Pursed strings — Prospective recipients of stimulus say short-term funds do good in long term

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Immediately after Gov. Sarah Palin announced March 18 that she wouldn’t request nearly a third of the federal stimulus money slated for Alaska — about $288 million of $931 million — because there were strings attached, agencies and organizations that stood to receive funding started pulling strings of their own.

Palin later said the money was still on the table, and that she wanted the Legislature to review proposed stimulus spending to avoid leaving the state with extra costs from programs or jobs created with the two-year money. Lobbying began nearly as soon as Palin’s announcement was made to convince legislators that the money would be put to good use without creating bills that would come due when the federal dollars ran out.

On the Kenai Peninsula, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and Kenai Peninsula Food Bank say a short-term infusion of funding can be spent in a way that provides long-term benefits without recurring costs.

“We’re mostly interested in putting roots into the ground to help us be a stronger district, and not add things,” said Assistant Superintendent Steve Atwater, who will become superintendent at the end of June.

The district has a list of proposed uses for the $5 million it stands to receive in stimulus money. Only one proposal would create a new position — a stimulus funds coordinator who would track implementation of the funding and document compliance with federal regulations on the how the money is spent. But even that job would be advertised and hired as a two-year position that would end when the money does, said Melody Douglas, chief financial officer for the district.

The rest of it would be used for training, upgrading technology and in other ways meant to increase student achievement (see sidebar for list of proposed programs). Essentially, the district would be paying to make teachers better, not paying for new teachers.

“These are things we always talk about and want to do, especially educational assistive technology for preschoolers,” Atwater said.

“It’s not really a Christmas list, it was on our priority list anyway,” he said.
“We’ve been talking about this for a long time, what we really hope is for the infusion to be able to accelerate the plans,” Douglas said.

In the realm of professional development, for example, a one-time infusion of cash can provide lasting dividends because the district can use it to train its own people, who can then train colleagues in the future.

“We can grow our capacity so the trainers have the recourses within the district, so we don’t have to spend ten grand to get trainers in here,” Atwater said.

Douglas said that, in talking to legislators, the concern seems to be that money could be spent frivolously, without much consideration or comprehensive planning. The district supplied the peninsula’s legislative delegation with a specific list of what the money could go toward.

“They were extremely pleased with having received it,” Douglas said. “It was like, ‘OK, this is what we were waiting for.’”

The majority of the education portion of the stimulus money would be funneled through the federal entitlement programs that serve special-needs and low-income students, and there are already a host of rules and guidelines for how that money is used.

“The Department of Education requires us to submit plans to the feds for how we’re going to spend the money,” Atwater said. “… This is not just free cash we can play with as we see fit. We can’t just go buy hot tubs. We have limits on where the money can go.

“This will help our special-needs kids. Anything we can do to help these kids is great,” he said.

Part of the governor’s stated rationale for not requesting all the federal funding is it could balloon budgets and create an expectation that newly created services or programs would continue after the money is gone.

Douglas said that wouldn’t happen at KPBSD, in part because the stimulus money would be a special revenue fund and have nothing to do with the district’s general fund budget. It won’t save the district any money by footing any existing bills, and it won’t create growth within the existing budget.

“These funds can’t be used to supplant general fund money. It cannot be used for anything we already pay for in the general fund,” she said.

But that’s not to say new practices that could come out of the stimulus money would necessarily cease to exist. The district’s budget philosophy every year is to look at where the district is at and where it wants to be, and prioritize spending to do the most good in advancing the district toward its goals, Douglas said.
Projects receiving stimulus funding would be looked at in that same vein, and if they prove to be vital in impacting student achievement, the district may find a way to continue funding them within its own budget.

“There could be some things we could do differently or better with this infusion. Using the budget model we could be in a much better place after this,” Douglas said.

At the food bank, Director Linda Swarner said money would be used to boost the existing emergency food program.

