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 Sheldon Prout by clicking on the audio link.
Sheldon Prout: Well my name is Sheldon Prout, and was born and raised here in Kodiak. Come from a third-generation commercial fishing family, and worked in the industry myself. And right now, I think it's very important that we have people that understand our way of life in coastal Alaska representing us from, you know, what we're going through right now with the Board of Fisheries, our fiscal future in this state, reliable transportation for our ferry system. All of that is very important to making our communities go forward each day, and that's something that's very important to me because I've lived that, growing up here in Kodiak.
Davis Hovey, KMXT: And if you were elected to the seat for House District 5, you'd represent not only Kodiak but Cordova and Seward and other coastal communities in between. It seems like, in general, across all these communities and various industries, you know, you mentioned the Board of Fisheries issue. We've also seen Russian seafood crashing the markets for Alaska seafood. I mean, there's just a lot going on, as you know, so what would you propose to help address some of those issues specifically, outside of the Board of Fisheries representation that you mentioned already?
Prout: Yeah, that's something with my family fishing these waters for three generations, we have to have someone that knows about commercial fishing in the Legislature, and have that representation for our communities. But we look at Kodiak, we look at the year-round processing we have here; I've been going down talking to our processing plants and seeing, or having conversations with them, and over in Cordova, the fisheries that they have, but a big part is we have to have more value-added processing up here in Alaska. That is a very large part of having an economic stream, economic revenue up here in this state. So it's a very open-ended question, but it's a question that has a lot of parts to it. But it's something that I'm willing to take on and something that I'm very well-versed in.
KMXT: Talking about the education funding…it seems like there has been a lack of funding issue when it comes to the base student allocation in our state, not keeping up with inflation. We don't have a defined benefit state retirement system in place for those teachers as well. So, yeah, how do you address the education funding, and what do you think is the appropriate amount?
Prout: Kids are the future of our state and the next generation is the future of our state, and who's going through our schools right now, it is our future, and you can't gamble with our future. It's something you just, you cannot do, and that is going to mean a base student allocation that's not refought every single session. That's going to mean teacher pay that reflects the cost of living in our district here, which isn't low, and fixing the fact that Alaska also is the only state again with no defined benefit option for teachers, and that's something that needs to be fixed, but it has to be done the right way. Last time we had a retirement plan in place, it kind of got killed because there was some unfunded liability of how it would get paid in the future, and if we can have that and have that certainty of okay, ‘this is how this would get funded in the future for down the road when it starts getting paid out and how that system goes.' But we do have to have something that is good for our teachers and sustainable for our budget and best for the people of Alaska, especially our teachers and our next generation.
KMXT: As you know, another big challenge in rural Alaska, coastal Alaska, Kodiak, Cordova, other communities are all struggling with the lack of affordable housing. I know there's only so much that you, as a potential legislator, could do. But what sort of solutions would you look at to bring down costs to help build and develop more affordable housing in the state?
Prout: We do have to work with, you know, the boroughs up here and cities and opening up land at that level. That is something that is a little outside the legislative scope, but something that still needs to be done. But going into the workforce too, I've had meetings with carpenters unions and carpenters around the state too of what works and what isn't working right now. And right now in that industry too, they're seeing a lack of workforce, and they're seeing you know their workforce is getting a lot older. You're not having a younger generation get in there, and we've talked about having apprenticeship programs for you know cities and communities when they are going and building houses, when they are going and building duplexes, whatever that may be; that we can have an apprenticeship that helps this younger generation get into the building trade that gets into that. But that all goes into how we get things to Kodiak too and making sure our communities are thriving with our fisheries, with our schools, with our transportation that we have up here, because all of that lowers the cost of housing here."
Absentee voting has already begun at the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly Chambers, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the primary election is Aug. 18.
