In their own words: NSEDC Nome representative candidates
Nome Nugget: What is your motivation to run for the Nome seat on NSEDC’s board of directors?
Addy Aklaasiaq Ahmasuk: My motivation to run for the NSEDC Board of Directors is to simply bring forth my experiences as young Inuk in guiding economic growth across the region and in my community. As an emerging young adult finding my place in community, I understand the importance that economy has in our wellness and ultimately our collective future. With this understanding, my motivation is centered in ensuring sustainable and regenerative economies for our future descendants.
NN: As a Nome representative what are your Nome priorities to bring to the board?
AAA: My priorities as the Nome representative center around the teachings of my ancestors. These include listening, humility, and respect. Using these values, I hope to bring to the board a collective vision of Remembering Forward and adapting to our changing climate. As a commercial fisherwoman of about six years from Southeast Alaska to Norton Sound, I have experienced first-hand the importance fishing has in our communities. With this, I also understand we are under a collective systemic shift in our climate that we must face truthfully and act responsibly.
NN: NSEDC provides education, employment, training, and financial assistance to member communities. Which of those contributions are in your opinion most important and as a board director how do you propose to strengthen them?
AAA: NSEDC offers incredible services to our region, and of them financial assistance is most important to me. Due to colonization and drastic changes in our region seen in just three generations, organizations must right a financial wrong. Marginalized and predominately native communities face some of the highest rates of unemployment, overcrowding and financial hardship. Increasing financial assistance will allow individuals and communities to meet their most basic needs. Without our basic needs met, there is no such thing as economic development.
NN: The Bering Sea experiences a system-wide shift due to warming waters and climate change. How do you propose NSEDC should prepare for a future that sees fisheries shifting north and species such as red king crab, salmon, cod, and pollock undergoing drastic changes?
AAA: As Indigenous peoples’ and communities, we have been told the stories of constant change and adaptation. Life cycles evolve and systems adapt, and it is with this understanding that I feel prepared to engage in activities to prepare for a changing future. I believe drawing on our collective strengths as communities, rather than acting in fear and deficit thinking, will allow us to proactively prepare for this drastic shift. In regard to fishery management and combating climate change, it must be known that the same systems that got us into anthropomorphic climate change, will not save us. Therefore, we must radically imagine what fishery management and harvest can look like outside the confines of capitalism and limitless growth. Who better to look to for guidance than Indigenous peoples’ that have successfully managed our waters since time immemorial.
NN: In addition to existing programs that NSEDC runs, do you have any novel ideas or suggestions that you would like to bring to the board, or do you have ideas or suggestions on how to improve existing programs and fishery involvements?
AAA: I mentioned that financial assistance is most important to me, but I would also like to reiterate the importance of education. You can give all the money one can give to help someone, but ultimately only you can save yourself.
Education, whether that is getting your GED, Bachelors or a lifetime of learning from elders is our strongest asset to our community. My novel idea to you all, is to think outside the confines of what western education can give us, and begin to think about what localized and Indigenized education will do for us.
Nome Nugget: What is your motivation to run for the Nome seat on NSEDC’s board of directors?
Eric Osborne: A run for NSEDC’s board is something I’ve considered over the years. I believe it’s very important to do so now. NSEDC and our community are facing challenges as well as opportunities within the corporation’s sphere of influence which demand effective representation. I’m the sole candidate that has been elected to and served on an NSEDC committee. The only one who has proposed and passed proposals and policies before the NSEDC board. I won’t require the years long learning curve to effectively represent Nome’s interests in the boardroom and with staff. In commercial fishing over 40 years regionally, I’ve lived and raised family at times in several of the other communities. I believe it gives me an insight into the other members and the spirit of consensus that drives the board’s decision-making process.
NN: As a Nome representative what are your Nome priorities to bring to the board?