“We would not institute new programs, we would use it for existing programs, just to enhance what we have,” she said. “All of the funds that we get here at the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank stays on the peninsula and we help hungry residents from Homer to Moose Pass,” she said.

Money would be used to buy food for the food bank’s member agencies across the peninsula, including senior centers and other meal programs. It could also go to supplement the food boxes given out to residents at the food bank itself.

“It we got a significant amount it would go toward the clients that come in on a monthly basis. First and foremost would go to the 64 member agencies that have feeding programs. They’re all seeing an influx, and we’re seeing an influx in individuals and households coming to inquire about services,” Swarner said.
If the funding amounted to a large sum, it could be used to accomplish projects with one-time costs that the food bank couldn’t otherwise afford, like expanding or upgrading the food warehouse.

Otherwise, stimulus money will be used to do what the food bank always does — feed people.

“I strongly support the Legislature to consider accepting the stimulus money for the food programs,” Swarner said.

Atwater has a similar message for education funding. He and Douglas say the message appears to be well-received.

“It had a life of its own. It was such a shocking thing that the governor would say no to money for education,” Atwater said. “It didn’t take a whole lot of effort to get people upset. We didn’t have to lobby really hard.”

On Friday, the House approved a resolution accepting any money that Gov. Palin does not request from the state’s estimated $930 million share of the federal stimulus package. As of Monday, a similar measure was waiting to be voted on in the Senate, and the House Finance Committee had begun debate on a spending bill that would direct parts of the funding to specific agencies.

Smoldering concerns — Smoking ban sparks clean air vs. city control conflagration

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Lines are being drawn in the battle over expanding smoking bans in Kenai and Soldotna to cover all places of employment and public entrances to them.

Except those lines are different in this smoking battle.

Smokers who support increasing restrictions, nonsmokers and owners of nonsmoking business establishments who oppose a more stringent ban — it’s not smokers vs. nonsmokers anymore. The crux of the argument isn’t even over whether smoking is harmful.

It’s become more a question of limits — how far should government go in protecting health and quality-of-life issues for some by restricting the rights of others. It’s either a question of when is it going to start? Or, for others — where is it going to end?

It’ll snuff out itself

Cyndi Day has been the manager of the Maverick Saloon in Soldotna for about 20 years, she said. She smokes at the bar and is a firm believer that people shouldn’t even start — especially her two teenage sons, which is why she doesn’t smoke at home or around them.

“It’s a nasty habit. I’m addicted, and I would rather people didn’t smoke,” she said. “I’ve been smoking since I was a teenager, despite numerous attempts to quit. I fully support teens against smoking. I think if they can convince their friends not to start, that would be great.”

But she is just as firmly opposed to expanding the smoking ban to include businesses like bars.

“We all realize smoking is bad for us and we don’t want people smoking, but the way you go about it is really important. You don’t make a law to make people stop. That’s not how you go about it. Prohibition didn’t make people stop drinking,” Day said.
This isn’t an area where government needs to be involved, she said — it’s a situation that will work itself out.

“It should be up to business owners. If the customer base won’t tolerate smoking, then businesses need to be nonsmoking,” she said.

Day posted a message on the Maverick’s reader board out front along the Sterling Highway that the bar is a smoking establishment. Anyone who doesn’t want to be in a smoky environment can go somewhere else, she said. And if her customer base dwindles due to people wanting to avoid smoke, she’ll change the bar’s rule on her own. But for now, the majority of her customers want to smoke.

“It’s not what the customer base is looking for right now,” she said. “I have a very firm customer base and most smoke, or don’t mind smoking.”

If the rule were to change, that doesn’t mean people will, she said.

“They’ll just start frequenting places out of town. It doesn’t change people’s habits — they just find places they’re comfortable,” she said. “I think it’s going to be very bad for my business, and a lot of my customers will go out of town. They won’t be here. I think it will be good for the J-Bar-B and the Duck and Parker’s.”

