Legislature(2021 - 2022)
09/23/2021 10:30 AM Senate LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
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ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
SEPTEMBER 23, 2021
10:30 AM
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Sara Hannan, Chair
Senator Lora Reinbold, Vice Chair
Representative Bryce Edgmon
Representative Louise Stutes
Representative Cathy Tilton
Senator Mike Shower
Senator Bert Stedman
Senator Gary Stevens
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Matt Claman
Representative Neal Foster
Representative Chris Tuck
Senator Click Bishop
Senator Lyman Hoffman
Senator Shelley Hughes (alternate)
Senator Peter Micciche
OTHER MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Harriet Drummond
AGENDA
CALL TO ORDER
APPROVAL OF AGENDA
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
COMMITTEE BUSINESS
COMMITTEE BUSINESS EXECUTIVE SESSION
ADJOURN
SPEAKER REGISTER
Jessica Geary, Executive Director, Legislative Affairs
Agency (LAA)
10:46:00 AM
I. CALL TO ORDER
CHAIR HANNAN called the Legislative Council meeting to
order at 10:46AM on September 23, 2021, in the House
Finance Room 519.
Present at the call were: Representatives Edgmon, Hannan,
Stutes, Tilton; Senators Reinbold, Shower, Stedman, and
Stevens.
Members absent were: Representatives Claman, Foster, Tuck;
Senators Bishop, Hoffman, Hughes (alternate), and Micciche.
Eight members present.
II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
10:47:34 AM
VICE CHAIR REINBOLD moved and asked unanimous consent that
Legislative Council approve the agenda as presented.
CHAIR HANNAN, seeing no objections, approved the agenda.
III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
10:48:44 AM
VICE CHAIR REINBOLD moved and asked unanimous consent that
the Legislative Council approve the minutes dated March 17,
2021, as presented.
CHAIR HANNAN, hearing no objections, approved the minutes
and introduced the first item of business, a briefing and
overview of pending Capitol Maintenance, and Jessica Geary,
who was present to answer Council questions.
IV. COMMITTEE BUSINESS
A. Overview of Pending Legislative Council Matters
JESSICA GEARY, Executive Director of the Legislative
Affairs Agency, said that the memo council members received
was an outline of items to be brought before the committee
for consideration either this year or next year depending
on timing. The first was the Capitol roof Jensen Yorba
Wall was preparing construction management and bid
documents, and their preliminary estimate was $1.3 million
and there were existing capital funds. She said that a
hazmat survey had been completed and there were no
hazardous materials present, and the last time the roof was
replaced was in 1993/1994. said the second item to come
before Council are contract approvals for: the Sitka LIO;
Utqiagvik LIO and Legislative Office Space; Ketchikan LIO
and Legislative Office Space; and the Thomson Reuters
Westlaw - Online Research Services contract. The third item
would be the veto of per diem by Governor Dunleavy which
meant that beginning the January regular session, there
would be no funds available for regular session per diem,
and that she would be presenting scenarios for the
committees consideration. The last item would be a
potential amendment to Legislative Procurement Procedures,
to be presented at a future meeting by JC Kestel,
Procurement Officer. She paused to take any questions
before continuing.
SENATOR STEVENS asked Ms. Geary for options on Governor
Dunleavys veto issue; he stated that one issue was to
simply not fund the governors per diem but was interested
in hearing options other than that.
MS. GEARY said the options as she saw them were for
Legislative Council to approve transfers to cover per diem
from the existing budget authorization and then recommend
to the Finance subcommittee that a supplemental fund be
backfilled to replace the almost $2 million. She said those
were the only two options she had been able to come up
with, but that it would need to be dealt with through the
budget process.
SENATOR STEVENS asked if that would mean per diem could be
provided as early as January.
MS. GEARY said yes, if the transfers were approved to cover
per diem in the interim, if it was the will of the
committee, per diem could be paid beginning the first day
of session.
SENATOR STEVENS thanked Ms. Geary and the Chair, and said
he assumed members would proceed with that and get this
taken care of. It was totally absurd, he said, for Governor
Dunleavy to think that legislators should all go to Juneau
and not receive per diem for the cost of living. He said if
that was the case, there likely would have been several
legislators who would not have run due to not being able to
afford to participate in law-making. He said he hoped it
was an issue Chair Hannan would address.
CHAIR HANNAN thanked Senator Stevens and said it was her
full intention to address this issue before the beginning
of regular session in January of 2022. She said she
anticipated there would be a couple more Legislative
Council meetings between now and the start of session.
