Third time is the charm-Senator Albert Kookesh went back home to Angoon last weekend to visit his family. He parked his car at the Juneau airport. His daughter went home but took the ferry and parked her truck at the Juneau ferry terminal. With all the snow this past weekend, the planes  weren't able to fly between Juneau and the nearby small villages. Sen. Kookesh and his daughter caught the ferry to Sitka on Sunday morning at 1:00 am and jumped on the M/V Fairweather back to Juneau. They arrived late Monday night to a ferry terminal full of buried vehicles. After the good Senator spent quite a bit of time digging out his daughter's truck, they discovered it wasn't hers. Her truck was parked in a different spot. They dug out the right truck and went to the airport to pick up Sen. Kookesh's vehicle. Awaiting him there was his vehicle in the parking lot, buried in snow. This time he made sure to pick the right one before they starting digging.
Does this scare you?-Up to one million farmed salmon and sea trout escaped from their cages during storms that ravaged Scotland last week, triggering fears that the country's remaining wild salmon stock  could be wiped out. Up to 400,000 fish have escaped every year for the past five years in Scotland but the force of last week's storms meant many more fish escaped at once. Does this make you think twice about opening up Alaska's waters outside the 3-mile limit for salmon farming?
Cuts both ways-Last week the State Affairs committee considered a bill that precludes Democrats from printing their own return address on absentee ballot requests the party sends out, as it did  during the 2004 election. The bill keeps some details about voters out of the hands of political parties that might want to keep tabs on who votes absentee. One legislative wag noted the bill would also protect Alaskans by keeping information from ethics violation king and Republican Party chair Randy Ruedrich.
What's that all about?-Hot tickets for Alaskans wanting to attend the presidential inauguration were handed out by our Congressional delegation. Former State Senator Johne Binkley, who decided not to run against U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski got a ticket that included a chair. Lite Guv Loren Leman, who supported Sen. Murkowski's primary opponent Mike Miller, got an SRO ticket.
Students from Yaakoosgé Daakahídi, Juneau's alternative high school, met with Sen. Elton to discuss issues of interest facing the legislature for the upcoming session.
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I always wanted to run a ferry system but I guess I wasn't light enough to make the team.
But given the state of our marine highway system, it's far past time we insist the governor recruit some real heavyweights who have policy gravitas  and experience instead of soft political/management resumes. I've become convinced that if the governor's ferry coterie were in charge of NASA in the ‘60s they wouldn't know how to get an astronaut from Houston to Cape Canaveral let alone to the moon.
Let's ignore this team's recent history: the uprooting of the central headquarters and the use of a state ferry to carry the governor's party to celebrate a private sector tourism development. Let's instead take a look at the gubernatorial ferry team's blunders over the last several weeks: telling Fairweather crews several months ago they'd have year-around jobs then suddenly changing their minds as the new year dawned; publishing a year-around Fairweather schedule for Alaska travelers and selling tickets for late January and February then abruptly canceling those Fairweather sailings; negotiating in the press; refusal to provide a written list of what the state wants to negotiators; announcing they'd pull the fast ferry Fairweather on January 25 if unions didn't accede to a non-written list; pulling the fast ferry Fairweather three days early on January 22 and canceling even more runs; mothballing the Fairweather the day before both sides sit down with a federal mediator; mothballing the Fairweather just three weeks before the ship was scheduled to go into lay-up. Whew!
Crews lost jobs but let's not forget the Alaska passengers who lost service. I guess the big mystery in taking the Fairweather completely out of service is why they did. The stated goal of ferry system managers is to cut  back to a winter schedule of four days a week instead of six days a week. If that's the goal, why did they go to zero days a week?
I'd like to be able to tell you who's responsible for these decisions but I can't. I don't know who's in charge.
Is it Capt. John Falvey, the putative head of the ferry system recently imported from the East Coast?
Is it Tom Briggs, former Craig city manager and one of the founders of the southern panhandle Inter-Island ferry authority that has yet to pay a dime for using state docks?
Is it that group of citizens collectively known as the MTAB who were charged by the governor, when he created this new bureaucratic appendage, with taking the system in a new direction?
Is it former State Senator John Torgerson, who brought his Kenai Peninsula and Mat-Su dairy expertise to the job of creating a business plan for the system but who's charge has transmogrified into labor negotiations and being legislative spokesperson?
Is it DOTPF Commissioner Mike Barton whose ferry system experience mirrors mine-he's been a passenger and knows what lounge has the most comfortable reclining chairs and where the food is served?
Is former State Senator Robin Taylor lurking in the shadows, as some suggest, waiting to add ferries to his mysterious portfolio in DOTPF?
Or is it, as many suspect, the governor's chief of staff who shares Mike's and my ferry experience?
None have demonstrated an ability to provide reliable service to Alaskans for even short periods of time. And their actions threaten future service.
By taking the Fairweather out of service, ferry managers are telling passengers not to count on published system schedules. By putting Fairweather crews on the beach, ferry managers are making it impossible to recruit and train the crew for the new fast ferry Chenega that is scheduled to begin service in Prince William Sound this May.
Price isn't the only element of "selling" a ticket; it's not even the most important element. Good service and reliability are the most important elements of "selling" a ticket.
But service and reliability are tossed overboard again with the marine highway system's current team. We ought not define an optimist as an Alaskan who believes a ferry schedule. Moving people, vehicles and goods when the schedule says they'll move is critical. Arbitrarily changing the schedule kills marketing.
Making a schedule is like baking a great cake. You need great ingredients combined creatively with super care. Canceling a schedule is like sitting on the cake. Our team of ferry managers is sitting on the Fairweather schedule and, by scaring crew away from the Chenega, that means they'll be sitting  on the Chenega published schedule too. Gonna be some unhappy Alaska passengers up in Prince William Sound, soon.
My angst about recent ferry disruptions is bi-partisan angst. Southeast legislators of both parties sent letters last week to the governor asking him to huddle with his ferry managers before sending the Fairweather schedule into the dumpster just a couple days before employers and employees sit down with a federal mediator.
We noted the cancellation hurt Alaskans who depend on ferry services. The letters didn't do any good. The ferry is tied up. Passengers are locked out.
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