Anchorage Daily News January 19, 2005
The city filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Tuesday attempting to shoot down a recent state law that could dilute city control of federal transportation spending in Anchorage. A law sponsored by state Sen. Ben Stevens, R-Anchorage, would add two nonvoting state legislators and two citizens, who could vote, to the five-member AMATS Policy Committee. That panel decides how to spend federal money for roads, pathways and anticongestion programs in Anchorage.
The Anchorage mayor and two Anchorage Assembly members now form a majority on the committee. The other two members are the state commissioners of environmental conservation and transportation, or people they designate.
If Mayor Mark Begich doesn't cooperate with the change in membership, the state has warned, the state Department of Transportation could give Anchorage's share of federal highway money away to other Alaska localities. Anchorage annually gets more than $40 million in federal highway funds.
At the December AMATS meeting in City Hall, regional state transportation director Gordon Keith told Begich, " ... we're in the process of putting together a plan B ... to spend the money other places in the Central Region," in case the city doesn't agree to add members to the committee as specified in the new law.
Keith said AMATS faced a July 1 deadline to have the rebuilt committee in place and to approve a spending plan.
But Begich said federal law doesn't allow the Legislature, or the state, to unilaterally change the membership of AMATS without agreement from local representatives.
"Because the Legislature passed this, therefore we must bow down and listen to their almighty wisdom," Begich said at the December meeting. "Well, their wisdom on this is wrong."
And, he said, "we're not giving up one dime to anywhere outside of Anchorage." Another state law says that about 27 percent of the federal highway money must be spent in Anchorage, he said.
While Keith and Begich exchanged harsh words at the AMATS meeting, on Tuesday Begich characterized the city lawsuit as a friendly one.
"Let's just let a judge decide and be done," he said. "I thought this was the fastest way and one both sides would be happy with."
Alaska Transportation Commissioner Mike Barton issued a statement that said something similar.
The legislation that the lawsuit challenges has "generated serious questions that need to be answered," Barton said. "It will be good to have the bills clarified."
The city says in its suit that federal law doesn't allow any changes in AMATS without the city's consent. AMATS is what the federal government calls a metropolitan planning organization. Such committees are in place in metropolitan areas across the country. In Alaska, Fairbanks also has one.
Senate Bill 260, the bill Stevens sponsored to add members to AMATS, was intended to lead to greater cooperation between the Legislature and AMATS by adding the legislative members, Stevens said in floor debate at the time. His initial proposal called for the legislators to be voting members of AMATS, but by the time the measure was approved by both houses, the legislators had become advisory.
Stevens also won adoption of SB 71, which limits the amount of federal road money AMATS can spend on "enhancements" to 10 percent. That generally applies to trails, sidewalks and landscaping.
The city's lawsuit also challenges the legality of that provision. AMATS past policy has called for spending 15 percent on enhancements.
Daily News reporter Rosemary Shinohara can be reached at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340.