*Editor's Note: The audio in this article is an abbreviated version of the full interview between Leighton Radner and KMXT Radio that was recorded on Aug. 21, 2024 over the phone. For more information on Radner's stances on a variety of topics, visit the Alaska Beacon voter guide online for free.
Davis Hovey, KMXT: Why don't you tell me a little bit about why you're running for House District 5?
Leighton Radner: My name is Leighton Radner, and I'm running for House District 5.
Yeah, there's a few reasons. The primary ones were, I've been politically active sort of in the last three or four years, at least more seriously kind of looking at what's happening in the state and stuff, especially in this district. A few of the things that sort of came recently that sort of pushed me for running was the current representative had voted against a statutory Permanent Fund constitutional amendment and a few other things. But the main thing was that I see that District 5 has sort of been in the same position for a long period of time. There hasn't been much change in a good manner. It seems to be getting worse in many ways. And, you know, I thought maybe somebody younger putting their hat in the ring and sort of getting that out there would be decent. And so that was sort of what pushed me to run.
KMXT: What are some of your other top priorities that you would like to focus on if you were elected?
Radner: Yes, so the big thing for me is privatization and land ownership. The privatization angle is the fact that, from the state level, we invest a lot into businesses and different things, and I think that's something that the government should be leaving more towards the people. I think that really capitalism and things like that are great systems if you let them be and you don't sort of meddle in them, and I think the state has an inclination towards that. The budget is certainly an issue and one that doesn't seem to be getting much better. You know, people have a lot of ideas around cutting and where those cuts need to be made, but in general, I think the state and the people who are within the government here need to have an understanding that the government in Alaska, in my opinion, is spending too much because it's attempting to do too much, because governments have an incentive to grow, and have an incentive to grow the amount of power they can exude. And I think that's what we're seeing. I think the federal government did that to us, and now we are doing that to ourselves, and I think that's ultimately not a good thing.
I think we need more people on all sides of government in general that have an understanding of that, or at least see that we're not just playing a game. There are people's homes and future homes involved here. I talk about, often, land ownership; the fact that a very small amount of land in the state is privately owned. The majority of it is held by the federal or state government. We used to have people in the state government here who were constantly fighting with the federal government for that land and for who controlled it ... and that seems to have just ended. Seems to be that the feds say they want land, it's theirs. If the state says they want land, it's theirs, and they just hold on it and sit on it and no one can ever touch it. And that's a problem if you're growing. There's a problem if you want to keep infrastructure, not just government tied, but also private. People should be able to build their own utilities, build their own infrastructure in general, and I think that's something we should be incentivizing, because it also brings jobs, it brings new investment, which we always need.
KMXT: And for House District 5, I mean, obviously the communities that covers include Kodiak, Cordova, Seward, where you currently live. But I think for Gulf of Alaska communities in general, a lot a lot of folks greatly care about the Alaska Marine Highway System and the ferry system. What's your stance on AMHS, and how would you either support it or change the system?
Radner: I think ultimately, the state government and the federal government, if they are the things that are funding a service and that service can't stand on its own two feet, in regards to public funding, in regards to raising money the way that a normal business would; then there becomes an issue of whether or not that service is giving enough service, meaning it's not actually producing anything to speak of from a financial point of view... I don't think the state should be flipping the bill for these things unless they're incredibly important. Now we're in a situation here where this is incredibly important, and so you have this sort of situation that, frankly, we've been put in by the state because they should have seen these things coming and the aging infrastructure you talk about, it's not like we haven't had time to address this issue. It seems like these things just always jump out at us, even though they're issues that have been talked about for years. So I think definitely a restructuring of that system in general needs to take place. I think that you have to sort of sit down with people who've worked in that industry for an exceedingly long amount of time to flesh out financially how that can happen, whether there's feasibility charts and things like that that can be brought forward, to private entities that could be brought in, or restructuring so that it can be done by the state for lower cost, meaning more cost efficient. But when you have aging infrastructure that's causing the problems to begin with, that stuff has to be addressed, and unfortunately, that is going to involve either taking out taxpayer money, i.e. state or Feds, or it's going to be getting that privately. And so I would, of course, exhaust all those private options first, and then go back to the way we've been sort of funding it traditionally after that.
