Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association is buying Cannon Fish Co., a Seattle-based processing and marketing company.
"With Cannon Fish we are, in essence, vertically integrating," says Larry Cotter, APICDA chief executive. "We will now be able to manage all aspects of our seafood operations from the boat to the table."
Read lots more about the deal here.
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22 comments:
APICDA, a CDQ group, has free monopoly money thanks to the Pollock Fishery.
Good job for the 387 residents. Must be screaming for joy while thousands suffer at your expense.
What a joke. APICDA is a cloak while the many residents who actually need CDQ do not have what APICDA has. There are no "Tridents" in the Kuskokwi, Yukon, and Nome regions.
APICDA is the reason why the CDQ program needs to be revisited and reorganized by Congress. The CDQs need oversight by the federal and state governments as well as strict regulations that mandate transparency to the stakeholders of this federal dollar program.
What does Trident have to do with it? APICDA leases its CDQ to several companies, not just Trident. By taking over Cannon Fish, APICDA now has the ability to market their fish instead of relying on Trident. And, at least APICDA has built small processing plants in three of its villages to give opportunity to the residents.
I guess it helps when APICDA can afford to put 12 million in the bank for "long-term" use of 400 people. I wonder, how many tables APICDA can feed while they only represent 1.3% of the CDQ population?
It also helps when the government gives one of APICDA's communities more than $100,000,000 to build a airport and a harbor for 70 year round residents... oh wait! Isn't that where at least 600 processors work for Trident? Don wouldn't screw his friend Larry Cotter. He gives him millions in grants and millions in CDQ money.
All the comments above are reasons why the CDQ program needs to be reorganized by Congress.
I dont think cdq is the only problem all the problems are driven by greed and corruption .It all started with the privatization of public resources.I feel that people of western Alaska should of got more of the resource before piranhas like trident /b&n got given anything. Greed in this country is spreading like a wildfire.
May 25, 2013 at 3:42 PM
Having been there (I worked for APICDA) Cannon Fish was a disaster. 'Vertically integrated' is code for something is FU, usually. Joe Kyle brought this mess to APICDA and I suspect it's just a convenient method by which to dispose of the bodies. APICDA is notorious for 'buying' away their problems.
'To give opportunity to residents' is more code that means squat. When I first began working in those communities under the APICDA penumbra, there were over 1,000 residents; now there are less than 400. Success? Please!
I agree with several posters here that APICDA is the poster child for the need to reform it all.
They should not, at the least, be able to lie. APICDA says they have a payroll of $2,000,000 in these communities. That is an out and out lie worded in a way to make one believe that that amount of money is going into the hands of 'residents' when, in fact, that is what they pay ANYONE that works in-region. Out of state fish processors, hired skippers, you name it. This should never be allowed to happen. Do the math: 2,000,00 dived by 385 = 5,194. Is anyone so gullible as to believe that on average every many woman and child earns over 5K in Atka, False Pass, Nikolski, Nelson Lagoon (hello Justine!) and St. George? Stop the travesty! There is no need to lie!
They do include Unalaska which is not allowed to be a CDQ community. They do it anyways and they have an honorary board member from there. And they give residents of Unalaska scholarship. That is CDQ money going to non-CDQ residents which is working against the federal law (after the Federal law (u) named (/u) the 65 participating communities. Oh, and they have two non-resident board members who are a part of the industry. That is crafty Larry Cotter for you.
Lies and greed go hand in hand with the CDQs. That's why they need Congress to step in.
APICDA greed is second only to the management at Coastal Villages. Time for a shake-up.
Congress is never going to step in. Ever.
APICDA management are the snakiest people you will meet. Cotter will work to his advantage and not others. This is what I have experience with.
Congress will eventually have to step in - millions of unregulated dollars in a dirty fishing industry invites a whole lotta unethical behaviors from every sector involved.
In every CDQ region, there are people being shut out because they threaten the weasels in control.
To blogger @ 5/28 11:30 AM, Congress will have to step in eventually. Citizen rights are being violated - poor stakeholders are being ignored - the monopoly given to a handful of men is unfair - the CDQs are helping to destroy a hundreds year old culture and tradition of thousands of poor people in the poorest region of the state. That's so obvious that it takes an extreme ignoramus not to see what's going on. Those who see it are intimidated into silence by those unregulated federal dollars - racial political power - the meanest, uglyiest kind of power ever. Destructive and oppressive.
Pay a little here, pay a little there, and even the agencies supposedly working for the people are influenced by the crooks.
What goes around will eventually come around and the cycle of political abuse will have to be addressed by the keepers of our Constitution - Congress!
Having worked for a CDQ group, the challenges are enormous. I have no opinion one way or the other about APICDA. My dilemma was I was partially in charge of using the funds generated by the offshore fleet and inject them into the region through various projects.
One of the main goals in getting those funds to the community was to train the rural residents and provide opportunities for employment in region.
The problem was the more training we provided, the faster it seemed the people were bailing out of the communities to work in Anchorage or frankly anywhere other than their own communities. Often the best and brightest younger adults...the lifeblood of a continuing community.
I thought I was doing what was right for the community. It turns out that I was only accelerating the communities demise. I believe each individual obviously has the choice to do as they wish with the skill set they have. It is apparent that at least with younger residents of the rural regions, they would prefer to take their newly acquired skill sets and move to Anchorage. I can't blame them, life is tremendously difficult in these areas.
I say this not to defend the action of any CDQ group, but to illustrate that many times the best intentions can lead to unwanted results.
Don Young's Coast Guard Bill destroyed any chance at real oversight of the CDQ program. It can be overturned.
The reason why the best trained people bail out of their villages is because they have a better chance at being treated with respect, justice, and fairness in a work environment that isn't controlled by the town/corporate/board bully. Employee security isn't a priority for those in charge of the jobs - it depends on how good one bends over to you know what. Smart people don't want to degrade themselves to that level. Unfair practices in the work place is tolerated by the desperate.
Blogger @ June 3, 2013 at 10:24 AM:
"I thought I was doing what was right for the community. It turns out that I was only accelerating the communities demise."
You sir, have said the the most prescient thing and it is something that the people within the system will NEVER admit to. In my working for a CDQ experience (near the beginning of it all), it was exciting, challenging and I really thought I was doing 'something'. About ten years down the road I felt an increasing embarrassment; I was paid grossly disproportionate to those who I felt I worked for (the people in the communities) AND doing completely idiotic things. The things that I worked on toward the end of my term only increased debt of one kind or another for these communities and none of these projects were, or ever will be, self-sustaining. Every single one of them were subsidized and are so to this day. That was not the intent of the program.
After reading the last blog on this article, I can see why the CDQs pressured the state to allow them to do their own reviews just recently.
"I was paid grossly disproportionate....AND doing completely idiotic things. ....none of these projects were, or ever will be, self-sustaining."
The real "intent" of the CDQ program was to help the proverty stricken Western Alaska villages get involved in "fisheries related economic development".
Twenty-one years later I realize that the writers left that loaded mission statement in the gray area which allowed the CDQs to invest back into the Pollock Fishery and becoming it - The Pollock Fishery.
It's no wonder that the attempt to realistically help the Western Alaska villages to fisheries independency is a smoke and mirrors tactic.
The real role of the people of Western Alaska is to help protect the Pollock Fishery in order for them to continue to reap millions of dollars from the sea on one hand while destroying the hundreds year old culture and tradition of the Western Alaska poor people.
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