Adelyn Baxter

University of Alaska Southeast Chancellor Rick Caulfield retired on Tuesday.

Over the course of his five years leading the campus, he dealt with declining enrollment and repeated state budget cuts that left the entire university system struggling. His departure comes at a time when the campus is facing more uncertainty than ever.

Last week, someone at a Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon asked Rick Caulfield to reconsider.

“I know it’s not a great time,” Caulfield said. “I have thought about this a lot, and yet I’m very confident that our interim Chancellor Dr. Karen Carey will do a great job.”

When he announced his retirement last fall, Caulfield never could have imagined how his final semester would go.

COVID-19 caused most classes to move online this spring as students were sent home. The university system was already reckoning with millions of dollars in cuts from last year’s budget vetoes.

And then, just a week before his retirement, university President Jim Johnsen announced his resignation.

“But this is just one more element of uncertainty amid budget cuts and the need to respond to a global pandemic,” Caulfield said.

Caulfield’s University of Alaska career started in 1977. He studied Alaska Native subsistence practices in Fairbanks.

After getting his Master’s in Education from UAF, he taught at the Bristol Bay Campus in Dillingham before leaving to pursue his Ph.D. in England and studying subsistence whaling in Greenland. He returned to become a professor at UAF, where he taught for 20 years before moving to Juneau to be the chief academic officer for UAS.

Looking back on his time on campus, Caulfield said he’s especially proud of the partnerships UAS has built with employers in the region.

He was also critical of the proposal to the UA board of regents that would merge UAS with one of the other two main campuses to cut costs.

“I’m not at all convinced that eliminating the separately accredited university that has served Southeast Alaska very well for over 33 years is the right way to solve the university system’s fiscal crisis,” Caulfield said.

Alternative cuts could be made by looking at redundant degree programs at UAA and UAF, he said, or by taking a hard look at the cost of university athletic programs.

Caulfield feels that it’s vital for decisions about education in Southeast Alaska to be made by the people who live there, not by administrators in Anchorage or Fairbanks.

An in-depth study into the merger proposal is slated to be done by October before regents make a final decision.

Caulfield and his wife Annie plan to stay in Juneau, and he’s not done with campus life yet.

“I intend to be an advocate for UAS in my retirement. In some respects, maybe I can be even more of an advocate,” he said.

UAS Provost Karen Carey will serve as interim chancellor until the university is able to resume the search for Caulfield’s permanent replacement.

Usually in the summer, there’s a drop in demand for services for people experiencing homelessness. But local service providers say that hasn’t happened this year.

This spring, the city extended its contract with St. Vincent de Paul — the non-profit that runs the emergency warming shelter — until mid-July. It also opened a new public campground where people can stay for free.

Now St. Vincent’s General Manager Dave Ringle says the shelter’s contract has been extended through September 15, with the potential to go to Nov. 24.

“Right now we’re averaging over 50 people a night at our shelter,” Ringle said by phone Wednesday. “The Mill campground has 20 sites that have been full or almost full since the start of the summer.”

Normally, the emergency shelter is open from November to April on nights when the temperature is below freezing. But this year, it may not close at all.

Ringle said the pandemic is having financial and psychological impacts on people who were already struggling, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.

The Glory Hall homeless shelter downtown also reduced the number of people who can stay overnight to follow health recommendations. That’s left more people looking for a place to sleep.

St. Vincent’s moved the emergency shelter into the Juneau Arts and Culture Center in March to allow more space between beds.

“It’s the little factors that social distancing requires that puts that much more stress on everybody and we’re still trying to adapt to it,” Ringle said.

There is some relief on the horizon. Construction recently wrapped up on the second phase of of Juneau’s Housing First complex. A new wing with 32 additional apartments will double the number of vulnerable adults able to live at Forget-Me-Not Manor in Lemon Creek.

Ringle said it will take some time to identify new residents and move them in. Even though that will take some pressure off of the emergency shelter and other services, it’s still not enough.

“We need to look long term at an emergency solution for housing that goes beyond September 15 into the winter,” he said.

Housing and social service providers in Juneau are looking to the city for help, and not just with housing.

A proposal to use local CARES Act funding to pay local restaurants to prepare meals for community members experiencing food insecurity is making its way toward the Assembly.

Juneau will not see a downtown fireworks show this Independence Day weekend, after all.

At its meeting Monday night, the Juneau Assembly reversed an earlier decision to hold the July 3 show by failing to approve a mandate requiring face masks at the event to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

When assembly members voted 5 to 4 last week to hold the fireworks, they did it with the understanding that the city would also require people to wear face masks while attending the event.

But mandating face masks required an emergency ordinance. That type of legislation needs six votes to pass, rather than a simple majority. And so, with 4 assembly members voting for the mandate and 5 against it, it failed. That means the show will be canceled.

