House State Affairs, 4/21/26, 3:15pm

I'd like to call this meeting of the House State Affairs Committee to order. My script says joint hearing. House State Affairs Committee to order. The time is 3:25 on Tuesday, April 21st, and we're here in Room 120. Please silence cell phones today.

Members present include Representative St. Clair, Representative McCabe, Representative Vance, Representative Holland, Representative Himschoot, 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. Today we have 4 items on the agenda.

We have House Bill 226 back before us on AHFC reduced interest rates from Representative Foster's office, followed by a—. I think another reintroduction is probably the right way to phrase it— of the House State Affairs bill on public records. After that, we have House Bill 188 from Representative Mina on a welcoming Alaska office. And, uh, to conclude today, we will have an introductory hearing of House Bill 218 on the Tanana Valley Forest from the governor's office. Um, so, uh, we will go ahead and get started with House Bill 226 from Representative Foster.

This is our third hearing on the bill. At our previous hearing, we set an amendment deadline for Wednesday, April 8th at 5 PM. And received one amendment. And I'll just note that in addition to being joined— well, I guess we don't have the bill sponsor staff. Our committee aide is working on tracking them down.

We are joined by Alaska Housing Finance Corporation staff, Aiki Giolapsos from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, Deputy Executive Director, and Mike Strand, who's the CFO of AHFC. AHFC.

I guess to start us off, do we have any questions before we move to amendments from committee members? Representative St. Clair. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the individuals from AHFC, if they could come up and tell us if they support this legislation or if they don't. Yes, I think both are—.

Oh, they're online. Yeah, both are calling in online, and I guess we'll just go straight to Ike, I just know him as Ike, so it's hard for me to say his last name, Giolopso. Oh, I know Ike. If you could put yourself on the record and describe AHFC's position on this legislation.

Good afternoon, Chair Carrick and members of the State Affairs Committee. Is the audio coming through to your satisfaction? It's a little muffled, but we can hear you. Go ahead and proceed. Is that a little better, ma'am?

Yes, it is. Thank you. Thank you kindly, Chair Carrod. For the record, my name is Aike Gilopsos, and I am affiliated with the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation and serve as the Deputy Executive Director. With respect to Representative St. Clair's question, Madam Chair, the corporation is neutral on this bill.

Would you, um, Representative St. Clair, also like to hear from the CFO, or Do you have a follow-up? Through the chair, no ma'am. That was sufficient. It was good hearing from you, Aiki.

And I—. Madam Chair, Representative Sinclair, good to hear from you as well, and our congratulations. And I apologize for saying your name wrong, Aiki. I've known you that way for so long, it's hard for me to even know how to say your last name. Do we have additional questions from the committee?

Okay, um, I do have— the one amendment was from my office, and, uh, just a very brief—. It is— while I pull that up. At ease.

Okay, House State Affairs is back on the record, and we had one amendment submitted on this bill. It was from my office, so I will go ahead and move Amendment Number 1 and also object for discussion just so that I can describe the amendment. So So Amendment Number 1 addresses an issue that was brought up during our committee discussion, which is that this bill underlying simply increases the cap currently to $400,000. And what this amendment does is it adjusts the cap to $400,000 and then going forward adjusts annually for inflation, um, rather than having to come back in, say, 15, 20 years and do this again and increase the cap again. Potentially addresses the fact that in the underlying bill and with this amendment, the loan maximum has not been adjusted since 2002.

But we did hear in our discussion at the last hearing that we have, we have the ability to do an inflation adjustment instead of just a straight increase of the cap. So that's the purpose of the amendment. Are there questions on Amendment Number 1?

Representative Vance. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have a question, but instead of— I'm going to maintain the objection on this simply because I don't like to put inflation adjustment automatically in legislation and statute because I think that By not having it, it forces the legislature upon need to come and take a look at this area of statute again. And I think that's a good practice to have to make sure that we are understanding the needs and the realities about, you know, any program really, but this is specifically around loans. And, you know, if we hadn't had this before us, we may not have been thinking about the rural loans that are happening.

You know, I think that it's just not a best practice overall to include inflation adjusting because that's quite literally our job as a legislature is to make appropriations and make sure that, that we are responding to the needs of Alaskans and according to what's viable. So I support the bill as is, but with this I am going to be maintaining the objection, Madam Chair. Um, sounds like solid reasoning, um, and I appreciate that. Uh, I, I think I could see it both ways, and, uh, just given some of the testimony, I'm gonna continue forward with the amendment. But I, I do appreciate that consideration because I think that is also a valid way of looking at this is almost like a sunset date.

If you have a cap that requires potential adjustment, it requires us to then look at AHFC loans. So I can, I can see where you're coming from. Representative McCabe. Thanks, Representative Vance. I'd like to know what IKE thinks about this amendment.

If you don't, can you, can we do that? Do you mind? Sure. Yeah. I also neglected to mention before that we do also have Michael Graves, who's the mortgage director at AHFC, online for questions.

We'll go to, um, I'm just going to call you Ike. Mr. Ike, can you please provide if HFC has a perspective that you can offer on Amendment Number 1?

Hello, Chair Carrot. For the record again, Ike Ylopsas with the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. Chair Carrot, Representative McCabe, the corporation is likewise neutral on this amendment. The only thing that the corporation would respectfully note is that any indexing initiative on this product has the likely potential of increasing the resources that would be decremented from the corporation's future dividends as a consequence of the increase in the assistance in the rollover program. But that is fundamentally a policy call of the legislature and the executive, and as such, we do not respectfully offer an opinion one way or the other on that.

Thanks. Thank you for that perspective. Is there additional discussion? Okay, so just procedurally speaking, seeing no further discussion, I'm going to remove my objection. And I object.

And we have an objection from Representative Vance. Did you want to say anything else towards the objection? Okay, and seeing no additional discussion, I'm going to ask the clerk to please call the roll on Amendment Number 1.

Representative Holland? Yes. Representative Vance? No. Representative McCabe?

Yes. Representative St. Clair? Yes. Representative Story? Pass.

Representative Hemmschuh? Yes. Representative Story?

Yes. Chair Kerrek. Yes. 6 Nays— yays, 1 nay. Okay, so with a vote of 6 yays and 1 nay, um, Amendment Number 1 has been adopted.

And, um, I had forgot to mention at the beginning of that amendment, but the bill sponsor was also comfortable with that amendment in case anybody was I was wondering about that. So we have House Bill 226 as amended back before the committee. Are there any additional questions or discussions?

Vice Chair Story. Ah, yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I think this— I really am happy to see this legislation in front of us. Housing has been really a problem across our state, and I'd like to see this be realistic about what prices have been. And just as the same reason with the inflation-proofing, that is one area housing prices seem to rise, and I just think it's— I think this bill is needed, so I appreciate that.

Thank you, Vice Chair Story. Any other comments? Representative Holland. Great. Thank you, Chair Carrick.

And I think this is a comment such a— or a question to HFC. I'm curious with this new ceiling that we're putting on, but also with the storms and the housing-related projects going on, whether or not HFC is seeing an increase in demand for loans that are using that are in this program and that would be affected by this increase in the cap as we look at both the projects that I'm aware of where we've been, you know, creating and moving some of the communities to new locations, but now as we look at the rebuilding of a couple communities. So I'm curious if this is going to have any sort of immediate impact on current financing of rural housing projects.

