{"id":4800,"date":"2019-10-23T11:31:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T19:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=4800"},"modified":"2019-11-04T11:52:04","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T20:52:04","slug":"southeast-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=4800","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In mid-September, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seconference.org\/\">Southeast Conference<\/a>\nheld their 2019 Annual Meeting in Sitka, Alaska. The theme for this year\u2019s\nannual meeting was, \u201cBuilding the Economy of Tomorrow.\u201d Leaders and\nparticipants from the district heard reports from the major industries such as\ntourism, mining, timber, hydropower, seafood, and healthcare. There were also\nreports given directly from the Alaska State Legislators, who represent the\nSoutheast region, or from the local, state, or federal government liaisons. All\nthe presentations can be reviewed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seconference.org\/annual\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While previous Southeast Conference meetings usually stay\nfocused on economic growth ideas, a lot of the focus of this year\u2019s meeting was\non the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS): it\u2019s precarious political and\nfinancial situation, removal of service from Prince Rupert, and the future of\nthe system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It goes without saying that ferries are vital to our\ncommunities and our economy. The AMHS has been the backbone of the coastal\ncommunity\u2019s transportation system for nearly three generations. There was a lot\nof pushback from coastal Alaska during the last legislative session and over\nthe summer regarding operations of the AMHS and its budget. One bright spot is\nthat the Senate Finance Committee restored approximately $84 million dollars to\nAMHS savings accounts for future use. These funds had been targeted to be swept\naway and were going to be used for non-AMHS purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I sincerely hope the Alaska Department of\nTransportation has heard our voices and adequately provides funding for the AMHS\u2019s\nfuture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would like to thank all of you who reached out to my\noffice in support of Alaska Marine Highway System \u2013 it is worth fighting for. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In mid-September, Southeast Conference held their 2019 Annual Meeting in Sitka, Alaska. The theme for this year\u2019s annual meeting was, \u201cBuilding the Economy of Tomorrow.\u201d Leaders and participants from the district heard reports from the major industries such as tourism, mining, timber, hydropower, seafood, and healthcare. There were also reports given directly from the Alaska [&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":[],"class_list":["post-4800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800","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=4800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4803,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions\/4803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}