M/V Susitna Ferry: Marketing 101

To the editor:

As a military craft and ice-breaker ferryboat capable of landing and loading on beaches, our M/V Susitna is a wonderful and valuable gift, but the Federal Transit Administration sent us a “demand letter” requesting that, since it did not use the vessel to run a ferry as required for the grant, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough should repay $12.5 million in grants it received to build a ferry terminal, design landings, and to outfit the vessel for civilian use.

In order for Mat-Su (us) to keep this $12.5 million, our M/V Susitna must be put into some sort of ferry service. I suggest a limited, short-term service from the Point MacKenzie port directly to a simple beach landing in Tyonek, Hope, and (perhaps) on to the Anchorage small boat harbor ramp.

This will also showcase its wonderful potential to buyers, thereby greatly increasing its market value by tens of millions of dollars.

Instead, by mothballing our ferryboat in an apparently useless condition, we stand to lose not only the $12.5 million in grant money plus interest, but also tens of millions of dollars in lost potential market value in its sale.

Yes, it will cost us money to put it into service to show it off properly, but the investment should be richly rewarded very soon, I should think, in its sale.

The question is, shall we, the people, push our Mat-Su Borough Assembly, Manager and Mayor hard enough to accomplish such a profitable venture, or shall we lose it all?

Daniel N. Russell

Willow