The Alaska Civic Engagement State Table (AKCES), a coalition of non-partisan non-profit organizations dedicated to strengthening democracy, calls on the Division of Elections to speak to the alarmingly high rates of ballot rejections for voters in regions with linguistically diverse populations who participated in the statewide Special Primary election. With at least 7,504 of the […]
JUNEAU – The Alaska House helped strengthen public safety in rural Alaska Thursday when it passed legislation that would update the Village Public Safety Officer (VPSO) program. Senate Bill 81, which passed 34-2, implements seven recommendations that the bipartisan and bicameral VPSO Working Group made in their report, which was adopted on January 24, 2020. […]
(Anchorage) – In a newly created position, a retired Alaska State Trooper returns as VPSO operations director to reimagine the 43-year-old Village Public Safety Officer program. On FirstHand, the podcast, Joel Hard says VPSOs are so critical to public safety in villages, that he could not have done his Trooper job without them. Now […]
Dozens of Alaska Villages Have No Police At All Dozens of Alaska communities still have no police to protect their residents. “Every community deserves public safety. Letting a criminal assault community members, with no protection from any police officer isn’t justice, it’s negligence,” said Mike Williams, Sr. and Les Gara in a joint statement today. “All Alaskans […]