North Dakota is fast becoming one of the largest producers of crude oil in North America. For years, a huge oil field in western North Dakota sat idle until the state lowered taxes, giving oil companies the incentive to invest. Now business is booming. As production at Alaska's Prudhoe Bay declines, oil workers are beginning to follow the jobs to the North Dakota prairie.

Channel 2 news reporter Steve MacDonald just returned from North Dakota and is working on a three-part series about their oil boom and the impact on Alaska.  MacDonald answers the questions Alaskans need to know: Are Alaska's oil jobs going south? Is North Dakota's gain, our loss? What does is all mean for Alaska's future?

MacDonald's series will air October 31- November 2 on the Channel 15 in Juneau at 6:00 p.m.. Steve will introduce us to Alaskans seeking opportunity in the flourishing North Dakota region. Throughout the week Steve will explore the jobs migration, oil taxes and small-town North Dakota's growing pains. Don't miss this unparalleled look at one of Alaska's most pressing issues.

Time is running out to weigh in on the Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan.

If you haven't had a chance to send in your comments about it to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, I encourage you to do so. This is an opportunity to stress the importance of the Juneau Access road and improving the sustainability of the Alaska Marine Highway System. Perhaps the greatest concern for the state is that capital funding - the large amount of federal dollars that make new ferries, roads and airports possible - is expected to decline substantially.

To review the August 2011 scoping report and its six, preliminary alternatives, go to  http://dot.alaska.gov/sereg/projects/satp/index.shtml.

Your input will be considered during the crafting of a framework by which transportation will be developed in Southeast Alaska over the next 20 years.

The state will accept comments until Friday, November 4, 2011 by:

Email: dot.satp@alaska.gov

Fax:     465-2016; or,

Letter: Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities

6860 Glacier Highway 
Juneau, Alaska 99801

Be sure to include your name, date, community, and contact information.

If you have any questions, contact the project manager, Marie Heidemann, at 465-1775, or marie.heidemann@alaska.gov.

Please take a few minutes to review the report and send in your comments today. 

Standard Oil brought my family to Juneau in 1968. My dad, Richard Bevens, was a sales rep for Southeast. A favorite memory was when he took me, his 11-year-old daughter, on a sales trip to Pelican and Elfin Cove on a Alaska Coastal-Ellis Airlines Grumman Goose. The exciting water take-offs and landings, the beautiful island scenery and the whale-watching experienced on that trip sealed my fate as a life long Alaskan.

I've been fortunate to turn my love for Southeast into a career that lets me share my enthusiasm and knowledge with the traveling public. Since graduating from the University of Hawaii with a degree in Travel Industry Management, I have spent the last 30 years in Alaska's travel industry. I work closely with small and large businesses in our community and across the region - and having observed their struggles and successes,  I have a deep appreciation of how important a vibrant economy is to the health of Juneau, our state and the nation. We simply must have an environment where entrepreneurs and risk takers can succeed, so that others can prosper too. My daughter, Katherine, 22, has benefited from employment provided by Juneau business owners - as have many of our friends and family.

I was one of the founding members of the Capital City Republican Women and am grateful for the way our organization helps to shape my political point of view and provides a better understanding of what it means to a Republican, which I have found is a journey and not a GPS coordinate on a map.  As I have learned from one of my mentors, most of us find ourselves landing along a whole spectrum of opinion depending on a particular issue.  However, there is one thing of which I am certain - and that is our great republic cannot be sustained without a politically educated and moral people as its foundation. If we encourage one another in these things, we have a bright future.

Mark your 2012 calendar for Tuesday, March 6. That's the date for our Alaska Republican Party Presidential Preference Poll and District convention. All across Alaska that evening, Republicans will gather to cast votes for their favorite presidential candidates and elect delegates to our state party convention to be held at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage on April 26, 27 & 28, 2012.

At the state party convention, Alaska Republicans will elect 24 delegates to the August 27-30, 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. To be selected as a delegate you must attend both the District convention and the State convention. More information to follow. 

Below are excerpts from the comments I personally submitted to the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities in response to their request for comments about the Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan.  If you too support building roads to grow and stabilize our economy, please submit your comments to DOT no later than Friday, November 4, 2011. E-mail comments to: dot.satp@alaska.gov

I am a Juneau resident whose family of five has traveled on Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) ferries for the past 36 years, primarily in the summer going back and forth to Haines. I am a strong promoter of Alternative 5 which supports replacing the existing mainline ferry system with a system based on road segments connected by shuttle ferries.

Southeast Alaska has just 10% of the state's population and both our population and economy are shrinking. The costs of operating the AMHS are growing exponentially. It is folly to presume that the majority of Alaskans will continue to finance the unsustainable fuel and labor costs associated with operating our current transportation model. Because roads are much less expensive to maintain than ferries, the most realistic alternative to pursue is the one with the longest possible road links and the shortest possible ferry runs.

In conjunction with Alternative 5, I also support initial construction of one Alaska Class Ferry (Alternative 4). I do not support construction of more than one vessel until it is determined that this is the most suitable ship (in terms of both seaworthiness and capacity) for the region. Why repeat the fiasco of the failed FVF experiment? It is prudent to start with one new ship - not two or three - and not commit to more until the concept is tested and proven correct

It goes with the territory that in choosing to live Southeast Alaska, we choose to devote a large portion of our personal resources to transportation. It is primarily my responsibility - not my fellow Alaskans' - to pick up the tab for my travel. Thus, to help finance maintenance of additional road links in Southeast, I support making these new roads toll roads.