Rep. Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan, really wants to hear Alaskans\u2019 opinions on the budget. He\u2019s even willing to take some punishment in the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cSlap us in the face if you have to, but let us know what\u2019s on your mind,\u201d he told attendees of Tuesday\u2019s Native Issues Forum hosted by the Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.<\/p>\n
The forum is a series of lunch lectures that invites Alaska legislators and policymakers to speak to the Central Council and answer questions several times each legislative session. This year\u2019s series includes five events; Tuesday\u2019s was the first of the year.<\/p>\n
Joining Ortiz was Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau, and Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, and each man joined Ortiz\u2019s plea for public involvement in the state\u2019s budgeting process, albeit without a request for physical contact.<\/p>\n
\u201cProvide us with your feelings of the big picture of how we can cast our votes,\u201d Egan said. \u201cSam, Dan and I are wanting to hear from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Egan referred at length to the results of a poll commissioned by the Rasmuson Foundation. The results of that poll were released last week and found that while most Alaskans are aware of the state\u2019s fiscal trouble, 41 percent of nonwhite Alaskans hadn\u2019t heard of the governor\u2019s plan to balance the budget by raising taxes, cutting expenses and using earnings from the Alaska Permanent Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is important for you to get the word out,\u201d Egan said, speaking mostly to the Native members of the audience. \u201cThe problem and the solutions are going to impact everyone, and you have to know about it so you can tell us what you think we should do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan, really wants to hear Alaskans\u2019 opinions on the budget. He\u2019s even willing to take some punishment in the process. \u201cSlap us in the face if you have to, but let us know what\u2019s on your mind,\u201d he told attendees of Tuesday\u2019s Native Issues Forum hosted by the Central Council Tlingit and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21797"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}