To-do list for lawmakers
Dear state legislator,
Here's your to-do list:
1. Pass a fully funded budget.
2. Expand Medicaid.
3. Pass Erin's Law.
4. Go home and spend time with loved ones.
Love,
A bunch of mad Alaskans.
— Jayson P. Valentine
Anchorage
Hillsiders, bear-proof trash
My family recently moved from the Fairview neighborhood to the lower Hillside. We were delighted a couple of weeks ago to see a black bear in the early morning traveling through our property and were thankful that we had secured a bear-proof receptacle from Alaska Waste despite the lack of any apparent mandate we do so. Yesterday on our trek up to the Upper Huffman trail head, I was profoundly disappointed and angered to observe a black bear traveling from one house to the next on Prospect Drive rifling through one unsecured trash bin and another. After our hike we drove on Kasilof, Shebanof, and Cobra and observed countless unsecured trash bins. Sad. Shame on these property owners. Shame on the municipality for not requiring Alaska Waste to provide, and residents to pay for, bear-proof receptacles in bear country. I guess my assumption that Anchorage residents who build sprawling mansions on the side of a mountain have respect for the natural environment was flawed from the beginning.
— Debbie Stojak
Anchorage
Recall, no time to wait
Does your opinion matter — or are the legislators right and you don't care what they do in Juneau, or how they spend your money?
Is it OK for legislators to have their own health care for life, while 40,000 Alaskans go without health care? Is it all right for the legislators to give money to the oil companies and take it away from schoolchildren? And how about not teaching children how to protect themselves from sexual predators?
The Alaska Constitution has a way to stop these people. It is called "recall" if we can't wait to vote them out.
— Rita Hatch
Anchorage
Finally, good job Jenkins
I think I'm going to take a short break from talking about Medicaid expansion to say how much I appreciated Paul Jenkins' May 17 commentary on bicycle/motorcycle safety. I especially liked the visibility and presence comments he made about the loud exhaust and flashy gear. Good job, Jenkins, finally a column of yours the majority of commuters can agree with. No one really wants to run over somebody and nobody really wants to get run over. Maybe this would be a good message for the legislative majority. Oops, I did it again.
— T. Frank Box
Anchorage
Alaskans are smarter than you think
To the Alaska Legislature: You are a disappointment to informed Alaskans everywhere.
To the Democratic minority: Recognize that there is excess fat on the loins of our education bureaucracy. Stop trying to make the Republicans look bad. We all want a good education system, but we also want frugality and efficiency. And do not meddle in the Elmore Road extension project.
To the Republican majority: Cutting the budget is essential (try 5 percent a year for the next six to eight years); but must you alienate our government workforce by unilaterally reneging on existing labor contracts? You will be surprised at how our government servants and their unions will cooperate to solve our fiscal crisis if approached properly. There is ample evidence that expanding Medicaid by accepting federal dollars will give the Alaska economy a boost. And it is the right thing to do.
To both the Republicans and Democrats: There is overwhelming evidence that our state's fiscal crisis cannot be solved in the long run without tapping the Permanent Fund and reinstituting an income tax. No one seems to want to admit to that. Develop a plan with the assistance of our able governor, and modify the oil production rebate while you're at it.
We Alaskans are smarter than you think and we are urging you to do your best for us. Oh, and by the way, we are watching.
— Gary W. Gantz
Anchorage
Majoritys stance has economic risks
Alaskans expect our legislative leadership to compromise with minority party members and the governor, and use the CBR to balance our budget. Current obstructionist behaviors are making you quite unpopular with voters and you risk further harm to our state's economy. It's beginning to look like that's your intent.
— Sherrell Holtshouser
Anchorage
Support our hardworking legislators
I am tired of reading the opinions of those who think they know better than our legislators. They were elected to do a job and they are doing it in spite of the armchair quarterbacks who think they know better. The critics who speak only for themselves, feel free to call for legislators' recall, and call for representation, when in fact that is exactly what they are getting. The legally elected legislators are, in fact, doing the job they were elected to do.