Madam Chair, with your permission. Uh, thank you, please go ahead.

Madam Chair, Representative Holland, the short answer as it pertains specifically to Typhoon Haiyan and whether this initiative may have any immediate impact on housing is likely not. The reason for that is that the Yukon-Kuskokwim region is currently under both a presidential and gubernatorial state of emergency, and that triggers emergency aid to displaced families through both FEMA and the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. Those forms of assistance are going to be accessed first, and that will allow the community to determine whether they wish to access relocation or rebuilding assistance. And with the deepest respect for more specificity, we would suggest that the committee may consult the legislative liaison for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. They've been working on a comprehensive manifest about the types of secondary and tertiary aid that survivors of that storm will have access to as the building season begins in western Alaska.

And if I missed something in that question, Chair Carrick, I do apologize.

Follow-up? I think we have a follow-up. Representative Hollins. Great, thank you. Through the chair, thank you for that.

That's very helpful, specifically as it relates to the storm-related rebuilding. Does that also apply, or is there a different situation for the village move, for example, the types of projects we've seen moving new Takhtamatárvik?

Chair Carrick, Representative Holland, if I may inquire for clarification, is the question whether or not changes to this rural loan program for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation having any material impact on the relocation of villages unconnected to events like Typhoon Halaf? Yeah, through the chair, that's correct. Thank you.

[Speaker:DAVID] The short answer, Representative Holland, through Chair Carrick, is similarly no because in the event of a mass relocation event, the state government would take pole position working with federal partners on the efforts to rebuild the assets both community-wide as well as residential with those families. The Rural Loan Program would be dealing with a more conventional set of mortgage tools that attempts to recognize the geographic disparities and challenges of access to homeownership in remote and rural Alaska, both on and off the road system. And therefore, it is less a tool used in disaster response and recovery when an American citizen has access to the appropriate funds for a survivor and more of a participant in the homeownership marketplace. Okay, thank you. Thank you for those responses.

And do we have any additional questions or discussion while we've got AHFC before us or on the legislation? Hearing and seeing none, I think one thing I would really like to do, just because there has been a lot of really good discussion about AHFC and the rural loan program and other items, is to maybe have a— at some point, I don't know if it will happen this session or not, but at some point to have just AHFC before us to talk about more of their work in general. And that goes back a little bit to Representative Vance's point on the amendment, that there's a lot of value in just kind of hearing from these state corporations about their work and getting a better understanding of it. Thank you very much to our AHFC folks that are online. At this time, I would entertain a motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the House State Affairs Committee pass House Bill 226, also known as 34-LS0942/A, as amended, with attached fiscal notes, individual recommendations, and authorizing legal services to make any necessary technical and conforming changes.

And hearing and seeing no objection, House Bill 226 has been moved from committee. We'll take a brief recess to sign the paperwork And next up, we will talk about the public records bill. At ease.

House State Affairs is back on the record, and the next item on our agenda is House Bill 377, which came to us as a request from the City of Fairbanks originally. Relating to public records. The House State Affairs Committee had initially introduced it. It has gone through its first committee of referral in Community and Regional Affairs. We have noticed and held two hearings on the bill previously.

Um, we've had a little bit of members with other commitments at a couple of those hearings. This is though our third hearing on the bill, and so my intention today is to introduce a committee substitute, discuss that committee substitute, and then utilize that as our working document going forward. So at this time, I'd like to ask Vice Chair Story for the motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the House State Affairs Committee adopt committee substitute for House Bill 37— oops, 377, also known as 34 -LS1196/o as our working document.

Okay. I'm going to object for discussion. And Mr. Relay, if you could please walk us through the committee substitute changes. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Stuart Relay, staff to Representative Carrick.

Madam Chair, the summary of changes is as follows. In Section 1, it adds text messages under the definition of public record. Section 2 adds a new subsection that provides a timeline for police body camera footage to be released to the family of a victim after use of force incidents that result in death or serious injury. More specifically, it requires that footage be released 30 days after the incident. It does provide additional flexibility of a 30-day extension, and also it allows the courts to extend that, that as well.

And That's the change to Section 2. And then Section 3 also just adds text messages to the definition of public record. Madam Chair, those are the summary of changes. And I think we do have questions. Representative McCabe.

Thanks. So I'm curious, Madam Chair, if the Department of Public Safety updated their fiscal note based on the CS. And their fiscal notes sort of dependent, it seems like, on the root bill. And I know that when we were discussing body cameras years, years ago, 4 years ago, I think, they were very concerned with the amount of personnel and time it would need to redact all the body camera stuff to make it releasable. So I'm wondering if this is— if there is a change to their fiscal note.

So [Speaker:DR. LINDA SULLIVAN] I'll go to my committee aid, too, and we do have someone online who might be able to answer. I don't know that DPS has had a chance to release updated fiscal notes at at this point. Mr. Relay. Madam Chair, for the record, Stuart Relay, staff to Representative Kerik.

Representative McCabe, I've made the request for updated fiscal notes that have not been received yet, though. That's probably just a timing issue on their part. I just also want to note for members that we have— we do have public testimony noticed as well, just as a heads up, so we will get to that momentarily. But we do also for questions have Austin McDaniel, who's the communications director at the Department of Public Safety, who may be able to take questions. I'll go back to Representative McCabe.

Yeah, thanks. So maybe, uh, who did you say? Austin McDaniel. Maybe, Mr. McDaniel, you could just opine a little bit on whether or not this change, the committee substitute change, is going to possibly increase the fiscal note for this bill based on a 30-day release requirement. You guys love 30 days.

What's up with that?

Uh, Mr. McDaniel.

Thank you for the question. Uh, for the record, Austin McDaniel, Communications Director for the Alaska Department of Public Safety. Through the chair, Representative McCabe, the Department of Public Safety is reviewing version 0 of the House Bill 377, which was just introduced. Once we've had a chance to review the updated language, we'll certainly look to see if there's any necessary revisions to our fiscal note and make sure that that is noticed to the committee appropriately. Thank you.

I think they, they've just received it, so I think we'll get a more updated opinion soon. I have Representative Himschu and then Representative Vance. Thank you, through the chair. I think this is to Officer McDaniel, or actually maybe I'm not sure who this is to. My question is, this 30-day release, that's for— are we superseding local guidelines for the use of body cams?

Are we saying with this that each community no longer sets their own standards and that this is now the standard everywhere. I'm not sure who the question is to, maybe to the chair. We'll go to Mr. Relay. Uh, uh, Matt, uh, for the record, Stuart Relay, staff representative Carrick. Uh, Representative Hemshoot, this, uh, uh, new, uh, this section is, um, has been added into the Public Records Act, the Alaska Public Records Act.

Um, and so any agency that falls under the jurisdiction of the Alaska Public Records Act would be, um, uh, would would be impacted by this change, and I do believe that municipalities fall under that.

And just to add to that a little bit, under this specific situation, would there be a 30-day requirement? So, not every public records request, but the specific records requests outlined in the Committee substitute. Yes, Madam Chair, just to clarify again for the record, Stewart Relay, um, uh, this is just narrowly focused to police officer body cameras with use of force. With the— yes, yeah, with, with, with use of force incidences. Yes, um, I have Representative Vance.

And then St. Clair. Thank you. I'm on the same section here. I'm looking at the agency may extend the 30-day period under the subsection for an additional 30 days if the principal head of the agency determines that providing access to the recording will substantially interfere with an active criminal investigation. So my question is for Austen McDaniel.