Katie Hager, who’s been going to the Maverick since 1995, despite the J-Bar-B being closer to her home, said she’d probably think about finding a different bar if she couldn’t smoke at the Maverick anymore. She said she already doesn’t spend time in Anchorage bars when she’s in the city, because of Anchorage’s no-smoking ordinance.

“It’s not illegal but they’re making it like it’s something illegal,” she said.

Part of the reasoning behind the ordinances is to protect employees from second-hand smoke. But Day said they can protect themselves by choosing where they work.

“They can work in a nonsmoking establishment, that’s a choice that they make. Nobody works here because they have to, they work here because they want to,” she said.

There are risks inherent in some jobs, and people accept them if they choose to work in those fields, she said. Policemen don’t get to say they’ll go on patrol only if no one shoots at them, and electrical linemen don’t get to declare they’re afraid of heights and have poles brought down to ground level. It’s the same with bartenders and servers — they know bars are smoky, and if they don’t want to be around that, they don’t have to work at a smoking establishment, Day said.

“If people are against smoking, this isn’t the bar to come to,” Hager said.

Health implications aside, a smoking ban isn’t something government should be involved in, Day said. Capitalism works through free market enterprise, and government interference mucks up the system, she said. The city councils should also consider that a loss of business at bars and other current smoking establishments means a loss of sales tax revenue, people being laid off and all the spiraling problems that causes — like people not being able to pay their mortgages and an increase in the need for social services, Day said.

“It’s important for everyone to think about once you start letting government infringe on you rights and the free market economy, where do you stop? It isn’t that many steps until socialism,” Day said.

Legislating manners

Tiffany Grimm, 26, of Kenai, used to smoke, but quit when she had her two kids.

“I’ve been a smoker, I’m not against smokers. I’m the daughter of a smoker and I’ve known plenty of smokers. It’s not like I’m this person that has no idea about smokers and their behavior and the way they think and things like that,” she said.

She may not be against smokers, but she is against them doing it around her kids. She’d like to see a smoking ban expand even further than the ones being proposed for businesses and the entrances to businesses and public buildings, to cover outdoor public spaces like parks, playgrounds, parades and other community events.

“A person sitting right in front of the playground smoking, so everybody’s children in the park are having to deal with it, and there’s nothing we can do about it except ask them, and they can be rude. There’s nothing to stop them from smoking right next to the swing set,” Grimm said.

She doesn’t take her kids into smoking establishments, but in public places, like parks or in front of stores, she thinks smokers should avoid her, not the other way around. When she or her husband have asked people not to smoke next to their kids, they get rude responses, she said.

“We’ve encountered almost assaulting behavior when we’ve asked people if they could step away from where our children were,” she said. “We were getting people that would just start yelling at you and lighting up right next to the stroller or lighting up right at the entrance to the store when I’m standing there with a newborn and being rude when I’ve asked them to kind of move away, and blowing smoke right at us. It’s appalling.”

Even outside, second-hand smoke doesn’t dissipate enough when it’s right next to you, she said. Since not all smokers have the courtesy to consider others when they light up, Grimm thinks it is government’s place to enforce the matter, she said.

“There are all kinds of laws in place. People are allowed to operate ATVs but there are guidelines to regulate how they can do that, so it doesn’t interrupt the lifestyle of people in general,” Grimm said. “I personally don’t mind if people drive four-wheelers up and down my road, but other people do. It doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to do that, you just have to do that in a way that’s right for everybody as a whole. You can’t get drunk and belligerent in public, either. They can’t drink on a park bench and leave their bottles there. Why can they smoke and leave their butts there?”

For the past few months Grimm has been advocating for increasing Kenai’s smoking ban. She’s talked to teachers and parents at school, neighbors, community members and teenagers — a couple hundred people in all, she estimates. She’s also written letters on the issue and consulted with the Peninsula Smokefree Alliance.

“I know other smokers who are really in support of this, too,” she said. “… It’s amazing how 95 percent of the teenagers I’ve talked to are just totally in support of this. They’re really surprised. I think that our city really does need to listen to those young voices.”