To those who have their heads in the sand, our Legislature has a plan and they are sticking to it in spite of the pressure from lobbyists who represent the minority. In spite of the media criticism, and the very loud anti-voices, most of whom do not even vote, our legislators are doing what they think is best for all Alaskans.
For example, Medicaid seems to be a big issue. Alaska is one of 16 states to reject the Affordable Care Act. All of the other states who have accepted the ACA are afraid of being unable to cover all of the people who have signed up for it. They are not cutting funding to education in Alaska, they are reducing funding because education is the largest portion of our budget. It is time to step back and try to look for a way to support our legislators in Juneau, and if you can't support them, at least try to understand what they are doing in our name.
— Bob Lewis
Wasilla
Never too late to thank a veteran
Sunday, at the supermarket checkout, the woman behind me thanked me for my military service. I do not know how she knew I am a veteran, and I was surprised, but pleased. Then she said something about paying it forward and she paid my grocery bill. It wasn't large, and I didn't need assistance, but it was her thought that counted, and I could not refuse. That was overwhelming. She did not know it, but I was close to tears at that moment — as I am now, just thinking about it.
I am of the Vietnam generation, and there were few then willing to thank military members for anything. I am vastly pleased that we have reversed course in this regard, for thanks then were few and far between, though no less deserved then than now. Still, I think that the greater thanks should go to those who served and did not return, and to those who serve now, for we veterans run no risk to life and limb, and our duty is done. Now I thank those in uniform today, and I hope that they have the same opportunity to be thanked that I now have, 45 years later.
— Joe Koss, USAFR (Retired)
Anchorage
Big Oil can afford cuts, not schools
We see in the news every day about how the Legislature is working on deep cutbacks for fire, police, road maintenance, schools and all the other state departments. However, there is no mention of cuts on the state giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the oil companies in tax credits. They have special exemptions from cutbacks.
What's up with that? How come they don't have to have deep cut like all of the state departments do? Perhaps if the state did not give so many millions to the oil companies in credits, the state would not have to make such deep cuts in the state budget?
I wonder why the Legislature does not consider that option. If the Legislature cutback on the oil companies by trimming the tax credits they receive, the companies would still make millions per year in profit from the state's oil. The rich and powerful in the Lower 48 who own stock in these oil companies are the ones who can most easily afford some cuts. They can afford it a lot easier than say, Alaska's schools.
How come Alaska schools can't have exemptions from state cuts like the oil companies do? Shouldn't Alaska schools get the same deal as the stockholders of the oil companies get, and be fully funded?
— John Suter
Chugiak
Jenkins got minoritys intent wrong
It would take a much longer letter than this one to tackle everything that Paul Jenkins gets wrong in his weekly columns. I want to address just one sentence and one topic from his Saturday column.
Jenkins' recent piece suggests that an unfairness would come from the fact that the House Independent Democratic Coalition only wishes to keep the state's promise to pay its classified workers a 2.5 percent COLA increase (the Parnell Administration negotiated the contracts) — not every state worker. He infers that the unfairness results from the fact that exempt employees would not receive this increase. As currently postured, this is accurate. But, the implication that the coalition doesn't care about exempt employees is mistaken. In two different mid-April votes on the House floor (HB 176), the Democrats and independents, joined by four Republicans (19 votes total) lost to 21 Republican majority members, who wished to cancel statutorily set exempt salary COLA increases. Obviously, that tally, combined with the speeches made during those sessions reflects the coalition was unified in wanting to pay all state workers a 2.5 percent COLA, as then required.
Naturally, there are important and obvious differences between organized and unorganized workers. But, my coalition, aware that not all exempt employees receive larger salaries, stood 100 percent behind the unorganized workers, fighting for their COLA increases too. No doubt today, the record reflects that we'd be overjoyed if they also received a COLA increase. I would be happy to offer cuts to pay for those increases and keep promises to them at the same time.
— State Rep. Andy Josephson
Anchorage
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