What Do I Know?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Legislature Passes Less Than 10% of Bills Introduced - 10 This Session So Far

I'm only here in Juneau for a couple of days, so I really don't know details of all the bills and what's been going on. And looking at today's legislative schedule, nothing pops out of serious interest. It's there, I'm sure, but not obvious. I will go over and check things out - something of interest always appears. But in the meantime, I've been checking out the 27th legislature. (Each "legislature" meets for 2 years and has two sessions - this is the second session of the 27th legislature. After the November election, the 28th session will begin next January with the new Representatives and in this case all new Senators (except Sen. Egan) because redistricting substantially changed all the Senate districts - except Egan's.)

So, here are the stats from the legislative website on bills passed so far for both sessions (2011 and 2012) 0f the 27th Legislature.

So, just 50 bills have passed so far. (HB and SB indicate House and Senate Bills, the others are resolutions There are also various resolutions.) Here are the bills that have passed in this session (the second session of the 27th Legislature that began January this year):

HB 19	SPECIAL REQUEST LICENSE PLATES	LYNN, GATTO	CHAPTER 2 SLA 12	03/07/12
HB 65	SENIOR CITIZEN HOUSING DEV. FUND GRANTS	** EDGMON, HERRON	TRANSM TO GOVERNOR	04/09/12
HB 144	REPORT ON FISHING STREAM ACCESS	GARA	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	02/27/12
HB 291	PUBLIC NOTICES POSTED AT POST OFFICES	RLS BY REQUEST OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL	CHAPTER 4 SLA 12	03/21/12
HB 307	SUPPLEMENTAL/CAPITAL/OTHER APPROPRIATIONS	RLS BY REQUEST OF THE GOVERNOR	CHAPTER 5 SLA 12	03/23/12
HB 311	REPORTS TO APOC	RLS	CHAPTER 1 SLA 12	02/20/12
HCR 18	COMMERCIAL FISHERIES PROGRAMS	FISHERIES	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	04/07/12
HJR 29	BLM LEGACY OIL WELL CLEAN UP/AWARENESS	MILLETT	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	03/28/12
HJR 34	COAST GUARD ICEBREAKERS & ARCTIC BASE	HERRON	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	03/30/12
SB 30	RETURN OF SEIZED PROPERTY	DYSON	CHAPTER 3 SLA 12	03/21/12
SB 86	PROTECTION OF VULNERABLE ADULTS/MINORS	RLS BY REQUEST OF THE GOVERNOR	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	03/26/12
SB 127	FETAL ALCOHOL DISORDERS AWARENESS DAY	MEYER	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	04/06/12
SB 173	2012 REVISOR'S BILL	RLS BY REQUEST OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL	CHAPTER 6 SLA 12	03/23/12
SCR 16	CELIAC DISEASE AWARENESS MONTH	GIESSEL	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	04/03/12
SCR 18	RAOUL WALLENBERG REMEMBRANCE DAY	DYSON	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	04/02/12
SCR 20	DECORATION OF HONOR	WIELECHOWSKI	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	04/05/12
SCR 25	SUSPEND UNIFORM RULES FOR HJR 29	RESOURCES	AWAIT TRANSMIT GOV	03/28/12
SJR 17	ARCTIC COUNCIL TASK FORCE	MCGUIRE	LEGIS RESOLVE 29	03/19/12

If you go through this list - just 6 house bills and 4 senate bills and a few resolutions - a lot of these bills are symbolic. I won't say they're all fluff, but they aren't focused on solving substantive issues that Alaska faces - balancing resource development and environmental concerns, dealing with serious educational and social issues, etc.

A quick look shows these that might have some bit of substance:

HB 65   "Making regional Native housing authorities eligible to receive grants through the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation from the senior citizens housing development fund."
HB 144 "An Act requiring the Department of Natural Resources annually to deliver to the legislature and the governor a report on fishing stream access."
HB 307    "An Act making supplemental appropriations, capital appropriations, and other 2    appropriations; amending appropriations; repealing appropriations; making 3    appropriations to capitalize funds; and providing for an effective date." [Click here for specifics]
SB 30 "An Act providing for the release of certain property in the custody of a law enforcement agency to a crime victim under certain conditions and relating to requests for that release by the office of victims' rights." [Note on changes the law makes]

From Fisheries
HCR 18 "Relating to an examination of fisheries-related programs to facilitate the entry of young Alaskans into commercial fisheries careers and to collaboration with the University of Alaska fisheries, seafood, and maritime initiative."