What's the current practice in regards to to, um, victims, uh, of these crimes being— having access to these recordings. Um, because I want to make sure that we're providing all the legal language that, uh, allows them to access this if necessary, but making sure that it doesn't interfere with an investigation, because that's the ultimate justice. So can you describe what the current practice, if there is one, and, um, and how this this specific language could change that.

Thank you for the question. Once again, Austin McDaniel for the Alaska Department of Public Safety. Through the chair, Representative Vance, today, if an officer was to use force against an individual as part of their kind of on-duty conduct and that incident was captured on body-worn camera video, which is often the case today, We'll just call it an officer-involved shooting to sort of make things simple. Law enforcement agency or perhaps the Alaska Bureau of Investigation would conduct a criminal investigation to determine if that use of force was justified under Alaska law. That would then be turned over to the Office of Special Prosecutions for independent review.

If the Office of Special Prosecutions determines that that action was lawful and justified under the law, Then the public agency, the law enforcement agency, law enforcement troopers, whichever agency it was, would have 10 days to turn that, those records over to any requester that made it, whether that be a victim's family, whether that be a member of the media. I can speak for practice for some of the, most of the larger law enforcement agencies in the state. They're turning things over to family members, turning things over to the public, to media, typically within hours of the determination being received from the Office of Special Prosecutions. In instances where there's ongoing criminal prosecutions, such as instances when a— potentially an officer's use of force was determined not to be allowable under Alaska law, or perhaps use of force is not— did not result in the subject's death, and he, that person, is facing criminal prosecution, then that criminal prosecution would need to conclude before an agency could release those records, and that would be in accordance with Alaska Statute 4025-120(a)(6)(a)(b)(c).

Follow-up, follow-up. Uh, thank you for that. What is the typical timeline for an incident to go through that process with the different agencies?

Thank you for the question. Again, through the chair, Representative Vance, Austin McDaniel for the Department of Public Safety. I can't speak for every agency. There are several agencies that are involved in these reviews. There's the law enforcement investigators that are conducting use of force investigation, like the Alaska Bureau of Investigation investigators, or perhaps the Anchorage Police Department detectives.

There is crime lab forensic scientists that are potentially doing evidentiary review for the Office of Special Prosecutions or the investigators. There's potentially the State Medical Examiner's Office conducting blood toxicology or things on other analysis on deceased persons. I know that every agency that's involved in an Alaska State Trooper use of force investigation is expediting these investigations to the top of the list. We're trying to get every— all of our interviews done as quickly as we can. We're working to get all of our evidence turned over and analyzed over to the Office of Special Prosecutions just as quickly as we can.

And while I certainly don't wanna speak for the Department of Law and Office of Special Prosecutions, I know they prioritize these cases to get reviews done, uh, in a timely manner. Um, uh, I'm certainly— there, there's certainly work for improvement both on, I think, the law enforcement agency side, uh, the medical examiner's office side, as well as the Office of Special Prosecutions. I know people are working to make those Things happen quickly. Unfortunately, I don't have an average amount of time it takes. I would categorize it in over 30 days, usually less than 90 days.

Thank you. That's what I was, that's what I was needing. I have one more follow-up, Madam Chair. Follow-up. Thank you, Austin.

The last question that I have is, and it's all around wanting to make sure that there's there's time for all of this to happen. And right now, there's an— it says the agency may extend the 30-day period for up to an additional 30 days. So, let's say, went through the process and it took, I don't know, 35 days to get done. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And you released the information to the victims or you were about to and then you found out that you, you couldn't release it because of the active investigation, um, what would, what would be an appropriate amount of time to give an extension? Because we're wanting to make sure that the victims have access to the information without delay.

Um, what would be a typical timeline that the investigation on this type of use of force would be completed? And I know that that's a very— I'm asking for ballpark here on typical active investigations on these types of things so that we can make sure that these families are accessing this. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Austin McDaniel for the Alaska Department of Public Safety. I don't think I'm prepared today to give you an average turnaround time for every agency that's involved. Just for Alaska State Trooper incidents, right, there's 3 separate state executive branch departments involved: the Department of Law, Office of Special Prosecutions, the Department of Health, State Medical Examiner's Office, each of which contribute to this independent review process that exists specifically for officer-involved shootings.

I'm certainly— we can get back to you with an average turnaround time for the Alaska State Trooper and Alaska State Crime Lab processes that exist. But I think it would be better for representatives from the other impacted agencies to speak to their turnaround times and impacts that this amendment might have. For them. Thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel, for answering those questions. I go to Representative St. Clair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rep. Vance stole my, uh, my questions, and I do have, uh, have concerns about the, uh, this isn't— this is just a concern about the legislation, not necessarily, uh, directed at Mr. McDaniel.

May not delay providing access to the recording for more than 60 days. I don't like giving them a ceiling. I understand that we want to get it out as expeditiously as possible. Some of these investigations could take potentially years. I don't like the ceiling on that.

Maybe we could adjust it. We can talk about that in amendments or something else. But the intent of the legislation is to get it out as quickly as possible, understood. However, investigations dealing with, you know, DNA, weapons, a lot of— there's so many variables that putting a ceiling on they have to do it by this date, I think they have to do it by the time that the investigation is complete, not an arbitrary date. They're going to try and meet timelines, get it done as quickly as possible as was stated, but I don't like putting a ceiling on and they have to do this because investigations differ.

I'll turn to Mr. Relay. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Stewart Relay. I know that that wasn't necessarily a question, Representative St. Clair, but I just wanted to make two points. One, this is— this addition is narrowly tailored to police body cam footage.

Again, totally get what you're saying there, and, and, um, it does provide the courts the ability to extend the, um, uh, uh, to extend the time for public records to be released as well. Um, so if, if, if there is an ongoing investigation, the courts can say nope, and then yeah. Um, but I, I just wanted to make those two points. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I, I also just want to add here that, um, the committee substitute before you was also a compromise from what was advocated for.

And I just, just to give committee members a, a sense, um, there's been a tremendous amount of advocacy even just very recently about doing a 21-day rather than a 30-day period and not having any exemptions for, say, the extension to be offered or the courts to lift that ceiling. Um, and so what's before you is, in my view— and I recognize there might be disagreeing opinions, I'm open to amendments around that— but it is a compromise from what was requested. Um, and the reason why our office chose to go with a 30-day, with a potential for a 30-day extension is to align with what appears to be from prior testimony on this legislation, something that can be reasonably accomplished, especially in this narrow situation. So again, this is not all public records requests, and it's not all police body camera requests. It's police body camera in a use of force incident, which results in death or serious injury of the victim, so of the person involved.

So it's a really pretty narrow set of data that you're asking these police departments to redact. And so that was— there was interest in having it be a lot more broad than this. And I just wanted to offer that perspective too.

Okay, thank you. Let's see, I don't see any additional questions or discussion, and we do have the motion before us for adopting the committee substitute, which I had initially objected to. So at this time, I'm going to remove my objection. I'm going to object, Madam Chair. All right, thank you, Representative Vance.