Assembly member Maria Gladziszewski voted in favor of holding the event last week, but voted against the mask mandate Monday. She said she changed her mind about encouraging the public to gather when COVID-19 continues to spread in the state.

The Assembly passed another emergency ordinance Monday extending the requirement to wear face masks on public buses and in public areas of city buildings for three more months.

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Assembly member Maria Gladziszewski’s last name. 

The pandemic has put a damper on most of Juneau’s usual July Fourth festivities, but one resident is still hoping for a parade. 

Ray Rusaw got the idea to organize a short parade in the Mendenhall Valley after the city’s downtown event was canceled in response to COVID-19. 

His son is an Iraq War veteran, and Rusaw has always participated in past parades with different community groups. 

“Everything about the Fourth of July is important to me,” Rusaw said on Friday. “It is the one time of the year where it’s nice and warm and all the people get out of the house and they truly all cheer the same thing and, and they’re all cheering America.”

Rusaw planned to have participants stage cars and floats in the Nugget Mall parking lot, where the parade will begin and end. He reached out to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter and printed up fliers to advertise. 

https://www.facebook.com/ray.rusaw/posts/3733831329966375

But Rusaw said he must have misunderstood the Juneau Police Department when he originally reached out about his plans. At the time, he didn’t think he needed a permit. 

But as it turns out, he does. Police Lt. Krag Campbell told Rusaw last week the city will not issue him a parade permit.  

“In absence of (a) parade permit, what somebody could do though is they could have a line of vehicles that are … decorated, so long as they’re vehicles that are allowed to be on the roadway and they can just drive their normal route and just by obeying all the traffic laws,” Campbell said. 

Campbell said  anyone operating an unlicensed vehicle or walking in the road during the parade could be issued a citation.

Rusaw had hoped that people would be able to drive four wheelers or ride bikes in the parade, and planned to walk the route himself. He’s encouraging anyone worried about social distancing to watch from their cars along the parade route, or even drive along. 

He sent a letter to the Juneau Assembly asking that the city reconsider granting him a permit. 

“If you’re free enough to walk out there and go to Home Depot, then you should be free enough to actually walk in a parade,” Rusaw said. 

Rusaw said he’s heard from many community members who want to participate in Saturday’s parade. He hopes they can do so without risking a citation. 

The substance abuse treatment center at Bartlett Regional Hospital that closed last spring may reopen by the end of July.

Rainforest Recovery Center closed for inpatient care in March due to COVID-19 health concerns, sending 11 patients home or to other facilities. The facility typically houses up to 12 people at a time.

Since then, staff have started offering outpatient treatment through telehealth services. That program will continue even after the facility opens its doors again.

“In an effort to make sure our patients are safe while they’re receiving treatment, we’re probably going to start out with single occupancy, which at this point means instead of 12 patients coming in, we will have up to eight when we reopen to start with,” said Bradley Grigg, chief behavioral health officer for Bartlett.

He said they’re working through the details and safety plans with the hope to be back open by late July or early August.

When the facility closed, it was turned into an alternative care site for the hospital in case it needed overflow space for COVID-19 patients.

That never happened. The city has since set up a quarantine and isolation site at Centennial Hall. But Grigg said the hospital is prepared for a worst-case scenario.

“We are very mindful of the fact that we may have to pivot and return it as an alternative care site again, like we did in March,” Grigg said. “So we’re keeping all of the equipment that we had in that site at close hand to where if we have to turn, pivot and stand that up again, we’re going to be prepared to.”

The facility has also been undergoing construction for a new detox clinic that they hope to open at the same time they reopen for inpatient care.

In the past, Rainforest treated patients from across the state. Grigg said for now they’ll use a phased approach to focus on local clients for the first month or two, gradually accepting patients from other parts of the region and eventually the state.

Juneau will see fireworks this Fourth of July holiday. 

The Juneau Assembly voted 5 to 4 on Monday to allow the annual fireworks show to go on with added safety restrictions, including a requirement to wear masks. 

“I think that people are people, and we’re all exhausted and I think a lot of people could really use some relief right now,” said Assembly member Michelle Hale.

Even though she was in favor of holding the fireworks, Hale said she will not attend the event and encourages anyone with medically at-risk loved ones at home to do the same. 

The annual city-sponsored July 3 display is organized by the volunteer-run Juneau Festival Association.

Assembly member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs spoke against holding the fireworks. 

“I know people are looking forward to it. I just don’t think it’s good precedent considering everything that is still ongoing,” Hughes-Skandijs said. 

The downtown and Douglas Fourth of July parades have already been canceled, along with the other annual Douglas festivities. 

The July 3 fireworks display will take place at the normal time. The city will make additional parking available downtown for those who want to watch from their cars. 

The Assembly will vote Monday on a mandate to require masks for anyone outside their cars at the event.

They also plan to revisit the topic of personal fireworks displays — which has seen some controversy in the past — at a later date.