News-Miner Editorial
A dozen good years
Community recognizes Sen. Gary Wilken’s service
Published Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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Stumble It!Residents of the core Fairbanks election districts have known since January that they will send a new state senator to Juneau next year. After months of debating who that might be, we now have a chance to pause and recognize the fellow who has held down the job in admirable fashion for the past 12 years.
Sen. Gary Wilken will be given a “community thank you” at the the Carlson Center from 5:30-7:30 p.m. today.
Wilken, a businessman, spent much of his time the past dozen years digging into important, complicated and divisive issues such as state school funding and local government structure.
His views were bound to rankle some folks, but it would be surprising if Wilken were found on anyone’s enemies list. His calm, fact-based approach would tend to keep him off such tabulations. And, if he did land there occasionally, his affable nature would exonerate him in short order.
Trusting Wilken’s fairness and good grasp of numbers, his colleagues in Juneau put him on the Senate Finance Committee within a few years of his arrival. Some may have regretted doing so after being granted, in return, numerous graphs and charts to help with their educations in fiscal matters.
But, again, no lasting resentment seemed to have resulted — in 2003, Wilken was named co-chairman of the committee, one of the most important and influential posts in the Legislature. He served in that position until 2006.
Wilken and his wife, Sue, have been an exceptionally civic-minded couple for decades. For Gary Wilken, serving in the Legislature was a natural extension of that involvement. When former state Sen. Steve Frank declined to run for re-election to the seat in 1996, he asked Wilken to try because he knew Wilken would be a good fit for the job. Frank was right.
Those who would like to share such sentiments, or any other, with Sen. Wilken will have a fine opportunity this evening. Fairbanks should show up in force to say “thank you” for the past 12 years of service to our community.
Community Discussion
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How much did Wilken and his cronies make off the plundering of the city utilities? Was that looting of city assets community mindedness?
A simple question to answer,, MILLIONS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Of more importance is how much the purchase of the Utility saved the city of Fairbanks and continues to save the city.
So a few smart businessmen put together a deal, they make some money, save the city millions, and all you can think of is how crooked they are. Senator Wilken is one of the most respected people in Fairbanks and in Juneau,he did a lot for his community and the State of Alaska. I'm willin to bet my frozen C-Rations you two are just the uneducated jealous kind. Get a grip dummies, and get on with your lives.
longTimer49er, speak for yourself and "get a grip dummy". This guy did more to ruin the education system in Alaska than anyone. By the way did he fly in from his home in Seattle. He is nothing but another one who made their money and got their State pensions so they could live in the lower 48.
A few smart buisnessmen? Who paid their former classmate and friend to sell the idea to the public to giveaway the utilities.Where is Jim Hayes?
FreeDarfur... lets reveiw. How many rate hikes have the utility company put through/requested? How much have our utilities increased? How much did the Riverview Drive Raiders get for selling just a portion of the utilities to outside investment intrests?
The darkest day in recent Fairbanks history was the day the utilities were sold to Golden Heatrless Utilities.
Come out of your coma.
Come out of your coma and do what reasonable people have done, sold property inside the city and moved out to the borough. Wilkens did everything in his power to wreck education in rural Alaska. For having a wife who was a teacher, this man should be ashamed of how he acted towards rural communities cildren. He thought nothing of doing money grabs from rural areas to benefit the urban areas. Notice how he quit when Fairbanks began to get treated like a village. He knew he could never make coalitions with rural Alaska. Look at his last year, he did nothing.
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