Jeffrey Nominated to Board of Fish Seat

Jay Barrett/KMXT

A Kodiak woman was nominated over the weekend to the Alaska Board of Fisheries by Governor Sean Parnell. Sue Jeffrey, who currently serves on the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly, will face her first confirmation hearing this evening, when the House Special Committee on Fisheries takes up her nomination.

Jeffrey has fished in Kodiak for over 30 years and covered fisheries for the Kodiak Daily Mirror.

— (Jeffrey 1 49 sec "First came up in the … in all the issues.")

Kodiak’s current representative on the Fish Board is Mel Morris, whose reappointment Jeffrey and her colleagues on the assembly expressed support for.

— (Jeffrey 2 31 sec "Mel Morris put his … administration wanted choices.")

Linda Kozak is a Kodiak fisheries consultant. Reached in Anchorage where she’s attending a North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting, she said the governor’s office expressed a strong desire for alternative to Morris. She said Jeffrey was basically drafted to apply in the middle of last week. Kozak said it was important to come up with alternatives, lest Kodiak, the most diversified fishing port in Alaska, lose its seat on the Fish Board:

— (Jeffrey 3 25 sec "It’s a fact that if we hadn’t … on this important board.")

Kozak said she’s known Jeffrey for a long time, and thinks she has what it takes to effectively represent the area’s fisheries and fishermen:

— (Jeffrey 4 24 sec "She’s always seemed to me … going to serve on the board.")

The House Special Committee on Fisheries will take up Jeffery’s nomination this evening at 5 p.m. Hearings before both the House and Senate Resources Committees are yet to be scheduled. The House and Senate will jointly vote on gubernatorial nominations April 8^th.

In addition to Jeffrey’s nomination, Governor Parnell also re-nominated incumbents Bill Brown of Juneau and John Jensen of Petersburg to the Board of Fisheries. The terms are for three years and will begin July 1^st.

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