Alaska

Alaska Legislature passes budget and some bills that resemble turduckens

Published

3 years ago

May 20, 2022

Alaska Legislature passes budget and some bills that resemble turduckens

The Alaska State Capitol in Juneau on a wet day, April 15, 2021. (Picture by Andrew Kitchenman/KTOO and Alaska Public Media)

The Alaska Legislature handed a price range late Wednesday night time that features a $3,200 payout to Alaskans within the type of Everlasting Fund Dividends and vitality aid funds.

That’s a compromise, after the state Senate had earlier sought $5,500 funds. Home members argued that may draw an excessive amount of from state financial savings.

The price range remains to be one of many largest in state historical past, and it’s only one piece of laws that handed in a flurry of exercise proper on the finish of the legislative session. All of it, in fact, should nonetheless survive Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto pen to develop into regulation.

Alaska Beacon reporter James Brooks was up late following the Legislature’s frantic scramble to move payments earlier than the deadline.

In some circumstances, he says, that meant payments had been amended into different payments to get them handed. Brooks compares that to a turducken, a three-bird roast that includes stuffing a hen right into a duck and stuffing that right into a turkey.

Pay attention:

The next transcript has been flippantly edited for readability.

James Brooks: For instance, there was a invoice that concerned altering signature necessities on automobile titles. Nicely, one other invoice acquired shoved inside it that requires just one license plate as a substitute of two. So that you’ll solely want your rear license plate as a substitute of a rear and entrance license plate.

Casey Grove: So form of a mad sprint to the end. And all on the final second, it will get shoved collectively and handed to make it throughout the end line. In fact, the largest factor that we’ve been watching is the price range, which incorporates the Everlasting Fund dividend for this yr and an vitality aid fee. What occurred with that? And I assume, additionally, how shut did we get to a $5,500 fee this yr?

James Brooks: Proper, $5,500 appeared prefer it was a risk as late as Saturday. However on that day, the home turned down the Senate proposal that contained the $5,500. That left the Home with one model of the price range, the Senate with one other model of the price range, and compelled them to barter a compromise. What that compromise group got here up with was $3,850 — a $2,600 PFD and a couple of $1,200 vitality rebate. However that’s not what ended up taking place, as a result of that compromise was depending on among the vitality aid cash getting paid out of financial savings. And the Home fell one vote in need of spending from financial savings with a purpose to pay for that. So the tip result’s about $3,200. By any measure, it’s one of many largest payouts in state historical past, even when adjusted for inflation. However for lots of legislators, it was a disappointment as a result of it may have been larger and was mentioned as being larger.

Casey Grove: What was the reasoning for the oldsters within the Home that voted towards spending from the Constitutional Finances Reserve, that financial savings account you talked about? What did they are saying about their votes towards that?

James Brooks: It’s considerations concerning the future. For the previous few years, whereas oil costs have been low, the state has blazed by way of nearly $16 billion in financial savings. And so the state financial savings accounts are at a very low ebb proper now. The state’s anticipating some huge cash from excessive oil costs, and thus excessive oil taxes, brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it surely’s not sure at this level. And so there have been a good variety of legislators who’re apprehensive concerning the concept of spending from financial savings. And their concern is ensuring that there’s sufficient cash and financial savings to cowl unexpected circumstances, even when it comes at the price of the short-term payout.

Casey Grove: Now, for the oldsters that voted for the next payout, what was the reasoning there? I imply, that’s tied to those excessive vitality costs that we’re seeing proper now, proper?

James Brooks: Precisely. We’re beginning to see the annual gasoline barges arrive in distant villages, and taking a look at gasoline costs at, say, $16 a gallon. And it’s mirrored throughout the state, not simply in these villages. Prices of meals are going up. Prices of gasoline are going up. And legislators actually wished to reply to that. And to a point they’ve, however not as a lot as different legislators wished.

Casey Grove: Nicely, like we stated, it was form of a mad sprint to the end, and the price range was only one a part of that. What else acquired handed final night time by the Legislature?

James Brooks: One of many huge accomplishments that did move was an omnibus schooling invoice focused to creating certain that each Alaska scholar can learn by the third grade. The thought is that by spending extra effort and cash on early schooling, you enhance outcomes for teenagers in a while. In any other case, there was a fairly important revision of the state’s sexual assault legal guidelines, to make it reliant on consent, not simply violence or the specter of violence. There’s a invoice limiting little one marriages within the state. Proper now, present regulation says any individual as younger as 14 can get married with the approval of a decide. The invoice raises that age to 16 and says that when you’re a 16- or 17-year-old, you continue to want a decide’s approval, and you may solely get married to any individual who’s inside three years of your individual age.

