September 08, 2016
Thursday PM

Take your Mental Health Trust chairmanship, Board of Directors, et. al, and go to hell by the shortest route. The Trust has got to be the number one bad guy in all of Alaska. Deer Mountain is Ketchikan, Alaska, and you folks propose to destroy it so you can make a few bucks. Why don’t we put the Anchorage sewage processing plant in your front yard, a rendering plant in your back yard, and obstruct any view you might have with an 80 foot concrete wall.

I doubt seriously if Russ Webb has ever been to Ketchikan. We make our money off tourism here to a very considerable extent, and you have already crapped all over Totem Bight and other view sights traditionally used by tourists and tourism operations, and now you propose to blight and destroy the overview of this town for 75 years.

So the Trust is bound and determined to support the logging industry by any and all means possible, fully prepared to destroy one of Alaska’s largest cities while trying to manipulate a political conclusion that The Trust and only The Trust considers satisfactory.

A CLEARCUT DEER MOUNTAIN IS THE PERFECT EXCUSE FOR THE CRUISE SHIPS TO BYPASS KETCHIKAN IN DROVES. You can photograph clear cuts from the deck of a moving ship.

Logging Deer Mountain threatens the livelihood and the well-being of everyone who lives here, and then try to justify this conduct with platitudes and excuses. What The Trust is proposing is nothing less than the economic destruction of a major aspect of this community’s economy for a handful of dollars. I have three clients in the tourist industry whose annual gross is 25% or more of your proposed $20 million pickup.

THREE CLIENTS!!! And there are many more clients than that.

For peanuts The Trust is prepared to destroy the lifeblood of an industry, of a major Alaska community, and you have the gall to try to convince anyone that you are right.

Threats! I am not in the least surprised. But you will have to warn any contractor that some of the stores and the restaurants might not cater to them, and a lot of the local landlords are invested in tourist-related businesses. This town does that from time to time; just shuts one down completely.

Sincerely,

David G Hanger
Ketchikan, Alaska

Received September 07, 2016 - Published September 08, 2016

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