Adelyn Baxter

A cluster of positive COVID-19 cases among Juneau’s homeless population has risen to 31 people. 

In response, the city is closing the downtown public library to indoor service and will reopen Centennial Hall as an isolation facility. 

City Manager Rorie Watt spoke about the situation during a community update today.

“I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of this cluster, outbreak, whatever we want to call it. It is very serious,” he said. “But in some ways, we have the potential to manage the situation more than if we had a similar number of cases randomly throughout the community.”

The city did not open Centennial Hall over the weekend. Watt said that’s because they couldn’t find people to staff it. 

“It’s not easy to get people who want to work in that environment. I mean honestly, the job description is: come supervise COVID-positive people, potentially with behavioral challenges, in a congregate setting,” Watt said.

To help with that, Capital City Fire/Rescue’s sleep-off program will be relocated from the Mendenhall Valley to Centennial Hall so that medical professionals will be on-site. 

That means people picked up for being intoxicated in public will be sleeping in the same building as those in isolation and quarantine. 

The downtown library is one of the main places people experiencing homelessness in Juneau can go during the day. It will continue to offer curbside service for library patrons, much like it did earlier in the pandemic. 

The Glory Hall homeless shelter remains open for a limited number of people overnight. It’s closed during the day, but meals are still available for pick-up downstairs. 

The city’s emergency shelter run by St. Vincent’s at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center remains open as well. 

St. Vincent’s Director Dave Ringle said Tuesday it’s not completely clear how the virus is spreading among the unsheltered population. 

“We can observe the behaviors within our shelter for the 12 hours our shelters are open, but we have no control over what happens in the other 12 hours or what’s happening outside our shelter,” Ringle said. “So we’re testing everyone, we’re monitoring the situation, trying our best to discourage unhealthy activities and sharing of drinks and food and other substances.”

The city tested 130 people at several shelters and housing facilities last Friday. Those results are still being processed, but nine have come back positive from that batch of tests, adding to the positive cases reported last week.

This post has been updated. 

At least 15 people experiencing homelessness in Juneau are part of a recent COVID-19 cluster. 

According to a release from the City and Borough of Juneau, five new positive cases among that population were identified Friday. 

The city says those people are in isolation and their close contacts have been placed in quarantine. Quarantine and isolation facilities are also being set up at Centennial Hall downtown. And more people are being tested at the emergency warming shelter, AWARE and Housing First. 

Staff at the Glory Hall shelter posted on Facebook that free COVID-19 testing will be available in front of the shelter Friday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and encouraged anyone to get tested there, even if they were tested recently. 

The Glory Hall closed for about a week recently after learning that individuals who tested positive had visited the shelter. It reopened last week, after two rounds of testing for clients and staff. 

Tests are also available at the city’s testing center by appointment or from SEARHC on the weekends and the Front Street Clinic during the week.

Updated | Sunday, 1:00 p.m.

The City and Borough of Juneau elections staff counted an additional 1,950 ballots on Saturday. Update totals are posted on the city’s website.

None of the race outcomes changed with Saturday’s results. The city has received more than 11,000 of the 27,000 mailed out to registered voters in September. The city will count again on Friday.

Updated | 6:15 p.m.

Unofficial results are in from Juneau’s first by-mail election. 

The first round of ballot processing took place at the Anchorage Election Center today. City Clerk Beth McEwen says 8,000 ballots were processed so far

So with about a quarter of the votes still left to count, here are the unofficial results: 

• Alicia Hughes-Skandijs is in the lead in District 1 with 4,635 votes. Kenny Solomon-Gross trails behind with 3,226 votes. 
• In the four-way District 2 race, Christine Woll is in the lead with 3,675 votes, followed by Robert Shoemake with 1,814, Derek Dzinich with 1,338 and Lacey Derr with 739. 
• In the uncontested areawide Assembly race, Maria Gladziszewski won re-election with 6,158 votes. 
• The Juneau School Board race was also uncontested. Board President Brian Holst was re-elected with 5,759 votes and newcomer Martin Stepetin received 4,819 votes. 

Ballot proposition 1, related to forming a commission to review the city charter, failed to pass by 2,283 votes. Ballot proposition 2, related to bond measures for city infrastructure, passed with 4,967 “yes” votes. 

All of the Assembly and school board races are for three-year terms. Assembly member Rob Edwardson, who did not run for re-election, currently holds the District 2 seat.

McEwen acknowledged that there may be mistakes with the spreadsheet used to total votes, so some results will change. This is the city’s first time conducting an election by mail and much of the equipment used was new to city staff. 

At least another 4,000 ballots still need to be processed. Elections staff will do another round of processing tomorrow, with updated totals posted to the city website. 

And they’re still verifying signatures. Voters whose signatures on file with the state Division of Elections do not match the signature on their ballots will receive a signature cure letter. They have until Oct. 15 to reply. 

For those who find that their signatures don’t match, Deputy Clerk Diane Cathcart suggested referring to their driver’s license signature as it’s likely to be one the state has on file. 

“Please feel free to stop in or give the Clerk’s office a call,” Cathcart said during a Zoom call announcing Friday’s unofficial results. “We’re happy to review it and then send it off so that your vote does get counted.”

 

Original story

Election workers from Anchorage and Juneau are hard at work processing ballots from Juneau’s local election.

Initial results are expected around 5 p.m. on Friday when City Clerk Beth McEwen plans to go live on Zoom and Facebook Live from the Anchorage Election Center.

Juneau partnered with Anchorage this year to hold its first-ever by mail election. Voting ended Tuesday. McEwen flew in Thursday to use Anchorage’s vote-by-mail equipment.

That includes scanners that take pictures of ballot signatures to aid election workers in the signature verification process. Voters whose signatures don’t match the one on file with the state Division of Elections will get a letter in the mail giving them the chance to correct their ballots.

