Legislature(1997 - 1998)
03/20/1998 08:00 AM House CRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HOUSE COMMUNITY AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS
STANDING COMMITTEE
March 20, 1998
8:00 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Ivan Ivan, Chairman
Representative Fred Dyson
Representative Scott Ogan
Representative Joe Ryan
Representative Jerry Sanders
Representative Albert Kookesh
Representative Reggie Joule
MEMBERS ABSENT
All members present
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
SENATE BILL NO. 208 am
"An Act relating to municipal service areas and providing for voter
approval of the formation, alteration, or abolishment of certain
service areas; and providing for an effective date."
- MOVED HCSSB 208(CRA) OUT OF COMMITTEE
(* First public hearing)
PREVIOUS ACTION
BILL: SB 208 am
SHORT TITLE: VOTER APPROVAL OF SERVICE AREA CHANGES
SPONSOR(S): SENATOR(S) PARNELL
Jrn-Date Jrn-Page Action
1/12/98 2164 (S) PREFILE RELEASED 1/2/98
1/12/98 2164 (S) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRAL(S)
1/12/98 2164 (S) CRA, JUD
2/09/98 (S) CRA AT 1:30 PM BUTROVICH ROOM 205
2/09/98 (S) MINUTE(CRA)
2/10/98 2461 (S) CRA RPT 1DP 4NR
2/10/98 2461 (S) DP: PHILLIPS
2/10/98 2461 (S) NR: DONLEY, HOFFMAN, MACKIE, WILKEN
2/10/98 2461 (S) ZERO FISCAL NOTE (DCRA)
2/25/98 (S) JUD AT 1:30 PM BELTZ ROOM 211
2/25/98 (S) MINUTE(JUD)
2/26/98 (S) MINUTE(RLS)
2/26/98 2659 (S) JUD RPT 3DP 2NR
2/26/98 2659 (S) DP: PARNELL, MILLER, PEARCE
2/26/98 2659 (S) NR: TAYLOR, ELLIS
2/26/98 2659 (S) PREVIOUS ZERO FNS (DCRA)
2/27/98 2680 (S) RULES TO CALENDAR 2/27/98
2/27/98 2681 (S) READ THE SECOND TIME
2/27/98 2681 (S) ADVANCED TO THIRD READING UNAN CONSENT
2/27/98 2681 (S) READ THE THIRD TIME SB 208
2/27/98 2682 (S) PASSED Y16 N2 E2
2/27/98 2682 (S) SHARP NOTICE OF RECONSIDERATION
3/02/98 2702 (S) RECON TAKEN UP - IN THIRD READING
3/02/98 2702 (S) RETURN TO SECOND FOR AM #1 UNAN
CONSENT
3/02/98 2702 (S) AM NO 1 ADOPTED UNAN CONSENT
3/02/98 2704 (S) AUTOMATICALLY IN THIRD READING
3/02/98 2704 (S) PASSED ON RECONSIDERATION Y17 N- E2 A1
3/02/98 2704 (S) EFFECTIVE DATE(S) SAME AS PASSAGE
3/02/98 2706 (S) TRANSMITTED TO (H)
3/04/98 2489 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRAL(S)
3/04/98 2489 (H) C&RA
3/11/98 (H) CRA AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 124
3/11/98 (H) MINUTE(CRA)
3/18/98 (H) CRA AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 124
3/18/98 (H) MINUTE(CRA)
3/20/98 (H) CRA AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 124
WITNESS REGISTER
SENATOR PARNELL
Alaska State Legislature
Capitol Building, Room 504
Juneau, Alaska 99801
Telephone: (907) 465-2995
POSITION STATEMENT: Sponsor of SB 208.
OCIE ADAMS, Secretary
Mat-Su Local Road Service Area Advisory Board
HC 30, Box 200
Wasilla, Alaska 99654
Telephone: (907) 373-6690
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified in support of SB 208.
WILLIAM LARKIN, Road Service Area Supervisor
Road Service Area 25
P.O. Box 2067
Palmer, Alaska 99645
Telephone: (907) 745-3884
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on SB 208.