Do you want to speak to your objection? I do want to speak to it, and, uh, I am objecting on, um, the grounds of wanting to, to really clarify this section, and I appreciate why you're bringing it forward and, and agree with why, but I think I, I want to make sure that we have this timeline correct around the exemption regarding an active criminal investigation and how much the courts can extend that because because, um, like Representative St. Clair said, investigation timelines vary, and, and that is the ultimate justice. I want to give everything to these families that they need, uh, but if, if the release of, of these, um, body-worn cameras gets, um, if it's released where it interferes with that investigation, that just would— that would be heartbreaking. If, if something shifted in the investigation. So it's not the initial release timeline that I have a problem with, it's just wanting to make sure that as we wrap around the exemptions, you know, that gives the authorities to say we are actively pursuing this, let's make sure that as soon as this, this important information to bring justice is done, we can release this to the families.

Or maybe if they have recommendations on on the best way to do it now, that we can put it in this. I'm fully on board with that and, you know, really respect that you are wanting to do the will of Alaskans and the people who have been impacted by this. But this around the, you know, it's the last, you know, several lines of that that I want to make sure that we get just right. So it is It is not rejection of your work, but it's saying I'm not quite ready to fully accept it yet.

Thank you, Representative Vance. I would like to also find a way to figure out how to make this work. You know, the initial bill is being brought forward to help municipalities and help in this case with the CS victims of victim and family members, um, who have experienced these really— and you're going to hear it in testimony today— um, really heartbreaking instances. But in terms of the ceiling threshold, like, I'd be very happy to work with you to figure out how to craft that a little bit more broadly so that we are responding to that exact concern, because I, I also would not want the unintended effect of an investigative investigation being interfered with as a result of released footage. One thing I'll also just add to is that we have— we have some strong concern that's not addressed in this committee substitute that when a public record has been redacted and produced for release, it's released simultaneously to everyone who has requested it.

And so I did not put it in this committee substitute because I didn't know of a kind of clean way to navigate that and not be, you know, severely dictating to municipalities and our public safety office. But there is also concern that public media are potentially receiving the information about body cam footage at the exact same time as family members. So that was another concern brought forward that we walked back from this committee substitute. But I just would add that I agree that there might be some unaddressed gaps left, and I'm looking forward to working on the bill some more. Thank you.

So I imagine the objection is maintained, and I don't see additional—. Oh, Representative St. Clair. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think in order to fix it, we need to adopt the CS. That's just my opinion.

Is there any additional discussion?

Well, Representative St. Clair, you make a valid argument, so I will remove my objection.

Thank you. Okay, we—. I mean, we can do it either way. I just—. It's smoother this Okay, so thank you.

Seeing and hearing no objection, the committee substitute for House Bill 377 version 0 is adopted as our working document. And at this time, we are going to transition to public testimony on the bill. So we're going to open public testimony on House Bill 377. Is there anyone in the room who would like to offer public testimony?

Seeing none, we will go online, and I would like to first call on Gerald Rexford, who is calling in from Fairbanks. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Chair, and members of the committee. This is Gerald Rexford.

I've been listening to some of the, um, the comments, and some are reasonable and some are irresponsible. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm getting from a couple of the committee members. My name is Gerald Rexford, and I am a constituent of Representative Carrick. I want to start by thanking her for carrying this bill and for all of the hard work she puts in for our community.

I also want to thank our Fairbanks delegation for meeting with us at the recent town hall.

I appreciate the time and attention being given to this issue. I'm here because of what my family has been going through. On January 1st, I called the Alaska State Trooper for help.

My wife had asked me to do that. My 24-year-old son was in a mental health crisis, and I was asking for assistance to get him back to the hospital.

I talked to the dispatcher, the state troopers, and she knew that my son was in a mental crisis. Because I told her that, and she passed that on to the state troopers before they went into my house.

I stepped outside, and while I was out there, gunshots were fired inside my home. I didn't hear them because I'm hard of hearing. That's why I speak a little louder. I tried to go back inside, but I was not allowed in.

I watched as a covered body was carried out of my home, and no one would tell me what had happened. I later learned that both of my sons had been shot. I had to follow the ambulance to the hospital to find out what had happened. In, in the months that followed, our family was in Seattle while my oldest son fought for his life.

Once we knew he would survive, we were trying to understand what happened and find legal help. It is very difficult to think clearly even now and make sense of everything when your family is changed so suddenly, and I'm grateful we are able to find legal representation. We later learned that the officers involved were able to view the body camera footage on January 7th, but to this day our family has not been provided the full unedited footage. Instead, we waited months. What was eventually released publicly was edited and did not fully answer our questions.

The footage was released to Alaska News Source while we were finishing the burial.

We had been requesting this since January, were denied, and were given a statute to appeal. So we did.

This bill, HB 377, matters because families like mine should not be the last to know what happened inside their own home. Providing timely access to unedited footage for impacted families will help everyone. Law enforcement families and the broader community by building trust and ensuring transparency. It allows families to make informed decisions early, including seeking legal counsel if needed. No family should have to learn what happened through the news or months later through partial information after appealing a denial.

We are still waiting for full information and want to understand exactly what happened. A family should not have to wait a year to receive it through discovery when that information already exists and has been reviewed by others. I would strongly encourage Alaska to move toward a faster timeline similar to states like Minnesota, where families are given access within days of an incident involving death or serious injury. But even establishing a clear 30-day timeline in the statute It's an important step forward. I'm asking you to support this bill so that what happened to our family does not happen to another family.

Even if it does not apply to our situation, it will help future families so they are not left waiting for answers. Thank you for your time. The Alaska State Troopers hold the motto and core values of loyalty, integrity, courage. They also refer to themselves as the Guardians of the 49th. After my family's experience, I wonder if they're always following that motto.

We want the truth followed with justice. That's all we're asking for. You understand that, don't you? That's all. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Rexford. Um, just really appreciate you calling in again, sharing that story again. Mr. Rexford had just shared that in a public town hall forum a couple of weeks ago, and I think every member of this committee, our heart goes out to you and your family. And that's not nearly enough, but thank you very much for testifying.

Um, we're going to go now to Cynthia Gachupit. I'm hoping I'm saying that correctly, in Anchorage. And I did forget to say it at the beginning, but we do have a few testifiers today. If testifiers could please keep their testimony somewhere in the 3-minute time frame, that would be excellent.

Hi, my name is Cynthia Gachupit. Yes, you got it pretty close.

[Speaker:KAYLA_HARRIS] First off, I would like to say that I am really sorry for the gentleman that just went before me, and I hope that you all really listen to what he had to say, because this is the actual impact of officer-involved shootings, and it really needs to be deeply considered by all of us as a community. Mainly because this can happen to anyone, even if you don't think it could happen in your family. It truly can. I say that as the director— I'm sorry, the Executive Director of Empowerment Advocacy Alaska. I serve survivors of violent crime who depend on the accuracy and availability of public records to seek justice and healing.

Empowerment Advocacy Alaska is the only nonprofit organization providing direct victim services, specifically to victims and surviving family members of officer-involved shootings. Which is why I really implore you all to listen to what this gentleman has just said, because it is something I have heard for almost a decade over and over again. We are a member of the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, which includes advocacy agencies like myself and law enforcement agencies. And I say that because there were some questions that were brought up about timeliness and concerns about investigations. I really ask that you all, if you have deeper questions, look to national associations like SANS, who can answer a lot of those concerns that you have, because this is not a new issue nationally, not a new issue statewide, and there are ways to work out kind of the issues that Gabrielle mentioned a little while ago.

