Adams, Kevin (Osn 

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Sent:· 

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Dear Mr. Adams, 

Olen Harris <olen@npfha.com> 

Thursday, Aprill8, 2013 12:52 PM 

Adams, Kevin (OST) 

David Totemoff 

DOT -OST-2013-0030 

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North Pacific Rim Housing Authority is the Regional .Indian Housing Authority for the Chugach Region of Alaska and 

provides affordable low income housing, community infrastructure, and related services to the community of 

Tatitlek. NPRHA currently manage 6 affordable rental housing units, approximately 20 homes under a homeownership 

program, and the two community docks in Tatitlek. O!!e of the docks is an Oil Spill Response Dock for a major section of 

Prince William Sound and also where the Alaska Marine Highway ferry berths when it serves Tatitlek. NPRHA is also 

planning on construction of. a single family home and renovation of a youth activity center in Tatitlek this summer. Due 

to the remote nature of Tatitlek, being only accessible by air and boat, requires that the community has reliable, . 

reasonably priced, and frequent enough air service that the essential functions of the community and organizations that 

serve the community can effectively be delivered. 

I would like to offer North Pacific Rim Housing Authorities full support for the proposal submitted by J&M Alaska Air · 

Tours, dba Alaska Air Transit, marked Proposal A. All three proposals from J&M Alaska Air Tours provide the community 

with 3 flights per week, this schedule is frequent enough that services can reliably and afford ably be delivered to the 

community. Proposal A provides all three flights directly to Tatitlek, proposal B routs one flight per week through 

Chenega Bay which does add some time in transit for this flight but this would be an acceptable alternative is proposal A 

is not selected. NPRHA many times has to send out staff to Tatitlek to perform tasks that require a higher skill level than 

our local staff possess as well as perform tasks to meet all of our obligations under our federally funded programs and 

these trips usually are 2-3 days in length. Having service 3 times weekly would enable us to obtain seat fares for both 

legs of the trip, if service is only once per week as the other proposers have submitted (Reeve does provide a proposal 

with 2 flights per week but at a significantly higher cost that J&M Alaska Air Tours 3 flights per week cost) it would 

require a costly charter for one leg of the trip. 

NPRHA also has to ship all of the supplies, materials, and equipment necessary for maintaining. our facilities to the . 

community and every, there is no local store located in Tatitlek and everything must be shipped to the community by 

air or boat. All ofthe residents in the community are in the same situation and if they need a .part, often for a critical 

system of their home such as the oil fired boilers in most ofthe homes in the community, they must order it from 

Anchorage and wait for the next available flight to receive it. This creates a very dangerous situation if the home is 

without heat and in danger of freeze-up in the winter time. The majority of the residents of Tatitlek are low income arid 

do not have the luxury of maintain an expensive stockpile of parts to account for anything thatmight go wrong with 

their heating systems. Having flight available 3 times per week would make the delivery ofthese parts much more 

timely and potentially save homeowners thousands of dollars in repairs from having a home freeze up. 

Please let me know ifthere are any additional steps that I need to take to have North Pacific Rim Housing Authorities 

·comments on the proposals part of the record for this solicitation and selection. 

Sincerely, 

Olen Harris 

Executive Director 

North Pacific Rim Housing Authority 

8300 Kim?: Street 

Anchorage, AK 99518 

Phone 907-562-1444 

Fax 907-562-1445