New rural regional boroughs will not have an adequate tax base to enable them to finance needed schools and sewer and water systems through municipal bonding based solely on their own credit. Governor Egan has agreed to work for a State investment policy that would enable the State to either buy or guarantee rural borough municipal bonds. This will be an important improvement in economic cooperation between the State government and the people of rural Alaska. Elimination of the Alaska State Operated School System. T he Alaska State Operated School System was never intended as a permanent social institution in Alaska, but even its brief existence is an affront to those who yearn for self-rule in rural Alaska.
Education is the primary responsibility of local government in America.
We will survive the Watergate scandal because ours is a nation governed by the decisions of school boards, but not in rural Alaska. This great democratic strength is reposed with the Alaska State Operated School System's board of directors when it should be in the hands of local governments. I agree with the governor that we will have to tolerate the existence of the Alaska State Operated School System until rural regional boroughs are organized to put it out of business, but I want to see the Department of Education more involved in affirmative regional borough organizational action to hasten the day of the demise of the Alaska State Operated School System. I am a life long Democrat, and Governor Egan is our standard bearer. None of them offered to talk to me about my well-publicized concerns about the lack of local government in rural Alaska.