beach Road was given a verbal warning for not meeting requirements to display a license plate. 

An officer put a 72-hour notice on an abandoned vehicle on Beach Road. 

A caller in the 100 block of Dalton Street reported a suspicious phone call. An officer responded and performed a welfare check. 

An officer checked a license plate during a vehicle stop. 

Thursday, April 23

A caller reported a moose on Fifth Avenue. A Nixle alert was sent out. 

An officer issued a trespass notice in the 800 block of Spruce Grove Road. 

Friday, April 24

A caller reported a parking violation on Main Street. An officer contacted the vehicle’s owner. 

A caller in Klukwan reported a vehicle fire. The Haines Volunteer Fire Department and state park ranger responded and extinguished the fire. 

A caller reported a boulder obstructing traffic on Lutak Road. The state’s Department of Transportation and an officer responded. A Nixle alert was sent out. 

A caller on Small Tracts Road was given a verbal warning for not meeting taillight requirements. 

An officer was advised of an abandoned trailer on the side of Mud Bay Road.

Saturday, April 25

A caller reported a person driving a motorcycle on the mud flats near Pyramid Island. An officer took the call. 

Officers were advised of a disabled vehicle on the side of Raven Road. It was not obstructing traffic and the vehicle was later retrieved by the owner. 

A caller reported the door of a public building in the 600 block of the Haines Highway was open after hours. Officers responded. 

Officers performed a tag check on an abandoned vehicle on Second Avenue. 

There were three 911 hangup calls, one canine call, nine EMS calls, and 38 burn permits issued during the April 20-24 reporting period reporting period. 

The post Blotter: April 22 – April 25 appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

After four years of effort, the Alaska Legislature has passed a bill offering additional support for the underfunded organization that offers free legal help to Alaskans facing civil lawsuits.

“We’re so excited,” said Maggie Humm, executive director of the Alaska Legal Services Corporation. 

ALSC is the state’s largest provider of free legal assistance for survivors of domestic violence and abuse. It generally supports Alaskans who are unable to afford an attorney on their own.

Under state law, Alaska must provide criminal defendants with a defense attorney. No such mandate exists in civil cases, so the work falls to the ALSC, a nonprofit that lacks the budget to take on every request for help.

On Wednesday, the state Senate voted 17-3 to pass House Bill 48 and give the corporation 25% of all state court filing fees, up from 10%. The change is worth an extra $400,000 to the corporation.

The change does not affect funding for the Alaska Court System; the fees are otherwise used for general purposes, not the courts specifically.

Humm said earlier this year that ALSC provided legal help to roughly 6,200 Alaskans in 2024. By email on Wednesday, she said she expects another 800-850 people will be helped by the additional money.

Because the House passed HB 48 on a 27-13 vote in February, the Senate’s action on Wednesday will send the bill to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for final approval or veto.

Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, proposed an identical bill in 2023, and while that bill passed the Senate, it never received a vote in the House before the 33rd Alaska Legislature expired in 2024.

That left Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, to reintroduce the bill last year and restart the legislative process. 

By email, Humm said that if signed into law, the bill “helps to ensure that more low-income Alaskans facing issues such as domestic violence, elder fraud, and access to earned benefits receive the legal help they need to protect their safety, stability, and dignity. Investing in legal services benefits all Alaskans by helping resolve problems early, before they become more serious and costly challenges for both individuals and our communities.”

ALSC has been trying since 2011 to pass a bill that reserves 25% of the state’s court fees for the corporation. In 2018, the Legislature passed a measure allocating 10%. 

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We are a Kodiak family with four children, ages 9 to 17, and have experienced a wide range of educational options in Alaska. Our experiences show me that Alaska’s schools need support to better serve our children.

Our children have attended private Catholic and Christian-based schools, local public schools and boarding school at Mount Edgecumbe. I have also worked in roles that gave me direct experience with private and tribally led preschools.

We watched as enriching programs disappeared due to budget cuts, and saw situations where students lacked consistent access to basic necessities because of safety concerns, with no real solution on how to help them receive the necessities being blocked from them because of poor staffing. 

In the classroom, we encountered teaching that ranged from uninformed to openly harmful. There were moments of ignorance, and others marked by clear racist undertones and blatant misinformation. When concerns were raised, responses were often minimal, not always from a lack of care, but because the systems in place made meaningful follow-through difficult.