VICE-CHAIR REINBOLD echoed Senator Stevens comments. She
stated she was concerned even though she was often one of
the lowest per diem-takers. She thought it was important
due to the costs involved for lawmakers with special
sessions being repeatedly called. She said perhaps members
could take a step further and look at all the executive
branch per diem and if Governor Dunleavy was going to throw
stones, perhaps the Legislature could investigate members
of the Executive Branch who were taking per diem, required
to be in Juneau, and often not. She thanked the Chair.
CHAIR HANNAN, seeing no further comments, asked Ms. Geary
to continue with subcommittee updates.
MS. GEARY stated that a few of these updates were a bit
premature because currently two of the subcommittees were
in the planning stages: the Security subcommittee and the
Assembly Building subcommittee. The IT subcommittee was
already formed, she said, and reminded members of the
recent security breaches to the Executive and Judicial
branches. She said LAAs IT Manager, Tim Banaszak, had been
working closely with his counterparts in the other branches
to be able to best prevent what had happened to them from
happening to the Legislature and might need to bring some
items before the committee for action. She said the
telephone systems were due for replacement and the IT
Department were considering a few pilot programs to see
what would best fit, and once a decision was made between
those, it would be presented to Council. She said if it was
alright with the Chair, she would wait to give detail on
the other two items until they reached that point in the
agenda.
SPEAKER STUTES asked if the IT Department had begun
replacing the telephone system, because she had been
calling a staff member of hers from Kodiak and kept hearing
a message that said the number was no longer in service, so
she had been resorting to calling him on his cell phone.
MS. GEARY said that to her knowledge, the replacement had
not yet begun, so she believed this could be an isolated
incident, but the IT Department would be happy to
investigate this issue and follow up with the Speaker.
SPEAKER STUTES said that would be great, and she would
appreciate it.
VICE-CHAIR REINBOLD said she was recently in Juneau and
found ninety-three messages on her phone even though she
had forwarded the phone to her district office and was
surprised to learn that if the phone did not get picked up
in the office, it would bounce back to the Juneau phone for
message recording. She asked for assistance with this issue
and wanted to remind others this had been an issue for
several years and would appreciate a reminder on how to
forward a phone and have it stay forwarded and not end up
reaching Juneau.
MS. GEARY said she would be happy to send out more frequent
reminders, and that hopefully with the new web-based phone
system, issues like this would not be problems in the
future.
B. Formation of Assembly Building Utilization Subcommittee
10:59:12 AM
CHAIR HANNAN, seeing no further questions, announced she
was forming a subcommittee for utilization of the Assembly
Building to produce recommendations for the best use of the
assembly building for the benefit of the legislature and
its service agencies. She said she would chair the
subcommittee, and its membership would include the
Legislative Affairs Agency Executive Director, Jessica
Geary, or her designee; the Facilities Manager, Serge Lesh;
Senators Kiehl, Stedman, and Bishop; and Representatives
Edgmon and Tuck. She asked if there were any questions and
gave the floor to Ms. Geary.
MS. GEARY said members are aware that Legislative Council
voted on August 16, 2021, to accept the donation from the
Juneau Community Foundation with the intent that, until
this committee had a chance to consider potential options
for use of the building, that no large expenses would be
made. She then highlighted some of the possible options,
which she expected the new subcommittee would explore and
research. Her list included: Legislative housing
(apartments); renovating to replace current leases as they
expired; continuing to lease space to current tenants to
offset building maintenance costs; utilizing in some way
the buildings underground parking garage with nineteen
spots; possible Legislative office space perhaps
relocating the Print Shop, storage, Ombudsmans Office all
of which the Legislature currently pays rent for in non-
Legislative buildings, as well as possible relocation of
the Capitol Press Room and Legislative Mail Room from the
Capitol. She updated members about current projects within
existing procurement authority, including replacement of
rusted-out fire doors, the underground storage tank with an
above-ground storage tank, new garage door and openers,
rekeying of the locks for security reasons, as well as
completion of an environmental hazard survey. She told
members they had copies of the buildings current floor
plans and said she would be happy to take any questions.
SENATOR SHOWER said that last meeting, he made it clear he
was not a fan of accepting the gift of the Assembly
Building as he believed it was going to cost the
Legislature money rather than the predictions of other
members that it would save money or even provide income. He
said he would believe it when he saw it and asked that
Council members be kept apprised of costs as projects moved
forward.
CHAIR HANNAN said that she would keep members apprised.