We also provide direct victim services to individuals navigating the criminal justice process in cases of sexual assault and domestic violence. And I am writing— or sorry, to offer support with reservations on HB 377. We strongly support the bill's primary goal of formally defining audio and video recordings. And I believe now you added text as well as public records. We also support the new edition of the bill, specifically the provision of the release of officer-involved shooting body camera footage within 30 days, as this promotes transparency, accountability, and timely access to critical information.

Sorry.

For victims and their families. In the modern age, 911 tapes and body-worn camera footage are the DNA of a case. By codifying their management and preservation, HB 277 ensures that a survivor's most critical evidence isn't lost to a deletion button due to inconsistent local policies. This is a vital step for accountability. However, we have significant concerns Regarding the shift towards actual cost recovery for personnel time.

By allowing the municipalities and the Department of Public Safety to charge for every minute of search and redaction time and requiring that payment in advance, HB 377 was creating a pay-to-play justice system. A victim who cannot afford several hundred dollars or even thousands of dollars, as I've seen in the past, in administrative fees may be effectively barred from seeing the evidence of their own assault the assault or death of their loved one. We urge the committee to consider an amendment that protects the most vulnerable. Specifically, we suggest fee waivers for victims and surviving family members, including surviving family members of officer-involved shootings, because currently family members of officer-involved shootings are not considered victims or surviving family member victims. So, we ask that that be included as well.

We explicitly ask agencies to waive personnel and redaction fees for these victims and the crimes that have occurred so that they can get access to these documents. We also would ask that you maintain the free window, so retaining the 5-hour free search time for individuals requesting records related to their own personal victimization or the victimization of their loved ones, including adding in their officer-involved shooting victims. But currently, that is not the case for them. We must modernize our record laws, but we must not do so on the backs of Alaskans who have already paid the highest price as victims of crime or surviving family members. Transparency should not come with a price tag that survivors and surviving family members cannot afford.

So, we ask that this does pass, we ask that you do consider these fees to be waived. We strongly, strongly ask that. And we ask that you also look into the local organization here that does actually provide direct services to often maltreating families who can help navigate some of the concerns that you all were having—. Miss Spencer. —As well as the national.

Thank you for your testimony. Sorry, we do have to move on today. I appreciate you calling in. We're going to go now to Antonia Comack in Wasilla. Again, if testifiers can please keep their testimony to 3 or fewer minutes.

Hi there, can you guys hear me? We can, thank you. Madam Chair, members of the committee, my name is Antonia Onaxet Comack. I live in Wasilla and I am providing testimony testimony on behalf of myself. I am a missing and murdered Indigenous people advocate and have been for many years.

I've advocated for many families around the state of Alaska in all regions and in all boroughs. In doing that, I have helped MMIP families file public records requests and have filed public records requests for myself. I know the cost of public records and it is already way too expensive. The expense is a barrier for getting justice for a lot of these families, and House Bill 370 HB 287 is going to make that worse. Removing the 5-hour rule from our statute will enable law enforcement agencies to charge more money for public records that we are entitled to review as community members.

Making public records more expensive is going to make transparency less accessible. I also want to show my support for the portion of the bill surrounding body-worn footage for officer-involved shooting. Families should have full access to unedited body cam footage as soon as possible, and there should be no option for an additional 30-day extension. Lastly, I wanted to let you all know that I sit on the National MMIP Committee, and when I tell them the cost and timeline it takes for me to receive my public records, they are taken aback and shocked. That should tell you a lot about the state of our public records laws, and the fact that you are trying to make them more expensive is appalling.

If you want to update our public records laws, we do not need them to be more expensive. We need them to be more accessible and we should not have to wait 8 to 9 months to receive them, as has been the case for me. Thank you for allowing me to provide testimony to you all today.

Thank you, Ms. Komack. And we'll go now to Courtney Horazdowski. So sorry for the mispronunciation. In Anchorage.

Hi, can you hear me all right? We can, yes.

All right, um, you did pretty good. My name is Courtney Warszawski. I live in Chugiak. I was a journalist in a large statewide newsroom for about 12 years, and for the last 10 or so years have been both volunteering, um, in groups that work with journalists journalists and support journalists and as I am working as an independent contractor to support the preservation of local news. I'm a little late to the game in this.

This bill was just brought to my attention this past weekend as the state's journalism workforce gathered for our annual conference. My primary concern with this bill is the removal of the 5-hour rule for producing public records. There are 165 incorporated communities in the state, which means 165 different interpretations of the state law and 165 different interpretations of what their own public records ordinances will be.

And as Antonia just relayed her experience, I have experience requesting records from many municipalities and state departments, and every— everyone has a little different, a little different take on it. The difference between adding municipalities into this rule and the Department of Public Safety is that the Department of Public Safety is kind of bound to the same state laws as all the other agencies that are already exempted from this rule. There's other concerns there with transparency and trust. But anyways, I think that broadening this to all municipalities will just make things increasingly difficult for journalists, which isn't just about accessing them for journalists' sake. It's that journalists are intermediaries for the public and they use public records to analyze, record, document, and contextualize the government's actions and how they affect people.

Many newsrooms in our state have hardly any budget for reporters, and increasing the cost to this will mean that the people living in communities, even that do have journalists, will have reduced access to what's going on in their government.

Access to public information should lean towards being more unavailable— to be more available, even if it comes at a cost to municipality. Because access leads to accountability and trust. Access to public information is a right, it's not a revenue stream, and that should be the guiding force towards this, as without transparency and accountability, it's hard for people to have trust and faith in the good faith of the government's actions. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Horodowski.

So sorry if I said your name wrong again. We have, looks like, one more testifier online, which is John McKay in Anchorage.

Thank you. Can you hear me? We can, yes. Thank you. I'm testifying today as an individual.

Excuse me. I've been involved and interested in issues of public access to government I've lived in Alaska for over 45 years. As a lawyer, I've represented numerous journalists and news organizations and others throughout the state seeking access to records and meetings. I taught media law at the University of Alaska for over 30 years, specifically addressing the issues that we're talking about today. And I was intimately involved in the 1990 revisions to the Public Records Act that you're considering changing through this bill.

I'd like to urge you not to pass this bill this session, instead to work with those affected by it, all those affected by it, in a way that would give us a better opportunity to identify the problems that are giving rise to this and work on solutions with enough time to carefully consider the ramifications of these changes.

I will say that the idea of adding audio and video or whether emails and texts need to be specific specifically mentioned is, you know, I think it doesn't really matter that the law was specifically written broadly to cover it. I think all those things are already covered. There's no objection to putting those in as long as it doesn't suggest that the next new kid on the block technology somehow isn't covered even though the language is broad enough to cover it until the legislature says so again. But the real issue here, I think, is, you know, the legislature Legislature, this legislature, and our Supreme Court have characterized the public's access to public records as a fundamental right. And the changes that would be implemented through this bill would be the most harmful to the public generally and to the news organizations and others that serve the public interest, uh, more than any changes to the public records actions since statehood.

I tried— I also came late to this, I heard late about it. And I listened before this to the tape of the first committee hearing where the chair's assistant who was shepherding this bill talked about it. He said that past and current mayors in Fairbanks have requested this bill for the past couple years. And I think that's, you know, I understand it's an issue. I think it's a thing that we need to deal with.

