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  0             The largest cruise ship season in Kodiak history wrapped up just about a month ago, and already the Kodiak Island Convention and Visitor’s Bureau is looking forward to next year. The KICVB will be hosting a public forum on Wednesday to get community input on the recently completed season and how to make next year, which is expected to be even bigger, a greater success. KMXT’s Casey Kelly reports.

            Kodiak Island Convention and Visitor’s Bureau Executive Director Janet Buckingham wants to hear from the public, while this most recent cruise ship season is still fresh in everyone’s mind.

            (Buckingham 1                      :32s                 “…the community is impacted.”)

            There were 19 cruise ships scheduled to make port in Kodiak this year. Bad weather conditions prevented one of those from making it in, so the city only saw 18, which was still seven more than in 2007. Buckingham says the unofficial schedule for next year calls for 24 cruise ships. She hears mixed things from the community about the number and size of the tourist ships.

            (Buckingham 2                      :13s                 “…bring ‘em on, the more the better.”)

            Buckingham plans to use community input as part of a report that she’ll write on cruise ships for the City of Kodiak and the Kodiak Island Borough.

            City Councilman Jack Maker, who along with his wife Rhonda, owns the Treasury and the Treasury Home businesses downtown, says cruise ships benefit the community in many ways.

            (Maker 1                                :35s                 “…definitely beneficial to the city.”)

            The city’s stake in cruise ships is also important in light of improvements that are being discussed for Pier 2. Maker says the design for those improvements, which may include bathrooms and a waiting area for cruise ship and ferry passengers, will be partly funded by Kodiak’s share of a cruise ship head tax. And he says they’ll benefit everyone who uses Pier 2.

            (Maker 2                                :29s                 “…benefit the community as a whole.”)

Buckingham hopes the information shared at the public forum will be helpful to the city.

            (Buckingham 3                      :15s                 “…what they want Kodiak to be.”)

            The public forum on cruise ships is scheduled for 7 o’ clock Wednesday evening at Fishermen’s Hall. Everyone is invited to attend. If you can’t make it Buckingham says you can e-mail your comments to her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

            I’m Casey Kelly.

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