Alaska News

Former ABC Board director to challenge Hawker for Alaska House seat

The former director of Alaska's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board has filed a letter of intent to challenge Rep. Mike Hawker for his long-held Hillside district seat in the Alaska House of Representatives next year.

Shirley Cote filed to run for the 2016 primary with the Alaska Public Offices Commission on Oct. 21, records show.

She is running for the South Anchorage Hillside district that Hawker, a Republican, has represented since 2002.

"I'll bring an attitude of fiscal responsibility, while prioritizing public safety, health and education," she said in a phone interview Sunday.

After a 30-year career in law enforcement that included a stint as the chief of the Soldotna Police Department, Cote was in 2008 named as the head of the ABC Board, the statewide agency charged with regulating alcohol-related businesses and enforcing liquor laws.

She was a vocal critic of the agency's move from the Department of Public Safety to the Commerce Department.

She retired in 2014, saying she wanted to spend time helping her illustrator-writer daughter market a new book.

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Cote, a Democrat, said she was inspired to run for elected office for the first time in her life by a sense that a leadership change was overdue for the district.

Controversy over the cost of the new Legislative Information Office in downtown Anchorage -- a deal Hawker has taken heat for negotiating -- was the push she needed, she said.

"Taking on that kind of expense when we are in a fiscal crunch -- and in the meantime we're losing a trooper in Girdwood -- that just seems wrong to me," she said.

She said she hoped to run a positive campaign and expected "really good support" from her party.

"I don't feel like I'm running because there are all these negatives. I have lots of energy and enthusiasm for it."

Cote said she would be filing the rest of her paperwork with Alaska election officials Monday.

Michelle Theriault Boots

Michelle Theriault Boots is a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. She focuses on in-depth stories about the intersection of public policy and Alaskans' lives. Before joining the ADN in 2012, she worked at daily newspapers up and down the West Coast and earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon.

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