Employing clean air

Kenai Councilman Hal Smalley said he’ll introduce an ordinance that would ban smoking in all places of employment — bars, pull-tab parlors, bingo halls, etc. — and institute a buffer zone around building entrances, at the council’s March 4 meeting. It will be up for a public hearing at the March 18 meeting. Depending on the response, it may have another public hearing April 1, or the council could act on it March 18.

He said he’s bringing the ordinance forward partly based on requests of constituents.

“Over the years a number of people talked to me about smoking going on and just patrons of businesses and employees visited with me, and in fact some owners of establishments talked to me about it. It’s not really about smoking, it’s a right to a clean, safe working environment. It’s a right to clean air. The ordinance doesn’t say you can’t smoke, it just says you need to take it outside away from people,” Smalley said.

In Soldotna, Councilman Shane Horan plans to introduce an identical ordinance at the Feb. 25 meeting, with a public hearing March 11.

“I thought, ‘Great. What an opportunity to act in concert with the city of Kenai, at least timewise, and maybe potentially adopting expanding the ordinance concurrently, and in that way you kind of avoid pitting one community against another,” Horan said.

The issue is one that’s within the council’s purview, Horan said, especially since the Kenai and Soldotna councils already passed ordinances in recent years banning smoking in restaurants. But he said he has been surprised by the uproar the ordinance has caused. He’d rank it up there in controversy with the debate over a cemetery site and an ordinance restricting sign heights a few years ago.

“I didn’t realize it would spark this much emotional fervor, but I think it’s a worthy discussion with our town and our community, because I love Soldotna for the health and well-being of all our community members and the quality of life we have here, and I just see it as an opportunity to put it on the table to see if we’re ready for such a ban,” Horan said.

Smalley said mounting evidence of the health impacts of second-hand smoke also prompted him to act, especially considering second-hand smoke isn’t filtered, and ventilation systems just remove the smell from the air, not the carcinogen components of the smoke, he said. Patrons can choose to avoid smoking establishments, as he and his wife do, but employees can’t, he said.

“When it gets into your clothes, we hang our coats out on the deck or garage because it gets so bad. I could make the choice not to go there, that’s a choice. But employees don’t have that choice. The job market the way it is, they’re just glad to have a job,” he said.

Smalley said he has heard from about an equal number of people who oppose the ban as well as those who support it. Business owners are concerned it’ll hurt business, he said, but he doesn’t think it will drive patrons out of town to establishments that still allow smoking. It’ll just send them outside for a cigarette, he said.

“I imagine there will be some that will migrate there, but as a nonsmoker I find it hard to believe that someone would go to a bar (just) because they wanted to smoke,” he said.

“There’s no doubt this is going to be a hardship on some folks initially, and I think if it passes there needs to be some patience and there may be some adjusting — not adjustment in the ordinance, but adjustments made in businesses — that hopefully won’t be to the detriment of businesses,” Smalley said.

Following a trend

Smalley pointed to Juneau and Anchorage, both of which have similar smoking bans, and said he’s talked to business owners there who said business wasn’t harmed. Some, like Moose and veterans clubs, even praised the ban because it brought families back to the establishments, he said.

At Humpy’s in downtown Anchorage, manager Shawn Standley said he didn’t see any negative effects of the ban when it went into effect last year. Humpy’s actually switched to nonsmoking a month before the ban was instituted, since the bar and restaurant was remodeling and painting anyway.

“I would say it improved things. We got customer compliments that it was a more enjoyable dining environment,” Standley said. “It was the fist time they commented that they could smell the food.”

He said he thinks the clientele has been the same, and other than some griping from smokers having to take it outside, the ban wasn’t harmful.

“People were upset because they think that should be a bar to bar issue. They don’t think the state or city should be able to make that decision, but people just kind of deal with it. We got some initial grumbling, but a lot just accept it,” he said.

