February 20, 2019
Wednesday AM

Cutting education in any way shape or form in my opinion should be a last resort not your first option as a governor! I see one term wonder as the first sentence on your next resume.

As for the rest of you lawmakers in Juneau especially the ones still there from the early days of the brainchild called " oil tax credits" you owe all of Alaska not only an apology but a much better effort as well, you can try to make amends for your short sighted decisions back then by stopping this short sighted decision now, in its tracks, and remove all cuts to education from any proposed budget from anyone. Buckle up and do your jobs with the amount of oil we have and will soon have, with natural gas as well, there is no excuse for our current financial situation here in Alaska, just plain old bad governance.
 
Maybe sir start your tenure as governor by shoring up our position as a state by making the oil industry start paying for our oil so we can support state functions as other oil exporting states do.

Do not make Alaskan children and young Alaskan college students suffer because of state governments inability to attack bad previous policies.
 
The governor states he has to make the hard decisions, while in fact he's trying to take the easy way out by proposing an impossible budget, and putting it squarely on your shoulders (Dan Ortiz) and other representatives, senators, lawmakers, who all are being pushed under the school bus by this ridiculous, budget proposal.

To  perpetuate, reinforce and stabilize a state economy, you start with its base. Our base is our children, and their education should be as a state our first priority. 

I have four daughters, two of which received their masters degrees from UAS and are teachers in Ketchikan, one currently in the UAS system, and one that works for the city of Ketchikan, they all graduated from Ketchikan High School as did my wife and I. My three grandchildren are in the school system here in Ketchikan as well. My wife and I stayed on in Ketchikan after graduation and started building a family as my children are starting to do now, building homes, starting careers, putting their children into our school system (perpetuating our base). 

We all choose to stay and fight for our way of life right here in Ketchikan in no small part due to all of our experiences in growing up in our school system, we all have had great experiences with the teachers many here for decade , knowing us and our children as students and now our grandchildren as students, that stability and sense of community comes at a cost, that cost has always been shouldered by dedicated Alaskan parents and lawmakers, who above all things avoided at all cost educational funding cuts. In doing so "reinforcing" "perpetuating" "stabilizing" our base .

Past and present students of Alaska deserve and expect a much better effort from you all in Juneau, find another way.

Charles Edwardson
Ketchikan, Alaska

Editor's Note:

The text of this letter was NOT edited by the SitNews Editor.

Received February 17, 2019 - Published February 20, 2019

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