My 1999 constituent questionnaire is in the mail. This survey focuses primarily on the state budget. We are going through a painful process in trying to identify additional reductions that can be made in next year's state budget. In the end though, we as a state could eliminate every position in every department paid with general fund dollars, and we would still fall far short of balancing our budget. With the price of oil at an all time low and with ever-declining oil production, Alaska needs to raise additional revenues now! Do we institute a state income tax? Do we implement a state sales tax? Do we use some of the interest earnings of the permanent fund? These questions and more will have to be answered in the next two months. If you haven't received a survey and would like to fill one out, please call my office at 1-800-865-2487, and I will be happy to send you one.

Board of Fisheries

There are three positions on the Alaska Board of Fisheries expiring in June of this year. Governor Tony Knowles has to submit his recommendations to fill these vacancies by April 1st for the Legislature's consideration. Besides the three incumbent board members, the governor's office has received only one other application for these seats. Nobody has applied yet from Kodiak. I truly believe that our community has a person in their midst that has the capability to act in the highest regard for the State of Alaska in deciding on critical issues that affect our fisheries. I have asked the governor to carefully consider all aspects of the makeup of this board before he makes his final decision.

Supplemental Budget Requests

The House Finance Committee is concluding its hearings on the FY 1999 supplemental budget bill request submitted by the Governor. The administration submits a similar bill each year for unexpected costs incurred for the current fiscal year. A large chunk of the request was $1.4 million to cover the power cost equalization program beyond the $17.0 million that was funded last year through the PCE rural electric capitalization fund. This request was denied at the House Finance Committee level, which would result in the subsidy decreasing from eighty-five to forty-three percent for the remaining two months of the fiscal year (May and June). The Senate is hearing an identical bill and the two bills will be considered in a conference committee where differences will be worked out.

Fish Legislation

HB 104, the moratorium bill, moved out of the House Special Committee on Fisheries to the House Resources Committee. The fish committee will hold a hearing on Stellar sea lion research at 5 p.m. on March 29th. My amendment to the supplemental budget bill, HB 100, accessing program receipts for the pink salmon pre-emergent fry sampling program, has passed out of the House Finance Committee. For more details on fish, please call me or my staff assistant Joanie Waller at 1-800-865-2487 in Juneau.

INS News

Late last year, I invited Robert Eddy, the District Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and his senior staff to Kodiak. There were approximately 35 members of our community in attendance for a roundtable discussion concerning problems this past summer by over aggressive INS agents. We also talked about the need for a community advisory panel to sit down with INS to outline the objectives, strategies and expectations with respect to the future conduct of INS personnel stationed in our community. As of this date, INS has not heard from any particular individual or group in Kodiak with respect to the formation of said advisory group. I have encouraged the city and the borough to form such a panel. I would encourage those interested in a citizen's panel to let city or borough officials know of your concerns. The INS has also informed me that they do not expect an immigration officer to be placed in Kodiak until sometime in mid-summer of this year at the earliest. If this too, concerns you, please send letters, emails or faxes to the INS offices in Anchorage. Call the Kodiak LIO for address information.

Visitors From Kodiak

Those participating in a variety of meetings in Juneau and stopping by the office these past two weeks were Tish Raub, Walter Sapp, Bob Hatcher, Mike Dolph, Bob Himes, Jim Arneson, Ginny Sargent, Janet Theis, Ed Mahoney, Virginia Adams, Bruce Schactler, Oliver Holm, Mayor Allen Panamaroff of Larsen Bay and Human Rights Commissioner Christine Marasigan.

I appreciate hearing from many of you in regards to the shortened "update." I'm encouraged that so many of you miss all of the information I used to pass along. I will endeavor to only communicate the most pertinent information in this new format.