Sunday, March 2, 2014

The power of the ballot box

As we've reported previously here on Deckboss, one of Alaska's six Community Development Quota organizations — Coastal Villages Region Fund — believes it is getting screwed on fish and crab catch shares.

Coastal argues its allocations are disproportionately small relative to the large population in its region.

That means CDQ companies representing smaller populations enjoy outsized catch shares, Coastal says.

Thus far, Alaska's congressional delegation has rebuffed Coastal's requests to rebalance the CDQ allocations, which have been in place for several years.

Now Coastal is mounting a voter registration drive, which would seem a warning to any elected official not onboard with rebalancing.

“Honestly, we lack the political savvy that some individuals from other smaller CDQ groups possess, but our sheer voting power is a force to be reckoned with," says Coastal's Dawson Hoover. "We are being politically discriminated against because of these unjust allocations."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Politically discriminated against? Politics gave the CDQ program 10% of the Bering Sea. Say thank you and STFU. Pitiful and disgusting

Anonymous said...

One thing that any congressional delegation can't ignore is votes. It's likely that Murkowski wouldn't have won without the support she got from that region. Young and Cotter go pig hunting together and Begich will fence sit until he has to fall off to one side or the other, if it came to any changes in the program. It's a good strategy with a good potential unintended consequence of perhaps righting the systemic inequality in the program and not just CV's view of it. Any real review of the program would reveal that only CBSFA passes the red face test.

Anonymous said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought originally the 6 CDQ groups got together and divided up the pie between each other. Now CV is crying because none of the other groups agree with giving them more. So like a spoiled brat they are throwing a tantrum to Mommy and Daddy (Feds). What a waste of time, money, and resources.

Anonymous said...

CVRF has approx 9,000 residents of the 28,000 total residents in CDQ. They are the only group crying. The other 5 groups and approx 19,000 residents have banded together to support the current allocations. So is a politician going to adversely effect 19,000 and risk those 19,000 votes for the potential gain of a third of that number. Simple math tells you NO. Additionally, there is a lot wrong with CVRF that make politicians just not care. Take a look at the latest CDQ reviews and compare the CDQ groups on things like CEO pay, how much of their profit makes it residents of the communities, overall benefits, percent of wages paid to residents living in the communities or actually from the communities, etc. It really is eye opening how bad CVRF is.

Anonymous said...

They lack the political Saavy, with Trevor McCabe on their pay roll?????

Anonymous said...

Well, Dawson, what you feel you lack in political savvy you at least make up for with those snazzy, matching t-shirts.

Anonymous said...

If political savvy is getting your ass tossed out of Congressman Young's office, then you've got nothing to worry about.