From the Governor's Office:
SB 86 "An Act relating to the protection of property of persons under disability and minors; relating to the crime of violating a protective order concerning certain vulnerable persons; relating to aggravating factors at sentencing for offenses concerning a victim 65 years or older; relating to the protection of vulnerable adults; making conforming amendments; amending Rules 12(h) and 45(a), Alaska Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 77, Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 17, Alaska Rules of Probate Procedure, and Rule 9, Alaska Rules of Administration; and providing for an effective date."

This is procedural stuff but probably is more than symbolic:

HB 311 - "An Act relating to the filing of information with, and to information filed with, the Alaska Public Offices Commission; and providing for an effective date." Looks like changes to make it easier for candidates, you can see the sponsor's analysis here.

The rest are what I'd call fluff. They're nice. They honor some person or organization. But it seems to me that such bills should not be the main reason the legislature is in session.

They still have some time left to pass some legislation, and in all fairness, the most contentious take the longest to be passed. Let's see how many more bills they can pass before the end of the session.

OK, now that I have that out of the way, I'll go over to the capitol building and see what I can find.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Do You Know a 14-18 Year Old Alaskan Who Would Like to Make a Difference?

I've been in a steering committee meeting all day and there's way too much to write about, so I'll just put this up for now. There's a lot of neat things going on around the state to promote healthy relationships and prevent domestic and intimate partner violence in Alaska. It's a way for 14-18 year old's to get involved health policy and get a small stipend and a trip to Anchorage to meet with the other youth.

Youth Alliance for a Healthier Alaska (YAHA)

Accepting Applications for the 2012-2013 School Year! Applications due May 25th, 2012 at 5pm!

Download the YAHA Application

Our mission
The mission of the Youth Alliance for a Healthier Alaska is to advise the Adolescent Health program and other Division of Public Health programs and to create interventions designed at improving the lives of adolescents in Alaska.

Who are we?
We are a group of diverse, energetic teens ages 14-18 from across Alaska. We are interested in health and are enthusiastic about shaping how our state responds to youth issues that we all experience.

What do we do?
We are a group of diverse, energetic teens ages 14-18 from across Alaska. We are interested in health and are enthusiastic about shaping how our state responds to youth issues that we all experience.

We provide feedback insight and advice to youth serving agencies. We review materials created for teens by youth serving organizations.

We create interventions designed to improve the lives of adolescents in Alaska.

In the 2009-2010 school year

Played a role in the creation of Stand up Speak up

Advised the statewide tobacco program and underage drinking initiative

Created and judged a “Make Art, Not Babies“ art contest

Reviewed grant applications

In the 2010-2011school year

Provided design and programmatic feedback for to following agencies: Careline Alaska

The State of Alaska’s Choose Respect Campaign

UAA Department of Health Sciences, Nursing Program: (hand washing modules)

Alaska network on Domestic Violence on Sexual Assault: Stand up Speak up Campaign.

This school year 2011-2012

Suggestions on youth engagement in the Farm to School Program

Feedback on the community conversations element of Anchorage United for Youth

Reviewed Stand up Speak up grant applications

Embarked on our first community action project: Art of Passage

Contact Jennifer Baker for more information - jennifer.baker@alaska.gov

Anchorage to Juneau

When the weather is so spectatular, I have no choice but to post a couple of pictures. A little out of Anchorage, Girdwood Valley and Turnagain Arm in the upper middle.

And then we flew into Juneau from the south, looping down and around and over downtown on the way to the airport. Below is the northern, upper part of downtown and a view up Basin Road to the Perseverance Trail. On the ground there was no snow and temps in the 50s.

Monday, April 09, 2012

Redistricting Board Posts District Maps

The Alaska Redistricting Board has posted maps for all the districts. I've put their links below. But let's get clear about the terminology:

Amended Proclamation means the plan that was recently revised after the Alaska Supreme Court required changes in the original Proclamation Plan approved last June.

There is also an Interim plan that is a backup plan in case the Amended Proclamation plan doesn't get the approvals it needs in time (about May 15 to be ready for the June 1 candidate filing deadline.)

I don't see the Interim Plan maps and documentation on the Board's website. It's very close to the original Proclamation Plan, but the Fairbanks area districts have been modified to make them constitutional. Here's a link to a statewide Interim plan map, but I don't see the individual districts. Most will be the same as in the Proclamation Plan.

Old Alaskana Art At Airport

I'm waiting for my flight to Juneau for a meeting of the Pathway group (formally known as DELTA, the worst ever acronym) that works to prevent intimate partner violence in Alaska. So I took advantage of being here early to walk down terminal B and saw some artwork I hadn't seen before. Looks a little like piles of luggage scattered around, but it's all old Alaskana. I couldn't find anything that identified the artist or the name of the piece(s).

