{"id":2171,"date":"2012-03-29T16:24:08","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2012-03-30T16:57:36","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T00:57:36","slug":"southeast-discussed-at-native-issues-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=2171","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Discussed at Native Issues Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I addressed a Native Issues Forum hosted by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccthita.org\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska<\/a>. The forum was a great opportunity to discuss issues of importance to Alaska.\u00a0 The Alaska Native community constitutes 22% of Southeast Alaska\u2019s population and I was glad to speak on issues of importance to not only the Alaska Native community, but the Southeast region.<\/p>\n<p>Energy and job creation are key to improving our economy and quality of life.\u00a0 Investments in energy lower the cost of living for families and attract businesses to our region. \u00a080% of households in Southeast heat with expensive diesel fuel.\u00a0 Renewable energy through regional hydroelectrical projects supports growth in our economy by lowering the cost of power.\u00a0\u00a0This will be crucial in energizing shoreside seafood plants and future mining ventures.\u00a0 The legislature has made major investments in energy infrastructure over several years.\u00a0 Hydro projects\u00a0at Blue Lake in Sitka, Whitman Lake in Ketchikan, Thayer Lake in Angoon, and Gartina Falls in Hoonah will vastly improve energy security in Southeast. We\u2019ve also worked to construct electrical interties between Petersburg and Kake, and Metlakatla and Ketchikan to connect rural communities and bring down energy costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another important issue is to preserve Southeast Alaska\u2019s heritage.\u00a0 The legislature is playing an active role in cultural preservation. \u00a0During the past several years I\u2019ve helped secure funding for repairs to the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) Hall in Sitka and new totem poles at the <a href=\"http:\/\/shakesisland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Chief Shakes Tribal House<\/a> in Wrangell. This capital budget funding will support rehabilitation and restoration of the historically-significant ANB Hall in anticipation of ANB\u2019s 100<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary this year.<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed meeting with the Tlingit and Haida Central Council and look forward to working with them to continue progress on these regional issues. You can watch video of my speech <a href=\"http:\/\/gavelalaska.org\/media\/?media_id=NATI120329A\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I addressed a Native Issues Forum hosted by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The forum was a great opportunity to discuss issues of importance to Alaska.\u00a0 The Alaska Native community constitutes 22% of Southeast Alaska\u2019s population and I was glad to speak on issues of importance to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,126,125],"class_list":["post-2171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-energy","tag-hydroelectric","tag-native-issues-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2198,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions\/2198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}