But how do you deal with it? Do you separate out commercial, commercial, journalists, non-journalists, public, Alaskans and non-Alaskans. There's all kinds of things to be considered. I don't think we should try and do that in the next couple of weeks here. I think we should work on this.

The other thing that was said at the last hearing was that there should be— one of the representatives brought up that there should be invited guests from some of these others, like the media. And that absolutely that opportunity has not been extended, and even though there've been other committee hearings since then, and that wasn't happening, I think the press would like to help wrestle through these problems, and they have real experience to bring to the press. I do think that listening to Chief Dupuy from Fairbanks and to Austin McDaniel from the Troopers, I think it was encouraging to see they both said that we are interested in transparency. They sort of rejected the idea that there was a need to use this as a revenue-generating enterprise. And I think in particular, Mr. McDaniel's comments about how the Department of Public Safety has used various tools, both technological tools, but also communicating in good faith to come up with reasonable solutions for the most problematic requests, show that there are things that can be done short of changing this in a way that harms the Public Records Act for all Alaskans.

Mr. McKay, we're going to have to have you wrap up your testimony.

That was it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for providing public testimony today.

I'll do one last call. Is there anyone in the room? I'm seeing none. Or online for testimony? And seeing none, we're going to close We will close public testimony on House Bill 377.

Thank you all again who were able to testify today for calling in. Is there any final discussion for today on House Bill 377? Representative Himschoot. Thank you. Through the chair, I guess I'm just wanting to check with the committee.

So the federal standards are different and they do a tiered system where they say public interest requesters, that's individuals, journalists, nonprofits, researchers. And they have a different fee treatment where there's no fee, no charge for the initial staff time, and so on. Then they have standard requesters— requesters, that's general users without clear commercial intent. Then they have commercial requesters. And each of these has a fee structure, and they define it a little bit.

Is it interesting to the committee to dive into that at all? Because I'm like, I can offer it as an amendment, but I don't know. I guess it's just kind of a general question of if we're, if we're going to go down this road, is there a way to sort this out and define the type of requester and what their— I don't want to say rights, but what their access is.

Well, I think—. I know you're asking the whole committee. Yeah, I'm curious. Is there interest? I'm curious what people think too, Representative Himschoot.

I will say I did not want to go down that road. I don't—. Not because I don't think there's some merit in doing so.

You know, I know we've introduced another kind of unrelated and yet wholly related concept with the committee substitute. Institute today, but the initial reason to bring this bill forward was maybe in, in, um, in contrast to some of the testimony we heard, to actually improve ultimately access to public records for the public. Because if the municipality are able to charge up to just the cost of production, not as a revenue stream towards those municipalities but as a cost for production And it would potentially deter a new and rising market where so-called, at least, media outlets— and that's hard to distinguish from traditional media, but so-called media outlets are requesting large volumes of content. And because they're public records and they're very clever about getting just 5 hours of content at a time.

Per period, they are able to essentially backlog our pretty stretched-thin municipalities from providing content back to victims, back to other entities, back to traditional media outlets, etc. So my long, long story short, because I know Representative Himschoot knows that that's the argument here from my perspective, but A tiered system, you'd have to define every component of those tiers. And I don't know that we actually have definitions for every component of those tiers. The primary concern to me is how do you define the traditional media source from the commercial interest? And that was something we had discussed at some length in the previous committee.

I don't think there's a clean-cut answer for that. It'd be really difficult to kind of— figure that out. Um, but if it is a direction the committee would like to go, I'm open to it. So I guess I'd be curious what others have to say as well. Um, but just, I guess that was also to push, push back a little bit on some of the testimony we heard that in fact the idea of lifting the exemption on the 5-hour rule is ultimately meant to better support victims' families and media individuals for receiving this content.

And the other thing we had heard is that very frequently municipalities will waive the current fees associated with over-5-hour requests for these types of requesters. And so they would likely very frequently waive the fee for the under-5 hours. A long-winded way of saying, um, I think this bill is addressing a streamlined problem in a couple of different areas, and I'd be open to additions, but I also would like to keep it within some kind of scope that's manageable given the short nature of the end of session. I think I had Representative St. Clair first and then Representative McCabe. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I will keep it quick and correct as It's not supposed to be a revenue stream. It's for cost recovery, um, on, uh, cost recovery of the time that it takes to, to get the information. Something that I heard, and it kind of leans a little bit the other way— or not the other way, a little bit different topic— on all the test public testimony, or almost all of it, it says unedited. And I don't know if they meant unredacted, which is a requirement. You know, their right to see what happened does not supersede the right of the officer to protect his identity.

So I guess I should have asked that question for more clarification when they said it. Revenue stream, the tiered approach, the first thing that came to mind is equal access by just saying, you know, you can get it, you can get it, you can't get it, or it's going to cost you this much to get it. So I would just look for equity across the board. I understand that the family should be the first and foremost, How much lead time they get, I don't know. That's something we can discuss.

But generally speaking, the fee structure, I think we talked about this in one of the first versions of this legislation, Madam Chair, and we shied away from that. So appreciate the conversation. That's just how I feel, my opinion on the matter.

Thank you, Representative St. Clair. Representative McCabe. Thanks. I wouldn't mind hearing from the DPS on this, maybe not right now, but once the fiscal notes updated. I clearly remember when we first instituted the body cameras 4 years ago or 3 years ago that it was redacting, going through and editing what could be a, you know, a several-hour-long crime scene and redacting the faces out of it because members of the public don't want necessarily to have their faces in.

Could be very time-consuming. It seemed to me it was like 4 PCNs for technicians to do this. So it would be great to just have that kind of knowledge before we— before we go forward. I agree with you, this is not, in my opinion, not an attempt to make it a revenue stream. I kind of object to that line of discussion.

It's actually just a cost recovery for the amount of time that the department's spend, especially when it comes to news media and commercial requests. It's a different story with the families, of course, right? And it might even be a different story with insurance companies when there is— they're not known for sort of overusing this. Anyways, it would be great if we take this forward to hear from the department on the new fiscal note. Um, let's go ahead and do that at our next hearing of the bill, but we do have, um, we'll, we'll ask Austin McDaniel to please come back, and we probably will have updated fiscal information by then too.

Um, let's see, any final comments, Representative Vance? Thank you. A question that I have for DPS is how many use of force incidents result in physical injury because— or death? Because that's what this is directly impacting. And, you know, how many are we talking about here?

Because I have no idea. I mean, obviously death, we can look at the headlines, but physical injury, that could involve a variety of things. And I would just like to know, of course, a serious physical injury, which, you know, has a definite Commission as well. But, um, I think there's, there's a lot that we can do to, to really find that happy medium. I am interested in what the federal guidelines are just so that I can understand kind of what the conversation has been.

Not that I want to necessarily bring that into this, but if we don't have to reinvent the wheel on some of the language around these issues I think that would be beneficial because, um, I appreciate the, the testimony that is talking about the lack of public trust in these, in, in the specific case of your constituent. And we have to figure out how to be able to get them the information that they want, but also not interfere with the investigation. So, um, if we can find that language I think that would be helpful, bit— because what we're looking at in, in the very video media-driven world now, people think that they're doing a service to the public by getting video content out there when they're not thinking about perceptions and bias that could interfere with a grand jury investigation, for instance. And ultimately, I want justice and truth rather than a bias over someone releasing something to the public too soon. So that's my concern around this, um, you know, the ability that if we, if we don't, if we don't get this wording correct, there could be unintended consequences.

