Legislature(1993 - 1994)
02/22/1994 09:10 AM Senate CRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS, hearing no further comments, announces the Senate Community & Regional Affairs Committee will now take up SB 291 (BOROUGH INCORPORATION & ANNEXATION). The chairman calls the representative from the sponsor's office to come to the committee table and give a brief analysis of the bill. Number 566 ALEXIS MILLER, Aide to Senator Dave Donley, says she appreciates comments from commissioners of the LBC on SB 291. Ms. Miller says she will dispel any rumors that she or Senator Donley communicated with any LBC commissioners regarding SB 291 before its' introduction. Since the introduction of SB 291 she has spoken with Mr. Bockhorst. CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS notes it was advantageous to be able to schedule the bill while commission members were in town, so that they would be able to comment and answer questions. MS. MILLER says Senator Donley introduced SB 291 as a direct response to the LBC's report on model borough boundaries. He had read the report, and there was a particular section in which he saw some inequities. Approximately 60% of the land mass of the state and between 13%-20% of the population of the state is not within an organized borough. Senator Donley saw it as those people (within the unorganized area) were receiving services from the state they were not paying for. He thought it would be more fair to have those persons residing in unorganized areas paying for some of the services they receive. Number 538 COMMISSIONER SALMEIER asks, since SB 291 requests the LBC to conduct a study, if the study the LBC just did on model borough boundaries was adequate or not. MS. MILLER says she has not looked at the model borough boundaries study and is not sure whether it would be adequate or not. It could possibly be used. Number 527 COMMISSIONER HARGRAVES says there may be one technicality that needs to be clarified: the model borough boundaries study is a study of an area today. If a petition is made to the LBC, the LBC would study the petition all over again. It would not simply follow the model borough boundaries study. Number 521 SENATOR TAYLOR asks if there is an assumption that the boroughs created through SB 291 would have certain home-rule power, or would they be created for the sole purpose of taxation. MS. MILLER says she cannot answer that question. SENATOR TAYLOR says he asks in relation to the Hillside area in Anchorage. He wonders if the state would be walking into a myriad of problems if SB 291 was passed. Would the state then be required to provide state trooper coverage for all these areas? What other services would be required? Number 510 CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS asks if the LBC sees any technical problems with SB 291. MR. BOCKHORST says DCRA has not carefully reviewed SB 291. He believes there is less of a need for some services in more rural areas of the state. Many boroughs do not have police protection in any sense. The cities within a borough may have protection, but the boroughs do not. Number 500 SENATOR TAYLOR says SB 291 attempts to prevent overlapping of service districts, and other problems. If it is not going to do that, if these new boroughs will be allowed to pick and choose the services and those powers they wish to utilize, we will continue to have overlapping of service districts. CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS asks Senator Taylor about the situation in Ketchikan. The chairman asks Senator Taylor to clarify if he thinks service areas should be area-wide. SENATOR TAYLOR confirms that is his belief. He does not think local areas should be able to pick and choose which services they should have. Senator Taylor describes some of the problems communities in his district have had with local governments deciding which services they would offer to its' residents. Senator Taylor is concerned that under SB 291, citizens in rural areas would be taxed, but not receive services. Apparently, organized areas have the option of taxing residents, while at the same time choosing not to provide certain services, such as police protection and road maintenance, so the state is then required to provide those services. If the unorganized areas of the state are organized into one borough, will that borough be able to pick and choose, as are the other organized boroughs? Some of the organized boroughs that pick and choose which services they provide are Petersburg, Wrangell, Juneau, and Fairbanks. Number 448 CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS says the previously mentioned problems have got to be changed. Chairman Phillips says the Eagle River area of the service area he is in works fine. Number 430 COMMISSIONER SALMEIER thinks SB 291 will raise so many problems for the state. She foresees formidable problems with SB 291. Number 415 CHAIRMAN HARGRAVES says organization at the local government levels have political overtones and implications, and those do sometimes guide the process. He recommends the committee get the LBC's ten standards for what should be considered in an incorporation. Perhaps if SB 291 is measured against those standards, it would help you see whether or not it would work. MS. MILLER says that was going to be her question: what would the LBC recommend. If