“Everyone deserves a chance in the world,” Les Gara, Democratic candidate for governor, said.
Public education funding, renewable energy and Alaska’s fish runs are some of the top campaign issues he touched on during an interview with the News-Miner.
Gara’s favorite part of the campaign is getting out and talking with people, he said. “I want to listen to as many people as possible and learn as much as possible.”
He’s been told while campaigning across the state that education is a huge crisis and schools are having a hard time attracting and retaining teachers. That’s a big reason why he’s running, he said, adding it’s important to keep education funding on par with inflation.
“[Dunleavy] doesn’t understand the teacher crisis or care enough to solve this massive education crisis,” he said.
Education policy has been like telling a kid to run faster in a race while hitting the kid in the knee with a baseball bat, Gara said. “[Kids] can’t do better by being harmed worse.”
The salary of teachers is not competitive when you consider the cost of living, Gara said. Gara believes the state should offer teachers, firefighters and police officers a pension. Gara has heard from teachers and law enforcement officials that they keep losing employees due to the noncompetitive salaries. Alaska is going to keep losing teachers to other states if we don’t offer a pension, Gara said.
“Teachers that stay here are teachers that love Alaska and are willing to be underpaid,” he said. “We have to do better.”
Gara lost his father, an immigrant, when he was 6 years old. “I learned [that] my ticket forward as the son of an immigrant is public education. Public education gave me a chance,” Gara said. “Money should never be a barrier to success.”
He said he believes that when people are given opportunity, the result is a strong workforce and support for a strong economy. Gara has been an attorney and assistant attorney general for the State of Alaska and served in the state Legislature from 2003 to 2018.
“If you run the state on the cheap, people leave,” Gara said.
The state has to have the types of jobs people want, he said, explaining that it means having a construction budget, training larger numbers of people in areas seeing shortages, such as teachers and mental health professionals, as well as having loan forgiveness plans for people who stay to work in Alaska.
“We’ve had responsible mining, historically, and responsible oil development,” Gara said. “We’re giving away money in oil company tax subsidies.” Gara said he believes Alaska should rewrite its subsidy policy so Alaskans have a fair share. “Giving [oil companies] $1.2 billion of tax credits that they can spend somewhere else is not the way to move the state forward.” Keeping that wealth in Alaska would provide funding for schools, law enforcement, renewable energy and PFDs, he added.
On the topic of energy, “We can’t magically reverse global warming tomorrow,” Gara said.
Gara advocates for renewable energy throughout the state in a response to warming and to create jobs. The state also needs to invest in protective sea walls in communities in Western Alaska, Gara said.
Regarding the state’s fish runs and fishing industry, “We have to do things that aren’t at the expense of our fish,” he said. “I would not support mines like Pebble Mine where you have to trade fish to have a mining project.” The mines we have are responsible, Gara said, but he draws the line at mines that are dangers to salmon.
Gara is the only pro-choice candidate on the ballot for governor. “I don’t get to tell someone else what private decisions to make,” Gara said.
“We’re going to campaign really hard until election day.”
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