The Alaska Legislature returned to Juneau for a new session last week. Senator Jesse Kiehl and Representative Andi Story spent their weekend traveling to Skagway to speak with their constituents. They started the visit by recognizing an outstanding community member.
Kiehl: ”The first thing we actually got to do was present a legislative citation honoring Sara Kinjo-Hischer, with the Skagway traditional council. She was named tribal administrator of the year for the state of Alaska a year and a half ago. And so that was the first opportunity to give her that award.”
Representative Story has been in the legislature since 2019, but because of redistricting, this is the first year she will be representing the upper Lynn canal. She wanted to meet residents, and acknowledge the recent upheaval in Skagway.
Story: ”As a representative I need to know the people, so I know what they care about, what is important to them, and so I’ve been telling people to please contact us in Juneau if they didn’t get a chance to meet me. And I did want to say we really feel so badly for the Skagway community because they just lost some really special people.”
During the town hall, what people wanted to talk about was clear.
Story: “Ferries. Ferries, ferries, ferries.”
Kiehl: “Certainly, that was the primary issue. Folks are very concerned about the infrequency of service, and the difficult schedules, and anytime that a vessel is scheduled that doesn’t come, that’s a terrible disruption. It’s something we’ve worked hard on and we have a big hole trying to dig the Marine Highway System out of.”
Senator Kiehl sits on the Senate Transportation Committee, and he is hopeful the committee will be able to improve the functioning of the ferry system.
Kiehl: “We have a new chair of the transportation committee, Senator James Kaufman, actually comes from the corporate world, where he has done quality management and process improvement, which sounds like corporate doublespeak, but basically he has spent his whole career making systems work better. And he and I have had some very good preliminary conversations about using the transportation committee to look at the Marine Highway System to help them find areas where we can make concrete improvements.”
Representative Story has served a long time on the Juneau school board, and now sits on the House Education Committee. She appreciated visiting the new facilities at the Skagway school,
Story: “School funding is always a concern, and we got to tour the Skagway school, see the brand new kitchen that has just been completed, and it’s going to be equipped to be an emergency center.”
She also learned how a bigger school budget could be spent, if the base student allocation -the measure of state funding- was to go up.
Story: “And they are hoping eventually, and it has to do with school funding, if they get a bigger BSA, more help with student activities, and then they’d love to grow into a culinary arts program.
When talking about a new revenue scheme for the state, Senator Kiehl sounded a cautious note:
Kiehl: “We talked a fair amount about state budgeting, and state revenues, people had a lot of questions about the governor’s notion of selling carbon credits, and what that really means, and to be perfectly honest, so do we. So, lots and lots to learn, there is probably some real value there for Alaska, there are also snake oil salesmen in the woods, so we are going to have to learn a lot and figure that out.”
Kiehl has served in the senate since 2019, and sits on the Senate Education, Finance and Transportation Committees. He is Vice Chair of the Senate Judicial Committee. He started the session by introducing three bills.
One would bring back the option of a pension for public employees.
Another would create an address protection program for members of law enforcement and survivors of domestic violence.
And the third would give service disabled veterans free trapping rights.
Representative Story sits on the House Education Committee, and the State Affairs Committee. She started the session by introducing four bills.
One would give more flexibility to service members in receiving the PFD.
Another would assist school districts in developing a curriculum that is culturally appropriate to the region it serves and provides support for student reading plans.
Another would broaden eligibility to and raise the amount of the Alaska performance scholarship program.
The last one would add staff to the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council and rename it to reflect the scope of its work.
You can reach Senator Kiehl and Representative Story through the Alaska State Legislature website.