“On the signature verification process, there’s approximately 4% that we’re having to send a letter in, saying ‘this signature is not matching exactly what’s on the envelope on your ballot, and we need to do some additional follow up before we can count that ballot,’” McEwen said.

According to the letter voters receive, they’ll have until Oct. 15 to correct the error.

Friday’s results are unofficial. Ballots returned by mail are still arriving at the election center.

They’ll process ballots again Saturday and on Oct. 16. They’ll certify the election Oct. 20.

Check ktoo.org/elections for results later in the day.

 

Voting in Juneau’s first by-mail municipal election ended Tuesday, but results aren’t expected until Friday around 5 p.m.  

Local election officials and ballots arrived in Anchorage on Thursday. Thousands more ballots already  arrived by mail at the Anchorage Vote Center, where results processing will take place. 

City Clerk Beth McEwen arrived in Anchorage with more than a thousand ballots in tow. 

Along with assistant Lacey Davis, she caught the afternoon flight out of Juneau. They checked two large, blue cases of ballots. 

In the car rental lobby at Ted Stevens International Airport, McEwen said they had a relaxing flight. 

“It was perfect. I even got a few minutes of nap,” she said. “Sleep of all kinds has been very rare in the last few weeks.”

Voting in Juneau’s local election began last month, but the work has been going on since May. 

On McEwen’s recommendation, Juneau decided to have this year’s local election to take place by mail. The clerk’s office set about completely re-envisioning how to run an election safely during a pandemic. 

About 27,000 ballots were mailed out to registered voters in September. More than 11,000 have made their way back so far, and they’re still arriving by mail. So far, this election has seen Juneau’s best voter turnout in 20 years. 

Now, it’s time to process the results. Ballot envelope sorting is already underway at the Anchorage Vote Center, where McEwen and Davis were headed directly from the airport.

“We’re going to load up the rental car with the ballot boxes, and then we’re going to head to the Anchorage election center,” McEwen said. “We’re going to check in…[and] see where they’re at in the processing, and make sure the ballots are secure and locked up into the secure area, and then have a game plan for starting first thing in the morning.”

Juneau’s ballots have never been processed outside of the city before.

The Anchorage Vote Center is large enough to have space for social distancing, and it has equipment specially designed to process ballot envelopes and verify voter signatures. 

“So pretty much all of their equipment we don’t have available, because it is different. They have an envelope sorter, where it’s going to take that unique barcode that every voter has … It’ll take a picture of that barcode along with the picture of their signature,” McEwen said. “And then that’ll go on to another computer system that actually has pictures of signatures from the state Division of Elections, and we’ll be comparing those side by side. Humans will be doing the comparison, it’s not computer comparison.”

She said the city does plan to buy some of the equipment Anchorage has, like ballot scanners. The money has already been set aside for that. But there wasn’t enough time to buy them and set them up before the election. 

“Once they’re scanned, then they’re what’s called ‘adjudicated’: if there’s any over votes or under votes or any of that — anomalies on the ballot — then that’s my part of the process,” McEwen said. “I’ll be reviewing each one of those ballots for any anomalies.”

McEwen expects to officially certify the election Oct. 20. That’s when voters will know the final outcome of three Assembly races and two ballot propositions. 

The new Assembly members will be sworn in Oct. 26.

Those preliminary election results will be posted on the city’s website and ktoo.org/elections once they’re available

. 

Some Juneau bar owners feel the city is unfairly enforcing COVID-19 business restrictions. 

In an Oct. 5 letter to City Manager Rorie Watt, attorney Chris Peloso wrote that the emergency order related to business closures is being enforced in an “arbitrary and capricious manner.”

Peloso, who wrote on behalf of a group of local bars, said when the city closed bars after a recent spike in positive cases, it allowed restaurants to stay open with capacity limits. Bars that don’t serve food had to close. 

“Even if they’re allowed to stay open at half capacity, they’re at least able to make some money and keep their employees employed. When the bars completely closed, you know, income goes down to zero, they have to lay off their staff, all of their perishable items go bad and it just doesn’t seem particularly fair,” Peloso said.

The way the city’s community mitigation measures define restaurants and bars is also an issue, he said. Many bars were able to stay open during the two-week closure because they also sell food or have a separate restaurant on their property.

Peloso said those exceptions don’t make sense. 

“Just the fact that you can get a burrito on the other side of the room doesn’t have any effect on whether or not you could transmit a disease,” he said.

Peloso said the group he represents is made up of about five different downtown bars. Several bar owners contacted for this story didn’t respond to requests for comment.   

During a community update on Tuesday, Deputy City Manager Mila Cosgrove said she met with representatives of the Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers Association to discuss similar concerns. 

“They asked us to consider some potential revisions to the community mitigation measures. So we are taking that under advisement,” she said.

But since the next Juneau Assembly meeting isn’t until Oct. 26, there won’t be any resolution for some time. 

This post has been updated. 

 

More than 40% of registered voters in Juneau voted in the capital city’s first by mail election. 

That’s the best turnout a local election has seen in 20 years. 

Local ballots featuring three assembly races, two uncontested school board seats and two propositions arrived in voters’ mailboxes in mid-September. Tuesday was the last day to return them.

The turnout will be even higher once mailed ballots finish arriving at the Anchorage Vote Center. The election won’t be officially certified until Oct. 20.

In the meantime, election officials are verifying signatures. 

The city partnered with Anchorage to process ballots envelopes. Juneau elections staff will fly there tomorrow to deliver the remaining ballots.

Unofficial results will come out Friday after officials do an initial round of ballot processing. 

But that still might not include all of the ballots. Another round of processing will take place Oct. 16.