The waders in the upper left are part of the collection of pieces
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Sunday, April 08, 2012

The Record Setting Inches

April snows have no teeth. There are already snow patches. The air doesn't stay too cold. The daylight says summer is near. The new snow's lifespan is short. But yesterday's flakes were enough to push this winter to Anchorage's snowiest on record - 134.5".

This wasn't a winter of big snows. Just regular snowfalls every few days November and December and beyond. Yesterday's snowfall was spectacularly unspectacular. The short hit past second that drives in the winning run.

The Anchorage Daily News has lots of graphic details of when the snow fell, other snowy years, the other nine US cities rounding out the top ten snowiest this year and much more.

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Why I Live Here: Moose in the Backyard

Usually we know that there have been moose in our yard by footprints or deeper tracks in the snow. Or a pile of nuggets.

Actually seeing them there is less frequent. It always surprises me how animals this big can so easily blend into the background.

The one out in the open snow is pretty easy to see, and it's what I saw when I looked out the kitchen window this morning, but the second one* in the trees took a bit longer to spot.

These two moose were stripping the bark from our willow trees and trimming our high bush cranberries. You can see in the video the bare trunk under the freshly stripped bark.

There's a reason moose choose willow. This is from a report
Willows of Interior Alaska by Dominique M. Collet, who is the author of the Alaska Insect book.

Salicin, the chemical that preceded acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), was first isolated from willow. The bark of some willow species is rich in tannin used for the processing of leather. The primary use of willows today, however, is for reclamation of disturbed sites and stabilization of riverbanks.

In Great Britain and Scandinavia, where fossil fuels are expensive, there is a developing interest in willows as a source of renewable energy; the fast growing shoots are coppiced (harvested) every few years, and the dried chips are sent to electric power plants. This fuel burns clean, leaves little ash, and emits carbon less than or equal to that absorbed from the atmosphere by the willow during growth.

Herbivores
The foliage of most willow contain salicilin, a chemical (phenolic glycoside) that deters browsing by most generalist herbivorous insects and mammals. Only a small fraction of the diet of these herbivores, such as the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) can consist of willows because the salicin distresses the digestive tract just as aspirin (methyl salicylate) does when taken on an empty stomach. A few generalist herbivores, like the moth Orgia antiqua, are able to complete their development on willow alone.

Specialized herbivores, like moose (Alces alces) and to a lesser degree caribou (Rangifer tarandus), cope well with these chemicals in their browse and are able to tap this otherwise little used resource. For a few specialist herbivorous insects such as sawflies (Tenthredinidae) and leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae), the volatile phenolic glycoside even serves as feeding and oviposition cues.

Herbivores that do not feed on willow may still depend on the plants for shelter or for the microhabitat they create. This results in a compartmentalization of the fauna in willow-rich habitats: a majority of herbivorous species avoids feeding on willows while a small fraction is totally dependent on them.

*It's to the left of the greenhouse and and the two trees there.

Labor Sacrifices, Not Executives - Nothing New

"I cannot escape the feeling that the tendency so far has been to say that labor must make sacrifices of wages and hours because of necessities of national defense. I have yet to see anywhere a statement that manufacturers and business concerns . . . shall make this same type of sacrifice by cutting profits and reducing the salaries of executives."

Sound familiar?

This is from Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, which I'm reading again for my next book club meeting. (Previous posts based on the book about the creation of lend lease and Hitler's first (and last) visit to Paris.) I took a break to finish Dirt Music, which deserves at least a post, beyond the one I did about Australian camels and Saudi Arabia.

The quote comes from Eleanor Roosevelt's newspaper column, "My Day", December 9, 1940.

The book is hefty - 633 pages - but riveting. I've got 400+ pages to go by April 30.

Friday, April 06, 2012

A Real Plan, An Interim Plan, Short Deadlines - Overview of Where Redistricting Board Stands

[Note: This may not look like much, but I spent a lot of time trying to sort out the important points, including the maps and links. And getting it reasonably short. My eyes are glazing over so let me know if you catch any errors so I can fix them.]

Yesterday the Alaska Redistricting Board formally approved a new Proclamation Plan (I think they call this the Amended Proclamation Plan) and an Interim plan in case the Amended plan doesn't get all the approvals it needs in time for the June 1 candidate filing deadline. Below is my understanding of what they covered yesterday as they went over their timeline of things that need to be done.

Overview

There’s a June 1 deadline for candidates for the legislature to file. A plan must be in place before that so they know which districts they are in. There is some possibility of pushing the filing deadline, and probably the primary election, back two weeks, but they want to avoid that. But a new Federal law with deadlines for sending military ballots may prevent that.
It’s April 6 now, so that leaves less than 60 days.
The Board’s new Proclamation Plan has to

get pre clearance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to insure it meets the Voting Rights Act requirements AND
go back to the trial court to determine if they followed the court mandated “Hickel Plan” to first draw up a constitutional map and then make the least amount of deviance from the constitutional requirements necessary to also comply with the Voting Rights Act.

