Friday Afternoon Training Sessions
The ethics was in the morning. J met me in the State Office Building for lunch. I saw in the newspaper that on Fridays they have an organ concert at noon. They also have public access wifi from the state library in the building.
In 1928, W.D. Gross, pioneer Alaska theater owner, had the organ built for his Coliseum Theater on South Franklin Street. The instrument complemented silent movies and was used until 1926, when talking motion pictures replaced the silents.Obviously, they didn't mean 1926. It did say it was moved to another theater in 1939.
The afternoon sessions included presentations by the Building Manager, the Chief of Security, a Fire Safety person, people from the Supply Office and Mail Room, the Accounting Supervisor, people from the Print Shop and Documents offices, the Legislative Information and Teleconferencing Offices, the Director of Legal Services, the Legal Research Manager, and the Librarian.
Everyone was knowledgeable and seemed genuinely interested in making sure we knew what services they provided and how we could contact them and use them efficiently. They all conveyed that they knew there was lots to learn and it was okay to ask 'dumb' questions. Someone in the accounting office warned us to be careful what information we put down on accounting documents ('use your office addresses and phone numbers, not your home info') because this is all public information should someone care to ask for it.
The Legislative Information Office was particularly interesting to me. I was vaguely aware of them but going to the downtown office to participate in a teleconference with legislators seemed pretty intimidating and I was skeptical about the impact. But I'm ready to take a second look. The people at that office do outreach into communities across the state to help people be more comfortable about coming in and participating. I would imagine their impact would be greater in rural communities than in Anchorage where there are so many people.
It would be interesting to know whether people on the other end feel the same way about the LIO. Did I feel intimidated because of my own expectations or because of how it is? Since I've never actually tried to go to a teleconferenced hearing, I guess it was my own bias.
But a lot of what goes on in Juneau is also available online. Here's a link to one of the State pages.
Here's part of that page below:
The Legislative Research Service conducts research for legislators on non-legal issues. Their webpage includes a list of links, including a page where you can search for old reports they've done.
Around 3:30 we moved over to the House Finance Committee Conference Room which is on the fifth floor of the Capitol Building. (I'll try to discuss the key buildings later when I figure them out.) This was lead by the chief of staff of the House Rules Committee and included the House Sergeant at Arms, the Chief Clerk, the House Records Supervisor, and one more person who wasn't on our agenda and whose title I think was Rules Committee Aide. The Lounge was mentioned. As I understood it, this is where Reps can go eat and relax. The only other people allowed there are Sergeant of Arms staff such as the pages. Staff are not even allowed to knock on the door. If staff needs to get a message to their legislator, they have to give a note to a page. But there's a new service this year - again, this is what I understood was said - so that staff can order sandwiches from the Lounge as a separate window.
They also went through the protocol for the House Floor. Again, legislators only, plus pages and other Sergeant of Arms staff. Notes must go through the pages. Staffers (and the public) can view from the gallery, but even there, no cell phones, no texting, no flash photography. No disturbances.
The Chief Clerk went into detail about paper work necessary for moving bills along and how to track them. Chit sheets are long, narrow yellow sheets with the names of each of the representatives. I'm not completely sure what these are used for - I think they help keep track of who is supporting bills and I think someone said they were used for voting before electronic voting. The Rules Chair, we were told, would no longer require these be turned in with each bill. When we recounted this to Rep. G he had a big smile and highly praised the Rules Chair for this move.
The Records Officer said all meetings - except subcommittee and task force meetings - are recorded digitally and then transcribed. Staff could borrow the equipment for those other meetings if they wished. I understood that all these are made available on line. I'm not sure if the recordings are or just the transcripts. But I think the recordings. I think these can be found on the Media page above.
It's Sunday morning. We were supposed to meet in the office at 9am to do more unpacking. We have a friend coming to meet us at 10:30. I got to the office and no one was there. So I checked my messages and they'd decided to come in later, so I took advantage of the break to catch up on the blogging. But I have to run now. Have a good Sunday. The snow is pretty much gone from the streets and sidewalks now. Just the shrinking berms where snow was pushed and the green areas still have snow.
