House State Affairs, 4/7/26, 3:15pm

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I'd like to call this meeting of the House State Affairs Committee to order. The time is 3:21 on Tuesday, April 7th. and we are here in Room 120. Please silence cell phones today. Members present include Representative St. Clair, Representative Holland, Representative Himschute, Representative McCabe, Vice Chair Story, and myself, Chair Carrick. Let the record reflect we have a quorum to conduct business. Our record secretary is Cecilia Miller, and our moderator from the Juneau LIO is Renzo Moises. Our committee aide for today's hearing is my staff, Stuart Relay. Thank you all for helping today. We have several items on today's agenda. We're going to start with consideration of the two governor's appointees that have been referred to this committee, and then we will, uh, do a, a second hearing on House Bill 303 from Representative St. Clair, followed by an introductory hearing of House Bill 226 from Representative Foster on— or a second hearing rather on on that bill on Alaska Housing Finance Corporation interest rates. We then have a second hearing on HB 188 from Representative Mena and a first hearing on House Bill 377, which is a House State Affairs Committee bill relating to public records requests. And At this time, we'll go ahead and start with our governor's appointees. I'm going to ask each appointee to introduce themselves to the committee in no more than, than 5 minutes. And then after each introduction, members will have an opportunity to ask questions of the appointees. And then we will take public testimony on both appointees simultaneously, I think, today. So we'll go ahead and start with Steve Meyer, who has been appointed to the State Board of Parole and is joining us over the phone. Mr. Meyer, if you could state your name for the record and please proceed with your introduction.

Thank you. My name is Steve Meyer. I've been appointed to the Board of Parole. I'm currently on the Board of Parole. I'm from Kenai. I've lived in Kenai, uh, most of— well, since 1971. I've been, uh, my career has largely been with the Department of Corrections, and I've served the board for two terms, and I'm hopeful for another term. Um, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Meyer, and thank you for serving on the parole board. Do members have questions for Mr. Meyer? Vice Chair Story?

Yes, thank you, uh, Mr. Meyer, for your willingness to serve again on the State Board of Parole. I have been hearing a concern that the parole board has been granting fewer and fewer early parole, and I'm just trying to get a feel for what is typical, has in the past for granting parole, and if you feel that's an accurate description and the reasons for why the granting of parole has gone down. Thank you.

Thank you for that question. I think that there's certainly some validity in that perception. We went from when SB 91 was passed, we had a very high grant rate, partly because the circumstances for granting changed, and then when SB Act of 1991 was repealed, that changed it so there were less grants. But then there was quite a period of time during COVID when a lot of the folks we were seeing hadn't been able to do the programming that we usually look at for discretionary parole. And so that was part of the the numbers of grants declining. I have to say in recent times our grant rate has actually gone up. I don't have a statistic to share with you, but we're in full hearings this week and the last 2 days we've granted probably 85% of the people that apply for discretionary, which is higher than what it's been like in the last couple of years. I think with discretionary, there is a bit of an ebb and flow to it. It's largely dependent on the candidate and the, you know, what we see when we when we interview them for discretionary parole. So it's very individualized, if that helps.

Follow-up?

Follow-up?

So if you could sort of give me an idea about how this works, is it typically something like how we— through the chair, sorry about that— how we would typically have everyone reviews the case on the parole board and reviews the information that they have, ask questions, and that is it. I'm assuming it's just a vote of the members on the parole board whether to grant whatever they decide is appropriate. Can you sort of paint me a picture of it?

Yes, thank you. The way it works, every month we have discretionary parole hearing scheduled. So every member of the board gets a packet for each applicant. In those packets, we, we review each of those packets, which contains information about the person's criminal history, their institutional history, the kind of programming they've done, Of course, pre-sentence reports, the offense that they're asking for parole on. So we review those packets before hearings, and then during the hearings, the board members will, after looking at these packets, then we can ask the candidates questions that we we can, after reading those packets, we can have questions to figure out a little bit more about the candidate. And those, I like to say that the map is not the territory when it comes to those because the packets are, there's a lot of information, but it's kind of like a map. You look at it, but you don't really know what the terrain is until you 'til you actually physically get to see it. And it's kind of that way with, with when we interview people. We get a chance to, to get to get a feel for the person, get to know them a little bit, which makes it a pretty important part of the process. And then when we're done with that, then the board deliberates and decides whether or not that person will be granted, or maybe they'll be continued if they're right— they're close to being someone who would be eligible or who we would grant, but maybe they have a few things they need to work on, so we might continue it. That's pretty much how it works.

Follow-up? Follow-up? Thank you, through the chair. So are the deliberations done in public? Are they done just amongst yourself, is there a vote or does it have to be agreement?

The deliberations are done in private and it is a vote. It's a majority vote.

Follow-up?

Follow-up, and then I think we could maybe come back for questions later.

Yeah, I just had two more questions. One, I was just going— I was trying to get a feel for what are the most important things that you look for, and then also I just wanted to know if you have been able to have an uptick in programming for people, so if that helps them achieve parole, if that is why you feel parole is being able to be released on parole is going up? Sorry, two questions.

[Speaker:JOHN] We have had an uptick in programming. Things have been better. There's still areas that, you know, there's only so much resources, and so not everybody's able to access the things that would be nice for them to access.

