Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

I am extremely concerned that the State has decided to cut ferry service over the winter months to the community of Wrangell.

The Alaska Marine Highway has determined that Ketchikan and Petersburg will each have 10 stops while Wrangell will have just two. We will have one north bound vessel in November and one south bound vessel in January.

How is this possible? We are literally right between Ketchikan and Petersburg. The explanation provided by the State is that timing the tides in Wrangell Narrows is the culprit. Really? Tides? I am sure that with a little pre-planning the ferry could transit the narrows safely and not dramatically disrupt their schedule.

I appreciate that it is expensive to run the Marine Highway System, but for goodness sake, you are only diverting 40 miles, round trip, to service Southeast's 5th largest community.

Please reconsider the fall schedule.

Mayor Stephen Prysunka

Wrangell

To the Editor:

Dear Commissioner MacKinnon,

The purpose of this letter is to request that the Alaska Department of Transportation and Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) management team reconsider its current proposed winter schedule as it relates to the community of Wrangell. During the comment period for the winter schedule, I was informed that Wrangell and Petersburg would be covered intermittently based upon tides. Intermittent service to Wrangell implies a baseline level of service -not the drastic reality of being completely cut out of the schedule for more than two months.  

In a recent attempt to gather information as to the economic impacts of COVID-19 combined with a poor fishing season on the community of Wrangell, Rainforest Data conducted a survey. 42% of the respondents said that the lack of proposed ferry service in the upcoming winter months was a primary concern of the Wrangell residents.  This was despite the fact that no questions were asked about the AMHS proposed winter schedule in the survey. In the face of Alaska's economic downturn, Alaska is best served by supporting the economic well-being of every community and the way to do that is to stabilize infrastructure.

Since its inception in the early 1960s, the Alaska Marine Highway System has been the main public transportation infrastructure in place to serve the people and businesses in Southeast Alaska including the approximate 2,500 people living in the community of Wrangell. The service it provides is critical to the overall economic, social and cultural life that exists in the community. The state of Alaska must be accountable for its vital public infrastructure. The state still operates the Marine Highway System, and until a revised ferry system is implemented, regular reliable service to the port of Wrangell must be maintained. To do less is to ignore and cripple the livelihood and economic stability of a community with a decades long public link to Juneau, Ketchikan, Seattle, and Canada.

Rep. Dan Ortiz

To the Editor:

2020 has been a challenging year for Alaska, and nowhere is that more true than in communities reliant on fisheries and tourism.

As we continue to battle COVID-19, rebuild our economy, restore essential services, and look for a fiscal solution that makes that possible, it is imperative that we have effective leaders who cast party politics aside for the betterment of their constituents and the state; Rep. Dan Ortiz is one such leader.

As chair of both the Fisheries and Transportation Committees, as well as the representative for Kodiak, Cordova, Yakutat, and Seldovia, I have worked closely with Dan on countless coastal issues. Dan is the most effective and unwavering advocate for robust fisheries management, fisheries reform legislation, ferry service restoration, and tourism growth that we have in the legislature today.

Rep. Ortiz has accomplished this by developing great working relationships. Dan is an Independent, and I'm a life-long Republican, so we don't agree on every issue. What we always agree on, however, is the need for legislators, irrespective of party, to work together to move Alaska and our respective constituencies forward.

We all see the political divide nationally, but as Alaskans we have historically chosen our own path. The path to solutions is not one of division, but is one of compromise, independence from party politics, and that of an open mind. Rep. Ortiz has unequivocally proven that he embodies those principles, but that he will not compromise the values of his constituents in the process.

As you consider your options this November, I ask that you stand with me in supporting Rep. Dan Ortiz, a proven and effective leader, advocate, and bridge builder for District 36.

Together, we can move coastal Alaska forward.

Rep. Louise Stutes

To the Editor:

Alaskans should not be surprised that it took Dan Sullivan a decade to say he opposes the Pebble Mine. That came only after the Pebble Tapes revealed mine backers boasting about how Sullivan was hoping to "ride out the election" and that "he's off in a corner being quiet."

Remember that it was Dan Sullivan as Commissioner of the AK Dept. of Natural Resources in 2012 who removed the words "conserve," "enhance," and "future Alaskans" from the DNR mission statement, sidestepping a state law requiring legislative approval.

Sullivan said the language was pared down "because it is already implied in the state constitution," and "it doesn't mean that every one of those concepts needs to be laid out in a mission statement."

