By REP. KEVIN MCCABE
April 12, 2026 – Last Friday I brought Amendment 4 to the House floor. Two million dollars to reopen the Talkeetna trooper post on the Parks Highway. We found a responsible funding source. We followed the law. We did it the right way. The vote was 19 to 21. It failed.
I want Alaskans to understand exactly what happened.
The state recently received about 12.8 million dollars in ANWR lease revenue. That money is not a free-for-all. Half goes straight back to the federal government. The Permanent Fund gets its share. The Public School Trust Fund gets its share. Every required transfer is paid before a single dollar is available for any other allocation or appropriation.
After working through those obligations, we were left with roughly $3 million in unallocated funds. That is it. That is what we had to work with.
My amendment used $2 million of that remainder to put four troopers and a sergeant back in Talkeetna. The balance, just under a million dollars, stayed with AIDEA for responsible development in the coastal plain. No new spending. No cuts. No sweep from the Permanent Fund. No games. Pay what we owe, follow the law, and invest in a clear public safety need.
It still failed.
Here is what that vote means in the real world.
Between Willow and Cantwell there are more than 100 miles of the Parks Highway without consistent trooper coverage. There is a post north of Wasilla. Most response comes out of Palmer. There is a post in Cantwell. In between, on one of the busiest corridors in this state, you are largely on your own.
People have died on that road. Accidents happen and help is a long way off. A few years ago, a woman and her seven year old daughter were killed in a head-on collision near Talkeetna on a clear afternoon. Volunteers worked on that child for 45 minutes. Think about that. Forty five minutes waiting and hoping. A local trooper presence could have changed that outcome. It did not, because the post was gone.
Drug traffic moves that corridor every day. Fentanyl headed north to Fairbanks and into rural Alaska. High speed pursuits have already made headlines. State data shows this is one of the higher risk corridors for missing and murdered Indigenous people. This is not a theoretical gap. It is one of the most obvious public safety failures in Alaska, and we had the money sitting there to do something about it.
Some members who voted no know that road well. They spend time in Talkeetna. They have family there. They drive that stretch and see exactly what is out there and what is not. When the vote came, they still said no.
That is a choice: Caucus first, Alaskans second.
I heard the argument that one-time revenue should not be used for public safety. That misses the point. This was not about ongoing operations. This was startup money to reopen a post. Once it is up and running, it becomes part of the base budget like every other trooper post. That argument does not hold up.
I also heard that the borough should handle it. That’s not how this works. The Parks Highway is a state highway. Law enforcement on state highways is the responsibility of the Alaska State Troopers. The state has been stepping back from that responsibility on this stretch for years.
Public safety is not optional. It’s a core duty of government. Families are on that road every day. Tourists heading to Denali. Truckers moving freight. Alaskans going about their lives. For more than 100 miles, there is no consistent trooper presence.
We had the funding. We followed the law. We put public safety first.
The majority chose to vote against your safety.
This is not over. The people who live along that corridor and the people who travel it deserve to know who made that decision.
3 thoughts on “Rep. Kevin McCabe: We had the money but they voted Caucus first, Alaskans last”
This isn’t a surprise. Public safety has been on the chopping block for years, by degrees. What about a smaller financial footprint? 2 – 3 troopers, with the Commander in the valley? Once established . . . Find the two votes.
Run it again, Mr. McCabe. Please.
Thank you for the article and your efforts. It is a shame it failed.
We are ruled by very low quality people, and many of them are criminals.
Crime, as well as accidents, are on the increase in the Matsu valley yet it seems we have had diminishing law enforcement presence per capita as our population also grows. Thank you Rep McCabe for keeping readers informed. It takes much time and effort to do that and I for one appreciate it. What a shame other lawmakers just don’t appear to care much for what is most essential.