But that definitely makes a difference. You know, a big part of that is substance abuse programming. And of course, that's one of our main concerns, one of our main cause and effect, if you will, of a lot of the crime issues that we see on the board. Another one is sex offender treatment. Which has always been a little bit lacking. It's a very lengthy, complex process, the sex offender treatment. So, but that too has, we've seen an increase in that.

Does that answer your question? Thank you. I think we have two more questions. Representative Holland and then Himschute.

Thank you, Chair Carrick. Vice Chair Story's question got to mine, so we can move on. Thanks.

Great. Representative Himschute. Thank you, through the Chair. I guess I'm just wanting to understand why you want to do this work, Mr. Meyer.

I'm sorry, I could barely hear you. Could you repeat that question?

Certainly. Through the chair, I'm curious why you want to do this work. What motivates you?

I, as I say, I've spent most of my life doing this. I think that I have a pretty good feel for this. I had a lot of success when I was a parole and probation officer. There's, there's a lot of reward to it. And, you know, the best days are when you, when you are able to grant everybody parole, or whenever you're able to release everybody. And those are what makes doing the job worth it, I guess. And down, down the road, you know, having done this for a while now, seeing people that we've put out to discretionary parole or other, other things, being able to see them in the community and being a part of the community, there's a reward in that. So it's just something that I've always felt like I had a good purpose with.

Thank you. Through the chair, I'm, I hope I'm not straying too far into the actual work that you do, but I am curious if somebody is old or infirm, is there room for additional parole consideration for folks? I'm just looking for— you have a lot of experience. And how can we reduce the burden on our corrections system? And maybe that question's too far afield, but if you have, I mean, you have a lot of years of experience in this, could we be granting more parole for people who, I don't know, geriatric folks or folks who are ill?

That's a great question. We have what's called special medical parole, and there's criteria that an individual that makes those applications must meet. And we've— the ones that we've had since I've been on the board, very few have been granted. And, you know, I— it's not my position to say what what should be done or maybe, I guess, I don't, with the board, we don't, we tend to not make too many, you know, demands of the system, if you will, but I think there's certainly room for maybe some modification to those requirements that would allow more release to those folks. Because it certainly is an issue. It's a huge issue in terms of, you know, expenses and all that. I totally understand that.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Seeing no more questions for you, I really appreciate you calling in today and your service on the parole board. If you'd like to stick around for a few minutes, we are going to take public testimony and open it up one more time for questions. At this time, we're going to move to Miss Veronica Lambertson, who is an appointee for the Alaska Police Standards Council from Bird Creek. Miss Lambertson, if you could please put your— put yourself on the record and introduce yourself to us in about 5 minutes or less.

Thank you, Chair Carrick and House State Affairs members. Yes, I'm Veronica Lambertson. I was appointed by Governor Dunleavy for the Alaska Police Standards Council. Just a little history and background of me. I grew up in small towns for over 30 years now, and I own a small motel here in Bird Creek and just was looking for opportunities to help give back to the community and pretty much the state of Alaska. And this was an opportunity that came up. And, um, yeah.

Thank you, Miss Lambertson. Um, I think we have a couple questions in the room for you. I'm going to turn to Representative St. Clair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Miss Lambertson, do you have any law enforcement experience?

Um, not with law enforcement, not active duty or anything, but being a small business owner and in reflection of owning a cafe and a motel, I've had a lot of experience with law enforcement. And yes, there's a lot of, um, incidents that happen regularly. And, um, so yeah, there's been a relationship back and forth in the community. I mean, I've also attended personally at the local council, community council meetings as well.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and Miss Lambertson, are you— were you appointed to a, um, public seat, or is— I, I can't remember what the Alaska Place Standards Council—

correct.

Okay, it's a public—

yes, it is the public seat for the small town.

Oh, a rural designated seat.

That I'm not sure. I believe it was for small towns and communities in the state of Alaska.

I'll look into that more, but there are, I think, uh, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Lambertson, there are designated seats on the Police Standards Council. Is that correct, that there are law enforcement designated seats. If I'm wrong, please tell me.

Yes.

Okay.

No, correct. There is— it's mostly law enforcement. You have to be a police chief or higher rank. And then there was 4 public small town, um, seats open. So there was 4 from local communities in the state of Alaska are also on the board.

Okay, thank you. We have a question from Representative Himshue. Thank you, and thank you, Ms. Lamberson, for your willingness to serve. Can you describe for me through the chair what the Police Standards Council does?

Um, thank you for the question. Yes. I've attended a few of the board meetings so far, and it's pretty much having to do with the, um, hearing different incident reports on all branches of officers, and it involves those incidents and making your decisions on, um reciprocity of their life insuring. And then it also has to do with, you know, like it states in the title, it's the police standards and just going through about the law and the standards that they're doing their jobs by. I'll follow up among the other things. But that's mostly what it's about.

Thank you. And through the chat,

I like the geographical representation, making sure that members are serving from different situations so they can understand, you know, bring the perspective of rural and urban places to the work. Where would you be, like, I guess my question is, what perspective do you bring to this work? How will you help make this a better council?

Um, just my position, my life experience of over 40 years of just working with Leilat along— not working with them, but being involved with multiple incidences that happened throughout my life, and just through the state troopers and the local police and, um, helping out with either the victims or the incident that was going on that they were helping with. So just, I would say just Understanding the job from a, you know, public perspective. And then, you know, understanding law and order from the public perspective too. And just supporting them in this opportunity that came along.

