Hundreds rally outside Gov. Dunleavy’s budget event in Anchorage

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Protestors rally outside the 49th State Brewing Company during Gov. Mike Dunleavy's roadshow event in Anchorage on Tuesday, March 26, 2019. (Bill Roth / ADN)

Hundreds of people gathered outside the 49th State Brewing Co. at a rally billed as “Hear Our Voice,” challenging Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget cuts.

A coalition of union, public education supporters, environmental groups and others concerned about proposed cuts to everything from Medicaid to ferries gathered, waving signs with messages such as “Cut the Koch out of Alaska!” About 300 people had gathered on the closed-off block of Third Avenue as of 6 p.m., when the event inside was set to begin.

Standing in a truck bed, speakers led the crowd in a chant of “save our state.”

[WATCH: Gov. Dunleavy’s budget roadshow comes to Anchorage]

Emcee and Anchorage Assembly member Forrest Dunbar told the crowd not to prevent ticketed eventgoers from entering and to “keep it legal.”

One protester, Lorraine Krueger, attended with her 35-year-old son Collin Krueger, who has what she describes as significant physical and cognitive disabilities from congenital hydrocephalus. Krueger said she worried that if the cuts went through, they’d have to leave the state where Collin has lived his entire life.

“It would just decay what little services we have,” Krueger said.