Editor's note: The below excerpt from this interview is not the full transcript and has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Listen to the full interview with Dave Bronson by clicking on the audio link.
Dave Bronson: My name is Dave Bronson. I'm a 35-year resident of the state of Alaska. Most of that time was in Anchorage, a little bit in Eagle River. And I'm a former military officer, pilot and commercial operator. So I flew. I was in the Air Force in the Air National Guard for 24 years, and then I was in the airlines, flew for Northwest and Delta Airlines for 30 years.
I'm running for governor. I think I'm the most qualified person for this job. I've held the job that's in the state for three years, the mayor's job, the closest job in the state, and I've done it. It's a political executive position. No one else in the field has done that.
Katherine Irving, KMXT: And here in Kodiak, we have this huge commercial fishing population, and the industry as a whole is not doing so well right now. How would you propose addressing some of those issues that we're currently having in the commercial fishing industry, like poor vessel prices, Russian seafood, all that?
Bronson: I've taken a pretty strong stand on the issue of large factory trawling in dragging the bottom of the ocean and, and I know in some select fisheries you have to do that. But writ large, we've got to stop doing that….And I'm getting a little bit tired of folks, corporations, individuals from lower 48 coming up here, taking our resources and not leaving us any money. And I believe the large factory trawlers are part of that. And not to mention the fact that the fisheries are in decline. You know, pollock fisheries, the take is going down. And I think we're, my belief is, is that we're probably taking too, too much pollock.
We have got to statutorily keep them, I don't know if it's five fathoms, 10 fathoms, 20 fathoms off the bottom, so your net never touches the bottom. And they say, oh, you know, they don't like that. And again, this isn't the small boats that are like down in this harbor that are the problem. It's the large factory trawlers who take so much and then they process their fish on their trawler, on their factory ships, and they leave us very little money, very little, and I think they're depleting and harming the commercial fisheries.
KMXT: So our next question is about the permanent fund dividend, right? So do you support the full statutory PFD? Why or why not?
Bronson: Well, the magic word, you said it, was statutory, it's the law. This is what I believe is the one good thing government has done. It was the permanent fund dividend. Great idea. It returns the wealth, I think, back to the people. But the program has been abused or has been mismanaged for nearly 40 years, and it's it lost its way and…. We don't have the money. And I'm not saying we can't cut government. We certainly can, and I will, but the notion that you're going to get to $4,000 PFD short of six to 10 years, our estimate. Josh Church, my running mate, is a finance guy, and he's got a team that's looking at that, and let me take another slice at this. We have 15 departments. You could get rid of 13 of the smallest departments, and you're only at $1.1 billion. I mean I say, sell the building, sell the vehicles, get rid of all the expenses, and get rid of the people, $1.1 billion. This isn't possible, and I’m not going to stand here and campaign just because I want this job and tell you something that’s just not true.
KMXT: Cost of living in rural Alaska is pretty high, keeps going up. How would you focus on keeping cost of living down?
Bronson: Our logistics is what causes our costs. That's why we need more, more roads and the bridges that go with those roads. We got to develop the energy. We've got to grow the revenue side. We've got to drive down the expense side. And you do that, I think, philosophically in part, by getting government out of the way.
And what I had an ethos in municipal government was, your job is to get to yes. When a private investor comes in and has a demonstrably good idea, your job is not to say, No, you can't have the permit. We're not going to do the planning. We're not going to cooperate. No, your job is to get to yes, because that person is a customer, a customer of government, and we have forgotten that.
KMXT: And final question, what's your one-minute elevator pitch?
Bronson: You got to ask yourself three questions. When you're looking at a candidate, everyone has to do that right, left, doesn't matter. You got to say, does that person agree with me ideologically? And I think in this field, on the Republican side, except for maybe one or two exceptions. We're ideologically the same. We are. The next question is, can they do the job if they get the job? The third question you have to ask is, can the person get elected, because if you you're great on the first two, if you can't get elected, it's all meaningless. So all three questions have to be answered in the affirmative, and the polling is quite, quite clear on the right side, contrary to what a few folks are saying, one, I'm certainly in the top four, and two on the right side, I'm polling number one on the right side, on the Republican side.
The primary election is Aug. 18 and the top four candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will advance from there to the general election on Nov. 3. A full list of all gubernatorial candidates running in this year's election can be found on the Alaska Beacon's website.
