Letters to the Editor

Letter: Thanks for important stories

I’d like to express special thanks to the ADN for some recent stories. First, I commend the newspaper and especially reporter Kyle Hopkins and photographer Loren Holmes — and also ProPublica — for the special report, “Unprotected,” which documents the shameful fact that more than 70 Alaska communities have had no local police protection at some point in 2019. That so many of our state’s communities — all of them in rural Alaska and most, if not all, primarily consisting of Alaska Native residents — continue to go without some sort of police presence is truly an awful and disgraceful circumstance and speaks poorly of our state’s political leadership, past and present. Especially appalling is the hypocrisy of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a self-proclaimed law-and-order guy who says that public safety is his No. 1 priority, yet has sought to cut millions of dollars from public safety programs in rural Alaska. It’s encouraging that U.S. Attorney General William Barr recognizes that this situation is an “emergency,” but the question remains: When are the state and federal governments actually going to do something to address this unacceptable situation? We need leaders who will change this appalling and shameful public policy.

Second, many thanks to Madeline McGee, who documented another shocking and disgraceful act, the state’s decision to garnish the PFD of a young man who was the victim of a horrific crime as a young boy. Talk about adding insult to injury; this goes way beyond that. I was encouraged to read that the state has “forgiven” Stephen Hansell’s undeserved legal debt, an action that I suspect resulted directly from McGee’s story. The state would do well to reimburse Hansell for the years he didn’t receive the PFD, and I would suggest that it also forgive the debt of Stephen’s father, Dwayne Hansell. This story reminds us that the law and justice are many times very different things. One step has been taken to address an injustice perpetrated by the state on the Hansell family, and I hope state officials will do more to correct it. Thanks again to Hopkins, Holmes and McGee for their important work.

— Bill Sherwonit

Anchorage

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Bill Sherwonit

Anchorage nature writer Bill Sherwonit is the author of more than a dozen books, including "Alaska's Bears" and "Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska's Wildlife."

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