Assembly
Dear Editor: The late Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall rightly noted “The power to tax – is the power to destroy.” The power to overtax, of course – will destroy even more.
Our Assembly is seeking to punish those things of which they claim to want more (taxpayers, ratepayers and private business) with higher taxes, fees, rates, moorage – while rewarding those things of which they claim to want less (out of control school and city growth/spending) with higher budgets, taxes, rates, fees, moorage that is driving young working people with children out of town.
School enrollment is down 500 students since 2002, yet the number of school district employees has greatly increased. Rather than insist the school district reduce costs, the Assembly is considering raising property and sales taxes, as well as increase water, sewer, power and moorage rates across the board every year from now on to give the school district everything they want.
I encourage you to contact your mayor and Assembly members and demand they cut spending during these hard times rather then to tax us to death.
Clyde Bright, Sitka
AMHS S.E. Service
Dear Editor: The governor’s budget proposed cutting the AMHS budget and ending AMHS service this coming October. Recent discussion suggested one method of meeting a lower budget number is to eliminate service to the rural communities in Southeast; towns with small numbers of residents and low numbers of traffic when compared to larger communities. Future marine transportation to the towns of Angoon, Tenakee, Hoonah, Gustavus, Pelican and Kake would be “outsourced.” I have resided in the community of Pelican for nearly 30 years; in my estimation this “outsourcing” concept is unrealistic for the following reasons:
– There has been no replacement private enterprise identified that can provide passenger and roll on/roll off freight vehicle carrying capacity.
– It will set back economic progress in this community and others.
– Lacks any attempt to identify specific excessive costs and then search for a remedy other than dropping service.
Nearly 40 years ago the State of Alaska began auctioning off state land in Southeast and within the sales brochure there was a description of the nearest community and available services; AMHS service was identified where applicable, (Pelican for one). In the 1981 DNR Land Offering it states: “Transportation includes the Alaska Marine Highway which serves Pelican on a monthly basis.” Since then there have been approximately 30 dwellings built on former state land surrounding the community. The residents that invested in the land depended upon the AMHS to bring building materials to their lots and now to access them. This implied contract of service by the AMHS may be scrapped.
During the last five years our town has seen an economic resurgence. One local family began a commercial fish buying and processing business. Five years ago they had five employees and grew this to 24 in 2019. The same business just signed a 25-year lease on the former crab plant with plans to grow further. New fish processing equipment has been brought in and this year they anticipate shipping out a million dollars worth of fish. The vast majority of incoming equipment and outgoing product was transported on the AMHS. We are presently experiencing a housing shortage; a planned renovation to a large bunkhouse to offer apartments to working families may have to be shelved without AMHS-like service. All of this progress could easily go away with a cessation of service.
AMHS service for the last 45 years has resulted in the community adapting to vehicular service to carry freight. It is not unusual on “ferry day” to have large box vans, flat bed trucks, and light trucks disembarking from the ferry laden with building materials, household goods, and groceries. No private marine transportation business has stepped forward to offer similar capacity.
Small markets such as the towns mentioned here are difficult if not impossible to provide adequate marine transportation and show a “profit” in terms of maintenance and other overhead. Land based transportation road systems create overhead to other agencies in addition to that documented within the Department of Transportation. Let us identify how to make service to challenged markets more efficient. We have had higher passenger ridership to Pelican in the past, but for some reason DOT has forgotten or discarded those strategies.
The State would be better off to encourage new and existing community enterprise by seeking efficient ways to provide reliable AMHS service. It baffles me why we consider it a good idea to offer maximum PFD payments, pay out $1.6 billion in old ones, and then suspend a service that incentivizes private investment and employment. These large PFD figures encourage a welfare mentality and people to move to Alaska for the wrong reasons. If we want to get Alaska moving, then provide efficient and reliable transportation service not large cash handouts.
Norm Carson, Pelican
