Legislators’ Per Diem
Dear Editor: I was interested in Senator Stedman’s interview on KIFW on Friday morning, Jan 12. He talked about his pre-filed resolution, SJR9, that would spell out how the state can use Permanent Fund earnings and that the dividend rate would be about $1,800 a year. I am thinking many Alaskans will like that.
I will take exception to his notion that it is unnecessary to hold our Legislature to their job – pass a budget and not go three sessions with nothing accomplished while earning a more than generous per diem. Currently legislators can claim per diem stipends of $295 a day for each day they are in Special Session and for each non-legislative day in which they work a certain number of hours. Given the number of days the Legislature was in special session this last year, legislators could receive up to $35,000 each in per diem payments from that alone. That to me is a “kiddie game,” as he referred to the current ballot proposition. We need to hold our elected officials’ feet to the fire to show up and get their work done, like the rest of us.
Jeff Budd, Sitka
Sac Roe Fishery
Dear Editor: Ask most herring skippers and they will tell you that they cannot stop seining, because of their debt. This means that the fate of the herring biomass is determined by bankers.
Bankers, unlike the rest of us, simply move their capital from one resource to another resource, whenever the first resource is rendered unviable by overuse.
Protecting the herring protects the Alaskan economy. Herring are a main link not only in the food chain supporting other fisheries, but in the economic web. Alaskans depend on a healthy and sustainable herring biomass.
The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over, even when repetition always produces bad consequences. It is insane to overfish herring until the biomass crashes.
Sane fisheries management will priorititize sustainability over short-term profits.
John Welsh, Sitka
