440 



Testimony of Thad Poulson, editor and co-publisher. Daily Sitka Sentinel, April 25, 

 1989, Sitka, Alaska. 



Senator Wirth, Senator Murkowski, Senator Bums: 



Thank you for for coming to Sitka and giving the people who will be most directly 

 affected by Tongass legislation the opportunity to testify. 



My name is Thad Poulson. My wife and I are the owners, managers and editors of 

 the Daily Sitka Sentinel, the Sitka newspaper. Before coming to Sitka in 1969 I was 

 the Associated Press Correspondent for the State of Alaska, stationed in Juneau. 



I am testifying today as a journalist, a businessman and a 20- year resident of Sitka 

 who prizes the unique values symboUzed by this community. 



I am in favor of the Murkowski-Stevens bill. I speak in favor of the compromise 

 approach endorsed by the Southeast Conference of Cities. I speak against the Wirth 

 and Mrazek bills that propose unilateral cancellation by the U.S. government of the 

 50-year federal contracts with the two Southeast Alaska pulp companies. 



If the government has difficulty today in fulfilling these contracts — with 

 safeguards to all long-term uses and values of the forest — it is because the Congress 

 has repeatedly changed the boundaries of the playing field in the course of the game. 



With all due respect, Senators, this, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, is like 

 deja vu all over again. 



In my 20 years in Sitka I have seen and experienced the transformation of Sitka 

 from a provisioning economy — where there was generally one place in town that 

 might have what you want and if it didn't you went without — into the sophisticated 

 and multi-faceted economy that we enjoy today. Naturally, my business, along with 

 my debts and my payroll obligations, have grown with the fortunes of the town. 

 Successful merchants advertise in my newspaper to promote their business and sell 

 their merchandise, not to make a charitable or goodwill contribution. I'm not ashamed 

 to tell you that the latter motivation was all we could count on in my early days in 

 Sitka, before the community achieved the critical mass of population and economic 

 activity to truly sustain a daily newspaper. 



University of Alaska Economist George Rogers refers to the pulp industry of Sitka 

 and Ketchikan as the anchor for all other economic activity. Of course you know that 

 this was the purpose of the long term contracts in the first place. You will hear others 

 with expertise testify that the timber and pulp industry is the economic foundation of 

 one fourth of the Sitka population. Loss of that critical one-fourth would be disastrous 

 to our business community, and the shock waves would touch every resident of this 

 town. 



I am deeply troubled by the fact that neither the Wirth nor Mrazek bill addresses in 

 any meaningful way the economic havoc they would visit upon the people and 

 economy of Southeast Alaska, and more particularly upon Sitka. 



These two bills can only be characterized only as punitive in effect, if not in intent. 

 Punitive to innocent people, whatever their political views, whose only offense is to 

 live, work, own propeny or do business in Sitka, Alaska at the time the United States 

 Government reneged on a solemn obligation. 



