Politics

Alaska Mental Health Trust to pay up to $500K for land-trade consulting and lobbying

The land office of the Alaska Mental Health Trust is proposing to spend as much as $500,000 to renew its consulting and lobbying contract with the Colorado firm that's helping it pursue a land exchange with the federal government.

The contract is with Denver-based Western Land Group, a consulting firm that specializes in land exchanges. Two of the firm's employees who have registered as federal lobbyists for the trust are Thomas Glass, a former Colorado state senator, and Andy Wiessner, a former attorney for a pair of congressional committees who's also on the board of the magazine High Country News.

Western Land Group has been working for the trust for three years under a $110,000 contract.

The proposed contract's duration extends for only five years so the trust doesn't have to renew it before then — not because it expects the land trade to take that long, said John Morrison, executive director of the trust land office.

The trust's proposed land exchange would trade various pieces of its property for federal government land in Southeast Alaska that could be logged, with the proceeds directed to the trust's operations.

The trust is also proposing timber sales on two properties near Ketchikan and Petersburg, over local opposition, no later than Jan. 15, unless Congress passes legislation to speed up the land trade.

Western Land Group's sole-source contract is set to start Oct. 1, but other qualified firms can contact the trust if they're interested in the work, the trust said in a public notice Tuesday.

The trust says it manages about 1 million acres of Alaska public land.

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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