State Rep. Fagan pays visit to Palouse

State representative Susan Fagan came to the Palouse Community Center Monday night to discuss a variety of topics with constituents.

Representative meets with constituents

Ninth District Representative Susan Fagan of Pullman addresses Palouse residents at the Palouse Community Center Monday. Fagan and attendees discussed a spectrum of topics including record requests and education.

Issues brought up included the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, public records requests and various K-12 education matters.

Fagan (R-Ninth legislative district) opened by mentioning the January 2012 McCleary decision, which directs states to fund basic education by 2018, so school districts no longer need levies to pay for things such as teachers and maintenance.

“We take very seriously that voters keep telling us they don’t want their taxes raised,” said Fagan. “Quite frankly, we believe that the education budget should be written first.”

The next issue to come up was public records requests.

Fagan said that the law, which allows anonymous requests, is putting too much of a burden on city employees.

“Some balance has got to be out there,” she said.

Palouse city councilwoman Connie Newman sat next to Fagan. She discussed helping Fagan write legislation to curtail the public records requests law.

Newman said she will continue to push for a requirement for requests to include identification, citing a problem of lawsuits which have been filed as a result of cities’ taking too much time to fill requests.

Fagan said that many times these requests involve printing thousands, if not millions of e-mails.

The cost to cities in employee labor (often overtime) is too much, Newman and Fagan agreed.

Fagan then told the crowd, which numbered about twelve, of the legislative committees she is on.

The first is the Ways and Means committee, now called the Appropriations committee.

“I don’t think I could do the best job I can for you without understanding the budget,” Fagan said.

She indicated that she is on the education subcommittee for the Appropriations committee, as well as serving on the K-12 Education and the Higher Education committees (separate from Appropriations).

While she talked, a train whistle went off outside, which brought up the subject of rail.

“We’ve lost a lot of our rail transportation and we can’t afford to lose anymore,” Fagan said.

She then talked a little on storm water regulations, saying that they were written based on what was learned in Western Washington. She said the different climate of the east side of the state needs to be taken into account.

The subject of school district consolidation then came up.

“I have not heard any new discussion of consolidation in this session,” she said.

The subject of schools continued.

“I hear a lot of ‘don’t pass anything else that causes an unfunded mandate,” Fagan said.

“I don’t want to pass up this opportunity to say that I believe that our small schools and our small school districts really prepare people well.”

She talked about charter schools, saying that in small areas, “we already have charter schools,” citing the high parental involvement associated with charter schools.

The subject of the November election came up too, with Fagan saying she just took down her Rob McKenna for Governor signs.

“After the election, what I can focus on is my own family, my community and my legislative district,” she said.

As the meeting neared closing, Rusty Jamison, a school board member for Garfield, brought up the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s (WIAA) creation of a B1 league, which, he said, has led to long commutes to league games for small schools. His comment was echoed by others in the audience.

“Nobody has ever mentioned this to me,” said Fagan, thanking Jamison.

The meeting concluded with Fagan noting that she is looking for a page for the next legislative session. Pages work for the state legislator’s office for one week and need to be between ages 14 and 16. It is a paid position. Those interested may contact her office.

The Washington state legislature will begin its next session Jan. 14. It is scheduled to run for 105 days.