A change of heart about Vic Kohring

A Spectrum, by Anne Kilkenny

I was impressed with Vic Kohring when he first went down to Juneau eight years ago. I even sent him an admiring and complimentary Christmas card one year.

Recently, Vic Kohring commented that he hadn't seen me in a while, and asked where I had been and how I was.

Well, I have been avoiding Vic Kohring's town meetings.

I went to several of Vic's town meetings. There I heard people who I didn't recognize from church, school, scouts or soccer make very pointed comments about what physical violence they would perpetrate on anyone who thought differently from them. Not sharing their opinions, I felt very intimidated -- scared, actually.

There's a saying, "Silence implies consent." Vic said nothing to affirm that one of our basic freedoms as Americans is the freedom of speech.

After that, I limited my communication with Rep. Kohring to e-mails and letters. I was very impressed with the handwritten notes Vic sent in reply to my messages. Occasionally, he even called me, which was very flattering. But then I had a very disheartening experience.

Late one evening Rep Kohring called to thank me for writing, and to tell me that he would keep my opinions in mind as he worked on legislation. I asked him if he was surprised by my opinion.

Silence.

Then he said, "Uh, tell me again what you wrote about." I couldn't help but think to myself what was it he was going to keep in mind when he was working on legislation when he couldn't even recall the subject I had written about?

Vic was starting to sound like a typical politician.

What a disappointment.

I started to notice that Rep. Kohring went to great lengths to acknowledge constituent mail, but did not do much else.

Since at least 1996, Snowshoe Elementary PTA and citizens in the Fairview Loop Community have been writing letters and jumping through hoops to get a safe bike path along Fairview Loop Road in the vicinity of Snowshoe Elementary School. Dozens of e-mails and letters were sent to Vic begging for funding of this project.

Rep Kohring has chaired the House Transportation Committee: In this capacity he has had the power to make projects like bike paths happen.

While Rep. Kohring wrote thank-you notes to concerned parents and community members, the Fairview Loop Road bike path project languished at the bottom of the State Transportation Improvement Plan project list, and a whole generation of children entered Snowshoe and moved on to middle school.

He is not responsive to the needs and desires of his constituents.

Between February and May in 1998, a petition with 85 signatures and 47 public opinion messages from constituents were sent to Rep. Kohring requesting some equalization in the amount that each community is taxed for schools, suggesting that each school district be required to provide some minimal local contribution to the cost of their schools. It seems only fair, and it would make the state's education dollar go farther, providing more funds for education in boroughs like ours.

I had an extended telephone conversation with Rep. Kohring after he received all this correspondence. To my absolute astonishment and distress he said he would not support such legislation, even if it could mean lower property taxes in our borough! The reason he gave was that he was opposed to a new tax in the Bush.

I was so surprised that I asked him to repeat himself. He said he preferred having Mat-Su property taxes go up to asking Bush residents to help pay for their schools.

That was a clue that Rep. Kohring was a man with a totally closed mind who was pursuing his own agenda without regard to the needs of his constituents and the desires of others.

I had thought Vic had integrity; I've discovered he is just rigid and unthinking.

In the spring of 1998, petitions containing more than 270 signatures and 227 public opinion messages were sent to Rep. Kohring begging him to take a serious look at the state's funding formula for education. When the session ended Vic proudly reported how hard he had worked on that issue in the last three days of the session. Legislative sessions are two years long; where was Vic when the details of the bill were being worked out? When Burchell High School, with an enrollment of 140 at the time, was defined as not a school?

Writing even more thank-you notes?

SB36, the rewrite of the state's funding formula for education, was a disaster for Mat-Su schools. Since its passage four years ago, Rep. Kohring has repeatedly acknowledged that it needed fixing, but has done nothing.

I have read many letters to the editor from constituents who are grateful for things that Rep. Kohring's staff has done for them.

But it seems to me that he has put all his energy into pulling dandelions in the window boxes while he neglected the garden and the house.

Speaking of houses: At Vic's age especially, what kind of man would want people to believe that he is living with his Mom, and not his new wife who lives in Portland?

What is the definition of a political opportunist?

Vic has always championed less government. Part of his 10-point plan is to get 80 percent of the laws on the books voided. But when I researched his legislative record I found that he had sponsored 37 bills, and co-sponsored over 400 more. Is that consistent with less government?

Of Vic's 37 bills, he withdrew two, and only five passed. What does that say?

Is he an ineffective legislator? Or did those bills not have much merit?

Looking at the subjects of the bills that Vic sponsored it appears to me that most of them were special interest legislation: Bills designed to help a single person or a very narrow segment of the population.

One of the two bills Vic spent the last two years getting passed was about body piercing and tattooing parlors. How many tattooing parlors do we have in the Valley?

I am told that all legislators sponsor special legislation to help their friends, that it is harmless because it is just for show -- so that they can look like they did something. Is this Vic's idea of efficiency?

When I read in the newspaper of how Rep. Kohring had claimed per diem pay for going to the funeral of a friend, calling it part of his service to the public, I was totally disgusted.

Rep. Kohring has constantly complained about government bureaucracy, waste and inefficiency. With so many "show" bills to his name and per diem claims that some years are among the highest in the Legislature, it looks to me like Vic has become a part of the problem.

When Vic first ran for the State House he campaigned against career politicians and in support of term limits. He even signed a Term Limits pledge. Vic has been in Juneau for eight years, and is now running for his fifth term. The only thing he has changed his mind about since going to Juneau is term limits: How conveniently self-serving!

Vic asked how I've been; I've been disappointed.

I am now totally disillusioned with Vic Kohring.

Count me one vote for Peter Burchell.

Anne Kilkenny is a Wasilla resident.