Next Tuesday, December 8, the Alaska Board of Fisheries will deliberate on whether or not to move the 2017 Upper Cook Inlet Finfish meeting to the Kenai Peninsula.
Kenai Vice Mayor Brian Gabriel gave public testimony today in support of the move.
Vice Mayor Gabriel: “We were able to meet individually with several of the board members and kind of spend a little bit more quality time that way so it was definitely beneficial.”
Kenai City Manager Rick Koch also spoke in favor of the location change. He says residents from other ares of the state also testified in support.
Koch: “Joel Doner who is the chair of the Anchorage advisory committee spoke in favor. There was a number of peices of written record comments that were made, Senator [Cathy] Giessel sent a very strong letter of support as did Speaker [Mike] Chenault and others.”
Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Mike Navarre was also at the Anchorage meetings to testify.
During his stay he also spoke to committee and board members who originally did not support having it on the Kenai, due to the unruliness of the Kenai meeting in 1999.
KPPB Mayor Navarre: “I indicated that has been far overstated and had a good discussion with them about the issues that the Board of Fish deal with are always contentious and there’s always a lot of emotion that surrounds them because it affects people’s lives and their livelihoods and their families and their businesses.”
All three Kenai Peninsula representatives say they felt they received positive feedback from their informal conversations with board members.