In 2013, in the case of the Chuitna Citizens Coalition vs. DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan, the Alaska Superior Court ruled that DNR violated its own rules by denying Alaskans' their rights to keep water in streams to protect wild salmon runs from a proposed coal mine.

Since he's moved on to the U.S. Senate, Sullivan has been silent while the Trump Administration has gutted every protection for our waters, lands and air.

He has been lock step as the GOP pooh-poohs climate (and Covid) science. He has voted to overthrow a health care lifeline for thousands of Alaska fishing families (with no replacement) during a pandemic. Sullivan has voted 97% with the Trump agenda.

Dan boasts that his adopted state is the "superpower" of seafood. But his inaction on ongoing trade assaults has been a dereliction of duty.

Seafood is by far Alaska's most valuable export, and China was Alaska's biggest buyer. In the more than two years that the Trump Administration slapped an average 38% tax on seafood exports to China, Alaska's sales have dropped to the lowest level in a decade and counting.

Sullivan now brags about scoring one-time Covid trade relief money for fishermen's losses - a band-aid solution to unfair trade deals with no end in sight.

In 2014, Russia placed an embargo on food purchases from the U.S. in retaliation for its denouncement of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Newly elected Sullivan exhorted: "If Russia won't buy seafood from us, we won't buy from them!"

Six years later, the U.S. has increased its Russian purchases by 70% to $770 million of mostly crab, cod and salmon that competes directly with ours. More recently, millions of pounds of Russian-caught halibut that is processed in China is flooding U.S. markets. The fish comes into the U.S. via Canada to avoid paying any tariffs.

I always "vote fish" because to me that means voting for healthy oceans and thriving coastal communities. And I always vote for the person, not a party and my voting record reflects that. In more than 30 years as a radio/print reporter for Alaska's seafood industry, I have never publicly endorsed a candidate.

Dan Sullivan has shown time and time again that his own ambition and loyalty to Party and power trumps the voices of Alaskans. He also has shown that he touts the accomplishments of other congressional colleagues as his own.

I believe that Dr. Al Gross' heart is true to Alaska above all. We need that in our U.S. Senator now more than ever. I urge you to vote for Independent candidate Al Gross on November 3.

Laine Welch

Kodiak, AK

To the Editor:

Once again, people from outside Alaska are attempting to tell those of us who call Alaska home how to manage our affairs. The difference this year is that we can control the outcome by voting No on Ballot Measure 1. Ballot Measure 1 is endorsed by the Alaska Center, an extreme environmental group bankrolled by outside political activists, primarily from California and Washington, D.C. This fact alone should be reason enough to vote No on Ballot Measure 1. But there are many more.

The supporters of this measure will tell you that raising taxes on the oil companies will put more money in your pocket and ensure that our PFDs will be safe for all time. They make this statement assuming that oil companies will continue to explore and develop fields. With this assumption they are not telling you the truth. Oil companies are reeling from a historic collapse of oil prices, and the impact of Covid-19 is huge. This Measure, if passed, will drive away the investment we need to put more oil in the pipeline. Oil companies are not going ahead with more investment in Alaska until the November election when this issue has been decided. Passing this Measure means even more job losses for Alaska and Alaska's small businesses. Simply put, if the tax rate goes up, cash flows go down and that does not make more investment in Alaskan oil realistic. Oil has been the lifeblood for Alaska's economy for over 40 years. Over the years Alaskans have come to understand that short-term gain is a risky proposition if it comes at the cost of billions of dollars over the coming years.

This measure being proposed is a complicated tax policy that should be subject to expert analysis and public input, but that never happened. A group of oil industry critics wrote it behind closed doors and then labeled it "Fair Share Act" to mislead the voting public.

Alaska's economy is resource based. Resource industries wax and wane over time in response to supply and demand, and this dictates when it is time to expand and when it is time to slow down. Since the first barrel of oil flowed down the pipeline, oil production has supported over 90% of the state's economy. The oil industry is, and it remains, our largest source of funding for our tax base and our employment base. Oil creates 77,000 direct and indirect jobs, many right here in Wrangell. Oil supports a 5 billion dollar payroll and is the state's biggest taxpayer at an average of $3 billion per year for the past five years.

All Alaska industries oppose new taxes. With Covid-19 ravaging our economy, this is a particularly bad time to raise taxes and depress investment on any industry. It is also a fact that Alaska's oil industry has the highest operating cost of any oil province in the world.

Now is not the time to kill the Golden Goose that very well may be laying Golden Eggs again.

Frank Roppel