REPRESENTATIVE TILTON seconded Senator Showers request,
and further recommended to the new subcommittee that they
confer with support staff and staff who had been working in
the Capitol for many years, as they could have good ideas
about the new space.
CHAIR HANNAN thanked Representative Tilton and said she
would, and further explained that she kept the committee
small to keep it manageable but did not intend it to be an
exclusive group working in isolation. Seeing no further
questions or comments, she moved to the next order of
business, requiring members to go into Executive Session to
discuss formation of a subcommittee on Legislative Security
and a contract for snow removal at the Anchorage
Legislative Office Building (LOB).
V. ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE BUSINESS - EXECUTIVE SESSION
A. Formation of Legislative Facilities Security
Subcommittee
B. Anchorage LOB Snow Removal Contract
11:06:19 AM
VICE-CHAIR REINBOLD moved and asked unanimous consent that
Legislative Council go into Executive Session under Uniform
Rule 22(B)(1), discussion of matters, the immediate
knowledge of which would adversely affect the finances of a
government unit and 22(B)(3), discussion of a matter that
may, by law, be required to be confidential. The following
individuals were permitted to remain in the room or on-line
for the entirety of the executive session: Jessica Geary,
JC Kestel, Rayme Vinson, Sant Lesh, Megan Wallace, Emily
Nauman, Helen Phillips, Jodie Murdock, Bree Wylie, any
Legislators not on Legislative Council, and any staff of
Legislative Council members.
11:07:06 AM
A roll call vote was taken.
YEAS: Representatives Edgmon, Hannan, Stutes, Tilton;
Senators Reinbold, Shower, Stedman, Stevens.
NAYS: None.
The motion was approved 8-0.
11:07:43 AM
Council went into Executive Session.
11:26:11 AM
Council came out of Executive Session. A roll call vote was
taken to confirm a quorum.
Present at the call were: Representatives Edgmon, Hannan,
Stutes, Tilton; Senators Reinbold, Shower, Stedman,
Stevens.
Eight members present, maintaining a quorum.
CHAIR HANNAN said for the record that she had formed a
subcommittee of the Council to consider improvements to
Security at the Capitol and other Legislative Facilities.
She said the subcommittee would be chaired by Chief of
Security, Rayme Vinson, and if any members were interested
in serving on that subcommittee, they should email Tim
Clark, her Chief of Staff.
11:27:44 AM
VICE-CHAIR REINBOLD moved that the Legislative Council
approve the award of RFP 647 for Anchorage Snow Removal
Services to A-1 Lawn and Landscaping for a one-year
contract and a five-year option one-year renewal with a
budget not to exceed the value of $65,000 per contract
year.
CHAIR HANNAN objected for purposes of discussion and asked
Mr. Kestel to briefly summarize the contract.
JC KESTEL, Procurement Officer, Legislative Affairs Agency,
said LAA issued RFP 647 to solicit proposals for snow
removal services at the Anchorage Legislative Office
Building. He said members had copies of the bid abstract
from the bids that were received, and that LAA recommended
the contract be awarded to A-1 Lawn and Landscaping, who
proposed the lowest total price on the RFQ, and said he
would be happy to answer any questions.
11:29:03 AM
A roll call vote was taken.
YEAS: Representatives Edgmon, Hannan, Stutes, Tilton;
Senators Reinbold, Shower, Stedman.
NAYS: None.
11:30:08 AM
An at-ease was taken.
11:31:58 AM
The at-ease ended.
CHAIR HANNAN said that members had been in the middle of a
roll call vote, and asked Ms. Kiesel to continue.
SENATOR STEVENS said he was disconnected and was now back
with the Council.
CHAIR HANNAN thanked him and said that Ms. Kiesel was going
to ask for his vote.
SENATOR STEVENS voted yea.
With 8 yeas and 0 nays, the motion was approved.
VI. ADJOURN
11:32:36 AM
Adjourn.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| Assembly Utilization Subcommittee Memo--Jessica Geary--9.23.2021.pdf |
JLEC 9/23/2021 10:30:00 AM |
|
| Leg Council Meeting Minutes--March 17, 2021.pdf |
JLEC 9/23/2021 10:30:00 AM |
|
| LAA Pending Matters Memo--Jessica Geary--9.23.2021.pdf |
JLEC 9/23/2021 10:30:00 AM |
|
| Revised--September 23, 2021 Agenda--Legislative Council.pdf |
JLEC 9/23/2021 10:30:00 AM |