Follow-up?

Thank you. Through the chair, is there anything And maybe this isn't a fair question because you're new to the council, but is there anything that you think needs to change?

Um, the one thing I really do appreciate is at the first community council board was how, um, the police standards in training And that's also part of the board. And, um, yes, I wouldn't mind helping out in that perspective too, of helping the training and working from the perspective of being a citizen versus a police officer.

Okay, thank you. Representative St. Clair.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the second bite of the apple. Um, Miss Lambertson, what is your opinion of Alaska State Troopers? Are they doing a good job, bad job? Which— what's your opinion on that?

Well, my opinion is that they do a very good job. I lived in a community that they, um, they were the police force that did patrol the area. And then we— just a little background for my history— was that our small town, due to budget, we lost, um, all police protection for 2 years. And that was just because of an area-wide changing of the budget, and the state troopers were no longer able to facilitate the town that I was in of Third Creek in Indiana. And we had this gap that in emergency we were helped out by the local police force, but it was, it was definitely an interesting time in my life. Of looking forward as a community. I mean, we fixed it with the local police force as a community council, and we get, um, we pay into a separate tax right now that pays for the local police force to patrol and help our community whenever we need it.

Okay, thank you.

But definitely no, I believe the police officers do a fine job as it is.

Thank you.

Um, thank you, Miss Lambertson, and thank you for your willingness to serve. Um, really appreciate you calling in today. I don't see any— oh, I see maybe one more additional question. Um, Vice Chair Story.

Thank you, Miss Lamberson. And through the chair, thank you for your willingness to serve. I guess since you've served the council, I don't even know if my questions are for you, Miss Lamberson. I'm just trying to understand the backgrounds that are required for the council because I know, and just looking up what the council does, it's responsible for the establishing minimum curriculum for basic police academies, certifies police standards and conduct, sets mandatory ethical standards, certifies and accreditation. And I'm trying to understand the council. So there's people on it who— because we've been through some other people who had served on the council and they've been police officers, been, you know, had that training. And so So I'm just trying to figure out, other than, you know, through your daily life— and we all have daily lives of dealing with police— is there something special, extra special you bring, or is it just typical to have public members who have no particular police training or experience on the council?

Um, I'm not quite sure what the question is. Follow-up, if I'm hearing you correctly.

Follow-up, and, um, I think after this question we'll go to public testimony. I think there's a couple questions here about the composition of the Police Standards Council, but I maybe ask it again and just kind of—

yes, through the chair, sorry about that. I guess when I'm, I'm not used to on the Police Standards Council not having anyone without any police background training on that, seeing what the responsibilities are, and I'm wondering what you can tell me as a public member, what were the qualifications for, other than a willingness to serve and care about your community, What are the qualifications?

Because it is a public position on the police standards, there wasn't the police training required on that. So no, I— now that I am, if I am confirmed, there is the opportunity that I could start applying and taking those police standard classes and do them. But because I'm— it's a public position, that's something that wasn't required for the position.

Through the chair, thank you for explaining that to me.

Okay, um, thank you, Miss Lambertson. Again, at this time we are going to go to public testimony and open public testimony on both appointees, Steve Meyer for the parole board and Veronica Lambertson for the Alaska Police Standards Council. And I don't see anyone in the room to testify, and I don't see anyone online to testify, so at this time we are going to close public testimony on our appointees. Is there any final discussion on either of our appointees today? Um, seeing none, in accordance with AS 39.05.080, the House State Affairs Committee held a hearing on the following appointees and recommends they be forwarded to a joint session for consideration. For the State Board of Parole, Steve Meyer and for the Alaska Police Standards Council, Veronica Lambertson. A signature on the report does not reflect an intent by any member to vote for or against the confirmation of these individuals during any future sessions. We'll take a brief recess to sign the report, and again, thank you to both of our appointees for calling in today. Appreciate it. At ease.

