Ken Alper: Alaska Tax Division Director 2014-2018 & long-time legislative staff

Alaska's economy is, and it's a dirty word to some people, but it's a colonial economy.

Since the time of Western contact, since the first Russians shot the first seal in 1740, Alaska's economic development has been about someone with outside capital, larger than the people that actually live here, investing money, expecting a return on that investment to extract resources and leave behind as little as they could for the people that actually live here and want to build a permanent economy with it.

That's what I'm here for, to help represent the people that live here, to build a permanent economy and a fair division.

I think numbers and facts and past history and precedent are important, and we need to have an honest conversation.

And when it gets emotional, and an interesting thing that's emotional on the industry side, if you don't take our position, you're against the gas line.

You're trying to drive away investment.

You're going to harm the people.

It's like, No. We're talking really about the margins here.

We're talking about the last 5% or 10% of dividing up a very large thing.

And I think we deserve honest information and honest representation.