Membership Newsletter - January 2001 Southeast Conference Newsletter January 18, 2001 Number 1-01 Director's Corner Welcome to our first online newsletter! The web site has been up 4 months now, and we have decided to add this as a regular update feature. It won't be as fancy as a the mail out version you got last month, but hopefully, the information will be more current and useful to you as members. Annual Meeting As I write this, I am headed to Prince Rupert on the Taku, starting to lay the groundwork for next fall's annual meeting.. The dates are: September 18-20, Tuesday thru Thursday. There are southbound ferries Sunday and Monday, We are in discussions with AMHS to explore adding a return trip from P.R. to Ketchikan on Friday. I will be discussing aircraft charters with the organizing committee in Prince Rupert. Legislative Priorities Also in the Members section of the web page, I have posted our Priorities, a synthesis of discussions at the annual meeting and subsequent board activity. We intend to use this as talking points with legislators during this session. Office Move As you may have heard, we moved the Conference's Juneau office to 612 W. Willoughby Street, across the street from Foodland Shopping center, right behind the Federal building. If you are in Juneau, please stop by and visit, check out library items or just let us know what you are up to. This is your organization, let us know about your concerns, ideas. Phone is the same 463 3445, fax the same 463 5670. Please note new mailing address: P.O. Box 21989, Juneau, AK 99802-1989 Transportation Committee/DOT issues The Lynn Canal Study RFP is on the street, proposals due the end of January. We expressed some concerns over the scope of the study, which seems to focus en-tirely on ferry solutions, with no consideration for po-tential road segments. The Department feels they have already been over that ground in the EIS process. They seem to understand our concern, which is to explore all options before committing to the next Addendum to the Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan, which is supposed to be the final work product of this study. The Department says the final version of Addendum 1 will be out very soon. As you may know, we submitted a substantial list of comments and sug-gestions on Addendum 1. If you would like a copy, please let me know. Cruise Ship Issues We recently received the final work product of a study we commissioned on the economic impacts of the cruise industry in Southeast Alaska. If you would like a copy, let us know. You can also view it, or download it on our web site in the Members section. The findings detail the significance of the cruise ships in our regional economy. EDA We are putting the finishing touches on our Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, an effort we've been working on for over a year. It is an organized attempt to characterize all the elements of the regional economy, and involved a lot of staff work contacting all the various economic constituents in the region. We convened a large committee, chosen for its broad representation of all the region's inter-ests, and feel we have a fairly comprehensive document to represent the current economic mix, and the needs, wants, and desires of all our communities and organizations. This document will serve as the basis for application to the federal Economic Development Administration for designation as an Economic Development District, which will provide streamlined access to federal funds for economic development projects. Call or write with questions about this process. Intertie We intend to convene a meeting of interested parties in Juneau in late February, to work on formation of a regional intertie authority, to take our recent federal authorization to the next level in implementing this long term goal. Let us know if you want to participate. Solid Waste We will be setting up the Household Hazardous Waste Collection effort in the near future, with an eye to an earlier start this year. We understand the cost will go up slightly, due to higher fees from waste consolidators. Will keep you posted. We are also closely monitoring some new developments in regional solid waste disposal solutions. Stay tuned... Click here to download an Adobe Acrobat version of this newsletter. Back to top Southeast Conference P.O.Box 21989, Juneau, Alaska 99802-1989. Phone: (907) 523-2310 Fax: (907) 463-5670 info@seconference.org Copyright © 2002, Southeast Conference, all rights reserved. Site designed by WebWeavers, LLC