House State Affairs is back on the record, and at this time we are going to the next item on our agenda, which is House Bill 303 from Representative St. Clair relating to motor vehicle registration. This is our second hearing on this bill. Today we're going to finish our bill introduction from Representative St. Clair. And we do have Kathy Wallace, the Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles, online as well. But before we get into that, we did notice public testimony for today. And as we are transitioning back into our second hearing on this bill, I'd like to actually start by opening public testimony on House Bill 303. And is there anyone in the room to testify? Seeing none, we will go online. I see one individual, Jean-Charles Renaudinot, I think, from Anchorage. If you could go ahead and put yourself on the record and provide your testimony on House Bill 303.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Jean-Charles Renaudinot, and I'm a resident of Anchorage, Alaska. I'm calling as an individual and testifying today for HB 303. I was born and raised in Europe and moved to Alaska about 15 years ago for work. Since then, my wife and I raised a family here, and Alaska is now our home, and we enjoy being part of this community. I work as a mechanical engineer, and one of my hobbies is vintage vehicles. I had always wanted to own a classic vehicle just one that will be special to me. And living here, I wanted a vehicle that was fit for Alaska and also a reflection of who I am. That is how I landed on a Mercedes Unimog, which is a vehicle that has been produced in Germany since the end of World War II. It was built to be a road-legal vehicle and is widely used in Europe in construction, as a road maintenance vehicle, as a fire truck, and across the world as an expedition vehicle. In short, picture a mix between the Land Rover and the tractor. So a couple years ago, I went through the journey of importing a Unimog from the Netherlands all the way up to Alaska. I had done my research. The vehicle had all the required paperwork, met the federal requirements. I had found an experienced broker and collected feedback from other Unimog owners that had accomplished the same thing across the nation. I went ahead and spent a significant amount of time and money to bring the vehicle up here, only to be denied a clear title at the DMV because my vehicle wasn't manufactured after 1981. At the time of my application, the DMV webpage on foreign vehicle import was ambiguous, and nobody in the Alaska community with experience in foreign classic car import have ever heard of this rule despite being in place for decades, um, because apparently it has never been enforced before by the DMV. I have two friends with the exact same Unimog model as mine, but because theirs were made in 1978 and 1980, they have a road-legal title. Mine was made in 1986, so I cannot have a title. It would not have occurred to me that Alaska would be more restrictive than the federal regulations. What I do like about the Last Frontier and why we choose to live here is the common sense approach of the strong independent community. That is why I'm testifying today in favor of House Bill 303. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Mr. Renardino, for calling in today, um, and thank you for your testimony. We don't have anyone else online for public testimony, and seeing nobody else either online or in the room. I'm going to close public testimony on House Bill 303, and this brings the bill back before us. I understand that our bill sponsor is able to take some questions today. Are there questions? Oh, actually, I'll go, I'll go first to Representative Sinclair.

Thank you, Chair Carrick. And that's a prime example of what I was talking about. Unimogs are great vehicles, but 1981 is the benchmark that Alaska has. However, the feds have a rolling 25-year average. If we were at the— on the same, uh, plane as the federal, uh, as the feds, Mr. Gene Charles— I couldn't get his last name— would have had no issues registering that foreign vehicle. What I'd like to do is we should have, uh, Kathy Wallace online from the director of the DMV, and I would I would like to, if possible, have her explain the current process of registering an imported vehicle that was manufactured pre-1981.

Great suggestion. We'll go to Director Wallace. If you heard that question, could you please respond?

Hi. Yes, this is Kathy Wallace, Director of the DMV, through the chair. So for imported vehicles built before 1981, Alaska does not apply the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard certification requirements that are currently in regulation. Those rules only govern 1981 and newer vehicles. However, all imported vehicles, no matter what year, must still provide the standard documentation that proves legal ownership, lawful entry into the United States, which means they provide us with proof of ownership and the customs documents that are standard EPA DOT importation that comes with every vehicle that you import. It is only— so pre-1981, because the motor vehicle safety standards do not apply, you could import a vehicle provided you had all of the importation documents and proof of ownership. You would be able to title and register that vehicle roadworthy legal title like everybody else. Post-1981, you need to meet those FM— you know, the FMVSS certification requirements in the regulation. I think it's important to note that we also have a regulation package out there that will do the same thing as HB 303. If it passes, it will also fix this rolling 25-year rule so that everybody can then register their imported vehicles. Does that help answer your question?

Yes, ma'am. Follow-up?

That does, Director Wallace, and I will go to follow-up from Representative St. Clair, but we will after that see if there's other committee members who have questions.

Oh, I can wait then, Madam Chair. I'll wait.

Feel free, ask— go ahead and ask the follow-up.

Okay, uh, thank you. Um, to the chair, Miss Wallace, you said

there's a regulation package that was going through the process now that would do the exact same thing as this legislation. What is the status of that, uh, regulation package and the estimated time that it might be completed?

Thank you, that is an excellent question. Through the chair to Representative St. Clair, it is currently with the Department of Law and being reviewed with them. It was sent to them Towards the end of February, I am— I don't— I honestly don't have a time frame. I am hoping that it starts moving quickly, but right now we're just waiting for Department of Law to review.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Representative St. Clair. Do we have questions from other committee members for the bill sponsor or the DMV? Representative Himschoot and then Holland. Thank you. Through the chair, I just need help understanding what the Europeans do and why would that not work for us? Because your bill doesn't do what they do, but it does address the problem. So can you clarify that?

Through the chair, Representative Himschoot, all this does is says that vehicles that are 25 years old from today's date, go back 25 years, they do not have to adhere to federally— federal motor vehicle safety standards. Other countries will allow emissions, don't require seat belts, no airbags. This basically says that we can still register them even though they violate those.

Follow-up? Follow-up, yeah, thank you. Through the chair, so what they do in Europe— the reason you're not doing what they do in Europe is because that's a little bit more expansive in terms of what it allows. This is tighter and yet solves the problem of vehicles older than 25 years that were imported. And so next year would be a vehicle from whatever 25 years ago is this year, add a year to that each year going forward.

Through the chair, yes, Representative Himschoot, we're really not concerned with what they're doing over in Europe. We're looking at the vehicles going back 25 years, like your example is a great example, and basically exempting them from US federal motor vehicle safety standards.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Representative Holland.

Sure.

Thank you, Chair Carrick. And I think this is a question for the DMV director. I think it was Waller.

Wallace.

