East Anchorage Matters with Rep. Andrew Gray

The Mobile Home Owner Town Hall Episode Today our show is about mobile home parks. As the state representative for house district 20, I have several mobile home parks in my district. Mobile home owners face unique challenges: they own their home but must rent the land on which their home sits. Every year that rent goes up – yet the value of their home tends to go down. This can create a vicious cy...

Chelsea Foster of Anchorage is a director on the board of the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association and a long-time cannabis advocate. She is COO for Birch Alaskan Naturals CBD, and a consultant for the Alaskan cannabis industry. She has successfully pursued regulatory and statuary changes for the Alaska cannabis industry with a focus on social equity and sustainability. Bailey Stuart of Wasilla i...

Facing Foster Care in Alaska (FFCA) is a non-profit group made up of folks with lived experience in the foster care system. As former foster youth themselves, these individuals can offer expertise to make Alaska's system better from the inside out. Today on the show we hear from the most recent FFCA board president, Angel Gonzalez ,  Mateo Jaime , Kxlo Stone , and then three sisters, Anna Red...

Keri Ladner is the author of the 2024 book End Time Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon. She earned her doctorate in Divinity from the University of Edinburgh and much of her doctoral research focused on  researching the theological roots of Jerry Falwell, the co-founder of the Moral Majority. She exposes the racism, contempt for the poor, and false patriotism of Falwell and his followers,...

Jena Crafton is the chair of the Governors Council on Disabilities and Special Education. She has been a vocal advocate for people with disabilities since she was young as Crafton has developmental disabilities herself. We discuss her childhood including how she learned about her own disabilities and what she most wants the community at large to understand about people with disabilities. Former Al...

Ed Wesley was born in Bolivar County, Mississippi, on January 9, 1951. He moved to Fort Greeley, Alaska, in 1973 after being drafted into the Army. His wife joined him shortly thereafter and the two raised all five of their children here and the two have never lived outside Alaska since. He was elected president of the Anchorage NAACP in 1981 and led the charge to change the way the Anchorage Poli...

Today's episode is about Alaska's Charter Schools which were recently ranked #1 in the country. The lead author of the study is Dr. Paul Peterson of Harvard University, and he is our guest today. Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution...

AK State Senator Shelley Hughes of Palmer moved to Hoonah, Alaska, in the late 70s as a young adult to help establish a religious community with her parents. We talk about that experience, as well as her travels around Alaska with her husband and young family, and ultimately how she ended up involved in Alaska politics. We also discuss some of her policy interests.  Legislative Update for Monday,...

Representative C. J. McCormick of Bethel is 26 years old and the youngest member of the Alaska State House. Prior to serving in the legislature, he served on city council and as vice mayor of Bethel. Bethel is the 8th largest city in Alaska with just over 6,200 residents. Today, we discuss why his parents settled in the YK Delta, how he ended up in politics, And what it's like serving in the...

Lesil McGuire is a lifelong Alaskan, former state senator, women’s and rural rights advocate, and mother. She lives in Anchorage and works as a consultant in the aerospace, technological innovation and Arctic policy sectors. We discuss why she became a lawyer, why she identifies as a Republican, and how she served for 16 years in the House and Senate by "leading with love." She served as...

Margo Bellamy was recently elected by her fellow board members to serve as president of the Anchorage School Board for the third time. Ms. Bellamy grew up in Coconut Grove – an all African American neighborhood in Miami, Florida. At the end of her 8th grade year in 1964 she was chosen as one of eight Black students to integrate the nearby all-white high school. We discuss that experience and how i...

AK State House Representative Cliff Groh , II, was born and raised in Anchorage. Although he himself is a life-long Democrat, his father Cliff Groh, Sr., the son of illiterate Polish immigrants, was an important Republican figure in Alaska State politics. In fact, the Groh Gallery in the Alaska Senate is named after him.  We talk about the younger Cliff's childhood, why he is a Democrat, and...

