Back in the old days, before he was driven from office by prosecutoral misconduct and later killed in a plane crash, Ted Stevens managed to get a prototype “amphibious assault vessel for the Navy” diverted to Alaska. The plan was to use it as a commuter ferry between downtown Anchorage and suburbs to the north of Anchorage. (Wait. Anchorage has suburbs?)
A $4.5-million passenger terminal was constructed for the state-of-the-art, ice-capable catamaran, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough proceeded with big plans to expand its port, link it to an interior railway and foster communities in the remote farm fields that surround the proposed ferry landing — defying critics across the country who held up the “ferry to nowhere” as an example of wasteful federal pork-barrel spending.
None of this ever happened.
The end of Stevens’ reign in 2008 meant no more federal handouts, leaving little money to build landings, insufficient cash to subsidize operations and no means of convincing Anchorage to build a dock on the other side.
Now the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is offering the boat for free to any “government entity” that wants it. Guess who is in “very preliminary discussions”?
“We think a ship like that could provide us with a versatile public safety asset for emergency response, mainly to Catalina Island, where the ability to move people and equipment and firefighting apparatus is currently a challenge,” said Ryan Alsop, Los Angeles County assistant chief executive officer.
I wonder; if it didn’t work for suburban Anchorage (which apparently needs a $750 million bridge), is it going to work out for Catalina Island?
This entry was posted on Monday, March 11th, 2013 at 8:51 am and is filed under Boats, California Über Alles, Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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