Thank you for the clarification. I just wanted to follow up on one point that you made regarding the need for people to have importation documentation to show that a vehicle is imported legally. I was curious about that because it's— I've owned a number of cars from Japan and England in the past, and I've never had to present any sort of importation documentation when I go to DMV to register the vehicle. And I hazard a guess that most people that own a Toyota or Datsun or whatever don't have importation documentation on that. And I'm just curious about your comment in terms of when is that actually required and how would somebody know what they had to keep, find, or locate if they were getting it registered. My experience is I just have I've taken my foreign car titles down and shown that I had a title or some sort of bill of sale, and I've gotten it registered. So I'm just curious about your comment, if you want to clarify maybe the scope or when that applies, that somebody would ask and expect an owner to be able to present that documentation.

Director Wallace. Sure.

Hi, Cathy Wallace. Through the chair, that's a good question. So it's only— the importation documents are only required on the initial entry into the United States. So once that vehicle has entered, been imported and titled, you don't have to provide that proof ever again. So if you bought your foreign vehicle from another state or another individual that imported it, you wouldn't have to provide that documentation. But as far as Alaska goes, we have always required importation documents on the initial title of an imported vehicle. Does that help?

It does. Forewarned. Thank you.

You're fooling yourself. That's right.

No, good discussion. Thank you for that.

The more you know. Do we have additional questions?

Representative St. Clair, through the chair, thank you. This wasn't really a question— actually, it's a question for Miss Wallace. It doesn't— it's a little bit off of this particular topic, but it, it, it is relative. Looking at the DMV website, there were two vehicles that were identified specifically that you could not get titled. in the state of Alaska.

It—

one was a Kei truck, or K-E-I-K truck, I think it's called, and the other one was a, uh, now I can't think of it. It's a sports car. Skyline. Um, why are those two restricted?

Through the chair, they're restricted for safety reasons at this point. The Kei truck or mini truck can be registered as an all-purpose vehicle. I believe in the last hearing somebody testified on, you know, their vehicle not being an all-purpose vehicle four-wheeler, and I understand the confusion on where that is. But basically those are currently set based on our regulation to only be safe to drive on roadways that are less than 45 miles per hour. And that is how it falls into an all-purpose vehicle where they can, you know, title and register those to drive them in communities that allow the APVs. However, when this bill makes its way through and passes, or our regulation passes, that will negate that, and they will be able to be titled and registered like every other vehicle.

Follow-up.

Follow-up.

Open the door.

Uh, follow-up. Um, thank you, Miss Wallace. I'm trying to figure out— I mean, this legislation is like 5 lines. Actually, it's more than that. It's, well, about, um, how would that— how would this legislation impact that other than being newer than 1981 but older than 2001? And it has nothing to do with— well, obviously they're imported. That's what that this bill pertains to. But I don't see how those two would automatically be added if, let's say, one was a 1990, which makes it inside the rolling 25 years, and it was imported by a dealership, whatever, I've got a title for it. How would it exempt the K-truck in the Skyline?

Because they currently don't meet the federal motor vehicle safety standards. So that is a the main reason why they can't be titled and registered for regular roadway use currently. Whereas once we change to this rolling 25 years, the federal motor vehicle safety standards are exempted. So even though they don't meet the standards, they'll be able to be titled and registered.

I'm going to jump in here, Director Wallace. So my understanding of this bill is that if passed, or if the regulation passes, then a vehicle that was registered, that's federally imported, that's no younger, I guess, than 2001, would be able to be titled and registered like a normal vehicle. These K-trucks aren't from— they're not from older than 2001. So, can you explain a little bit more? This legislation shouldn't affect federal exemption on those.

Through the chair, I apologize. You are correct. So, they're going to have to still meet that older than, you know, 25 years. To be able to be. And until then, the best they could be is registered as an all-purpose vehicle. Because they don't meet the safety standards.

So, just as a follow-up, I don't know what year they were released, and it would probably depend on the make and model specifically, but we're probably looking at another 20+ years before that becomes Even a potential—

on the market now, the 2000 and the earlier?

Very brief at ease.

House State Affairs is back on the record. Um, we did just go offline to clarify a little bit of the discussion there, just to make sure we were talking about the same thing here in the room. I'm going to go back to Representative St. Clair, who I think has a question that emerged from that.

Yes, Madam Chair, thank you. Miss Wallace, I'm going to give a scenario and you tell me if I can license it under, under current law or not. I've got a 1979 key truck that I bought from a guy that had it in Texas. I've got a registration, I've got a title. Can I register that in the state of Alaska as a standard automobile?

Through the chair to Representative St. Clair, if it was designed for roadway use I want to say yes. However, without actually looking at the vehicle-specific information, I don't want to give you false hope. So possibly. However, a lot of the— those were manufactured for off-highway use. And although there are some states like Texas that titled them, they weren't actually designed for on-highway use, and Alaska was a little bit more stringent. However, I would be happy to dig into that for you if you want to send me information on the vehicle.

All right, so Director Ross, I'm going to jump in here because I, I want to maybe put a statement on the record and have you tell me if it's true or false. So if If you had that 1979 key truck and it wasn't a street-legal vehicle, either at the time or now, it doesn't become a street-legal vehicle because of this legislation. True or false?

That is true. If it was never designed to be street legal, this legislation will not make it street legal.

