Assembly Diary

Monday night’s (8/24) Assembly meeting will have two hearings of note—whether to put an increase in the tobacco tax on the October ballot and whether to put the Gastineau School bond issue on the ballot. The school one will pass unanimously. The smoking one will pass, but there may be some disagreement. Mr. Dybdahl is opposed on principle. Mr. Sanford expressed reluctance to impose any kind of new tax, but would support it if the money only went to fund substance abuse programs. We had to decide on what language we will put on the ballot for the voters explaining the issue. The proposed language is:
“It is the intent of the Assembly to continue to spend the proceeds of this tax on health and social service needs related to substance abuse and tobacco use, prevention and cessation. Some of the increased revenue may replace existing sales or property taxes currently used for those purposes.”

Now the problem is that Alaska’s Constitution states we cannot have “dedicated funds.” That means we cannot say the tobacco tax (or any other tax) will DEFINITELY go to this or that project, program or department. So we walk a legal tightrope by saying “It is the intent of the Assembly to spend it this way.” In fact the Assembly is not bound by any “intent” language (or it would violate the state Constitution). But several members are concerned that we say we intend this tax to refund the city for the cost of substance abuse programs and the increased costs of health care attributed to tobacco use. They will support such a logic – but not anything phrased as a general tax increase.

Another issue that has been bubbling up behind the scenes this week is the impact of swine flu on the homeless population. While the flu itself is not a risk to most people – and the recommendation is to just stay in bed for a few days and drink fluids – “staying in bed” is a problem for the homeless. The shelters (Glory Hole and St. Vincent) do not have the facilities and resources to quarantine sick people or to provide medical attention. They generally do not accept those with infectious diseases and they do not allow people to stay in bed all day. Couple this with the fact that the homeless tend to be a high risk population for illness, and you run the risk of having someone, quite literally, die in the streets (so far, some 477 persons have died of Swine Flu in the US). So I made a pitch to the Manager and she has been meeting with our health care providers, the Homeless Coalition and the non-profit community to come up with a proposal of what we should do – how much it will cost and who will pay what.

Finally, the filing period to run for the Assembly ended last Monday. I was surprised that there was only one challenger for the Mayor’s seat. I mentioned previously that there was speculation that a current Assembly member might run – but that did not happen.