Casey Grove: There have been some issues that didn’t move, and I assume a type of was a marketing campaign finance invoice. Inform me about that.

James Brooks: Yeah, earlier this yr a federal decide, really a collection of them, dominated that the bounds on how a lot you’ll be able to donate to a politician had been unlawful and threw them out. The Legislature wanted to impose new limits, if there’s going to be any form of restriction on how a lot any individual can donate to a candidate. Within the final hours of the Legislature, that invoice failed. So proper now, and going into this fall’s election, there’s no restrict on how a lot cash somebody can donate to a candidate. It stays to be seen how a lot impact that may have on this yr’s election, however I believe it is going to be important. And linked to that, the governor and Republican legislators, plus some Democrats, wished to have extra safety measures in place for elections sooner or later. That invoice additionally didn’t move. That was a type of turduckens. They had been attempting to merge marketing campaign finance and election safety, however each payments died.

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Alaska

Close encounters with the Juneau kind: Woman reports strange lights in Southeast Alaska skies

Published

7 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Press Room

Close encounters with the Juneau kind: Woman reports strange lights in Southeast Alaska skies

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – For Juneau resident Tamara Roberts, taking photos of the northern lights was just a hobby — that is until a different light altogether caught her eye.

Capturing what she’s called strange lights in the skies of Juneau near her home on Thunder Mountain, Roberts said she’s taken 30 to 40 different videos and photos of the lights since September 2021.

“Anytime I’m out, I’m pretty sure that I see something at least a couple times a week,” Roberts said. “I’m definitely not the only one that’s seeing them. And if people just pay more attention, they’ll notice that those aren’t stars and those aren’t satellites.”

Roberts has been a professional photographer for over 20 years. She said she changed interests from photographing people to wildlife and landscape when she moved to Juneau 13 years ago.

Once she started making late-night runs trying to capture the northern lights, she said that’s when she started encountering her phenomenon.

Roberts said not every encounter takes place above Thunder Mountain: her most recent sighting happened near the Mendenhall Glacier while her stepmom was visiting from Arizona.

“She’d never been here before, so we got up and we drove up there, and lo and behold, there it was,” Roberts said. “I have some family that absolutely thinks it’s what it is, and I have some family that just doesn’t care.”

Roberts described another recent encounter near the glacier she said was a little too close for comfort. While driving up alone in search of the northern lights, she expected to see other fellow photographers out for the same reason as she normally does.

But this night was different.

“I’ve gone up there a million times by myself, and this night, particularly, it was clear, it was cold and the [aurora] KP index was high … so as I’m driving up and there’s nobody there. And I was like, Okay, I’ll just wait and somebody will show up.’ So I backed up into the parking spot underneath the street light — the only light that’s really there on that side of the parking lot — and I turned all my lights off, left my car running, looked around, and there was that light right there, next to the mountain.”

Roberts said after roughly 10 minutes of filming the glowing light, still not seeing anyone else around, she started to get a strange feeling that maybe she should leave.

“I just got this terrible gut feeling,” Roberts said. “I started to pull out of my parking spot and my car sputtered. [It] scared me so bad that I just gunned the accelerator, but my headlights … started like flashing and getting all crazy.

“I had no headlights, none all the way home, no headlights.”

According to the Juneau Police Department, there haven’t been any reports of strange lights in the sky since Sept. 14, when police say a man was reportedly “yelling about UFOs in the downtown area.”

Responding officers said they did not locate anything unusual, and no arrests were made following the man’s report.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service in Juneau also said within the last seven days, no reports of unusual activity in the skies had been reported. The Federal Aviation Administration in Juneau did not respond.

With more and more whistleblowers coming forward in Congressional hearings, Roberts said she thinks it’s only a matter of time before the truth is out there.

“Everybody stayed so quiet all these years for the fear of being mocked,” Roberts said. “Now that people are starting to come out, I think that people should just let the reality be what it is, and let the evidence speak for itself, because they’re here, and that’s all there is to it.”

