The following All Points Bulletin has been released for broadcast: The Point McKenzie ferry - a.k.a. MV Susitna - was reported overdue. The so-called “revolutionary” hull design, that cost an estimated $70-Million of taxpayer dollars, supposedly departed the port dock on October 10, upon its 1st maiden voyage to Anchorage, but no word on its whereabouts is available and since no sea-flight plan had been filed, in-case something went wrong, its whereabouts is a mystery. With the Anchorage port, the Susitna’s destination, within eyesight even on a foggy day - about 2.6 miles - it is most likely that a “flight” plan was not necessary. And the property lights from the failed wood-ship facility could also aid in navigational problems, if indeed this supposedly marine marvel had a problem. So there appears a mystery, the non-appearance, several days overdue. Now this new ferry, built by taxpayer money, it is a high tech beast, wherein even the Navy had reservations upon moving forward such an endeavor, because of the price tag. But somehow money was made available in an appropriations bill, through a strong-arm congressional tactic, to allow - I mean force - the Navy to build something it was no longer interested in, just for Alaska. The ferry was supposed to ferry 3,000 passengers a day - at a yet unknown fare that will probably make highway robbery a joke - back and forth between a port with no good roads and Anchorage – the latter a port that doesn’t want a ferry. Just ask the railroad boss. And during the building of this “ship to nowhere”, sub-standard wages were paid by the dry dock dicks, so welders were scarce this project. Why work for $18 an hour when “slope” wages are 3-times that pittance? Even though it was supposed to be Davis-Bacon wages, somehow it didn’t work that way, but sure enough, large profits were made the dry dock dicks. Will keep you posted this event. APB END.
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