Choosing our Future: Alaska’s Fiscal Options

This dialogue featured three panels of experts, community members, and public servants. After a presentation on the current fiscal situation, various approaches, and the costs tied to those options, community members discussed goals and values followed by a panel of legislators discussing options for moving forward.

Opening presentation on facts, approaches, and dollars attached to options:

• Mouhcine Guettabi, ISER Professor of Economics
• Larry Persily, Former Alaska Deputy Commissioner of Revenue
• Cliff Groh, Chair Alaska Common Ground

First Panel: Goals/Values

• Thea Agnew Bemben, Anchorage business owner
• Andrew Halcro, former state legislator
• Rick Halford, former long-time state legislator
• Kathie Wasserman, Executive Director, Alaska Municipal League
• Charles Wohlforth, author, radio host, and newspaper columnist

Second Panel: Options/Deals

• Commissioner of Revenue Sheldon Fisher
• Rep. Jason Grenn, I.-Anchorage
• Rep. Chuck Kopp, R.-Anchorage
• Sen. Peter Micciche, R.-Soldotna, and Senate Majority Leader
• Rep. Ivy Spohnholz, D.-Anchorage

Listen to the audio here, thanks to Alaska Public Media.

This event was cosponsored by the Anchorage Public Library.