During a short stay in the capital city, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, stopped by City Hall Monday night to sit in on a Juneau Assembly meeting.
Only moments after arriving at the Juneau International Airport, Sullivan headed to Assembly Chambers. He was off to complete the latest leg in what he called a “listening tour” of Alaska.
“What I’ve really been trying to do is listen and hear what the issues are in the communities: everything from individual issues or the broader issues that communities are working on,” Sullivan said during the Assembly work session.
Sullivan told Assembly members to give him the skinny on any issues of importance to the Juneau community, and he got what he asked for.
Assembly member Mary Becker told Sullivan that she would like him to help attract more National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jobs to Juneau.
“These are exactly the kinds of things that I’m interested in hearing about,” Sullivan said before explaining that he has “struck up a very good relationship” with Kathryn D. Sullivan, the under secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA administrator.
“On this issue, you can consider me your federal lobbyist,” Sullivan said.
Assembly member Jesse Kiehl asked Sullivan to work on starting a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program for the U.S. Coast Guard, one of two branches of the military that doesn’t have such a program. The other branch not represented in ROTC is the Marines.
Kiehl said having an ROTC program for the Coast Guard would be good for Juneau’s high schools given the expensive presence of the branch in Juneau and the rest of Southeast Alaska.
Sullivan called Kiehl’s idea “great.”
Sullivan left Tuesday morning for Ketchikan, but he’ll resume his listening tour of Juneau on Thursday when he returns.
• Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.
