21 



on the age factor, on your water and sewer and fire and police and 

 that type of thing? 



Mr. Hallgren. The city has traditionally been behind the curve 

 in preparing its infrastructure. We just a few months ago voted to 

 increase the sales tax from four percent to five percent to come up 

 with the money to rebuild our high school and one of our other 

 schools and also to build a new city shop, which dates back to 

 World War II, but it is a matter of increasing taxes to take care 

 of things. We are definitely behind the curve on our taking care of 

 our general fund buildings. 



The Chairman. How was the State revenue this year, was it cut, 

 the revenue sharing? 



Mr. Hallgren. The revenue sharing has been cut, and I think 

 for the last several years no question about that, and I think this 

 year we took a seven or eight percent cut, and we have been taking 

 larger percentages of cuts than other State areas. 



One of the things that has actually helped us has been that the 

 stumpage has gone up the last several years beyond what we esti- 

 mated. 



The Chairman. And that stumpage will not occur when presi- 

 dent — well, in fact, if all the mills shut down, there will not be any 

 stumpage, will there? 



Mr. Hallgren. If there is no cutting, there is no stumpage. 



The Chairman. Any other comments from the panel? 



I want to thank you, and, again, this is — the testimony is open, 

 and if you can think of some other suggestions or ideas, I would 

 deeply appreciate it. 



Thanks to the panel. I appreciate it very much. 



The next panel will be Ms. Cindy McGraw and Ms. Paula Scott. 



Ladies, welcome. I see we have one scratched. 



Cindy, you are up first. 



STATEMENT OF CINDY MCGRAW 



Ms. McGraw. My name is Cindy McGraw. I have lived in Alaska 

 all of my life. My parents were born here and their parents before 

 them and so on and so on and so on. 



I think Alaskans need to take control of the National Tongass 

 Forest because so far the national government has not been doing 

 a very good or fair job of it. Nobody is happy. Neither side of the 

 Tongass issue is happy. 



I believe that given the opportunity, maybe the State government 

 could do a better job of management. At the present time, getting 

 anything approved through the national-run Forest Service, as it 

 stands, is impossible. 



There is so much red tape, a person would drown before anyone 

 would even notice that they were drowning, and then they would 

 have to hold hearings to see if maybe someone should throw that 

 person a ring, then someone would protest that maybe the life ring 

 would hurt the fish or the surrounding waters, and then they 

 would have to go to court to get approval to throw the life ring. 



Meanwhile, we have already held the memorial service and bur- 

 ied the person who drowned in all that red tape. 



My personal experience with the federally controlled Forest Serv- 

 ice is not a good one. My husband, myself, and our three children 



