Saturday, April 21, was the final Legislative issues meeting hosted by the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce from 8:30-10 a.m., at the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce Visit Salina Annex, located at 120 W. Ash. Senator Randall Hardy, and Representatives Steven Johnson, Diana Dierks and J.R. Claeys were present.

The traditional format was followed with the senator and the representatives giving opening remarks and following with questions from the audience. Most of the questions were related to education, firearms, and common sense gun safety laws.

The question concerning education was, “how are you going to hold the schools accountable and what criteria is being put in place to hold them accountable for the graduation rate and things like that to make sure that the funds are being used correctly.”

Representative Dierks’s response was mostly concerning the difficulty with the funding mechanisms that the teachers have to deal with. Which are sometimes obsolete and that the need is to really start looking at funding those programs that are going to help kids achieve.

Representative Johnson’s response was that it is really important and there is a balance to say how do we make sure we have the measures we want, how do we make sure we achieve what we want to be overly rigid in that because if we don’t have the right exact measure set and we over-focus on that, we can very much be counterproductive and how we spend money and get there.

Senator Hardy’s response was that he wants to see outcomes with our investment in education. He stated that any time that you make an investment in something, you want to see a return on that investment.

The question concerning firearms was, “do you receive any money from the NRA and do you support common sense gun safety laws, like universal background checks?”

Representative Claeys’s response was, “as for receiving money from the NRA, I don’t believe they give money to our campaigns, but their lobbyists do take people to dinner. Concerning gun safety he stated that he thinks there are certainly some common sense things that make complete sense to do like those who go through due process of law, having their rights restricted, because they are the subject of a restraining order or might be found to have a mental deficiencies. So he would support those kinds of things.

Representative Dierks also echoed support of common sense gun safety laws and especially for those who have been found to have some mental issues.

Representative Johnson stated that he does not receive any funding and that he would support any sensible policy.

Senator Hardy stated that he has never received received one buffalo wild wings dinner invitation but he would support a legislation that is along the same vein as what has been looked at already.