It's time to prepare your legislative wish list

Frontiersman editorial board

We're all busy working on wish lists and to-do lists as the holiday season approaches. There are some important post-holiday wish and to-do lists we should be thinking about, as well. What do we wish the Alaska Legislature will do in the session that begins in January? What do we want our elected officials to do before they wrap up that session?

Last session, though the legislature did accomplish some important work, it also left some important issues on the table. The governor was left to work those issues out, and, as he said he would, he solved the vaunted budget gap with a knife. The economic climate is not much improved as our elected officials head back to Juneau, and the challenges facing them have not diminished, either.

It's a good idea to send your contingent off with a clear idea of what your priorities and goals are, and what you're willing to do to realize them. It's fair to provide our senators and representatives with not only our hopes, but with a clear sense of our commitment to making them possible -- a sense of what we're willing to sacrifice.

Some of the critical issues on the table for the next session will include the future of coal-bed methane development here, the reconsideration of the Longevity Bonus, guaranteed funding of the port bond and a number of issues facing our schools.

We'd like to see our officials push for a resolution to the questions surrounding regulation of the CBM industry. The Department of Environmental Conservation, following a review of a lab report, decided to regulate and monitor some of the by-products coming out of the wells, after all. That's one step in the right direction.

Gov. Frank Murkowski recently opened the possibility of lease buy-backs pending regulation, and Rep. Vic Kohring even went as far as to say he'd consider amending the state constitution to give property owners sub-surface rights -- though he admitted that would be a long shot. We'll settle for clear regulations and better protections for property owners at this point.

Also at the top of our wish list are all the challenges facing our schools. Student transportation will soon become a serious issue again, and we shouldn't ignore it until we've reached the point of crisis. We need to solve that problem now. How the state collects and interprets test results as they pertain to the No Child Left Behind program will also become critical as it gets closer and closer to affecting the bottom line.

What's on your wish list? Write the Frontiersman with your suggestions for our elected officials, but be sure to include a list of the things you'd be willing to sacrifice, too. Please include a phone number so we can confirm the submission and run it in our letters section.