EO: Education is the highest priority. True economic development lies in enhancing the potential of our young. More support must be applied to the academic and vocational aspirations of our youth. I would like to build a regional vocational center here. Increase the Community Benefit Share. Increase Scholarship stipends to university students from Nome and regionally. Assist in Port of Nome development and funding. Marine research, Conservation and Aquaculture. Move NSEDC’s headquarters to Nome to improve communication and cooperation regionally. Greater participation for Nome residents in developing offshore fisheries. And support of infrastructure critical to building and maintaining a marine economy here.
NN: NSEDC provides education, employment, training, and financial assistance to member communities. Which of those contributions are in your opinion most important and as a board director how do you propose to strengthen them?
EO: Change here is inevitable. Will we shape our future, or will it be imposed upon us by others? Our best hedge for the future is education. By fulfilling the intellectual potential of our maturing young we’ll increasingly take stewardship of opportunities as they arise. Generosity towards educational goals will over time enhance an ethical and professional approach to our challenges.
• Increase the scholarship amount to $10,000 as at least one other CDQ group offers. In this we should be second to none.
• Development of a regional skills center here for vocational training and certification. Including marine related skills.
• Increase support for residents pursuing post graduate degrees, Masters & PhDs. They’re more expensive to pursue but critical to our needs.
• Increased financial assistance to communities. Increase the Community Benefit Share. Make grant writing services available to communities who wish to use NSEDC contributions to leverage matching monies for projects or programs.
NN: The Bering Sea experiences a system-wide shift due to warming waters and climate change. How do you propose NSEDC should prepare for a future that sees fisheries shifting north and species such as red king crab, salmon, cod, and pollock undergoing drastic changes?
EO: Norton Sound and adjacent waters are a fragile transition zone. As species migrate from the depths of the Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean, they cross the barely submerged Beringia Land Bridge, the largest submerged plateau on earth. We also have some of the most naturally acidic seawater on the planet in the winter. A truly unique place. Species aren’t merely migrating south to north, but both east and west in the Arctic above both Eurasia and North America, and this will affect us as well.
Our seas here are shallow. Near to Nome 120 feet is considered deep. About 40 yards. All sea life is concentrated in a narrow band of water column. This is a blessing for subsistence fishermen and hunters, as well as small commercial vessels. But we’re very vulnerable to industrial fishing. The bulk of the pollock and cod biomass was offshore last year and will only increase seasonally. Red King Crab are very sensitive to water temperature. When coastal waters overheat, they move to deeper less accessible cooler seas toward the International Date Line (St. Lawrence Island). They seem to be expanding northward. Red King Crab are common now in Kotzebue and show up incidentally from Kivalina to Barrow.
The best approach to offshore fishery management here would be that of Southeast Alaska. They’ve protected their local fishing economy by banning trawling of all kinds out to 200 miles. This would preserve our marine ecosystem as environmental pressures from warming seas and increased shipping slowly build.
This change has been a concern of mine for many years and I have addressed it to the best of my ability. While on the Fisheries Development Committee I proposed and negotiated the terms of basing the Marine Advisory Program in Nome at Northwest Community College (NWCC). It has been very active in
addressing environmental change offshore. The Strait Science series of lectures inform the community with visiting research teams. It was time consuming to negotiate and not an easy sell to the board. But they did support and fund it initially for three years. Its popularity and local advocacy have hardwired state funds. A curriculum in marine biology at NWCC would be an idea worth developing. I also negotiated a Fisheries Economic Development Plan between NSEDC and experts in fisheries development from the University of Rhode Island to form a locally envisioned approach to developing our fisheries. It was a popular initiative.
One plunge I took was in 2014 when the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC) met in Nome. The Amendment 80 bottom trawl fleet was making overtures to bottom trawl offshore here, and I testified to NPFMC through the Scientific and Statistical Committee, the AP Committee, and the full Council to ban bottom trawling on the shallow plane offshore. It ended up being adopted. Bottom trawling was banned. The Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience area was conceived by elders and others in the aftermath of ideas exchanged at that meeting, and eventually enacted in an Executive Order by the President of the United States. I would like to see it strengthened into Federal law, with NSEDC’s support.
