Unalaska, AK – By the end of November, Unalaska is expected to have its own legislative information office. It willll the be 23rd office in the state, and the first to open in over a decade.

The purpose of the offices is to increase communication between Alaskans and their state legislature, as well as provide information on bills going through the two chambers. The LIOs have a teleconferencing systems that can connect constituents to hearings and they have a library of information on the legislative process.

Sue Cotter is a Information and Teleconferencing Manager at the Legislative Affairs Agency, and she says that the office will help increase civic participation in the community.

"You can ask any of our information officers anything to do with the legislative process and they can help you maneuver the process," says Cotter.

Former City Clerk Jessica Earnshaw will be staffing the Unalaska legislative office, and the office is expected to serve the whole Aleutian Islands region.

"We of course can't open an office in every town and village in the state, so you kind of want a region covered," says Cotter. "We looked at the population. We looked at the distance between LIOs. And it just made a lot of sense to open one in Unalaska."

The legislative session will open January 18, 2011 and run through April 17, 2011. The office will be budgeted for those six months annually, with some extra hours also scheduled in between sessions.