LUTHERAN QUILTERS – Members of the Quilts for Comfort Group stand between pews draped with some of the 205 quilts they made, in the Sitka Lutheran Church Tuesday. The group made the quilts for five local non-profits and one in Anchorage. The remaining quilts are sent to Lutheran World Relief which distributes them to places around the world in need, such as Ukraine, as part of Personal Care Kits. Pictured are, from left, Helen Cunningham, Kathleen Brandt,Vicki Swanson, Paulla Hardy, Kim Hunter, Linda Swanson and Sue Fleming. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Alaska Beacon
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Disaster Aid Sought for SE Fishermen
By Sentinel Staff
Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is asking Gov. Walker to include Southeast Alaska in the regions for which the governor is seeking federal disaster funds related to the crash in the pink salmon run this year.
In late September, Walker wrote to U.S. Commerce secretary Penny Pritzker requesting disaster funding for several Alaska regions affected by the poor pink salmon run. Funding was specifically requested for the Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet and Kodiak areas.
“That raised some eyebrows in our office,” said Kreiss-Tomkins’ legislative aide Berett Wilber in an email to the Sentinel. “What about Southeast?”
Kreiss-Tomkins’s office reviewed the thresholds for determining whether a commercial fishery is a disaster under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, using the same steps the governor’s office had taken for determining the eligibility of the regions that he had named in his request to Pritzker.
Under the federal guidelines, if revenue from a fishery has fallen 80 percent from the five-year average it automatically qualifies for disaster status, Kreiss-Tomkins’ office explained. If revenue has fallen between 35 and 80 percent the fishery is eligible to be considered a disaster “upon further evaluation by the executive branch.”
Using public data from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Kreiss-Tomkins’ staff calculated that “the Southeast pink salmon fisheries suffered a 51.1 percent loss of revenue in 2016.”
“We came to the conclusion that things penciled out numerically,” Wilber said in the email. “Southeast is eligible for inclusion: it’s a matter of whether or not the governor’s office is willing to include our request to the Department of Commerce.”
She said that Kreiss-Tomkins and Rep. Dan Ortiz of Ketchikan sent a formal letter to the governor on Friday asking that Southeast Alaska be included in the request for federal disaster relief funds.
“We are the legislators for 30 rural towns in Southeast Alaska: commercial fisheries are the economic backbone of our districts,” the legislators said in their letter to the governor.“With pink salmon fisheries across the state facing near historic lows, our constituents have not gone unaffected. We have fishing families that are facing huge losses through no fault of their own.”
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Advertisement: Tea-Licious Tea House & Bakery 315 Lincoln Street Grand Opening! Freshly Baked Scones, Cakes & Pastries Innovative Salads, Soups & Sandwiches Harney & Sons Tea. Lunch * Afternoon Tea * Supper.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Photo caption: National Republican Chairman George Bush takes a drink of water offered by Jan Craddick, Sitka delegate, during the Republican convention held here. Mrs. Craddick explained to Bush that the water was from Indian River, which means, according to local legend, that he will return.