KMXT: Another important sort of facet, or part of life in Kodiak and other Gulf Alaska communities is, of course, commercial fishing. How would you propose addressing some of these issues that are currently facing the commercial fishing industry?
Radner: There's a lot of people who I know in my area, here in Seward, who are affected by it, with Peter Pan and some of the other companies that were tied up with the whole thing, and it's not good. I mean, I spoke to a couple different fishermen down here in my neck of the woods about it, and the sentiment from them was sort of refreshing, because they had the opinion that most of these companies were getting grants and funding from basically the taxpayers wallet, rather than actually raising that money as a private business. So this is another one of those issues where the government likes to meddle in private business, and I think that ultimately it gets not only those private businesses in trouble, but it puts those private businesses at risk. And again, these companies now having issues, I think is actually sort of easy to predict. If you look back and go, 'Well, yeah, they couldn't stand on their own two feet. They had to go get money from other people.' And I think that's evident when you look at it. And with these companies being out, there's people they owe thousands and thousands of dollars to. I know multiple people down here in Seward who are tied up in it.
I think ultimately, there's not a ton that the state should or can do other than to make sure that people who are owed money or gotten that money through legal means, and then to not do it again. The state shouldn't be propping up businesses. Those businesses should be able to hold themselves up. And if they can't, then somebody will come along who can, and yeah, there's always going to be breathing periods and restructuring periods, but that's just how the world works.
KMXT: Switching gears a little bit. And again. You know, I know we've talked you've mentioned this before, earlier in this conversation, but I just want to be clear on the permanent fund dividend. Are you saying you support the constitutional, statutory, full PFD?
Radner: Yes. So not only do I support the statutory amendment as far as the actual numbers go, but I think in general, the Permanent Fund has become such a sort of striking note in politics, and it always has been... in the last recent years, since [Gov.] Walker. And I think unfortunately, we're in a position where the Permanent Fund is just being used as a political tool at this point. And so I'm in favor of getting tools out of a politician's hands, especially when those tools are being used more like weapons. And I think in this case, the Permanent Fund is being used by just about every political group and section in the state to try to garner votes. So I think it's unfortunate that when you say you support the PFD you're sort of looked at as you're going for votes, but I do legitimately support the constitutional side of it.
KMXT: Similarly, education funding in the state has been inconsistent. Obviously, the base student allocation funding had a slight increase, but I know the ultimate goal was to have something more permanent set up for the future. It's been a long time since the BSA has seen any increase under the current state administration and governor. Where do you stand on education funding, and what do you think would be an appropriate funding allocation or BSA increase?
Radner: I think the problem with increases... and again, it's sort of unfortunate that we don't have results that really are positive. we haven't seen this big push in Alaska of education getting drastically better in the last, say, 5 to 10, years. And I do think that's unfortunate, because it ultimately gives the people who don't want to support schooling and that kind of stuff, or support the funding side of it, sort of ammunition. I think education is really important. I was somebody who was home schooled. I think home schooling is a good system if you can do it, and I definitely advocate for that, but at the same time, I recognize there are people who just can't do that, and the public school system is again, for consistency sake, it has been there and it has been funded and it's been in existence, and it has to continue to be there at least until we have systems that are better.
