Most candidates running in the House District 31 Republican Primary are focusing their campaigns on larger PFDs and budget cuts. But Republican candidate Henry Kroll is passionate about a different issue. Kroll wants to privatize more land.
Henry Kroll is a fisherman and an author. He’s written a dozen books on politics, Alaskan legends, his family and more eccentric books about ice ages.
He flipped to a page in his book called “Cosmological Ice Ages” about the sun’s course through space.
“Well, these are like reptilian humans in the second half of the book, which is more esoteric,” he said.
But one of his most recent books is a self-published novel called “Make Alaska Great Again.”
“It's about where we are now in this state of affairs in Alaska, the present situation we are in, maybe a way to crawl out of it and get Alaska more self-sustaining so we can provide for ourselves and not be so dependent on the other 48 states,” he said.
The book blames the state government and corporate greed for heavily relying on non-renewable resources. But it also proposes what Kroll sees as a solution to the problem, and it’s the reason he’s running for state Legislature.
“We need more land into private hands," he said. "If they put a box on the dividend application instead of a dividend, they would get an acre of land, and the money would stay in a dividend and earn more interest and it save the dividend to some extent. It would put more money back into it."
Kroll says the money saved should go toward larger dividends and he opposes using the permanent fund earnings reserve to pay for state government. He says one way this could work is local boroughs would give residents land and the state would reimburse local governments on the back end.
He says this system would allow Alaskans to be more self-sufficient, and Kroll thinks it would benefit the economy.
Giving away land is Kroll’s main priority, but he also opposes implementing any statewide broad-based taxes. He believes it would be a hardship on Alaskans.
“We have enough starving people as it is, what, we need another income tax?" he said. "We got a lot of hidden taxes you don't see right away. We've got licenses and fees for about everything.”
As for education:
“I'm not an educational type person but I've seen where education does cost a lot here in Alaska,” he said. “So, I don’t know what the solution is.”
Kroll also doesn’t believe much needs to be done when it comes to climate change or health care either.
“I think we're doing fine on the health care situation,” he said. “We have top-notch doctors and hospitals here.”
This is Kroll’s first go around when it comes to state politics, and no one has donated to Kroll’s campaign thus far. But he has spent some of his own money on campaign signs near his home.
When asked how much of a chance he has, he answered, “I have no idea. That’s up to the voters, not me. I can just do the best I can and do as I say, the way I see it.”
If he doesn’t win this election cycle, he says he will turn his attention toward mining for gold in Arizona in order to help his wife’s jewelry business.
