SPECIAL THAT'S IT FOR SUMMER EDITION

How was your summer? With the exception of a one-day special session and the odd committee meeting, mine was pretty good. Lots of sunshine, and lots of time to be the citizen part of “citizen legislator.”

But summer’s over. I can tell by all the leaves I’ve been raking, and by the fact that legislative activity has really picked up. Nothing too dangerous has happened, since we haven’t been getting together to vote. But, well, here’s what my past week was like.

Everything from Baking to Ship Handling

Friday, I spent all day, along with other legislators and members of the legislative staff, touring the Seward campus of the Alaska Vocational Technical Center. Avtec is the state’s oldest and biggest vocational and technical school. It is state owned and operated. Its 600 or so students learn everything from baking to ship handling. Avtec has a small campus in Anchorage, but most of this teaching and learning happens in Seward.

Since I’ve been in the legislature, I’ve been getting a visit or two every session from people associated with Avtec. None of my powerful committee positions has much direct bearing on the school. But a fellow named John Crews, who lives in warm and tropical House District 25, has been involved with Avtec for years and keeps me in the loop. So when I had the chance to see the school first-hand, I took it. I don’t know if it did much for Avtec, but I learned a lot.

What’s That Jumbo Jet Doing on the Roof?

Saturday, I spent three hours or so sitting with the Senate Transportation Committee, of which I am definitely not a powerful member, listening to people talk about Anchorage International Airport. The airport is just across the street from District 25, and like many other residents of the People’s Republic of Spenard, I often see and hear jets much closer than I’m actually comfortable with. Since the recent change in management there, the airport seems to be trying to get along better with its neighbors, but you can’t run a big airport cheek-by-jowl with people’s homes without some friction. So a lot of people keep an eye on the place. I’m one of them.

Sunday, I got to goof off. Until the woman who lets me live with her pointed out two things: the leaves that were lying all over and where the rake was kept. Oh, well.

Checking on the Permanent Fund

Monday was a five-hour meeting of the powerful Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, of which I am a powerful member. LB&A is, among other things, the legislative finance committees when we’re not in session, so we started out by moving money around at the request of various state agencies. Then we reviewed five audits, heard an explanation of a dandy interactive model that’s being created to help us figure out gas taxes and barbered with the people who run the Alaska Permanent Fund about some changes they’re making that make some people nervous.

I’m one of the nervous ones. If I had my way, the permanent fund would be buried in coffee cans in my back yard. I know that’s not practical or smart, but it’s my opinion that the permanent fund managers’ most important goal is to not lose money, and only secondarily to make a profit. The permanent fund people reassured us that they’re not taking the money to Vegas, but what they are doing is, like the airport, on my list of things to keep an eye on.

Transportation: It’s Not Cheap or Easy

Tuesday through Friday was spent with the other member of the powerful House Transportation Committee, of which I am a powerful member.

We flew to Bethel, then out to look at airports in Chefornak, Kipnuk and Nunapitchuk, and returned to Bethel to tour facilities there. What we saw first-hand is that Alaska’s terrain and climate are not friendly to the runways that take the place of roads in the area. In Bethel, we got a chance to look in at Yuut-Yaqungviat Flight School (the name translates as “Where People Earn Their Wings”) which is teaching people from the region to fly. That was Tuesday.

Except for this. I checked a few prices at the Chefornak village store: $10.35 for a pound of Starbuck’s, $15.39 for 10 pounds of sugar, $3.85 for a quart (that’s right a quart, not a half-gallon) of milk. Yikes!

Wednesday, we took a bus tour of streets and roads in the Anchorage-area. In addition to not particularly hospitable terrain and climate, our streets and roads are at the mercy of traffic volumes -- which, among other things, require new streets and roads to be built -- and our old friend, the studded snow tire.

Thursday, we spent all day in the hearing room of the Anchorage Legislative Information Office listening to people talk about how much it would take to bring Alaska’s airports, streets and ferries up to snuff. The number I took away was $8 billion. That’s every dime in the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve. Or, if you prefer, between a quarter and a third, depending on how the stock market is behaving, of the Alaska Permanent Fund.

In other words, a lot of dough. More than we can reasonably expect to spend in a state that has a $1 billion-plus-a-year education commitment, another $1 billion or so budget for health and social services and so on.

What’s the solution? There isn’t one. I know, I know. Politicians are always telling you, particularly around election time, how they’re going to solve every problem the state’s got -- and make sure your hot fudge sundae has a cherry on top, too. But the truth is, what we do is struggle. We struggle to write bills that do more good than harm and budgets that balance the endless needs of Alaska with the very limited amount of money the state takes in every year.

I’m not complaining. I volunteered for this. But a week like the one just past reminds me how much we have to do to make Alaska the place we want it to be -- and how difficult it is to do it.

Best wishes,