Alaska State House Representative Maxine Dibert was born to Koyukon Athabascan parents in Fairbanks and grew up dividing her time between the urban experience of downtown Fairbanks and the bush experience of her Athabaskan elders. After graduating with a degree in education – a degree her college guidance counselor had tried to dissuade her from pursuing due to the lack of teaching jobs – Maxine g...

Representative Ashley Carrick (D- Fairbanks) spent her childhood in south Anchorage. She graduated from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and began work as a substitute teacher. She ran for the Fairbanks School Board at the age of 24, and although she lost, ended up as staff to Representative (now Senator) Scott Kawasaki, and later Representative Adam Wool. When Wool decided not to run for re-...

State Representative Sara Hannan spent her childhood in West Anchorage. She graduated from the University of Alaska and took a job teaching at Mount Edgecumbe High School in Sitka. When oil prices crashed, the school cut back, and she lost her job. She moved to Juneau where she has been ever since, minus a brief foray to Vladivostok, Russia, where she was brutally assaulted and almost killed. We t...

Republican Justin Ruffridge represents Soldotna in the Alaska State House and currently co-chairs the Freshmen Caucus with the host of this podcast. Justin moved to Kenai, Alaska, when he was 9 years old so that his parents could run a small Christian school there. Raised in a very conservative environment – no rock music, no mainstream movies or television, no dancing – he brings a unique perspec...

Democrat Jennie Armstrong is from just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. Although she grew up working class, she did not allow her background to narrow her ambition and after her undergraduate degree at Louisiana State University she earned a Master’s degree from Oxford University and has since worked in Nepal, Myanmar, Rwanda, and Egypt.  She started two companies, both of which she still owns....

Senator Elvi Gray-Jackson of Anchorage was born and raised in New Jersey. She came to Alaska 41 years ago as a young single mother. Through a series of what at first appeared to be unlucky events, she found herself leap-frogging her way up the Anchorage political ladder eventually landing as chair of the Anchorage Assembly – the first person of color to hold that office. We talk about that and how...

When she was 19, Representative Rebecca Himschoot dropped out of college in the Midwest and moved to Sitka. After she won a scholarship, she went back to school to earn her teaching credential. Decades later she was elected to the Sitka Assembly, and now serves as State House Rep for District 2. As you are about to hear, there were many detours along her path. This interview was recorded in Rep. H...

Alaska State Representative Julie Coulombe   represents the hillside in Anchorage. Raised in a conservative Christian household in the suburbs of Chicago and later Atlanta, she met her husband her freshman year of college in Alabama. They married and moved to Anchorage over thirty years ago. Although always involved in the community, it wasn’t until she joined the conservative Facebook group Save...

State House Representative Stanley Wright of Anchorage is originally from South Carolina. He is a Navy Veteran and a Republican which, in both regards, makes him an outlier in his own family. After working in Governor Dunleavy’s administration, he took a job working for Mayor Dave Bronson before being elected to the state house where he represents northeast Anchorage.

Republican Will Stapp was born and raised in a suburb of Seattle; he decided at an early age that he wanted to serve in the military and joined the Army right after high school. He was first stationed at Fort Wainwright but deployed almost immediately to Iraq, and as you will hear, was in the midst of bloody battles from the moment he landed in Falluja, where he received a Purple Heart. We will di...

Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance grew up the oldest of seven children in Palmer, Alaska. After a career in telecommunications, she was elected to the Assembly to represent South Anchorage 6 years ago. She is eligible to run for a third term but she has decided not to do that.   Assembly member Austin Quinn-Davidson is also eligible for re-election but has decided not to. She currently represents We...

 State Senator Bill Wielechowski moved to Anchorage 24 years ago because of his sense of adventure and love for the outdoors. After practicing law in New Jersey and later at a private practice in Anchorage, he eventually took a job as the attorney for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers where he has been for 18 years. After losing an East Anchorage Assembly race in 2004, he was ele...

Lifelong Alaskan Representative Genevieve Mina was elected to the Alaska state house of representatives for the first time in the election held this past November. At just 26 years of age, she is the second youngest person currently serving in the legislature. But, she has seven years of political experience, much of it working in the legislature, the last few years as staff to Representative Ivy...