It would be a slightly different situation on the central peninsula if the bans pass, however. In Kenai and Soldotna, patrons who want to smoke wouldn’t have to go far to find an establishment outside of city limits that would still allow smoking. In Anchorage, a smoker would have to go out toward the Matanuska-Susitna area to escape the municipality’s limits.

Billie Milstead, manager at Polar Bar in downtown Anchorage, said the bar has lost customers due to the smoking ban. She doesn’t think they’re driving to Wasilla or somewhere that allows smoking, but she said patrons are choosing bars that offer covered, heating areas for smoking over ones that don’t.

“In the summer it’s not that big a deal, but in the wintertime it’s cold. We definitely see a drop in business,” she said.

Her advice for smoking establishments in Kenai and Soldotna: “Just fight it. Of course they’re (businesses) not going to be in favor of it. I know what’s going to happen to their business.”

Price is right? Nikiski activist shows initiative against borough taxes, spending

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

For not being part of Kenai Peninsula Borough government, James Price has had a considerable impact on it.

He’s been directly involved in changing borough policy, lowering taxes, limiting assembly authority, and has helped bring two lawsuits against the municipality.

All this from a guy who’s only elected position is a term on the North Peninsula Recreation Service Area, who’s never worked in government, and who wasn’t even particularly interested in politics before moving to Nikiski.

“Before I came to the state of Alaska, I never voted. Now I register more people to vote than most people know,” he said.

Price moved north in 1988 from Portland, although he’s originally an oilfield worker from Texas. He’s a journeyman pipe fitter and has his process instrumentation certification from Kenai Peninsula College. He’s worked on Cook Inlet oil platforms and the North Slope, does construction work periodically and has commercial fished sockeye salmon for years, although he’s gravitating away from that, he said. Currently he’s working cutting vinyl through his own business, but is looking for another endeavor.

“In the next month or so — I keep threatening to do it, and I need to — I need to get a job,” he said.

That’s not to say Price doesn’t have plenty to keep him busy. He estimates spending more than 1,000 hours a year on his political activities in the borough, which include his involvement with the Alliance of Concerned Taxpayers to rein in borough taxes and spending, and the Alaskans for Grocery Tax Relief Now group, which was behind the Oct. 7 ballot initiative to seasonally eradicate sales taxes on groceries in the borough. He also helped found the now-defunct Alaska Voters Organization, a watchdog group that reviewed legislative bills and kept tabs on the Legislature.

To some, Price and his associates are activist heroes, fighting for residents against a government that overtaxes, overspends and overlooks the wishes of its citizens. To others, their attempts to change policies, limit assembly authority and file lawsuits when their efforts don’t produce the desired results, makes them a nuisance, at best, or domestic terrorists — as former borough Mayor John Williams once called them — at worst.

To Price, he’s doing what he believes is right, even if many government and elected officials don’t agree with him.

“It comes out of my total frustration in dealing with government,” Price said of his political involvement. “Basically, I don’t accept the fact that government has to be the way that the borough says that it is. I believe that government is by and for the people.”

Price’s tool of choice is the initiative process, whereby citizens can effect direct changes in government by putting measures before voters — in effect sidestepping the usual route of public policymaking through elected and governmental officials.

“I couldn’t even dream of living in a state that doesn’t have initiative power, because without it I think that people are second-class citizens,” Price said. “It keeps government honest. It keeps government in line with what the will of the people is. It forces the state to be more responsive to the people.”

Price’s first exposure to politics came in 1998, when he served as campaign chairman for his friend Aaron Goforth’s bid for a state House seat.

“And that actually made me interested in trying to make some changes, to make a difference in the community,” he said.

Price has run unsuccessfully for seats in the state Legislature and borough assembly. From 2003-2006 he served on the North Peninsula Recreation Service Area board. But he’s had far more impact on how the borough does business as an outsider, wielding the power of the initiative.