Timing for the DOJ and court clearance is uncertain. I’m guessing the Alaska courts will do things as quickly as possible (the Supreme Court ruled in one day the first round,) but what about the DOJ? They have a 60 day turnaround, but have an ‘expedited’ process. The board is unsure they can get it or what exactly it means.
Additionally,

The Division of Elections wants two weeks notice somewhere in the process
Both political parties wanted two weeks for something, not sure what.

Given all the uncertainties, the board has also adopted an Interim Plan. The Supreme Court offered this option if they can’t get the new Proclamation Plan done in time. The Interim plan is the basically the same as the original Proclamation Plan with changes to the two districts in Fairbanks that were declared unconstitutional and which the Board did not contest. (Proclamation Plan districts 1 and 2.)
Attorney White believes the Interim plan, though the Native districts are essentially the same as in the plan the DOJ already approved, needs pre-clearance because it was drawn up by the board, not the court. But he thinks it should be easy. And he believes court approval should be easy.
There is still some uncertainty whether they can put forward both plans simultaneously, but they hope to take that path. If it appears that by around May 15 the new plan will not get approved in time, they will go with the interim plan. Chair Torgerson said that is not his hope. He wants the new plan to go into effect.

That leaves the question of what is the difference between the Interim Plan and the New Proclamation Plan?

Most of the districts are the same in both plans. Southeast, Anchorage, and Kenai, and Matsu will be the same. The differences will be in the area that was white in the “Hickel Plan Template.” The colored in parts should be the same in both plans.

Hickel Plan

Sorry about the light and shadows on the Hickel Plan Template above. But if you look carefully you can make it out. If you're in Southeast, Anchorage, Matsu, Kenai, and the North Slope, your district shouldn't be different in the Interim Plan and the Amended Proclamation Plan. (There may be some minor changes in Kenai Borough, I think Seldovia moved.) They were only going to change district boundaries in the white section.

Click on the links below for bigger and better versions of these two maps

There are some big differences between the Interim Plan and the Amended Proclamation Plan. The Aleutians are split in the Interim Plan, but aren't in the Amended Plan. District They did fix Fairbanks house districts 1 and 2 from the old plan. For people who are interested in the plans in the area that was tinkered with - mostly in House Districts 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39 from what I can see - can look at the maps.

The Amended Plan's statewide map is pretty good.
The Interim Plan has unfortunate district numbers that block details.

The Board promised the individual district maps would be up next week.

This map below shows the Proclamation Plan Fairbanks lines (in black) superimposed on the Amended Proclamation Plan. The Interim Plan looks to be pretty close (in Fairbanks) to the Amended Proclamation Plan. It's hard to match all this because the maps for different plans are in different sizes and my Photoshop was being balky when I was resizing. And it's still not detailed enough to see actual boundaries. And I don't really know Fairbanks at all anyway.

[The district to the left of 1A is 4B. Numbers are from Proclamation Plan. Letters are Senate districts.]

If someone really needs to know, this can get you started. Here are the links for the various Fairbanks maps on the Redistricting Board website. Those are high resolution pdf's that you can blow up and still get detail:

2002 Plan (the current plan)
Proclamation Plan (one courts sent back for changes)
Interim Fairbanks Plan (this is a back up in case the Amended Proc Plan isn't approved on time)
Amended Proclamation Plan

And this table might help too. It gives the numbers of the districts in the various plans.

2002 Plan	Old Proc Plan	Interim Plan	New Proc Plan
HD10	HD 1	HD 3	HD 3
HD 11	HD 2	HD 1	HD 1
HD 7	HD 3	HD 2	HD 2
HD 9	HD 4	HD 4	HD 4

HTML Tables

The video shows Board Attorney Michael White going over the time-line with the Board on Thursday. Board Chair John Torgerson also speaks.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Break of Day in Rampart

There's an interesting piece in the museum that I've been keeping an eye on. Thursday after the board meeting, I went back to the museum to get photos of it.

You can see some of Kathleen's masks here.

Rampart, Alaska

What Do I Know?

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Legislature Passes Less Than 10% of Bills Introduced - 10 This Session So Far

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Do You Know a 14-18 Year Old Alaskan Who Would Like to Make a Difference?

Youth Alliance for a Healthier Alaska (YAHA)

Accepting Applications for the 2012-2013 School Year! Applications due May 25th, 2012 at 5pm!

Our mission

Who are we?

What do we do?