64 



My name is Judy Willis. I live up the road a bit at Coffman Cove. 

 I have lived there for 20 years. I have owned a little general there 

 for the last 16. My store, everything in it, would fit in half this gym 

 and you could park four rigs beside it. I started the store because 

 I ended up divorced with three kids, and I have raised them out 

 of it. I have been self-supporting. My kids went completely through 

 school at Coffman. They would probably like to stay there. They 

 cannot. There are not any jobs. 



I have a son that is a fisherman that lives in Petersburg. I have 

 a son that is a heli-logger that is working in Valdez this year — his 

 house is in Coffman — and I have a daughter in college in Juneau 

 studying constitutional business law. We have some real interest- 

 ing holiday dinners at our house. 



This is not one of the easiest places to make a living even in the 

 good years, and it does not matter how you make it. You still have 

 to fight the weather. You have to fight lack of support systems, 

 breakdowns, anything that can go wrong, and bugs. There have not 

 been too many good years lately and many of us are still here, so 

 we must either like it or we are not quite as smart as we thought 

 we were. 



Having gone through the battle of the Tongass with you for the 

 past 18 or 20 years, I have no problem telling you that I no longer 

 believe much of what the Federal Government tells me, even when 

 they sign on the dotted line. Nothing is ever really settled. The bat- 

 tle is never-ending. It is frustrating. It is tiring and stressful. It is 

 a no-win situation, and we have lost more now than we could ever 

 hope to regain. 



I support House Bill 2413 in the hope that it will give us a 

 chance for a future. We are not too sure we have a future right 

 now. No one seems to be able to tell us anything for sure. We know 

 better than to make plans. We know better than to take out loans, 

 anything of that sort. 



I support transferring the Tongass to the State of Alaska in 

 hopes that it will be managed in a way that will help stabilize our 

 economy somewhat. Making people more familiar with our forests 

 and the talents and people in it will do a better job of managing 

 it. 



I am not here to tell you I have a lot of faith in State manage- 

 ment, but, if nothing else, Juneau is closer. We can afford the air- 

 fare, and it is a little bit more direct, and I really am hard-pressed 

 to think of anything the State could do to us that the Federal Gov- 

 ernment has not already thought of 



Whether the Tongass is owned by the State or the Federal Gov- 

 ernment, I do not think things are going to improve until manage- 

 ment of public lands, all public lands, are done by people that have 

 been hired or appointed for what they know, not who they know. 

 No one is ever going to please everyone, nor should they try, but 

 they should not be swinging in the wind with every public opinion 

 poll that is published, either. There is no real management of any- 

 thing except someone's career when everything changes with every 

 election or every new political appointee or every newspaper story. 



The Forest Service that I have worked with here are good. They 

 know their jobs. They are hired because they know their jobs. They 



