The Alaska Legislature has confirmed Gov. Bill Walker’s selection of Dean Williams as the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections.
The 49-9 approval came after 100 minutes of debate in a joint session of the House and Senate on Friday morning. All of Juneau’s delegates to the Legislature voted in favor. Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, and Sen. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, were absent.
While Williams was approved by a large margin, he isn’t an uncontroversial figure.
Williams was one of two authors of an in-depth investigation into the department following more than two dozen deaths within the walls of state prisons.
The four-month investigation, which concluded in November and recommended significant changes within the department, ended with the resignation of corrections commissioner Ronald Taylor and the appointment of Walt Monegan, Department of Public Safety commissioner under former Gov. Sarah Palin, as an interim chief.
Monegan was one of 14 people who applied to become the new permanent corrections commissioner. Walker instead went with Williams, appointing him in January. In April, Monegan was named commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
Williams’ appointment was opposed by the union representing the state’s correctional officers. That organization, the Alaska Correctional Officers Association, issued a 51-page rebuttal to the investigation soon after it was issued.
“This has severely, severely damaged the morale and the public’s impression of our correctional officers,” said Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, in a lengthy speech outlining his disagreements with the original report.
Wielechowski and other lawmakers said the report puts Williams in the difficult position of managing a department he just audited.
“I think we have just set him up for failure, and I think he’s a good enough man that we shouldn’t do that to him,” said Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage.
Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, compared Williams’ position to that of an overloaded aircraft taking off. If it were taking off upwind, there wouldn’t be a problem. Instead, he’s trying to take off downwind.
“You will crash every time,” he said.
Despite those concerns, a majority of lawmakers felt Williams was the right person at the right time.
Rep. Lora Reinbold, R-Eagle River, worked with Williams extensively before she was elected to the House.
“I do have faith in Dean at this time because I do know him,” she said.
Williams worked for 12 years as a juvenile justice officer, five years for the Department of Law and 14 years as superintendent of the Division of Juvenile Justice, overseeing various facilities throughout the state.
After the vote, Williams stood outside the governor’s office on the third floor of the Capitol, talking with Rep. Matt Claman, R-Anchorage.
Claman said the vote might have been closer had it not been for the efforts of a handful of corrections officers who went from office to office, saying that while their union opposed his appointment, they didn’t.
Zane Nighswonger, an officer at Lemon Creek, was one of the officers who supported Williams’ appointment.
He said his and other officers’ first reaction to the report was to reject it outright, but when they sat down and read it, they changed their minds.
“I found it to be an honest report as far as we were concerned,” Nighswonger said of Lemon Creek.
He said that from his perspective, “part of having integrity is admitting mistakes.”
Gasline board member
approved by one vote
In other action during the four-hour joint session on appointments, lawmakers narrowly approved the appointment of former Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Luke Hopkins to the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation.
The AGDC controls the state’s stake in the trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project known as AKLNG.
While some lawmakers criticized Hopkins’ lack of academic background in pipeline issues, supporters emphasized his long service on the Alaska Gasline Port Authority board, which envisioned a natural gas pipeline to Valdez.
Hopkins was approved in a 31-27 vote, the bare minimum in the 60-person joint House and Senate meeting.
Two other members of the board, Dave Cruz and Joey Merrick II, were confirmed without objection.
Photographer rejected for Board of Game
The only appointee rejected by the Legislature on Friday was Guy Trimmingham of Hope, whom Walker had appointed to a seat on the Alaska Board of Game.
While Trimmingham is former hunting guide, Walker appointed him in February, saying that Trimmingham “appreciates the value of balancing certain non-consumptive uses.”
In floor debates Friday, legislators said non-hunters don’t pay license fees and aren’t appropriate for the Board of Game, which uses those fees to regulate wildlife in the state.
“I don’t know of a camera fee that you pay so you can take photographs of a moose,” said Sen. Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks. “We hunters pay fees. We pay fees for the management of a resource so we can use it and consume it.”
