Amy Emshoff, left, and her husband Alan, far right, listen
to Senator Laura Ebke at John E’s bar and grill on Tuesday, April 17.
State Senator Laura Ebke spent an hour Tuesday (April 17th)
afternoon with constituents in Exeter.
Ebke plans to visit with every community in her district in
the next few weeks.
Her stop in Exeter was the day before the final day of the
legislative session and she spent a few minutes detailing the schedule for the
final day.
The afternoon session was open for any constituents to ask
Ebke questions about issues that were important to them.
One matter of upmost importance to the taxpayers gathered
was the issue of property tax and what can change with that. Ebke was
asked if the legislature will go into a special session to deal with the issue.
“I don’t object or oppose a special session but just not
right now. . . it’s too early to start discussing anything. The estimate
for a special session is $12,000 a day and we just don’t have enough ready to
justify having the special session. A special session is limited in scope and
takes a lot of preparation.”
Ebke was asked which tax bill was her favorite. Her
response, “We have to be realistic about taxes. Senator Friesen had a
good bill. We have to fix property tax and fix school funding together.”
Ebke lamented the struggle the legislature has with finding
the funding for everything while still cutting taxes.
An additional tax on services was brought up by constituent
Alan Emshoff. “I think sales tax exemptions should be looked at
first. There are 120 of them.”
Ebke responded, “I think we need to look at the current
exemptions before we expand the tax base. There’s nothing to cut that
somebody doesn’t love. You have to decide what you want to go to war
over.”
She also briefly discussed internet sales tax.
After discussing some of the exemptions the topic changed to
term limits. Ebke noted, “It’s better for the legislature and the state,
for senators to serve longer. We are losing institutional
knowledge. This (her fourth year) has been my best year, I have able to
strategize and work with people to get things done.”
One constituent noted that Ebke is running against two
others on the non-partisan ballot. She spoke of her opponents in a
positive light and explained that there will be three listed on the primary
ballot and the top two will move on to the regular election in November.
Two other topics were briefly discussed including a bill on
NPPD transparency which required NPPD to make their contracts available for the
public to view. Senator Ebke voted for the bill but explained that it didn’t
pass.
The final topic was the issue of occupational
licensing. During the legislative session just completed horse massage
licensing was passed and Ebke talked about the different reasoning behind
requiring licensing.