Another development on the horizon are Arctic fishing quotas and regulations. Currently, federal waters in the Arctic are closed to commercial fishing, north of the Bering Strait but an international agreement was recently signed between the U.S., the Russian Federation and Canada. Surveys are now taking place to set quotas in two years. I noticed on a tracking website a Canadian trawler is apparently surveying off Alaska’s North Slope within the agreement. This is occurring largely under the public radar. But it will become a matter of great concern in the Northern Bering Sea and Arctic Alaska. Residents need to be informed and participate in deciding the eventual scope of the proposed fisheries and the management structure governing them.
NN: In addition to existing programs that NSEDC runs, do you have any novel ideas or suggestions that you would like to bring to the board, or do you have ideas or suggestions on how to improve existing programs and fishery involvements?
EO: ANSEP, the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program is a great program that provides a pathway for a STEM science education. Some students here apply as individuals but if a school district certifies an instructor with ANSEP, the program is available districtwide. It’s not uncommon for an ANSEP student to graduate high school with 4050 college credits. NSEDC could fund and facilitate that training for the Nome school district. Another program I like is Mt. Edgecumbe High School’s partnership with Scripps Oceanographic Institute in La Jolla, California. Students participate in marine mammal research in tandem with a Scripps mentor. They travel there to present at years end, and some have joined the staff. It would be beneficial to mentor our students in similar cooperative arrangements. NSEDC could facilitate this.
I’m concerned about bycatch by our operations in the Bering Sea. This year there have been substantial unprecedented overages on bycatch guidance in multiple species. This effects subsistence, sport and both small scale and large commercial fisheries throughout coastal Alaska. King Salmon, Chum Salmon, Halibut, Red King crab, Opilio Crab are all severely depleted. Sablefish and herring are being hammered. It’s incumbent upon us as ethical stewards of the resource we exploit to rebuild effected species and place hard caps on bycatch. These are all high value species that should be allowed to bolster our profit margins, not to be wasted.
I draw a parallel between bottom trawling, and clearcutting an old growth forest. ANCSA Corporations and tribes once clear-cut their old growth to pay dividends to shareholders and members but now they’re earning a substantial amount of money from selling carbon credits, by protecting those very same forests from logging. A lot of recent scientific research now documents the staggering, vast carbon footprint released from the seafloor by bottom trawling. With the sophisticated political reach of the trawl industry and CDQ groups, might a provision in law be made for carbon credits to be traded by the fleet to preserve critical benthic seafloor habitat?
I would recommend hiring topnotch management for NSEDC’s forprofit arm. It’s a highly complex business requiring experience and training in law and management. I’m troubled by recent news reporting on a $500,000,000 fine levied on the pollock industry for Jones Act violations in domestic shipping by Customs and Border Protection. Named in an article is a company we’re very deeply invested in. It’s currently being contested in court. But either way it underlines the need to have management with the expertise to hold our investments accountable and anticipate potential threats.
Nome’s people are entrepreneurial, creative, resourceful. Being open to their ideas and aspirations from the ground and sea up is the key to future growth.
Candidate Wes Perkins
Nome Nugget: What is your motivation to run for the Nome seat on NSEDC’s board of directors?
Wes Perkins: I have wanted to run for the NSEDC board for a number of years, I just felt I did not have the time to devote to doing a good job as long as I was working full-time, and being a first responder for the City of Nome. I have retired from all of those and now I have the time to devote.
NN: As a Nome representative what are your Nome priorities to bring to the board?
WP: I think the priorities presently are to continue to fund the programs that NSEDC has in place, the energy subsidy, scholarships, training to hire employees locally or from the region. I taught a BLS/CPR class last night at the newly opened NSHC Wellness and Training Center, what a beautiful addition to Nome, and much needed, and NSEDC gave $2 million towards funding the construction of the center.
NN: NSEDC provides education, employment, training, and financial assistance to member communities. Which of those contributions are in your opinion most important and as a board director how do you propose to strengthen them?