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Alaska

‘We’re ready to test ourselves’: UAA women’s hoops faces tallest task yet in another edition of the Great Alaska Shootout

Published

15 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Press Room

‘We’re ready to test ourselves’: UAA women’s hoops faces tallest task yet in another edition of the Great Alaska Shootout

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Heading into Friday’s game with a 6-1 record, Alaska Anchorage women’s basketball is faced with a tall task.

The Seawolves are set to face Division I Troy in the opening round of the 2024 Great Alaska Shootout. Friday’s game is the first meeting between the two in program history.

“We’re gonna get after it, hopefully it goes in the hoop for us,” Seawolves head coach Ryan McCarthy said. “We’re gonna do what we do. We’re not going to change it just because it’s a shootout. We’re going to press these teams and we’re going to try to make them uncomfortable. We’re excited to test ourselves.”

Beginning the season 1-4, the Trojans have faced legitimate competition early. Troy has played two ranked opponents to open the season, including the 2023 national champion and current top-10 ranked Louisiana State University on Nov. 18. The Trojans finished runner-up in the Sun Belt Conference with a 15-3 record last season.

“At the end of the day, they’re women’s basketball players too. They’re the same age as us and they might look bigger, faster and stronger, but we have some great athletes here,” junior guard Elaina Mack said. “We’re more disciplined, we know that we put in a lot of work, and we have just as good of a chance to win this thing as anybody else does.”

The 41st edition of the tournament is also set to feature Vermont and North Dakota State. The two Div. I squads will battle first ahead of UAA’s match Friday night.

All teams will also play Saturday in a winner and loser bracket to determine final results.

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Alaska

Women will make up a majority in Alaska House for first time in state history

Published

24 hours ago

November 22, 2024

Press Room

Women will make up a majority in Alaska House for first time in state history

The entrance to the House of Representatives Chamber at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau on February 26, 2024. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Six Alaska House seats currently held by men are set to be held by women next year, bringing the overall number of women in the chamber to 21. This will be the first time in the state’s history that one of the legislative chambers is majority women.

The women elected to the Alaska House bring a variety of experiences and perspectives to the chamber. Ten of them are Republicans, including four newly elected this year. Nine are Democrats — including three who are newly elected. Two are independents who caucus with Democrats.

There are also five women in the state Senate, a number that remained unchanged in this year’s election, bringing the total number of women in the Alaska Legislature to 26 out of 60, a new record for the state. The previous record of 23 was set in 2019.

Nationally, around a third of legislative seats were held by women this year, according to researchers at Rutgers University. Nearly two-thirds of women legislators are Democrats. In Alaska, women serving in the Legislature are largely evenly split between the major political parties.

Before this year’s election, only seven states had ever seen gender parity in one of their legislative chambers. They include Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon. California is set to join the list after this year’s election.

Three of the women slated to serve in the Alaska House next year are Alaska Native — also a record. Two of them were elected for the first time: Robyn Burke of Utqiagvik, who is of Iñupiaq descent, and Nellie Jimmie of Toksook Bay, who is of Yup’ik descent. They join Rep. Maxine Dibert of Fairbanks, of Koyukon Athabascan descent, who was elected in 2022.

The historic increase in representation of women came in Alaska even as voters did not reelect U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, the first woman and first Alaska Native person to represent the state in the U.S. House. Peltola was voted out in favor of Republican Nick Begich III.

Women come to the Alaska Legislature from diverse professional backgrounds, but a disproportionate number of them will arrive with some experience in public education.

Three of the newly elected lawmakers — Burke, Jubilee Underwood of Wasilla and Rebecca Schwanke of Glennallen — have served on their local school boards, helping oversee the North Slope Borough, Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Copper River school districts, respectively.

The three bring different perspectives on public education. Burke said she is looking forward to working with a bipartisan caucus that is set to have a majority in the Alaska House this year, with a focus on increasing education funding and improving the retirement options for Alaska’s public employees, including teachers.

Schwanke and Underwood, on the other hand, have indicated they will join the Republican minority caucus, which has shown an interest in conservative social causes such as barring the participation of transgender girls in girls’ school sports teams.

The increase in the number of women serving in the Alaska Legislature comes as public education funding is set to be a key issue when lawmakers convene in January.

Burke said she and the other newly elected women bring different policy perspectives to the topic of education, but their shared experience in serving on school boards reflects a commitment to their children’s education.

“With so many parents and so many moms, I hope that there will be really good legislation that supports working families and children and education,” Burke said.

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