And so I really appreciate the sensitivity around this and our ability to get it right and, and show them that we, we want the right balance here. So I'm going to be working with you on what those amendments could look like, but the more information that we have going into this, the better. Great. Thank you, Representative Vance. Vice Chair Story.

Thank you. Through the chair, Chair and to Rep. Vance. I agree, more information is really important. It's a very serious issue. I think we might be looking to the Council of State Governments or NCSL to see how other states have handled this situation because it's so important to get timely information and also access is really important.

So thank you.

Thank you. I would encourage committee members to think about that as quickly as possible because there's also a—. There's a real need for the update to the public records statute. And, you know, we are entering the final stretch of session, so I'm very open to amendments, but I— we also need to move this forward. I think it's really important that we show if nothing else, that we at least continue progress here.

And I really would like to see us get to that point. Um, you know, the goal here is to provide municipalities another tool to solve an existing problem. In addition, we now have this narrow area wherein I believe without additional cost, although we will wait to hear from DPS for sure, they can timely provide better information to the specific set of victims that we know are very deeply impacted by access to information. So I'm hoping we can accomplish those two goals without opening into a huge can about public records more broadly. But again, I'm, I'm open to that.

I do think there's a need for further discussion. I just would ask us to kind of think about how we can thread the needle best here in given our short timeframe. Um, I think at this point we're going to go ahead and set the bill aside. We have two more bills noticed on today's agenda, and I'd really like to do whatever we can to get to both. Um, I'd like to start, and unfortunately it's going to have to be very streamlined, I'd like to start with, um, an overview of House Bill 218 from the governor's office regarding a establishing the Tanana Valley State Forest or expansion thereof.

Um, and we're going to have about 10 minutes total for this introduction. We're not going to be able to take committee questions on it today, but my intention will be to try to bring this back up for committee questions and additional discussion at a future hearing. Um, and then we'll utilize the remainder of our time to, uh, work on House Bill 188. So thank you very much to our— pull up the names— thank you very much to our testifiers: Jeremy Douse, who's the director of the Division of Forestry and Fire Protection, joining us in person, also on the phone for questions, although we won't get to them today, unfortunately. We have Deputy Director of the Division of Forestry and Fire Protection, Ashley List.

And thank you, Mr. Dowse, for being down here. I definitely wanted to get to you because I know you have traveled down to make this meeting today. Thank you, Chair Carrick and members of the committee. And it is a relatively easy bill, so I think I can meet your— the time requirement here. Again, for the record, my name is Jeremy Dowse.

Director of the Division of Forestry and State Forester, and today I'm here to talk about House Bill 218, which is a bill that proposes to expand the existing Tanana Valley State Forest up in the interior. So real quick, what the Tanana Valley State Forest is, is it's one of three legislatively designated state forests. This one is, it's a 1.8 million acre, currently 1.8 million acre forest stretching from Manly Hot Springs to Tok. It was established in 1983 and it's managed primarily for timber management but also allows for other beneficial uses which include recreation and other resource development activities.

This state forest also has a wildlife habitat management objective which is unique to the Tannen Valley State Forest. So we work closely with ADF&G on habitat improvement projects for grouse, for moose, and we retain habitat features in our timber program so that we can meet some desired future condition for habitat.

So House Bill 218 proposes to add approximately 600,000 acres to the Tanana Valley State Forest, and this map here You can see the green polygons, that is the existing state forest, and the yellow polygons are the areas that are proposed. We— those areas that are proposed are currently designated for forestry in the area plan, in the DNR area plan, outside of the state forest management plan. So management would look very similar to what it looks like now, and we're already managing some areas. We have timber sales that we're offering in some of these areas already.

And that active management in some of these areas, that represents an investment in infrastructure and reforestation.

So why increase the Tanana Valley State Forest? Like I said, it's a long-term commitment to forest stewardship, so it ensures consistent management for forest health, wildlife habitat, recreation, and public use. It's a commitment to infrastructure investment, so when we build roads and bridges and drainage features that we have access to that in the future for future management activities. These are productive forest lands that have spruce and hardwood stands that can be put into sustained management in long term. It provides industry with certainty for timber sales in the future.

And it provides public access.

So there is a process for the state forest expansion. The first, first step in this process is a feasibility analysis, and foresters within the division identify these areas either through remote sensing, looking at soils data, or field reconnaissance to make sure that they are productive and we can put them into management. And then we evaluate access to make sure that we can get in there and do management. Then there's a planning process, and with these areas, that was done in the Yukon-Tananai Area Plan and the Eastern Tanana Area Plan. Those are the DNR plans that are put out in, I believe, in 2014.

And then that planning process, it establishes the management intent that these areas would be managed for forest practice or for forestry purposes. And then the language was added in those management plans specifically that identified those areas as being added to the state forest. And then outside of the planning process, the division went through a public engagement process where we met with the, the public to get their input on the idea of adding to the Tana Valley State Forest.

So like I mentioned, in the plan, these areas were recommended for addition to the state forest because of their productivity.

And there was public support in that process. Additionally, in the Tanana Valley State Forest Management Plan, these areas were recommended for addition to the state forest, and when we went through that process, there was public support for it as well.

In the public comment process, like I mentioned, generally Strong public support for the expansion, and I think that's because of the long history of how we manage the state forest up there. People are used to that style of management. They have access to public lands. In addition, the timber that is coming off of that state forest is being used in a public market for the mills that exist up in the interior. So in the area plan process, lots of support.

And then in that process that we went through, having those public meetings in Nenana and Fairbanks and in Tok and Delta Junction, we also found that there was a lot of public support for it as well.

So like I said in the beginning, these areas are— or this state forest is managed for timber, but obviously a lot of use is non-timber use. There's a lot of public use recreation that occurs on the state forest, but there's also a number of groups up in the interior that use the state forest for providing the services that they provide. And this is not an extensive list, it's just one that I kind of thought of just for this presentation, but it's a group that is actively doing things in the state forest to provide for public recreation and access and enjoyment from Alaskans into the state forest.

So if it pleases the committee, I do have Raymond Matyszkowski here to go through the sectional if you would like. It's a pretty straightforward sectional. I think normally we would. I think today we're going to skip the sectional and bring it back up up at the next hearing. Okay.

And then the last slide, just kind of in closing, House Bill 218 is a forward-looking investment into forest health, wildlife habitat, local industry support, and public access. And I appreciate your time, and I, I realize we're not taking any questions this time.

Um, thank you, Mr. Dowson. I really appreciate you coming down and joining us from Fairbanks. We will be very happy if you're able to join us even over Teams at the next hearing. And I, I do apologize that we're cut so short today. We will bring this bill back up at a future hearing, and I'd love to have some questions on it.

And thank you very much for presenting.

All right, we have just a few minutes left of committee today. I do want to do our level best to hear and work through the couple of amendments that were offered on House Bill 188, Rep— from Representative Mina, establishing a Welcoming Alaska Office. Um, just to go back, um, this is our third hearing on the bill. At the April 11th hearing I set an amendment deadline for Monday, April 20th at 5 PM, and we did receive 3 amendments. Uh, today we're going to do our, again, level best to consider these amendments and look to the will of the committee.

