Bernadette Wilson answers a question at a lunchtime gubernatorial candidate forum for employees of Chugach Electric Association in Anchorage on September 17, 2026. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Bernadette Wilson, a Republican former talk radio host and conservative activist, has described her experienced as a business owner as an asset as she runs to be Alaska’s next governor. But Wilson has a history of unpaid bills, checks returned for insufficient funds, and having her Permanent Fund dividends garnished to pay her debts, court records show.

Between 2019 and 2024, judges ordered Wilson and her garbage-collection company to pay $74,807 after three businesses sued over unpaid bills. In two cases, Wilson’s company failed to respond to the lawsuits, leading to default judgments.

In recent candidate forums, Wilson has alluded to the challenges she and her business have faced.

“I know the struggles of being a business owner, signing the front of a paycheck. I’ve lived through the cash flow problems. I’ve lived through the economic struggles. I know what it’s like to come out of them,” Wilson said during a forum last month.

In another energy-focused event, Wilson said, “I can tell you about the ups and downs of the business. Right now, you need someone that knows how to pull through those problems.”

During a different forum hosted by the Resource Development Council, Wilson described herself as someone “that knows what it’s like to take risk, that knows how to pull through the cash flow problems when you hit rock bottom.”

She has not publicly commented on the lawsuits against her or her company, nor responded to questions in writing about them.

Wilson has declined multiple interview requests from the Daily News.

Wilson, 42, got her start in politics working on former Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan’s 2009 campaign. Since then, she has hosted several talk radio shows and worked on a number of conservative political causes, including most recently for U.S. Rep. Nick Begich’s 2024 campaign. She had stints directing two conservative advocacy groups — the Alaska Policy Forum and the Alaska chapter of Americans for Prosperity — between 2021 and 2025.

But her primary occupation, as she describes it on campaign flyers and in speaking engagements, is owning and operating Denali Disposal, a garbage-collection company that she started a decade ago with her stepfather, Dan Zipay.

Zipay and Wilson’s mother, Roberta Zipay, who owns 25% of Denali Disposal, did not respond to interview requests.

Wilson has declined to share details about her company’s customers during the campaign. The website for the company was taken offline earlier this year, but an archived version of the site advertises commercial garbage services, and shows Wilson and Dan Zipay posing with one of its yellow-and-blue trucks.

This screenshot made Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, shows a version of the Denali Disposal website at denalidisposal.com dated June 2018, as archived by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. (Screengrab from web.archive.org)

Problems quickly emerged for the company after Wilson and Zipay started it, court records show.

A real estate firm that leased a commercial facility to Denali Disposal between 2018 and 2023 alleged that Wilson was “chronically late” in rent payments, accruing late charges for delayed rent at least 18 times in a five-year period. Wilson also repeatedly tried to pay the company with checks that were returned due to insufficient funds, according to court documents.

Other firms alleged in 2019 and 2022 that Denali Disposal did not pay for services the firms provided. Both cases ended in default judgments against Wilson and her company, after she failed to respond to the complaints.

Prior to starting her garbage-disposal business, Wilson was repeatedly sued by her condo association between 2007 and 2015 for failing to pay dues. She defaulted on her mortgage multiple times between 2008 and 2014, state records show.

In several cases, Wilson declined to answer court filings related to unpaid bills, giving little insight — if any — on her financial decisions.

The history of litigation against Wilson has seldom come up during the campaign.

The other candidates in the governor’s race — Democratic former lawmaker Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, Republican former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and Republican former Attorney General Treg Taylor — have not commented publicly on Wilson’s court records.

Bronson said in a statement Friday that “it’s important that someone with this much financial and legal issues should probably get their own house in order before trying to sell the public on their ability to hold the highest office in our state.”

One of the lawsuits was mentioned by two independent groups — called Conservative Alaska and Competent Alaska Leaders — that campaigned against Wilson ahead of the primary. Wilson still emerged as the top Republican vote-getter in the primary, securing 10% of primary votes in a race that included 12 Republican candidates.

John Carr, a Wasilla resident, chairs one of the campaign groups and spent more than $10,000 running ads against Wilson ahead of the primary.

“Everybody makes mistakes, and I’m willing to give room for that, and people can grow from it as long as they do,” Carr said in an interview. “But I don’t know if she has made everything right with her past vendors or not, and we don’t know if she did. They had to sue her in order to get paid, so that’s a reluctance to make things right with them.”

