The two candidates running to represent Seward, Cordova and Kodiak in the Alaska State House met Thursday to discuss their visions for the Alaska Legislature at a candidate forum moderated by the Peninsula Clarion and KBBI 890 AM.

Incumbent Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, is challenged by Leighton Radner, a member of the Alaska Libertarian Party from Seward. Stutes has served in the House since 2015, including as Speaker of the House from 2021 to 2023. Whoever is elected to the seat will serve a two-year term ending in January 2027.

The forum was held at the Seward Community Library, Radner participated in person and Stutes joined via Zoom.

Stutes introduced herself as “an optimist” who’s represented her communities for a decade. She lives in Kodiak and is married to a retired fisherman.

Radner said he’s lived in Seward for seven years and Big Lake before that. He said he was running to bring his Libertarian politics to government — specifically to tackle the size and scope of Alaska’s government.

Spending on service

State spending, Radner said, needs to be brought down. He said that the state needs to evaluate what is important and what isn’t.

“In order to shrink the size of the budget, you have to shrink what the government is doing,” he said. “There’s money being spent in the wrong places and money that should be being spent in the right places.”

Stutes said that the “bickering” over the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend needs to be resolved. She said the state needs a sustainable budget that provides a reasonable PFD while also still maintaining the services that Alaskans “very loudly and very clearly” say that they want. Those are roads, education and public safety, among others.

The state should increase spending on fisheries, Stutes said, which impacts so many jobs in Alaska.

“When we cut the budget in fisheries, what we’re doing is we’re not allowing the Department of Fish and Game to maximize the resource that is available,” she said. “They don’t have the science and the surveys that are necessary to appropriately manage.”

Radner said that, in fishing and in budgeting, he wanted to see the “free market approach,” pulling back government spending and favoring “the rights of the fishermen.”

Seeking stable schooling

Stutes said she wanted to see a permanent increase to the base student allocation and action taken to address retirement for public employees.

“Kids are our resource,” she said. “We have to be in a position where, at least, the districts have enough funding to say to their teachers in May, when they’re done teaching, ‘you’ve got a job in September.’ We’re losing teachers.”

Radner said that he agrees there’s a need for increased education funding but said that he wants to see the issues with education addressed. He cited low proficiency scores and attendance rates — specifically in Seward. He said he was interested in seeing restrictions removed from “other forms of education than the public system.”

Qualms about quality of life

Both candidates agreed that health care, affordable housing and child care are challenges facing families in the district. Stutes said that each community has its own needs, citing recent uncertainty around a fish processor in Kodiak and a lack of physicians in Seward. Radner said that the challenge of representing an area so large is maintaining a presence and a connection to the three distinct communities.

Loosening up state land for sale and development, especially for Alaska residents, was an idea favored by both candidates.

Radner said the government should make it easier for people to create child care businesses, but that the state shouldn’t get involved with funding them. He said he’s interested in seeing communities and volunteers get more child care off the ground.

“If you work a job and you have kids, you need to have child care,” he said. “I have four brothers, that’s something my family certainly went through.”

Stutes said that, as a parent who put her own children into day care, “it never occurred to me that anybody was going to pay for my day care other than myself.” But, she said, she recognizes that the cost of child care can be difficult to surmount even for two working parents.

During the forum, the candidates also discussed both ballot measures, discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and Alaska’s outmigration.

A full recording of the forum can be found on the “Peninsula Clarion” Facebook page. It can also be heard at kbbi.org.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.