State, local lawmakers return this week

MAT-SU - State and local governing bodies are heading back to work after the winter break with a full slate of issues to address.

City, borough and state offices scale things back for the holidays. They come back about this time and most move quickly into budgeting season.

All three cities in the Mat-Su Borough - Palmer, Wasilla and Houston - resumed meeting last week, but this week sees the return of the borough assembly and school board. On a state level, legislators are back in Juneau this week ahead of today's gaveling in of the 2012 session.

Starting with the borough assembly, the first meeting after break begins at 6 p.m., tonight. Close to the top of the agenda is a rundown of natural gas transportation projects from Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects Larry Persily. The borough has long hoped to see pipe for a number of the projects cross its docks at Port MacKenzie. One of the options - the state's ASAP project, designed to distribute gas instate rather than sell it on the world market - terminates in the Mat-Su.

The assembly also is set to revisit tabled legislation changing the borough's ethics rules. The issue came up over the summer and was tabled. Some assembly members worry about the cost of ethics cases and their fairness, chief among them assemblyman Jim Colver, who left the assembly to serve on the school board for a number of years following a 2006 ethics investigation that eventually exonerated him.

The assembly also will take up legislation recently generating talk on the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman's opinion pages that could possibly limit to 60 minutes the amount of time the public is given to address the assembly on issues not on the agenda.

Finally, there's a motion on the table to tweak the recently passed gravel mining ordinance.

Assembly legislation can be found online at matsugov.us/assembly.

At the school board, the year starts off with the board setting policy for electronic communication between teachers and students. The board also will be approving a raft of new courses, including archeological science, performance poetry and a biomedical course.

The board also will consider whether to make two requests of the assembly. The first would allow charter schools to keep the money they haven't spent at the end of the year, the second would refund those charter schools money they pay in property taxes.

Most charter schools lease their buildings, but pay the taxes through their lease payments or just directly write a check to the borough. American Charter Academy owes around $6,000 for fiscal year 2012, Birchtree Charter owes $45,000, Fronteras Charter owes $30,000, Midnight Sun Charter owes $48,000 and Twindly Bridge owes $10,000.

As for the Legislature, Mat-Su delegates detailed what they plan to introduce and what they want to work on in a Frontiersman story earlier this month (http://tinyurl.com/6v8odqo).

Rep. Mark Neuman and Sen. Linda Menard want to work on legislation allowing the state to help the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority financially through the bridge's first years. Neuman also is hoping to see movement on changes to laws regarding the use of deadly force in self-defense. Menard wants to create a state forest in the Susitna Valley.

Rep. Wes Keller hopes to see school voucher legislation passed and a constitutional amendment requiring state acquiescence to unbalanced federal budgets.

Since he spoke, Keller has pre-filed another piece of legislation that would up the weight limits that distinguish commercial trucks from private pickups. Keller thinks heavier trucks should qualify as personal rigs.

Rep. Bill Stoltze also pre-filed a piece of legislation that would outlaw the class of synthetic drugs known as bath salts, which simulate drugs like methamphetamine.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.