DAN LaSOTA, Assembly Member
Fairbanks North Star Borough
693 Manchester Loop
Fairbanks, Alaska
Telephone: (907) 479-0650
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified in opposition to SB 208.
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 98-19, SIDE A
Number 0001
CHAIRMAN IVAN IVAN called the House Community and Regional Affairs
Standing Committee meeting to order at 8:00 a.m. Members present
at the call to order were Representatives Ivan, Dyson, Ogan and
Sanders. Representative Joule arrived at 8:04 a.m., and
Representatives Ryan and Kookesh arrived at 8:11 a.m.,
respectively.
SB 208 am - VOTER APPROVAL OF SERVICE AREA CHANGES
Number 0037
CHAIRMAN IVAN announced the first order of business would be SB 208
am, "An Act relating to municipal service areas and providing for
voter approval of the formation, alteration, or abolishment of
certain service areas; and providing for an effective date." He
said he would entertain a motion for the adoption of the proposed
committee substitute (CS).
Number 0083
REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT OGAN made a motion to adopt the proposed CS,
0-LS0632\F, dated 3/18/98. There being no objection, HCSSB 208,
Version F was adopted.
SENATOR PARNELL, sponsor, told the committee the work draft,
Version F, incorporates the changes, due to some of the concerns
that were expressed at the last meeting. He referred to page 2,
line 8, subsection (c), "If voters reside within a service area,"
and said that subsection is changed to allow those who live in the
service area to vote, not the property owners who may live
somewhere else outside the service area. He then referred to lines
18-19 of page 2 noting that there is an exemption for the fire
service protection area. He stated that the last change is on page
2, line 21, is the effective date, July 1, 1998, was added because
the title said, "and providing for an effective date."
CHAIRMAN IVAN called on the next witness to testify.
Number 0231
OCIE ADAMS, Secretary, Mat-Su Local Road Service Area Advisory
Board, testified via teleconference from the Mat-Su Legislative
Information Office (LIO). He commended the committee for their
work on the bill. He said he feels the recent changes will allow
this bill to go forward without the constitutional challenge that
would have been a real possibility, had it gone as written. He
commented he supports the committee's efforts. He referred to page
2, line 3, of HCSSB 208, the word "or," stating that the language
as written is making this an optional event for voter approval
(indisc.) city and borough approval of the city consolidation
(indisc.) city to be brought into the service area or vice versa.
He said he talked with the legal staff at the assembly and asked
for their legal opinion and they said the word "or" in subsection
(1) would eliminate subsection 2 on line 4, which states: "(2)
approval is granted by a majority of voters residing in the city,
and by a majority of voters residing inside the boundaries of the
proposed service area but outside of the city." He said even if it
was elected by the city and borough to go with option 1, they make
the decisions. He expressed the word "or" in subsection (1) is the
only problem they have with this legislation. He said he would
again ask for a legal opinion on the word, if that prohibits the
vote, if the city and borough elects not to have a vote.
Number 0373
SENATOR PARNELL advised the committee they are not changing
existing law in this area; this is existing law. He stated that he
and the Senate chose not to use the word "and" on page 2, line 3,
because they didn't want to get into the realm of annexing the
cities and boroughs and to change that area of law in this piece of
legislation. He said if they changed the word from "or" to "and,"
it would definitely make it tougher to bring (indisc.) include a
city in a service area if, not only the city has to agree by
ordinance but approval has to be obtained from the majority of the
voters. He indicated he understands Mr. Adams' concerns but it is
outside the scope of legislation. He stated that they are not
changing existing law in that area. He noted he appreciates Mr.
Adams' support of the bill.
Number 0445
WILLIAM LARKIN, Road Service Area Supervisor, Road Service Area 25;
Chairman, Road Service Advisory Board, testified via teleconference
from the Mat-Su LIO. He said for the most part, he agrees
completely with the bill. He said he feels what it does is to
allow the people to make decisions that affect them in many ways.
