Legislature step closer to Valley

ANCHORAGE -- Voters are one step closer to being able to decide whether the meeting place of the Alaska Legislature should be moved to the Mat-Su Borough.

Members of Alaskans for Efficient Government turned in more than 40,000 signatures to the Division of Elections Friday for the petition to move the meeting place of the Alaska Legislature to the Mat-Su Borough.

"We need to move it out of Juneau because Juneau is not representative of Alaska," AEG President Uwe Kalenka said when preparing to submit the initiative to Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer last March. "The people of the state need to have access to their representatives."

The text of the initiative states that all regular and special sessions of the Legislature should be held within the Mat-Su Borough. It adds the provision that, if suitable facilities are not available within the borough, the session will be held in Anchorage, but only until those facilities have been made available within the borough.

Some oppose the initiative, saying it would decimate Juneau's economy.

"There's no way you can pull something as important, economically, as the Legislature out of Juneau without [doing] damage," said Win Gruening, chairman of the Alaska Committee, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to enhance the capital city, in speaking about a poll the group completed regarding the capital move.

Others have expressed concern about the cost of the proposed move, which was deliberately not included in the initiative. Kalenka has, in the past, said the cost of moving the capital is justified because it will allow voters access to their government.

Signature gatherers collected approximately 13,000 more signatures than were needed in order to place the issue on the ballot -- a practice Kalenka said is common and ensures there are enough valid signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.

"The rule of thumb is that one out of four signatures are not valid," Kalenka said.

Some people, he explained, sign the petition twice, thinking they are doing the group a favor -- "which is illegal, by the way," Kalenka said. Others who sign the petition aren't eligible, aren't registered to vote, or are not allowed to vote due to status as a felon, Kalenka explained.

The signatures were gathered in approximately five months, Kalenka said, and were actually submitted prior to the Monday deadline that would secure a place for the measure on the November ballot. The group could have taken another year and collected more signatures, Kalenka said, but they wanted to get it on the upcoming ballot.

Kalenka said it was mostly the willingness of petition signers that allowed them to complete the process successfully.

"People signed very willingly -- they were very accommodating," Kalenka said.

Now the matter is in the hands of the Division of Elections and Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer's office, who must certify that the signatures are valid and go through the document with one final fine-toothed comb to catch any legal problems.

Mike Matthews, an election technician with the division, said approximately 300 books of signatures were turned in. Those books are now being shipped to the division's office in Juneau, where each signer's name will be entered into a computer system and checked against the division's rolls of registered voters.

Matthews said 28,783 valid signatures are required to move the petition on to Ulmer's office.

"Then, if they reach that number, the lieutenant governor is notified," Matthews said. "She'll make a decision whether or not to certify the petition for the November 2002 election."

Carol Collins, special assistant to Ulmer, said in addition to having the proper number of registered voters on the petition, the subscribers must be residents in at least two-thirds of the election districts in the state. The division has approximately 60 days to determine whether the signatures are valid.

"It's really not a discretionary thing," said Carol Collins, special assistant to Ulmer. "Once [the criteria are] determined, then it's just a matter of certifying it."

Matthews said this is the second petition to be turned in -- a petition to increase Alaska's minimum wage recently passed through Ulmer's office and was certified.

"We are currently scheduled to receive one more [petition] today," Matthews said. That petition is for an all-Alaska gas pipeline, he said.

In the meantime, Kalenka said, AEG will be taking a back seat on the initiative. It's now up to Valley residents to rally in support of the issue.

"The more exposure [the initiative has] in the Valley, the better it will be," Kalenka said. "The Valley is the major beneficiary of this whole thing. We have to step back because we don't want to be a handicap."

Kalenka explained that those who oppose the plan to move the Legislature's meeting place could say AEG was simply a group of Anchorage business people looking to somehow thwart the city of Juneau. The matter needs strong support of Valley residents in order to make it pass, Kalenka said, or it will simply flop at the ballot box.

Kalenka said those wishing to get behind the matter can contact him at (907) 344-0055 or AEG's secretary/treasurer Karen Bretz at (907) 277-5847.