I think that's the clarification that I needed, because that would be a whole nother, a whole nother set of challenges. Okay, thank you, Director Wallace. Appreciate you being here and answering questions. Unless we have any burning questions from committee members, we are going to set House Bill 303 aside today, and my intention is to take it up later this week, so pending that we actually have committee on Thursday. This will be a bill that we will take back up. So maybe if there's a couple other clarifying questions we could get answers to, it would be good to get them by that time. Thank you, Representative St. Clair. So at this time, we will move on to House Bill 226, which is related to Alaska Housing Finance Corporation interest rates. And this one came forward to us from Representative Foster's office. I'd like to welcome his staff, Paul LeBoul, back to our committee. And we did have a couple people who were gone last week, Mr. LeBoul, so could you just give us a brief recap on the bill before we turn to public testimony?

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Paul LeBoul, staff to Representative Foster. I don't know if it's possible to be more brief than my original presentation, but I'll try. The AHFC rural loans cap amount of $250,000 hasn't been adjusted since 2002. So we drafted up the bill to bring that cap to $400,000, which is still below the rate of inflation.

Great.

Thank you, Mr. LaBolle. Let's do just like we did with our last bill. We will come back to our committee discussion in a moment. I'm going to start with opening public testimony on House Bill 226. And I see no one in the room to testify on House Bill 226. I do see one person online, Kendra Nichols from Nome. If you'd like to put yourself on the record and provide your testimony.

Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Kendra Nichols. Thank you, Chair Carrick and members of the Committee. Our president Melanie Banky spoke last week and provided invited testimony during the first hearing of House Bill 226. I was born and raised here in Nome, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak for you today in support of the bill. And Klerik is a Regional Tribal Consortium in the Bering Strait Region. I'm like Melanie, President Melanie Banky. I too am a consumer of the First-Time Homebuyers Program. Because of these programs, I was able, I am able to live in, raise my family, and purchase the house that I live in today. I'm here in testimony, to provide testimony in support of House Bill 226. I believe Melanie also mentioned last week that, and Paul also mentioned that this cap has remained unchanged since 2002 despite the dramatic increases in construction. But we would like to see that increase. And in our region, the HUD-published total development cost is approaching $240,000 for a modest 1,200-square-foot home, 3-bedroom home in the communities of Gamble, Zilonga, and Little Diamine. This legislation does not impact the state budget. AHSC is a self-supporting public corporation that recently contributed over $2 billion to the state general fund. So in closing, we would like to see or propose that AHSC AHFP has the ability to adjust the cap to keep up with inflation. While housing costs continue to increase and the fixed rate does not reflect today's reality, this amendment gives AHFP more flexibility to— more flexibility at no cost to the state. I urge you to pass HB 226 with this amendment. And thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Ms. Nichols. I actually, I have a question, um, for you, if, if I may. Um, so the— we had talked at our previous hearing about why the $400,000 number instead of $450,000, which would be around the inflation-adjusted value, or simply removing the cap altogether. Do you have any thoughts about whether it makes more sense to just increase the cap to inflation or to remove the cap altogether? Is there any, is there any preference on those two options if they were both options before Kwerik?

I would, I would say that we like the idea of having giving the board of directors at AHFC the ability to, to make that adjustment. So not having a flat rate of $400 or $450, but allow them to adjust it.

Okay, um, thank you for your insight on that. And I, um, do we have any other questions for the testifier today? I guess I have another follow-up question for the bill sponsor then. Can you just remind me, Mr. LeBolt, why there was a good reason— and I just forget what it was last week— why we wouldn't want to just remove the cap altogether?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Paul Bowles, staff to Representative Foster. If you look at the fiscal note that came out from AHFC, while there's not a cost impact, there is an impact in the amount of revenue AHFC generates, and therefore the dividend they paid to the legislature would be reduced.

Okay, that's what it was. Thank you for the reminder. Before we go to more questions, my staff just reminded me we haven't closed public testimony. I don't see anyone else in the room or online for public testimony, so I'm going to close public testimony on House Bill 226. And we can go back to questions. Representative Himschoot.

Thank you. Through the chair, I had questions about that decrease in the dividend. So if we took the cap off, not only— so we would run the risk of the dividend not only being decreased but not being able to provide a dividend at all. Like, can you explain? I don't understand on the fiscal note. I just don't understand the mechanics of it, of why the dividend would go down, because it says by year 6, it's $900,000 that we wouldn't be getting in the dividend. And I guess my point here is I'm not I don't think the state of Alaska needs to make money off AHFC. Correct me if I'm wrong. But what we do need is more housing, and especially in rural Alaska. So I don't want to end up having to subsidize AHFC. I don't want to put their financials at risk. But I am interested in providing the maximum benefit that we can. So maybe $400,000. How did you get that number, and can you explain why? It's going to impact the dividend.

Thank you, Paula Bolstaff to Representative Foster. I'll do my best to explain that, though I would say HFC is probably better prepared. So the $400,000, I can answer that. That was simply the constituent who brought it to us. Ms. Banki had suggested that number, and that's the number we had drafted. It wasn't until I was writing the sponsor statement and trying to figure out what I was going to say that I ran it through an inflation adjuster and went, oh, well, we're below that, which makes for a good sponsor statement, but maybe not the best amount in the bill. And I don't fully understand how the dividend gets reduced. I do understand that HFC is statutorily required to make a profit. So it's a bit of a mystery to me how the Rural Loan can be a profitable loan program and yet increasing the cap would be a cost to AHFC. That I'm not sure about.

