Gatto: Advocates keeping state government of, by and near the people

Spectrum, by Carl Gatto

The people in Juneau want to keep the capital in Juneau. No surprise there. The people here in Southcentral Alaska want to move the capital to Mat-Su. Again, no surprise.

Guess who has been more effective?

On several statewide votes, the people of Alaska voted to move the capital and after every vote to move the capital, the capital doesn't move?

Here's how the small community of Juneau got to exercise its power over the rest of the state. They used the initiative process to pass what is known as the "FRANK Initiative." Juneau spent a considerable amount of money to get this passed in 1994, and 77 percent of the voters approved.

It requires that before the capital can be moved, the voters must be told the full and true cost of the move and also approve the expenditure of the money. We vote to move the capital, and time and time again we vote to not spend the money to move it. Voila, the capital stays in Juneau. Not bad for a community about the size of Palmer and Wasilla!

Now the good people of Juneau want to do once and for all what's necessary to stop any more voting to move the capital out of Juneau, even though that's what the people have said they want.

In the past, when Juneau felt threatened by a capital move they tried to make Juneau more like the rest of Alaska rather than a community tied to Seattle. They made it much easier to teleconference so that we the people could participate in committee hearings without boarding a jet at $250 a trip plus pay for a hotel and meals, not to mention spending a few days off work and maybe even getting stuck an additional day due to weather.

Because the FRANK Initiative was law, it appeared to be the final nail in the coffin, until now. This bothersome annoyance to move the capital to our population center just won't go away, so Juneau has developed two more ideas to possibly put to rest forever any idea of entertaining yet another vote for moving our capital.

The first is to build an outrageously expensive road connecting Juneau to Haines and Skagway so that Juneau is finally connected to the road system. The people from Haines/Skagway want nothing to do with that road but the folks in Juneau think of it as too necessary to worry about what their neighbors think.

Never mind the staggering cost to build it, just the annual maintenance on such a road would boggle the mind of anyone interested in knowing the exact numbers, but who's counting? That cost would come from our normal maintenance budget, so we could expect other road maintenance to suffer.

The second is the real bomb. They want to build an entirely new capitol building in Juneau and lease it to the state. Mind you, this would be a $100-million building that we as Alaskans would have to pay for.

Maybe it would cost $100 million; it could be a lot more when you consider the ability of government to avoid cost overruns. The record doesn't look all that good when you consider seafood processing centers in Anchorage, the Delta barley project, grain terminals in Seward, storage silos in Valdez, or the dairy farms in Point MacKenzie.

Government ought to stay clear of majestic projects designed to help us, which always seem to do more hurt than help.

Why do we need a new building in the first place? They say the building is too old and worn out and needs upgrades and maintenance. What building doesn't? The present capitol building is owned outright -- no lease, no rent and all the upgrades are already in it. Besides, we got it for free from the feds back in 1929.

So what if some lawmakers complain that it is too small? Some offices are small but we only occupy them for four months a year and "small" makes it easy to move from office to session, on to committee hearings and back to the office.

Juneau wants us to build the new capitol building in Juneau but wants to be exempt from the rules of the FRANK Initiative that they sponsored. Small wonder! Bonding for a new capitol in Juneau is exactly what would be best for them and we would give up any hope to relocate to a place closer to the existing population.

What to do! Rep. Stoltze (District 16-Chugiak) and I are co-sponsoring legislation which, simply put, asks Juneau to abide by the same rules that Juneau insisted on for the rest of Alaska.

We are asking for the same FRANK initiative to apply whether we are building a new capital close to the population center of the state or building a new capitol building in Juneau, far from the population center.

Alaskans want to know the full bondable costs that all Alaskans would be required to pay, with no exceptions. Rep. Kerttula (Juneau) says "building a new capitol in Juneau is completely different than building a new capitol anywhere else." She says "it's just like night and day," but I disagree.

Requiring the good citizens to approve the cost to move the capital to our population center is no different than requiring the good citizens to approve the costs to build a new capitol in Juneau.

In fact, the cost to build it here is considerably less than building in Juneau. Rep. Stoltze and I will offer an amendment to the FRANK initiative so that it applies equally to everyone and everywhere. What could be more fair to the people of Alaska? After all, shouldn't it be the voters' choice? Isn't it the voters' money?

Carl Gatto is the representative for District 13.