it is the model boundary, if there is something specific. Because, as she said, Senator Donley read the LBC model borough boundaries report, and she says she quotes a paragraph from Senator Donley's press release, talking about the inequities, the borough concept, 80% of Alaska's population. All of that came from the LBC's report. That is where Senator Donley got his information. That is why Senator Donley introduced SB 291. Ms. Miller thinks Senator Donley is introducing it on behalf of the LBC. CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS asks Ms. Miller if Senator Donley has seen the LBC's ten standards for analyzing a petition to the LBC. MS. MILLER says she does not know. CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS asks Ms. Miller to have Senator Donley look at the LBC's ten standards, because Chairman Phillips is interested in the concept of SB 291. Number 400 CHAIRMAN HARGRAVES clarifies that the LBC's position on SB 291 is one of neutrality. Chairman Hargraves would like the record to reflect that neutrality. MS. MILLER states SB 291 is not a new concept, and the provisions contained in the bill have been discussed and proposed since statehood. Number 377 SENATOR ZHAROFF asks what happens to municipalities that want to dissolve part of their borough under SB 291. Would the part being detached from the rest of the borough become part of another organized borough, or would it become part of the borough organized under SB 291, or would it not be attached to any sort of organized borough? (Committee members and LBC commissioners discuss this question, but no conclusion is reached.) CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS asks if there is any other area in the world where there is unorganized area that is not taxed, as there is in the unorganized areas of the State of Alaska. (The committee members and commissioners of the LBC come to general agreement that there is, at any rate, no area in the rest of the United States or Canada where areas remain untaxed.) An unidentified female LBC commissioner says it is her personal opinion that people in the State of Alaska have gotten used to getting something for nothing. CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS says he is preparing his community to start paying for the benefits it receives. Some areas are not prepared for that, however. Number 286 COMMISSIONER HALLGREN says 164 will make it a little bit easier for some places to do home-rule municipalities without having to go through a three-step process. CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS says that since the legislature is the "assembly", so to speak, for unorganized areas, perhaps it could tax the unorganized areas through a sales tax, property tax, or some other tax. CHAIRMAN HARGRAVES states that with the advent of the REAA's (Rural Education Attendance Areas), the legislature's position as the assembly for those areas was made very clear. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON says if SB 291 passes, LBC commissioners will need trooper protection to go to some villages. (There is discussion of times when LBC commissioners needed police protection during community meetings.) (There is discussion of an arrest in Palmer in which local authorities did not have jurisdiction, so state troopers participated in the arrest.) Number 260 COMMISSIONER JOHNSON feels the public needs to be educated as to the process for petitioning with the Alaska Local Boundary Commission. CHAIRMAN HARGRAVES says Ms. Johnson has been recommending, in the spirit of religious missionaries of times past, that there be financial missionaries sent out to villages and communities. Number 198 SENATOR ZHAROFF states he does not want people to leave the committee meeting with the feeling that people in rural areas are not paying their way. A lot of the small communities do have a tax base from which they try to support their community, they do attempt to do this. When one looks at some of the urban areas that do not have a sales tax, you see a lot of free loaders there who are not paying their own way. Proportionally, it is probably a much larger percentage than the situations which exist in many of the rural areas. Unidentified female LBC commissioner says 164 will help those places which are trying to shoulder their share of the fiscal burden. COMMISSIONER DUGAN comments that the City of Fairbanks is a prime example of a city where the infrastructure is falling apart, yet the citizens of the city have voted down a sales tax seven times in the last two years. It is the old "something for nothing". CHAIRMAN HARGRAVES says he has another speech on sales tax which he plans to give to the city council in Ketchikan. The sales tax in Ketchikan is currently 5%, and some people get the glory of paying that twice. He won't give the details at this time, but if people want to come to the Ketchikan city council meeting in the next few weeks, they can hear his speech. Number 175 MS. MILLER states SB 291 might not be politically correct, but it is a political reality, and sometimes these tough decisions must be made. CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS says the committee will bring SB 291 up again, perhaps on Tuesday, March 1, 1994, so the committee can focus in on it.
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