Alaska Politics Blog : Ramras: Noah didn't quit to work on the cherry orchard

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Erika Bolstad

Erika Bolstad covers Alaska issues, including the congressional delegation, from Washington, D.C., for McClatchy Newspapers. Before joining the bureau in 2007, she spent seven years as a reporter at the Miami Herald, where she covered politics, government and the state legislature. E-mail Erika at ebolstad@adn.com.

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

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Ramras: Noah didn't quit to work on the cherry orchard

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: December 1, 2009 - 2:40 pm

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From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage –

When Harry Noah quit as the governor’s in-state gas pipeline chief, he wrote an email saying it was because he needed time to deal with a family farming business in Oregon.

But Rep. Jay Ramras continues to insist there was much more to it than that, and he wrote a letter to Gov. Sean Parnell today about it.

“I assure you from the conversations he and I had, it was not to go back to Oregon to work on the cherry orchard,” Ramras wrote. “Rather, it was frustration and disappointment that senior public officials were intermittently involving themselves by derailing progress on the Bullet Line project.”

Ramras wrote that Noah told him the day he resigned two weeks ago that “Jay, every time I nail down a floor board, Tom and Marty (commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources) come right behind me and pull it up.”

Tom Irwin and Marty Rutherford didn’t respond after Noah’s resignation but Parnell reiterated his support for the project.

Read Ramras’ letter here. In it, Ramras writes of instances where he asserts the department of natural resources was a problem. Ramras argues the proposed bullet line to ship North Slope gas to the Railbelt is at risk and Parnell needs to look into it.