“So has she learned from it? I don’t know. The actions speak more than her words,” Carr said.

Dave Bronson, right, answers a question during a candidate forum at the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association annual conference at the Alyeska Hotel in Girdwood on September 16, 2026. From left are Treg Taylor, Bernadette Wilson and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Unpaid business debts

Denali Disposal was first sued in 2019 by Alaska Traffic Company, which alleged that Wilson’s company purchased $9,661 in goods and services, but never paid for them. Wilson never responded to the lawsuit.

In January 2020, a judge granted a default judgment against Denali Disposal, ordering Wilson to pay $11,349 to Alaska Traffic. A process server sought to collect payment several times before Wilson agreed in April 2021 to pay the debt in monthly $1,000 installments, satisfying the judgment against her company in December of that year.

A few months later, Shoreside Petroleum sued Denali Disposal, Wilson and her mother, alleging that their company bought petroleum products from Shoreside on credit, then failed to pay its bills. According to court records, Wilson attempted to pay a portion of her bill using checks that were returned due to insufficient funds.

Again, Wilson and Zipay never responded to the complaint against them and Denali Disposal. Several months after the complaint was filed, a judge granted default judgment against Wilson, Zipay and their company, ordering them to pay $57,874 to Shoreside Petroleum.

A process server tried to contact Wilson and her mother several times, according to court records. Their Permanent Fund dividends were garnished for two consecutive years to help pay off the debt. The full amount was paid off in September 2025, three months after Wilson entered the governor’s race.

Representatives of Shoreside Petroleum did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. Neither did attorneys representing plaintiffs in other proceedings against Wilson.

‘Chronically late’

Wilson’s company was sued in 2024 by King Investments, a firm that leased a commercial shop to Denali Disposal between 2018 and 2023. During the period of the lease, Denali Disposal “was chronically late on its rent” and “repeatedly incurred fees for writing bad checks,” King Investments alleged in a court filing. Denali Disposal was assessed late charges “at least 18 times” during the five-year lease, King Investments said.

After Denali Disposal vacated the commercial property in late 2023, King Investments alleged that Denali Disposal owed $5,316.72 in rent, late fees and charges to repair the shop. Wilson personally guaranteed her company’s obligations under its lease, King Investments alleged.

In a response to the complaint, Wilson wrote that the shop she had rented was not in “brand new condition” when her company began its lease, and “if the owners want it in that condition, that is their financial responsibility, not ours.” But she conceded that she owed unpaid rent and late fees, along with some repairs that totaled $2,307.

King Investments alleged that between October 2023 and January 2024, Wilson and her company “refused to pay even the monies Denali Disposal acknowledged it owed.”

After a brief trial, a judge ordered Wilson to pay King Investments $5,584.

Overdue condo payments

Wilson purchased her South Anchorage condominium in December 2005.

Her condo association first sued Wilson in April 2007 over a debt of $1,360 in unpaid dues. In May of that year, Wilson responded to the suit with a hand-written note, in which she wrote that her and her then-husband Chris Fournier “will have the better half of what is owed to (the association) by the end of the month, and will pay the remainder within the two weeks following.”

But in October 2007, an employee of the property management company testified that Wilson had not made any dues payments in 11 months. By then, the Wilson owed $3,485 in dues, fees and charges. The association alleged that when Wilson attempted to pay with a personal check, it “was returned due to insufficient funds.”

The case was dismissed in 2009.

The condo association again sued Wilson in 2013, alleging that she owed $8,018 in unpaid dues, assessments and fines. Wilson confessed to the debt, and a judge ordered her to pay the association a total of $9,132. The debt was not satisfied until 2016.

The association last sued Wilson in 2015, alleging that she owed $2,647 in unpaid dues, assessments and fines. The case was dismissed after Wilson paid $1,855.

According to state records, Wilson defaulted on her mortgage in 2008, 2009, 2013 and 2014. Foreclosure proceedings were repeatedly halted after Wilson renegotiated her loan with her lender.

In 2011, Deutsche Bank sought to evict Wilson from her condo after she faced foreclosure. The case was ultimately dismissed after Wilson again entered a loan modification agreement with the bank.