He said he knows that a number of municipalities, boroughs and
assemblies are objecting to the bill because they believe that it
infringes on their right to dictate to the public. He stated that
the public should be able to make their own decisions on what
effects them, not only in (indisc.), but also in the types and the
kinds of service they want. He mentioned people in Talkeetna do
not expect the same service as the people living in the (indisc.)
areas and indicated they do not want to pay the same price as the
people in the (indisc.). It allows them the freedom that was the
intent of (indisc.). He said that this bill will allow the people
a lot more control over their own destiny. He thanked the
committee for their work on the bill.
Number 0582
DAN LaSOTA, Assembly Member, Fairbanks North Star Borough,
testified in opposition to SB 208. He said he has been working
with the sponsor trying to come up with amendments but they have
not been able to agree on a possible solution to the bill. He said
all of the objections that have been raised from the Department of
Community and Regional Affairs and municipalities still hold. One
of their concerns is the cost of elections that will be incurred by
the service area when an election is mandated upon them. He said
the costs of those elections, whether or not they run the same time
as a municipal election and to be able to run a fair and clean
election they have to give proper notice to people. Notices need
to be sent to property owners and maps of the area need to be
displayed in a newspaper or public record which costs money. In
Fairbanks, they are looking at a minimum cost, due to the display
ads, of approximately $1,500. The "ramp up" cost for the mail out
that is directly proportional to how many people would live in an
area and on small service areas, it wouldn't be much more than
approximately $1,500. He said in some of the mid-size service
areas in Fairbanks, that cost would go up to about $2,000-3,000.
In some of the larger service areas, that cost would be about
$10,000. He pointed out his municipal court contacted the clerk in
the Mat-Su Borough and asked to estimate, on some of their larger
road service areas, what the cost would be to perform an election.
The Mat-Su clerk estimated that that cost would be $20,000. He
stated that that sum of money isn't large compared with the budgets
the Fairbanks Assembly and legislature deals with but for a service
area, those funds are large. Some of the service areas in
Fairbanks don't have any money in their reserve account. He said
the question then becomes how an election's going to be paid for.
He noted that a member of the Road Service Area contacted the
committee with their concerns and that they may be hesitant to
offer support for this if they realize that performing an election
will come out of their road service area funds and basically eat
their operating expenses up. He said they will not be able to
remove the snow from the roads or deliver proper service if they
are performing these elections.
Number 0791
REPRESENTATIVE FRED DYSON thanked Mr. LaSota for having enough
interest to testify in person to work on this legislation, which he
believes shows a level of commitment and responsibility. He said
he would commit to working with Mr. LaSota during the interim to
come up with some better solutions to fix the problems that Mr.
LaSota has expressed. He said he suspects he will have a similar
problem in his district. He said his guess is that this bill will
pass and told Mr. LaSota not to think of it as the end of the
world, that the committee will continue to work on the bill to
shape it up. He encouraged Mr. LaSota to not put the cost of an
election on the Road Service Advisory Board (indisc.) in the area.
He remarked democracy is expensive and stated that the alternative
might be cheap and efficient, but (indisc.).
MR. LaSOTA commented that running an election is what government
does as a normal course of business. He said running a clean and
fair election in Fairbanks costs quite a bit of money, which the
Fairbanks Assembly pays for. The alternative is not possible; you
must run a fair and clean election and people must be notified. He
noted that the reason why it hasn't been an issue with service area
elections up to this point is because when you create an area or
you annex an area, there is no entity to bill out. The new
residents coming into an area or the new residents wishing to
create an area in the first place, are members of the general
borough. He said if the legislature mandates an election to occur
within a service area, in his opinion, that money must come from
the service area. It's not fair to charge residents outside of the
service area for something that is going to benefit only the
members of the particular service area. He said the whole concept
of the service areas, as established in the constitution, was to
limit the costs and charges associated with the service to the
people who want to pay for it. Mr. LaSota said he thinks the
residents of Salcha and North Pole are going to have a problem with
paying for a service area charge that's being performed in Esther.
