Members of the House Finance Committee visiting the Kenai Peninsula Saturday will be joined by Rep. Ben Carpenter, R-Nikiski, telephonically.
“Our state has invested a significant amount of resources into top-of-the-line teleconferencing equipment to allow people around Alaska to participate in the legislative process,” said Rep. Carpenter in a press release. “Rather than add my name to the long list of legislators traveling to these events at the taxpayers’ expense, I’ll be participating via our state’s teleconferencing system.”
The series of meetings hosted by the House Finance Committee will visit areas across the state to address resident concerns with the governor’s proposed budget. The press release says the meetings were planned after the committee heard the governor’s plans to hold meetings around the state.
“While I disagree with the amount of public money being spent to promote political agendas ahead of the governor’s events, Speaker Edgmon and the Majority do appear to have recognized the impracticality of Juneau for most legislative meetings,” Carpenter said. “If this is the Majority’s attempt to start moving the Legislature to the road system, I’ll consider it money well spent.”
Carpenter said he would support a pending initiative, Equal Access Alaska, which aims at moving the Legislature to the road system.
“The people have been denied access to the public process for too long,” Carpenter said.
