I want to start by saying thank you to all the people who came out to the U-Med/Midtown barbecue. It was great to see so many familiar faces and talk about issues that are important to the community. If you didn’t have time to make it the BBQ and there is an issue that you want to talk about please do not hesitate to contact my office.
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Dear Friends and Neighbors,
I hope that you have been enjoying the amazing weather we have been having! It is not often that we see 70+ degree weather in May, but we may as well take advantage of it.
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Dear Friends and Neighbors, I believe that the 2014 session was very successful with a couple glaring exceptions. I call the session successful for the following reasons:
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The past week has likely been the most interesting I have experienced during my time serving in the Alaska Legislature. In my last newsletter I wrote about a bill that did too much bad and not enough good for public education. Voting against the bill was extremely challenging. House Bill 278 included a slight increase to the Base Student Allocation (BSA), but it was far from fully funding public education and included too many ill-advised changes, like allowing public dollars to go to private schools and creating an unfair teacher tenure system. Taken together, the bad outweighed the good, which led to my “No” vote.
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Working late into the night Monday, the House had its long awaited debate on the education bill, House Bill 278. In January, the Governor introduced an omnibus education bill and deemed this session the “education session.” At the time, I did not believe the bill did enough for our public education system. After Monday night, I continue to believe we have not done enough for our children, teachers, and schools.
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