WP: Education, I believe, is my most important priority. Look at State of Alaska weekly job file, the vacancies at Kawerak, NSHC, City of Nome, and other employers. We need to make sure that people are getting the right education to fill these jobs, and with that comes the training. I am a big fan of on-the-job training. I think college bound students should work in the field they are choosing to make sure that is what they want to do before committing to four or more years of college and deciding they want to do something else. We have lots of jobs available that require more vocational type training also. Nome and the region have jobs in maintenance, carpentry, mechanics of all types, and other vocational type jobs available most all the time. Education and training always run together. It would be nice to have a Vocational Training Center here in Nome.
NN: The Bering Sea experiences a system-wide shift due to warming waters and climate change. How do
you propose NSEDC should prepare for a future that sees fisheries shifting north and species such as red king crab, salmon, cod, and pollock undergoing drastic changes?
WP: Fisheries for salmon, red king crab have been down the past few years, I do not have the background to know why some were far below forecasts. We hear bycatch fisheries, warmer ocean temperatures, I hope to learn more about this if I get elected to the board. I recognize global warming, and am in favor of supporting alternative energy, we need to look at the factors involved. There is a need to monitor the fisheries as the Bering Sea becomes more ice free and see what possibilities there are to increase local fisheries if the product is there to harvest safely.
NN: In addition to existing programs that NSEDC runs, do you have any novel ideas or suggestions that you would like to bring to the board, or do you have ideas or suggestions on how to improve existing programs and fishery involvements?
WP: I would like to see NSEDC continue to fund projects to upgrade facilities in our region to LED lights, more efficient heating, and I am a big fan of solar and some wind for alternate energy. We are the land of the midnight sun, so at times of the year, solar is a good alternative and prices on solar per watt has come down. In Nome, NJUS has gone to LED streetlights, Nome Public Schools went LED in the schools years ago when I worked there in maintenance and the savings were very rewarding. We do not know our fuel and gasoline costs ahead of time because of the unstable prices of oil products, so we need to take every measure we can to cut back on using energy where we can. Just being aware of what our utility bill costs are and challenging to reduce those can save and add up fast. The region is lucky to have NSEDC doing the bulk fuel purchasing program to get a better price for all the communities that are involved with this program.
NSEDC has put millions into our economy and have always supported hiring seasonal workers with young adults that have been away to schools. They make all sorts of jobs available to support them with work, and with scholarships. I encourage people to read the yearly reports that are in your mailboxes and look at all the great things NSEDC does for our region, the programs cover all the ages of our residents. Wellness is also included.
Candidate JT Sherman
Nome Nugget: What is your motivation to run for the Nome seat on NSEDC’s board of directors?
JT Sherman: NSEDC provides education, training and financial assistance to the residents of our 15 member communities. I strongly support these programs for the benefit of all our member communities and residents.
NN: As a Nome representative what are your Nome priorities to bring to the board?
JTS: As a Nome representative my priorities are more fishing time in all of our member communities. Getting more involvement from the Department of Fish and Game. I would also like to see more training opportunities, more jobs and better paying jobs to keep people working and living in our region.
NN: NSEDC provides education, employment, training, and financial assistance to member communities. Which of those contributions are in your opinion most important and as a board director how do you propose to strengthen them?
JTS: NSEDC provides services and funding opportunities to our member communities. I support all of NSEDC’s funding opportunities, but I would like to give more scholarships for not only college students but students that want to go to vocational or trade schools. I would also like to see those funds increase while the economy prices are increasing.
NN: The Bering Sea experiences a system-wide shift due to warming waters and climate change. How do you propose NSEDC should prepare for a future that sees fisheries shifting north and species such as red king crab, salmon, cod, and pollock undergoing drastic changes?
JTS: With the shifting of warm water and climate change in our region the crab, salmon and pollock moving further north. I would like to work on more regional markets. Looking into other possible markets. More involvement and better communication with Fish and Game.
NN: In addition to existing programs that NSEDC runs, do you have any novel ideas or suggestions that you would like to bring to the board, or do you have ideas or suggestions on how to improve existing programs and fishery involvements?
JTS: I’d like to see if we can have a herring market again. I’d also like to see more local fisherman. I’d also like to promote more education and training within our region.