But I think it's unfortunate that we have a school system that isn't really doing much educating. It's just sort of passing people through the system and spitting them out, regardless of how prepared they are. And I think we as representatives, if I'm in this position, I think I have to make sure that people know there are other options out there. Those options can be better. But at the same time, if you're sending your kids to these schools, I think we all need to have better attentive skills on keeping track of what's actually being taught to the kids and what holes need to be filled, as far as gaps in what they're learning. Because I do think those gaps exist. From a funding angle I think it's hard for me to be okay with adding more money to a system that isn't really performing better. I think if the education isn't getting drastically better, then there shouldn't really be more money allocated. And when you look at the averages in other states, it's not like we're spending drastically less money than other places. We're on par, last time I looked, with about half of the country.
KMXT: That brings up, of course, the quality of the education we're providing in Alaska, and that also is impacted by the availability of teachers. Teacher recruitment and retention has been an issue. Again, what do you think the state can do, the Legislature can do, to help bring in better quality teachers and improve outcomes for students?
Radner: I think one of the things that we've seen, and I've certainly seen this firsthand, and maybe some people who listen to this will have the same experience; but I've spoken to many parents through this election cycle who have their kids in private schools throughout the state, and what I found is those places aren't having as much of those staffing issues. They're not having as many of the problems keeping long term educators in, and so I think there has to be sort of an examination of why is that? Why is there a separation there?
One thing I would certainly make the argument for is that your private education has the ability to be less tied to the state and federal government, so they don't have the same grant requirements or education requirements, as far as testing scores, things like that, that the state does. And I think that's definitely a big difference. I think ultimately the public school system, much like all these other topics we've talked about today, you really have to recalibrate and figure out... with the quality of service this thing is able to offer, and with the outcome of that service, the education level, the scores when these people graduate; how are they entering the world? If those aren't improving and getting better, and the teachers aren't staying there, there's not really an easy fall for keeping teachers there long term. I don't think throwing money at the problem solves it. If you paid teachers drastically more and brought them in, I don't think that's going to solve the problem necessarily. You might fill those positions in the short term, but you're going to be right back in the same position in 5 to 10, years, because of the inflation rate, because of how the market and economy works. You're going to be hiring new teachers at a 20-25% new rate higher than the last one you hired, and you're just going to be consistently doing that, which doesn't really make all that much sense. I think it's more of an issue of the system that the teachers are going into, than the teachers who are getting here and not wanting to stay or not making enough to stay.
KMXT: This last topic is a big one for Kodiak, I'm sure Seward, in many other communities around Alaska, and that's a lack of affordable housing. You mentioned earlier in the conversation you'd like to focus on land ownership, which certainly is part of the issue. But what are some of the other tools that you think the State Legislature can use to help residents find and build and develop more affordable land and housing?
Radner: I think there's a few issues there that are sort of compounding. Some of the bigger issues here locally, to me in Seward for instance, is zoning; which is a big problem.
You have cities, and I'm assuming Kodiak is somewhat similar, where you want to build something, you go to the city. You say, 'this is what I want to build,' and they basically have to approve it. Well, that becomes a big problem if you can't get your building approved, and maybe your building is an apartment rather than a single family home, right? Because those apartments are what brings in sort of more housing. And likewise with the land ownership side of things, bringing in new land and having that land bought into private hands. I think a lot of people see this as, 'oh, a bunch of new people with giant homesteads.' It's like, no, you get to kind of decide what those lot sizes are. You get the control vector there. And so the state has an opportunity there to basically get rid of land that is just sitting there, that they're not doing anything with as is anyway. And that land can then be brought in to be new economic hubs and avenues that will bring in jobs and housing specifically, because those are the two things that we seem to have the biggest trouble with in the state.
KMXT: Before we go though, I'd love to give you just the last 60 seconds, your elevator pitch, you know, your final statements. Why should voters in Kodiak vote for you, for House District 5?
Radner: Well, I think people should vote for me for House District 5, because I'm running to represent more liberty in the district. A perspective of free market ideals, somebody who supports real free market ideals wants to, wants to put Alaskan land and Alaskan hands, get it out of the hands of the state and federal government, somebody who wants to cut the budget and really sort of get into the nitty gritty spots of education that people don't want to talk about.