I'd like to welcome Representative Mena and her staff forward, and I'll just note we, we do have 2 other folks available, a couple other folks available online for questions, so there's a couple of lifelines here as well. Let's go straight into the amendment process. The first amendment is from my office, and I will move Amendment Number 1, also known as I.1, and then object for discussion to describe the amendment. Amendment Number 1, also known as I.1, comes at the request of the bill sponsor. In the current version of this bill, the executive director of the Welcoming Alaska Office serves as the state's refugee coordinator, which is a position that's required by federal law.

So this amendment separates that into two positions, specifying that the Welcoming Alaska Office will employ an executive director and they will also have a refugee coordinator. This makes it easier in terms of administration and allows for better ability to leverage federal dollars. That support these services. So before I go to committee discussion, does the bill sponsor have any comments on Amendment Number 1? Thank you, Chair Carrick.

For the record, my name is Genevieve Mena. I represent House District 19, the Anchorage neighborhoods of Airport Heights, Mountain View, and Russian Jack. This amendment comes at— in the context of us receiving the committee substitute and neglecting that our intent was to ensure that we had two separate positions between the Welcoming Alaska Office and the director of that office, and then the inclusion of the Alaska Office of Refugees within that office and making sure that the director for that office is different. The other importance of separating these positions is that federal refugee and resettlement funds can be used to directly fund the Alaska Office of Refugees position, and we wanted to make sure that, that distinction was there. Thank you, Representative Mena.

Is there any, any questions or discussion here? Representative Vance. So for clarification, um, is the state refugee coordinator fully funded by federal dollars and then the director would be from state dollars? Through the chair to Representative Vance, yes, that's the intention. There are a few different types of federal refugee and resettlement funding, and for this position, this would be funded through the, um, Office of Refugee and Resettlement Services, the Cash and Medical Assistance Grant that is primarily used for administrative purposes in order to help deliver refugee services, uh, and many of these positions that are currently in Catholic Social Services are federally funded.

It can also help fund for for refugee— for administrative work that's specifically related to the mission of the refugee program. And I think we also have online Issa Spatrisano, who was the former Alaska Office Refugee Coordinator, who could speak more to those federal monies.

Is that something you'd like to—. Somebody you'd like to hear from? Uh, no, Madam Chair, just I'm just trying to understand, is there a prohibition on having this position be the director of the welcoming office? I mean, I like to squeeze as much as we can on dollars rather than adding to our budget. Is there a restriction where we can't have them be the same person?

Is that— why you brought forward this amendment or just want a clear distinction? Because it's my understanding that we only have in between 40 and 60 refugees a year, and I think that this— that the coordinator could be doing a lot more. I'll turn to Representative Mena. Thank you, Chair Carrick. Through the chair to Representative Vance, we've talked pretty extensively with World Education Services, who who works with other Office of New Americans that are similar to this in other states.

And their response is that in other Office of New Americans, the sizes of those offices can range from 1.5 to 2.5 FTEs, unless you're a huge state like New York and California. There are some offices that do combine the, the two positions. My hesitation is that it is a lot of work to start up and direct the entirety of the Welcoming Alaska Office as it relates to helping to direct and coordinate all of these different services that are beyond refugee services that the Alaska Office of Refugees would separately be handling. And these positions haven't been combined at— well, obviously they haven't been combined yet, but I would defer to the current work that's being done at the current Office of Citizenship Assistance, the workload for directing that office, and then also Ms. Patrusano, who also used to be the head of Refugee Services, the amount of work that that has entailed. But my worry is that it's, it's too big of a workload just for one position.

Representative St. Clair. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I know, Representative Mena, you and I have spoken about this before, and you talk about workload load. And I'm, I'm of the same mindset as, as other members that we just pretty much consolidate what we have, maybe add one new position. Because if we go with all the— and I'm getting a little off track here, I apologize— if we combine all the positions and all the funding, we're talking over a million dollars, uh, with the current $400,000 and some change and the $700,000 in this fiscal note.

My point is, I know I asked during the last committee hearing if we could hear from someone, uh, from the current office to kind of walk us through a workflow and kind of a workload that they are existing right now to see if it can be absorbed with existing infrastructure and funds. Thank you. We do have that person, um, Isa Sias Trisano. Mr. Weinert would be the individual that's currently with the Office of Citizenship Assistance. Okay, perfect.

I was gonna call Lifeline. I'm gonna call the correct Lifeline. Mr. Weinert, who's in the Special Assistant to the Commissioner in Department of Labor.

Good afternoon, everybody. For the record, Adam Weinert, Special Assistant to the Commissioner for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development through the chair to Representative St. Clair. Currently, our Office of Citizenship Assistance has a statutory responsibility to support legal aliens with connecting them to employment and our employment opportunities in our state, information about workplace protections that are afforded to Alaskans in state law, and then serve as a referral source to other state services or federal or local resource assistance for folks who are new to Alaska. In 2025, our staff has assisted several hundred folks. Again, that's by the definition of legal alien.

That is a really broad category, folks who have legal status. Those could be refugees, they could be asylum seekers, they could be J-1 visa holders, H-1Bs, H-2Bs, whatever the case might be. Those are are the folks that our Office of Citizenship Assistance is assisting right now. That caseload could be individuals who walk into our office in Anchorage. Our staff are going out across the state into communities that have a high number of new arrivals that are in our state.

Delta Junction, for example, Juneau, the, the Mat-Su Boroughs down to Kenai. Most recently to attend a job fair. ROCA staff also provide English conversation classes, digital literacy to help folks, help them learn English. As we know, that is the largest barrier for folks to get access to good jobs is helping them learn English as quickly as possible. So our staff are providing those services as well.

So With our 3 staff, they are having a big impact across the state, and we have that information in a 2025 report for the Office of Citizenship Assistance that we can provide to the committee.

Follow-up. Follow-up. Just real quick. Yes, if we could get a copy of that report, and that last kind of question is, what is your turnaround time, or are you backlogged, or, or What are we looking at?

Uh, through the chair to Representative Sinclair, we are, we are not backlogged, but our, uh, we have small staff and we, we maintain an office at our, uh, Midtown Anchorage Job Center. So we have staff there from, uh, 8 to 5 every day. And so we take cases as they come in the door and folks who reach out via email or, or, or phone call and to assist them with whatever service that they need. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Um, we're going to take just a very brief release.

House State Affairs is back on the record, and, um, we, we've had some good discussion on House Bill 188. Um, I really, really appreciate the folks that have called in for questions today, and I thank you so much for giving us your time. Unfortunately, we have run out of time today. We do have an unresolved amendment on the table, so I'm just gonna— because I moved the amendment, I'm just gonna— let's see, I have to phone a friend here. Can we leave an unresolved amendment on the table?

I'll move to table it if you —let's do that. Could you please? So, Chair Karyn, I'm going to move that Amendment Number 1 is tabled until our next meeting on Saturday. Okay, thank you. Hearing and seeing no objection, we have moved and tabled Amendment Number 1, and we're going to pick back up with amendments at a future hearing on Saturday of this week.

Under bills previously heard. So with nothing else to come before our committee today, on Thursday of this week, uh, just for members' information, we are hearing a first hearing on House Bill 379 relating to road service area elections and House Bill 300 from Representative Hannan relating to state employee per diem. And Um, as time allows, we will also potentially bring back forward Representative Hall's bill on PFAS and have continued discussion. And then our Saturday hearing schedule will also be updated and released for the committee within the next day, so we can see that as well. Um, with nothing else to come before us, we're adjourned at 5:05 PM.