He told the committee if they look in their own communities where
there are different areas, people don't like to pay for things that
they're not going to get. He said it might be nice if the bill
addresses everyone; however, the legislature might find a legal
challenge from the people who don't want to pay for it.
Number 0992
REPRESENTATIVE JOE RYAN noted that the legislature still gives
municipal assistance to the organized boroughs, granted it's not as
much as they have given in the past, but that money is supposed to
show up on their tax bill as to lowering the cost of their mill
rates. To him, it seems that there's a management problem in
places that have a problem finding funding, noting that they can
use municipal assistance funds to take care of administrative costs
in servicing those areas of that municipality. He said, that, of
course, is a choice that is left up to the various governing bodies
and that action of using those funds will preclude having to tax
somebody else for another service. He indicated there is money
available.
Number 1053
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON made a motion to move HCSSB 208(CRA) out of
committee with individual recommendations and the attached zero
fiscal note(s).
REPRESENTATIVE ALBERT KOOKESH objected to the motion.
Number 1079
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON said he believes there are some interesting
and fundamental principals involved, although it does make sense to
have economies of scale. There's a lot of things that really go
better with decentralization. He said the service area concept is
one of those genius areas that when the Anchorage borough and city
came together and united approximately two decades ago, the service
area concept was negotiated and allowed the firmer areas of the
borough to have control and tax themselves to a level they wanted
(indisc.). He indicated it worked admirably well. He noted that
his area started this politics business by being on the Road
Service Area Advisory Board and they hired local contractors who
were seeking employment in the off-season and pointed out that they
have always plowed their roads a day and a half sooner than the
rest of the area for about .70 on the dollar. He said their parks
and recreation board was able to convince the voters to tax
themselves to run their own parks, which worked admirably well. He
stated that there's still the question, "Do you want everything
centralized with economies of scale or do we want to have local
control, local involvement?" noting that in this case, being able
to give local people lots of work.
Number 1182
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON said this legislation gets to the heart of two
things: one is that you keep a deal. He said in Anchorage when
they negotiated the relationship between the borough and the city,
the city tried to break the deal for 15 years with people who
reside in the South Anchorage area. As he understands the intent
of this legislation, it would keep that from happening in the
future without the will of the people. It would not allow the
government to maneuver to break the deal. The other thing this
legislation does is prevent shotgun marriages when you have one
unwilling participant. He said he believes that is a fundamental
principle in our form of government. He said he would encourage
people to do this, for reasons mentioned, for local involvement and
decentralization. He reiterated that we need to allow people to
control their own destiny. He indicated he agrees with the critics
of this bill stating that it's messy sometimes, but our form of
government is messy. It takes a lot of negotiation and it takes
time to come to a consensus. His view is that the legislature, as
public policy makers and the population in general, will never do
the right thing at the right time. He noted the few times that
they've recognized what the right thing to do takes a while to get
the public support. He added, "We muddle through and get there and
we preserve something that's inordinately precious and that's the
right to self determination with local control."
CHAIRMAN IVAN asked for a roll call. Representatives Dyson, Joule,
Ogan, Ryan, Sanders and Ivan voted in favor of HCSSB 208(CRA).
Representative Kookesh voted against HCSSB 208(CRA). HCSSB
208(CRA) moved out of the House Community and Regional Affairs
Standing Committee.
Number 1304
CHAIRMAN IVAN said before the committee closes the bill before
them, he wanted to make a disclosure, one that he did not
appreciate, which was in the form of a fiscal note delivered to his
office and committee staff. He noted that there are procedures for
fiscal notes stating that his office did not accept that fiscal
note, the committee did not order a fiscal note, and pointed out
that the statute covers fiscal note procedures. He indicated he
did not appreciate the action that occurred which he said was
designed to slow down or hurt the (indisc.) process and he would
not let that happen.
CHAIRMAN IVAN then explained the agenda for the following week.
Number 1371
CHAIRMAN IVAN adjourned the House Community and Regional Affairs
Standing Committee at 8:22 a.m.
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