NEWS: Gara to Oil Companies: Pull False Radio, TV Ads
Anchorage – Today, Representative Les Gara (D, Anchorage) called on four major oil companies to stop misleading Alaska voters. “When you spend over $8 million to dishonor voters by blitzing them with false information, it’s a reflection you have a weak case,” Gara said of the television and radio ads paid for by BP, ExxonMobil, Spanish company Repsol, and ConocoPhillips. Gara wrote each company today to call for them to withdraw their misleading claims.
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Note from Rep. Gara: Fool Me Once: A Fact Check on Those Slick Oil Ads
I’d like a world where people tell the truth during elections. But wishing doesn’t work in this new world where outside corporations and groups are allowed unlimited election $pending. With that money these special interests constantly violate the old adage that you’re entitled to your own opinions, but that you’re not entitled to your own facts.
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NEWS: Gara: Non-Education Session Adds More Layoffs to Three Years of Massive Layoffs
ANCHORAGE - Today Rep. Les Gara (D-Anch), a lead sponsor of legislation to start reversing the last three years of over 600 layoffs to teachers and educators across the state, called the “three-year” education bill that passed “two, and likely three more years of layoffs on top of the more than 600 teachers staff Parnell and the GOP have cut since 2011.” Since 2011 Alaska schools have lost over 600 teachers and staff due to flat funding.
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Note from Rep. Gara: Honoring Students of America’s Most Diverse High School - Here in Alaska!
Last Thursday my aide Rose Foley and I spent our morning with 2,000 people. I know, it’s not how most of you start work, or want to start work if you like a quiet cup of coffee in the morning.
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NEWS: Gara: More Teacher Layoffs Won’t Fix Alaska’s Near-Bottom Graduation Rates
JUNEAU – Today, Representative Les Gara (D-Anchorage) responded to a recent study that found Alaska ranks near the bottom of state rankings in high school graduation rates. Gara, who joined other Democratic lawmakers in pushing to reverse Alaska’s course of educator cuts, tied Alaska’s slow progress on improving graduation rates to three years of teacher and staff layoffs, a problem the Legislature failed to address this session.
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