Speaking to the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott recalled a time when he was homesick.<\/p>\n
Attending college in Washington state, he couldn\u2019t exactly drive home to Yakutat, so he did the next best thing. He went to Seattle and met the brand new ferry Malaspina.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a symbol of Alaska early after statehood and a symbol of the place that we could become,\u201d he told the Chamber Thursday during its weekly luncheon.<\/p>\n
With the ferry system facing steep budget cuts and less service, Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau has proposed a bill that attempts to recreate that kind of connection between Alaskans and the Alaska Marine Highway.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Kito\u2019s House Bill 292 received its first hearing in the House Transportation Committee. A simple piece of legislation, it consists of only one line of text, stating that communities will be allowed to contribute money to keep the Marine Highway running.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hope is we\u2019ll make the marine highway system more effective and efficient throughout the state,\u201d Kito said.<\/p>\n
He said he envisions the contribution as nonbinding. If a community gives $1 million, it shouldn\u2019t expect to get $1 million more in service from the ferry system. It also wouldn\u2019t be a \u201cpay to play\u201d system where communities would be penalized for not contributing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere would not be an expectation that a community would provide revenue to guarantee levels of service,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Chamber, Mallott said that while the ferry system could raise more revenue and become a sustainable program, he doesn\u2019t want to see the Legislature cutting its subsidy of the ferry system just because the system is making more money.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s as much a part of our highway system as a surface highway,\u201d Mallott said, and it should \u201cultimately be treated the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kito was in attendance at Thursday\u2019s luncheon and said his intention is to have this option be in addition to the fares and fees the ferry system collects, not in place of that \u201cfarebox\u201d revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would anticipate that the department would be able to utilize the funds in a way that it saw would benefit the Marine Highway System,\u201d Kito said.<\/p>\n
Even if it\u2019s not enough to improve service, a contribution could do something like restore onboard naturalists to the ferries or ensure special service for particular events or series of events.<\/p>\n
HB 292 remains in the House Transportation Committee.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaking to the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott recalled a time when he was homesick. Attending college in Washington state, he couldn\u2019t exactly drive home to Yakutat, so he did the next best thing. He went to Seattle and met the brand new ferry Malaspina. \u201cIt was a symbol of Alaska early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23012"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}