By Michelle Scannell

After giving their southwest Anchorage constituents less than a single day’s notice , some members of the House Majority abandoned their posts in Juneau for a weekend in Anchorage, calling a last-second town hall meeting Saturday afternoon with constituents as their excuse.

I called around to some of my supporters, and about ten of us and my entire family went over to hear what Reps Johnson and Costello had to say for themselves.  The answer?  Not much.  There were no presentations or slide shows for constituents.  There were brief discussions about roads, the moose relocation project, and HB 110.  And then they left.

Now having constant contact with constituents is, of course, important to elected officials because the fishbowl that is the Capitol Building can cause even well-intentioned legislators to loose touch with reality.  Town Hall meetings are a great way for legislators to break out of the bubble and find out what people really think, but is it reasonable, with rumors swirling about extending the session, that the House Majority stop working and take off for home with less than three weeks left to go?

It is a poor use of taxpayers’ money and legislators’ time for them to fly out of Juneau, just so they can physically be there for an almost zero notice constituent meeting (attendance: +/-30) with only 24 days left (including weekends) to the Legislative Session.  If the rumors that are awash in Juneau are to be believed, an extended and/or special session, for the second year in a row, will be announced sooner rather than later.

Wouldn’t it be wondrous if there existed a technology that  that allowed legislators and their constituents to speak with to each other in real time, across vast distances, bridging the communications gap between Juneau and their home turf?  Oh, wait…there is.

While legislators from less advanced states make do with the telephone, Skype, and Google Hangouts, our Alaskan Representatives have Legislative Information Offices, bought and paid for by you and me.

This is the 21st century.  The future has arrived.  Our state can boast of one the most bleeding edge interconnected video teleconferencing systems in the U.S. and by some measures, the world…really.  Why are our elected officials not availing themselves to maximize these communication options?

Alaska’s Legislative Teleconference Network has a large 100-person conference room in the Anchorage LIO, complete with a multi-screen video conferencing center that links easily and directly with the Juneau LIO.  We already pay for this system and its upkeep with our tax dollars.   If Legislators did host consituent meetings through the LIO, then they could have them as often as they felt like it, instead of a single 1 1/2 hour long meeting during an important 3 month stretch of time.  Not only that, think of the money the state (that means us) would save in plane tickets alone!  We, the constituents would still get our face time with our legislators, and get the updates that usually come with these Town Halls, but not at the expense of our wallets and the precious little time they have left before sine die.

What is the cost of a weekend legislative junket to Anchorage during session?  Return trip plane tickets, the inability to work (their legislative offices are empty shells and they are away from their staff), the risk of flights being canceled due to Alaska’s temperamental weather, and their arrival to Juneau belated…for what? An hour and a half-worth of photo-ops with 30 constituents?

Think of all the real face time legislators could have –at no additional cost to us– if they used the technology we bought and paid for them to use.

[Michelle Scannell is a candidate for the Alaska State House in District 20]