I could write an entire separate piece on what our children experienced, some of it frightening, much of it unacceptable. But it is important to say that in every school, there were teachers and caregivers who still showed up every day for their students and did their best. Too often, their hands were tied by limited resources, and competing demands.

In the end, to keep our children safe and supported, we felt we had no choice but to homeschool.

Like many of us this is not theoretical for our family. This is lived.

What we have learned is that the challenges in our schools are not isolated. They are not limited to one district or moment in time. They reflect something deeper in how our education system was built and how it continues to function today. To understand where we are now, we must look at that foundation.

Alaska’s education system was shaped by the boarding school era and the “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” philosophy, coined by Richard Henry Pratt, which used schools to strip identity and enforce compliance. English-only policies were enforced throughout much of the early and mid-twentieth century under federal schooling systems established after the Nelson Act of 1905, and it was not until 1978, with the Indian Child Welfare Act, that the forced removal of Indigenous children from their homes began to slow.

This isn’t detached history. Its structures still echo through our schools today, in how they function and in the harm that continues to ripple through our communities.

Alaska’s people come from thousands of years of sovereignty; systems of knowledge and education are rooted in the land. These knowledge systems were intentional, place-based, and designed to raise capable, connected humans. Unfortunately, these knowledge systems were replaced by structures never intended to serve Alaska’s children.

That truth can be difficult to face, but it explains why the challenges we see today persist. Many of Alaska’s broader issues are deeply connected to education. When children are required to be in a system from a young age, that system has the power to support them or harm them. Too often, when harm occurs, the response prioritizes compliance over understanding.

When students are failed by the school system, we have to ask what system they are pushed into next.

My work as a cultural educator centers Indigenous histories and the next generations of children. It is grounded in the belief that supported children grow into capable adults. These issues do not only affect Indigenous students. They affect us all.

So, the question becomes, how do we move forward?

It starts with real support. We need honest conversations about past decisions, current funding and long-term change. At the most basic level, schools need enough resources to safely support children. When they do not, harm occurs and is too often left unaddressed due to understaffing and a lack of support systems.

We must also move away from one-size-fits-all solutions. Alaska is vast. Our communities are distinct, and the impacts of colonization vary. Each community holds its own knowledge, its own Elders and its own ways of caring for its people. Decisions made from a distance often create barriers for both teachers and students.

Teachers need space and support to grow in ways that meet their communities. Students need access to activities that keep them connected and engaged. Cultural learning should be recognized as meaningful and essential, not elective.

We also need to face a difficult truth. Teachers are being asked to serve as educators, caregivers, counselors and first responders for children facing abuse, neglect and hunger, while being paid less than many who shape education policy. This is not sustainable. It is not just.

If we continue this path, the consequences will grow — showing up in addiction, incarceration and a workforce unprepared for a changing world. When we talk about the health of our communities, we are talking about our children.

This cannot be fixed in a single legislative session or with one budget decision. It requires long-term commitment, even when the conversation fades.

The decisions being made now ask whether we are willing to invest in our future while facing the uncomfortable truth. That the system we have been funding since the beginning of American schooling in Alaska was not built with Alaska’s best interests in mind.

Our teachers are intelligent, creative and deeply committed. We cannot keep asking them to give more while taking away the resources they need.

If we are serious about supporting our children, we must do more than maintain what exists. We must be willing to change it.

Because our children and teachers deserve a system that genuinely supports them, not one that feeds the private agendas of others.

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As Alaska state lawmakers consider Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s pick for attorney general, several have questioned a potential conflict between his involvement with a private, religious school and his role in the state’s top legal office.

Stephen Cox currently leads the Alaska Department of Law, which is defending the state in a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of spending state homeschool funds on religious and private school tuition. 

He is also the treasurer and a founding member of the Thomas More Classical School, a private Christian school for grades Kindergarten through sixth grade, slated to open in Anchorage in the fall, whose website invites the use of state homeschool funding for nonreligious courses.

Cox has served in the role since his appointment in August, and appeared before lawmakers in a series of legislative hearings last week and Monday, ahead of a confirmation vote for attorney general, expected in the next week. 

Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, noted the apparent conflict between the state constitution and the school’s financial plans at a May 1 hearing.

“Our constitution directly says ‘schools and institutions so established shall be free of sectarian control. No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or private education institution,’” she read.

She pointed to his role as treasurer as a direct conflict with the state constitution because the school’s “tuition assistance” web page said it anticipates accepting payment through state allotment funds for courses “that do not use religious-based publishers and/or content.”

The lawsuit that will decide whether that spending is constitutional is currently underway.

Cox said he was not aware of the school’s tuition information. 

“I am on the board of that school. I am not involved in the day-to-day operations,” he said, adding that he was involved in hiring a headmaster and the formation of the school. “I am not aware of that part of the website and I’m also not aware of any decisions with respect to allotment programs.”

He declined to comment further saying the issue was in active litigation.

Each homeschooled student is eligible for up to $4,500 per year, to be spent on curriculum, supplies or other educational resources. But the question on whether that money can go toward religious or private institutions is currently being decided.

A group of parents brought the lawsuit to prohibit state money from going to such institutions against the state in 2023, and a judge ruled the allotment system unconstitutional in 2024, but that ruling was overturned by the Alaska Supreme Court. The case moved back to a lower court — four school districts were named as defendants — and last fall a judge denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, citing need for evidence of how allotments are actually spent. A discovery period for both sides to collect evidence is open until June 1. 

At a Monday hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Ted Eischeid, D-Anchorage, pressed the question.

“Does that mean that under Alaska ethics law, you would recuse yourself about decisions that might benefit your school, financially related to public money going to private schools?”

Cox answered a slightly different question. He told lawmakers, for background, he had already looked into the question of recusal given his three children are homeschooled through the Anchorage School District’s correspondence program, Family Partnership Correspondence School. He said that he was advised it wasn’t necessary.

“The advice that I received back from my ethics supervisor after an analysis was that it was not a reason for recusal, because I think there are, like, 25,000 Alaskan students that benefit from the allotment, and so the fact that my kids benefit in piano class and tutoring and whatnot wasn’t itself a reason to recuse,” he said.

Cox is Catholic, and is a parishioner at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Anchorage, according to the school’s website. 

Cox said he learned that the Thomas More Classical School was anticipating receiving allotment funds during confirmation hearings last week.  He said he was not directly involved with the state’s defense in the lawsuit and that he would seek ethics advice about recusing himself from the case.

“I will say that I’m not involved in any of the day-to-day litigation, or even really any of the supervision of the strategic litigation,” he added. “Recently, last week, I learned for the first time that on the website, there was a reference to the school anticipating becoming a vendor of the correspondent school allotment programs. So I have asked my staff to take another look at that from a recusal perspective.”

On Tuesday, the tuition information on the school’s website had been changed. It now says  that it still anticipates taking allotment money, but only in accordance with state law. 

At the hearing on Monday, Eischeid asked Cox if the school planned to receive public allotment funds. 

Cox said the issue is being litigated in court now, and whether it’s constitutional has yet to be determined. 

“I want to be very careful, because this is in active litigation, and these are the issues that the judge and the judges ultimately will have to grapple with,” he said. “But as I understand it, the school districts and their correspondence schools — so for example, ASD’s correspondent schools, Family Partnership —  the school districts will decide whether or not and to what extent the allotment can be used for private educational or private institutions, and vendors.” 

Cox said when a court rules on the question, the Thomas More Classical School will follow the law. 

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, noted that the Thomas More Classical school board president is Charles Gartland, who is also  working at the Alaska Department of Law as the civil division director. 

“Would he need to recuse from any cases dealing with allotments and private schools?” Gray asked?

Cox said he has asked the department’s ethics lawyers to research the question.

“I would assume that the same analysis that existed for me would also apply with respect to Mr. Gartland,” he said. “But I do not have an answer on that question yet.”

Officials with Alaska Department of Law did not return a request for comment on Tuesday on how decisions on recusal are made. 

Gray said Monday there appeared to be a conflict of interest. 

“Even if it’s all above board, as a member of the public, I see that, and I think that I would be more comfortable if the chairman of the board of a private school and the treasurer of the board of the private school wouldn’t work on those particular cases,” he said. 

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