He’s sponsored, co-sponsored and supported initiatives that have had wide-ranging impacts on the borough. The first was in 2001, when he and fellow members of Peninsula Citizens Against Private Prisons blocked a proposal to build an 800- to 1,000-bed, medium-security, private prison in the borough.

Price himself, or one of the groups he’s involved with, has proposed an initiative most years since then. ACT has targeted taxing, spending and borough policy, with measures to lower and cap the borough sales tax rate, cap borough spending at $1 million, and institute term limits on the borough assembly and school board.

In Nikiski, Price fought plans by the North Peninsula Recreation Service Area to pay to turn the vacated Nikiski Elementary School building into a community center.

And he’s tried to do away with sales taxes on nonprepared food twice, once in 2002 with an initiative to exempt groceries from sales taxes year-round, and in the October election with an initiative to exempt them seasonally so taxes would still be gathered in the summer.

Some measures did not garner enough voter support, like the first grocery tax initiative and a measure to restrict NSPRA to nothing but recreation activities. Others were successful. NSPRA’s spending was capped at $500,000 without a vote of service area members, and the borough’s spending cap was lowered from $1.5 million to $1 million with the requirement that 60 percent of voters must approve capital spending projects over that amount.

“We constantly assess our tactics, and what’s been successful and what’s failed. I think we’re creating better initiatives and cleaner, better ideas based on not just the Kenai Peninsula Borough, but other boroughs in the state of Alaska, and building on success we’ve had with many of our initiatives in the past,” Price said.

Then there are the initiatives that pass, yet don’t work out the way Price and fellow activists intend them to. Take term limits, for example. In 2007, voters approved instituting term limits on elected borough and school board officials. But in the same election, voters also re-elected assembly and school board members who had already served multiple terms. The re-elected members were reseated, and ACT filed suit to challenge the decision. A judge in August ruled that the school board was exempt from the term limits initiative, and the re-elected assembly members could keep their seats.

In 2006, Price and ACT followed their successful initiative to reduce and cap the borough sales tax rate in 2005 with an initiative that would rescind the entire revenue enhancement measure that the sales tax increase was part of. This time citizens voted no, which prompted the borough to reinstitute the sales tax increase, on the justification that the vote signaled citizens’ support of the entire piece of legislation, including the tax rate increase. ACT again filed suit.

Price’s current battle is over the grocery tax. The seasonal sales tax exemption garnered voter approval in October, but the borough assembly decided to grant cities the option of opting out of the exemption. As a result, Kenai and Soldotna will still collect sales taxes on groceries in the winter, and Homer is considering doing the same.

“It just gets awful. It’s almost like stepping in a tar pit and you start wiggling around and you’re just covered,” Price said. “When the borough accepts initiatives from the people and turns around and refuses to accept it once it’s voted on, that is just objectionable to the whole process.”

Price said the fight isn’t over. The group is hesitant to file another lawsuit without yet having the money to pay for it, but that is an option. More likely the group will address the issue with specific cities, and possibly do another initiative.

“I want for the people to get the benefit from the initiative that they passed, and want to see grocery taxes suspended in the borough,” Price said.

A long-term goal for Price is ACT’s ultimate aim — enacting a borough tax and spending cap. The measure would set a baseline borough budget, and restrict the amount of taxes it could gather and the amount it could spend based on population increases and inflation, as well as how much other revenue was coming in.

In the meantime, Price is heartened by borough Mayor Dave Carey’s willingness to meet and talk with ACT members.

“I really think the direction Mayor Carey is going could be real restorative to the balance in the borough. I think that’s very commendable,” Price said.

But that doesn’t mean he’s going to sit back and leave government to its own devices.

“The initiative process only works when representatives and officials are not doing what people want them to do. That’s why we have so much success, is because our assembly members still to this day are not doing what the people want them to do,” Price said. “If citizens were represented appropriately at the assembly level, there would not be a reason and there would be no initiatives to possibly do because what needed to be done would be done.”