Meagan Nye grew up in Haines, riding the Alaska Marine Highway System every other weekend in high school to play volleyball.<\/p>\n
Nye, 34, grew up to become an engineer for the ferry system. Her father and brother also work as engineers for the marine highway. It’s part of her “history as a person,” she says.<\/p>\n
Now, she’s building up her resume in case she needs to leave.<\/p>\n
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed budget, released Feb. 13, proposed cutting the Alaska Marine Highway’s budget by 75 percent in the next fiscal year. That would mean far fewer runs of the ferry and could result in hundreds of job losses. Robb Arnold, vice chair of the board of the Inlandboatman’s Union of the Pacific, told the Empire in February<\/a> that more than 250 union workers for the marine highway could lose their job if the budget goes through as is.<\/p>\n Nye, a third assistant engineer on the M\/V Columbia, said she’s heard of people already preparing for the worst and getting jobs elsewhere. She’s heading to Maryland this weekend to take classes in case she needs to find a new job.<\/p>\n “It’s like cutting the lifeline of Alaskans and coastal Alaskans,” Nye said. “It’s also personal, because it’s just part of who we are.”<\/p>\n Nye spoke as she, Arnold and a handful of other marine highway employees and family members held signs and waved at drivers near the Douglas Bridge on Friday evening. Nye clutched a Heritage coffee cup as she held a sign that proclaimed, “Coastal Alaskans are people too.”<\/p>\n Other signs carried slogans such as, “Don’t sink our system,” “Stand tall for ferries,” (a not-so-subtle reference to Dunleavy’s “Standing Tall for Alaska” campaign slogan) and “Save YOUR highway.” That last slogan aligned with one of the main points Arnold made as he spoke prior to the rally. Cuts to the highway don’t just affect those who work on the ferries — they affect a whole region.<\/p>\n “We don’t want to be the star attraction,” Arnold said. “We want to be a part of the whole thing, because it’s about our state. We all care about our state. That’s the big thing I think. We love our state, we want to stay in our state, we don’t want to move. We want to stay Alaskans.”<\/p>\n