Yeah, I'm guessing it has to do with the amount of the— the amount that they loan then is money not available to invest or whatever.

Yeah, it may mean— oh, sorry. Madam Chair?

Is there anyone from AHFC?

Unfortunately, we don't have anyone from AHFC. Mr. LaBolle, did you have more to add there?

Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. So one way to look at it is since the rural loan is at a lower interest rate, that means that they're getting less interest payments and more cash is not available for those higher-interest loans, so they're not making as much money.

Thank you.

So I have another— I have Representative Holland in the queue as well. I have another question as well, Mr. LaBulle. I actually think it was very insightful in the sponsor statement to look at where this compares to inflation, and I wonder if maybe the— to not have to run the exact same bill in 10, 15 years, could we— did the sponsor consider, or would this from your perspective, would your office be open to just, instead of having a cap, do just shall be adjusted for inflation, some sort of language that captures that? And is it your understanding that AHFC might be amenable to something like that?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Paul Wohlstaff to Representative Foster. Yeah, we spoke with AHFC Yesterday, I believe, and they were comfortable with the enabling of the board to make that decision. And I actually think that that accomplishes the goal maybe even better than the inflation adjustment. So we have the board, let's trust the board to do their job.

I suspect you might see an amendment to that effect, just as a heads up. Do we have additional questions? Representative Holland and then Representative St. Clair.

Thank you. To the chair, perhaps to the sponsor, I am now trying to clarify. If we look at the bill, line 11, it says the interest rate on that portion of the loan that exceeds $400,000 was $250,000 is the same as the interest rate determined under AS whatever. So the language here seems to suggest that this is a cap on the amount of the loan. If I look at the fiscal note, page 2 of 2, it says the interest rate reduction is currently capped at 250, and then it goes on to say this bill would increase the subsidy by $150,000 per loan to $400,000. And it's a confusing statement that there's some sort of subsidy of the amount that is shown in the bill as the amount of the— what I assume is the principal of the loan. And so I'm trying to make sense of the language in the bill versus the fiscal note. I'm not sure we need to completely help me understand why it says it's a subsidy in that amount. Perhaps that's just grammatical phrasing that was used. I do think, though, that might be interesting to ask HFC to, or through the bill sponsor's office, to do a little bit of analysis on, you know, what is the fiscal impact of this bill at different amounts of the loan cap. Because I think it ultimately is a policy opportunity for the legislature to say, in terms of how much money AHFC has, how much of it should be used for housing, how much of it should be available to become a dividend back to the legislature to spend on whatever it wants to spend on. And perhaps if we saw different levels of the cap, we might be able to somehow make a decision on how big do we want that number to be, or perhaps some sort of authority to the board that maybe backstops how much we want left here. But rather than just throwing a dart at one number or another number, I'm trying to figure out how to get to a broader policy. And we're certainly in many different venues here in this legislature have been talking about how to support and incentivize more housing construction. This seems like a way to do it, and it seems like one that we ought to examine just how far could this tool be used to support that. But like I said, fiscal note language and the bill language to me has got me a little tangled up, but I don't necessarily need to fix that today. I've been tangled all day, so. But it would be interesting to have a little more analysis of different tiers of loan cap to decide how much it's going to cost us.

Yeah, so Representative Holland, I think just based on the committee session today. I, I'm probably going to have a little bit of an offline conversation with scheduling with our committee. We are anticipating a very full week, so I'm trying to navigate that as best we can. Um, and I really think we have some general agreement and consensus on the value of this legislation. Um, I'd like to hear from AHFC AHFC before we take action on this bill. But what I'm going to do today is set an amendment deadline for tomorrow at 5 PM, Wednesday, April 8th at 5 PM. My intention will be to bring this bill back up on Thursday and take up amendments, but I would like to hear from AHFC and we will probably go through our amendment process and if there's need to have continued discussion on the bill at that point, then we may or may not take action on Thursday. So just for committee members' awareness, I am going to set that amendment deadline for 5 PM tomorrow, and please get in touch with our office if you have any difficulty meeting that deadline with Ledge Legal. Thank you, Mr. LaBolle. I think we have one more question. Representative Kim-Schoup.

Thank you, through the chair. So I'm Looking at Title 18 and trying to understand, it says small community housing. Where is small community defined? Like, what is our cutoff there? I'm not finding it here, so I was hoping maybe you would

know how it's defined.

Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I do not know that, but I can get back to the committee with that answer.

Thank you. Great. Um, yeah, I'm just sensing that there's just some more interest in AHFC and their programs, how this all ties in. I'm also sensing interest in pushing the legislation forward, so I think To try to juxtapose those two things, I'd like to request HFC be present on Thursday so we can ask some more of these questions, but it will be my intention to try to get to a place where we could take action on the bill on Thursday. Um, at this time I'll set House Bill 226 aside, and again, thank you, Mr. LaBolle, and thank you to our invited testifier as well for joining us.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee.

