This is my last APDC president’s message. I’m looking forward to Kelsey Davidson’s leadership over the upcoming year!
As a group, we are tracking several bills of interests to our member organizations – we’re supporting HB 61 to license commercial interior designers, HB104 to raise Alaska’s meager gas tax to help support road maintenance and construction, HB 148 to adopt the latest coordinate system from NGS; and opposing HB218/SB169 which places restrictions on fire damper inspection personnel and HB277 which implements high fee on end of year license renewals. During our fly-in to Juneau last month, we had 15 participants talk to our elected officials about these items, the ASCE report card, and the need for sustainable operating and capital budgets. It was inspiring to see our efforts lead to several beneficial amendments to HB218 while we were in Juneau. I would encourage you to take a few minutes to reach out to your own state legislators to encourage action on these items before everything “resets” in Juneau with the elections this fall.
Thank you for your continued support of APDC. As always, if you would like to be more involved in our legislative outreach, please contact me or Colin Maynard (akbosco@aol.com), our Legislative Committee (LC) Chair, to be included in our bi-weekly LC meetings during the legislative session.
-Will Webb, PE
Alaska Professional Design Council 