COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank
you. We have Leonard
Augustine.
(Pause whispering.)
MR. AUGUSTINE: Good
morning. I'm Leonard
Augustine. I'm from the village of Emmonak.
It's located --
it's one of the villages down in the Yukon
Delta. I'd like to
just read through my notes so that I don't miss anything.
For many years, we have been privileged to live in and own nice homes - - nice HUD homes, which we would normally not be able to afford. These homes in our area have been built in selected villages, as funding becomes available. Because most villages are located in tundras, it took some special and careful planning in the construction of these homes.
Now, the other factor in the construction
of these homes is the short construction season. And a problem
that resulted in the construction of many of these homes
is that that were constructed too fast, and it resulted in
poor construction -- with a poor construction job. I guess
I’d like to add, just for an example, on very, very windy
days, the linoleum on the floor floats, because the wind
is sweeping through the home. I believe that the haste was
to try to construct as many homes as possible in that short
construction season.
Now, in our village of Emmonak, there was a group of people that were trained in construction -- in carpentry. The problem with this -- the problem we had with that -- the formation of that construction company was that there are some requirements that had to be -- that some electricians and plumbers had to be certified; and none of our guys were certified.
If some of these requirements were -- I guess they're referred to as red tapes -- were removed, I guess, so that this formation of our construction company would be allowed to work; you know, participate in building these homes. I believe that it would benefit our people, as far as employment. And, not only that, I believe that these homes would be constructed more carefully and more complete if they were done by our own workers. That's all. Thanks.
COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you, Leonard. Any questions or comments from any of the Commission members?
(Pause.)
If not, we thank you for coming, testifying.
MR. AUGUSTINE: All right. Thank you.
This document was ocr scanned. We have made every
attempt to keep the online document the same as the original,
including the recorder's original misspellings or typos.
