Anchorage Daily News

Assemblyman Dan Coffey championed a smoking ban that Alaska Libertarian Party chairman Jason Dowell is fighting to overturn.

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Coffey

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Gray-Jackson

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Dowell

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Elvi Gray-Jackson worked for the Assembly until Assembly leadership, including Coffey, sent her packing.

What else do these three people have in common?

They're all running for Coffey's Midtown Assembly seat in the April 3 city election.

Coffey, a longtime Anchorage lawyer and businessman who co-owns the Alaska Aces, wants a second term and is running as an independent hometown problem solver. He's coy about whether he'll one day run for mayor.

Gray-Jackson is a city official whose campaign touts her experience inside local government and reviewing city budgets. Last week she launched a Web site slamming Coffey's record, but said she's not interested in talking about the elimination of her job in 2005.

The newcomer is Dowell, a 30-year-old running an outsider shoestring campaign positioning himself as an independent alternative to the familiar faces.

Dowell co-sponsored a petition for the April 3 ballot to repeal the city's tough new anti-smoking rules before they start this summer. The ban would prohibit smoking in bars, bingo halls, private clubs and most other public places.

At first Dowell said he wasn't sure if it was a battle he wanted to fight, but said he's now convinced it was the right thing to do.

"You have to protect other people's rights even when it's unpopular, because that's the only way we can ensure our own," he said.

With Assemblyman Dick Traini, Coffey proposed the ban.

Coffey said that it's clear secondhand smoke is bad for health and boosts medical costs and that smoking bans aren't bad for business.

Gray-Jackson said that she doesn't want to repeal the new rules but that the Assembly could have handled the ban better. When the city prohibited smoking in many workplaces in 2001, businesses were told the ban wouldn't expand to include bars, she said. When talk of tougher rules surfaced, she said, those businesses weren't involved in the decision-making early enough.

Coffey said that around the time anti-smoking groups asked him to extend the ban, he talked to trade groups for bars and restaurants, looking to get them involved.

CONFLICT

Coffey and Gray-Jackson used to work together.

In September 2005, Gray-Jackson lost her job as Assembly staff director -- a decision made by an Assembly majority that included Coffey as vice chairman and Anna Fairclough, who is now serving in the state House, as chair.

The cut was controversial, reaching a boiling point as NAACP leaders accused Coffey and Fairclough of racism and called on them to resign. Coffey said the notion that racism played a role in the decision is "ludicrous."

So what happened, exactly?

Gray-Jackson and Coffey have little to say.

"I've moved on. Things happened. ... You take a negative situation and you make something positive out of it," Gray-Jackson said.

Coffey said it involved personnel issues and referred questions to Fairclough.

Fairclough said last week that the Assembly wanted to trim the city budget and was looking to lead by example by eliminating Gray-Jackson's job.

"She was 100 percent professional and a wonderful person to work with, and I believe that Mr. Coffey had the same experience," Fairclough said.

Both candidates said they don't plan to bring up the firing during the race, but that doesn't mean the campaign has been a lovefest.

Last week, Gray-Jackson's campaign launched a Web site (www.dancoffeyconflicts.com) targeting Coffey's record. For example, the site says Coffey has sat out far more votes than other Assembly members because of his business connections, such as when former clients apply for liquor licenses.

"With so many conflicts, it's impossible to say who Dan is really working for; you or his clients," the site says.

Coffey said that he's proud of his success as a businessman and that he discloses every potential conflict of interest.

"Show me where I voted when I had a conflict. You got something on me," he said last week. "You won't find it, because I haven't done it. ... This is made-up stuff."

DAN COFFEY

Born in Seattle and adopted by Ed and Ruth Coffey, Dan Coffey grew up on Fifth Avenue, he said.

"Then, it was houses," he said of the now-bustling city corridor.

He went to boarding school in Seattle and earned a law degree in San Diego in 1974 before moving back to Anchorage to practice law. He's married and has four sons, ages 22, 20, 18 and 8.

Coffey, who is 60, co-owns the Alaska Aces hockey team and four Xpress Lube locations, and has other investments.

Though he's part of a conservative majority on the Assembly, Coffey is not registered as a Republican. Under party affiliation, his voter registration reads "other."

After this race, Coffey said, he won't run for Assembly again.

"If you can't get it done in six years, buddy, you can't get it done," he said.

Mayor Mark Begich's term ends in 2009. Asked if he plans to run for mayor, Coffey said it's too early to say.

ELVI GRAY-JACKSON

Raised in Newark, N.J., Gray-Jackson came to Alaska in 1982 as a single mom with her 8-year-old son.

Before long, she began working as executive secretary for the city transit director. A few years later, she started working for the city Assembly office and eventually became director of the Assembly budget and legislative office.

The job included running the three-person office and serving as a budget analyst, she said.

"In between everything, I had a small, part-time catering business," Gray-Jackson said. She's also a certified scuba diver and a self-taught seamstress. At 6 feet tall, she can have trouble finding off-the-rack clothes, she said.

Now, Gray-Jackson is director of joint internal projects for Municipal Light & Power, a city-owned utility. She said she's taken a leave of absence during her Assembly campaign.

Gray-Jackson is 53 years old and a registered Democrat.

This is her first run for office. "When you work with the Assembly -- 42 different members -- at some point you think, 'Hmm, I can do this. I should do this.' "

JASON DOWELL

A Kentucky native, Dowell served six years in the Army, but said he didn't want to make a career of it. "I'm not a violent person."

He said he volunteered on several political campaigns in Kentucky and was in a seminary just before a friend invited him to Alaska roughly three years ago.

Dowell said he arrived with 25 cents, a comforter and a change of clothes. He'd come to get away and to go to school, and soon he was taking classes at Alaska Pacific University on his G.I. Bill.

He liked Alaskans' values -- privacy, independence -- and hooked up with the Alaska Libertarian Party, which is seeking to place candidates in local office.

Facing two well-known opponents, Dowell admits Coffey is well-versed in city issues following three years on the Assembly and Gray-Jackson knows the process of local government.

"At the same time," he said. "People are saying, 'Hey, we want something new. We want something different.' I have no attachments, I don't owe anybody any favors."

Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins can be reached at khopkins@adn.com.

CANDIDATES: Check out their Web sites.

Coffey: itscoffeytime.com Dowell: lpalaska.org/ Gray-Jackson: friendsofelvi.com