Thank you. So, um, I'm gonna take a brief at ease. At ease. House State Affairs is back on the record. We are— we had intended to get to House Bill 188 today on establishing a Welcoming Alaska Office. We are going to be setting that bill aside until our next hearing or a future hearing, and we have before us House Bill 377, which is the last item on the agenda today. Um, this is our first hearing on this bill. The bill is authored by the House State Affairs Committee, and it relates to our public records statute. I'd like to ask my staff to just very briefly touch on the basics of this bill, and then we have two invited testifiers today. It will be my intention after invited testimony to set the bill aside. And then to work with the committee members and produce a committee substitute for our next hearing. So I'll turn to Mr. Relay before we go to invited testimony.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Stuart Relay, staff for Representative Carrick. Madam Chair, House Bill 377 is a two-part bill updating our public records statutes. Specifically, it— or firstly, it modernizes the definition of public records in the State Records Management Act and the Alaska Public Records Act by adding audio and video recordings as well as emails to those definitions. It also adds an exemption to the so-called 5-hour rule in the Alaska Public Records Act for municipalities and the Department of Public Safety. Just to briefly touch on the 5-hour rule, it's established in AS 4025.110(c) And it specifies that if someone requests a public record that requires more than 5 hours to produce, then the requester must pay a fee. In practice, that means if a public records request takes less than 5 hours, there are no fees. These two exemptions are additive to existing exemptions from the 5-hour rule for various other state agencies. And, sorry, and this bill just allows municipalities to recoup costs, as well as the Department of Public Safety to recoup costs on public records production. That, Madam Chair, is the very brief opening statement for House Bill 377.

Okay. Great, thank you, Mr. Relay. And we have two invited testifiers today who we will also welcome to join us for any future hearings on this bill. We'll start with Tom Chard, our city attorney in Fairbanks, if you'd like to put yourself on the record and provide your testimony in 5 minutes or less.

Thank you, Chair Carrick. This is Tom Chard. I'm the city attorney up at the city of Fairbanks. I appreciate the time that the committee is spending today. I've been following the bill and caught some of the discussion earlier from Community Regional Affairs as well. As you know, the City of Fairbanks brought this issue forward, but it affects municipalities across the state, especially those who have police powers. We're facing an increasing number of audio and video record requests that involve more and more staff time. Current law, as Mr. Eley mentioned, that AS 4025-110 allows municipalities to recover costs on only two items. Those are copying costs and actual personnel costs. It prohibits municipalities from charging personnel costs for records, record requests that take less than 5 person-hours per month to complete. The bill in front of you would allow municipalities to charge for record requests that take less than 5 hours to complete. The law would still require that those costs be reasonable. The Fairbanks City Council regularly establishes and updates fees given demand and available resources. This is done in publicly noticed public meetings, and as a, a home rule municipality that regularly

engages in this sort of thing. The 5-hour rule in current law is an odd restriction that's administratively onerous. It's being abused and it amounts to an unfunded mandate. HB 377 is a common-sense approach that helps municipalities. It wouldn't cost the state anything. I'm available for questions and happy to have this discussion with committee members.

Thanks.

Great, thank you, Mr. Chard, and We are running short on time today, so we will have to save questions for a future hearing. We are going to go to our second invited testifier, who is Chief Dupie in the City of Fairbanks with the City of Fairbanks Police Department.

Thank you, Chair Carrick. Um, my name is Ron Dupie. I'm the Chief of Police for the City of Fairbanks. I've been the chief for the last 5 years. I also sit on, uh, the ACOP boards, the Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police. And not to reiterate everything that the city attorney said, but basically this is a, it's a huge issue, especially with social media, the way it's erupted. We're getting multiple requests for body camera video and car camera video on a daily basis. We have one company from that produces videos for YouTube. There are up to 50 requests this month for different body camera videos, and each of those requests, there's about 7 different people that are requesting these. So under the current rules, each one of those individual people is allotted 5 hours per month for those requests. Super simple to just change your name. There's no identification process that we go through other than email verification. Name record when a request is made. So it's very difficult for us to track who exactly the individual making that request is and if they've made multiple requests. It's become very taxing on one of our evidence custodians. He does nothing full-time now but redact video and answer records requests. And this is not anomaly amongst municipalities. I was speaking with the Deputy Chief in Valdez last week, and he said that they are looking at hiring an additional administrative staff to do nothing but records requests because they're inundated. And the Deputy Chief was actually having to do all the redaction. So multiple municipalities throughout the state are having similar issues and the same problem. We're not asking to charge anything above the cost that it takes us to produce the videos for the individuals. So, you know, our evidence custodian, his wages and benefits per hour, or breakdown, that's what we're, this bill is looking at. Providing. I think that's, that's about everything.

Thank you, Chief Dupuy. Really appreciate you calling in. I appreciate both of you for taking the time to call in and wait today to testify. And like with Mr. Chard, we are going to save questions on this legislation to our next hearing on the bill, which will be this Thursday. Um, so thank you both again for calling in. We are going to set House Bill 377 aside at this time, and with no more bills on today's agenda, our business for today is concluded. Our next hearing will be on Thursday, April 9th at 3:15 PM, pending of course other items on our agenda here in the House. Um, our agenda for that meeting will be as follows. We'll again take up House Bill 303 from Representative St. Clair on motor vehicle registration. Uh, we will— we had a previously noticed hearing for House Bill 235 from Representative Hall on PFAS. We're going to move that to Saturday. Um, we will also have House Bill 188 from Representative Mena on establishing a Welcoming Alaska office on Thursday and take up again Under bills previously heard, House Bill 377 that we've just heard related to public records, as well as House Bill 226 from Representative Foster relating to AHFC. And, um, at this time we are concluded and we are adjourned at 4:46 PM.