Adelyn Baxter

In this newscast:

• Memorial Day events around town,
• more than 300 high school seniors received their diplomas on Sunday,
• and a woman achieved her goal to do a headstand in every state during a visit to Ketchikan last week.

Capital City Fire/Rescue crews responded to a fire at a home on North Franklin Street Monday morning.

The fire broke out shortly before 10:45 a.m. on the top floor of a three story house on the corner of Fifth and Franklin streets. No injuries were reported.

Flames poured from windows as firefighters worked.

The fire was knocked down by 11 a.m. Crews were still working inside the building to assess damage, according to a police dispatcher.

Construction begins next week to rebuild a beloved Juneau playground more than a year after it burned down. The project should wrap up in September.

Contractor Carver Construction will begin preparing the Project Playground site this week. The west end of the parking lot and shelter at Twin Lakes will close beginning June 4. Family Fishing Day will proceed as normal on Saturday, June 2.

The public bathrooms and beach will remain open and accessible throughout the project. The city asks that the public be mindful of closures and detours on the walking path.

The original play structure was built in 2007. It was destroyed by arson in April 2017. Much of the construction costs are being covered by insurance money, but the city had to come up with the $100,000 deductible.

A community committee has been working with the city to solicit donations and fundraise. More than $350,000 has been raised.

“We could have just gone with the insurance funds that the city had and made no changes, but we went for some pretty hefty changes from a safety and accessibility standpoint,” said committee Chair Mike Goldstein.

Plans for the new playground include two 30-foot ziplines, improved lighting and surfacing and an artificial turf field.

Goldstein said there are still plenty of inscribed fence pickets available for families and individuals to purchase. The pickets will help pay for special safety surfacing to make the playground more accessible, rather than the typical shredded rubber surfacing used in the past.

“I think we might be somewhere in the order of about $50,000 shy of getting 100 percent of the safety surfacing that we wanted,” Goldstein said. “That’s after a lot of generous donations from communities, people and businesses, folks from all over the state and outside.”

Volunteers are invited to sign up online for the community portion of the build from Aug. 8 to 12.

Juneau police are looking a suspect after Home Depot employees reported an assault and attempted shoplifting on Tuesday afternoon at their Lemon Creek store.

Employees attempted to stop a man after he left the store with about $400 in unpaid merchandise in a shopping cart, according to police.

He resisted, at one point brandishing a knife on the employees and a customer who tried to help. He escaped, driving away in a blue extended cab GMC pickup with black rims.

Police described the suspect as being 5 feet 8 inches tall, about 220 pounds with a ponytail and wearing a black windbreaker.

When police arrived, Home Depot employees pointed out another shoplifting suspect still inside. Officers found 25-year-old Juneau resident William Eric Moy Jr. with unpaid merchandise concealed under his clothes. They arrested him and took him to the Lemon Creek Correctional Center.

Home Depot referred questions about the incident to their public relations department, who did not respond by deadline.

A $21 million federal grant focused on improving the lives of children in Southeast Alaska is bringing together educators and social service providers.

Partners from two dozen organizations and seven different communities came together Monday at Centennial Hall in Juneau to discuss the data behind helping kids succeed as adults.

Phil Burbick, co-assistant superintendent of the Sitka School District, said it’s important to get everyone working across the region together in one place to share ideas and strategies for helping students.

“Especially in education, we tend towards silos, and we tend towards closing our classroom doors and teaching, or closing our schools and saying ‘This is my school,'” Burbick said. “That’s an old model that just doesn’t work in this time. So for me, it’s really about creating a community that there are no barriers, there’s a lot more free flow.”

That’s why AWARE, United Way, the Association for the Education of Young Children, SEARHC and the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska are among the partners. They all brainstormed strategies for a new initiative called STEPS, Supporting Transitions and Educational Promise Southeast.

Much of the conversation on Monday revolved around “adverse childhood experiences,” traumas that sometimes develop into substance abuse or severe mental or physical health problems.

STEPS coordinator Emily Ferry said it’s rare to get so many different players together to work toward a common goal.

“One of the challenges of our neighborhood is that it’s so difficult to get between places, that even though we’re working kind of towards the same purposes, to have this time together is pretty special and to learn from each other,” Ferry said. 

The initiative is now in the planning stage and the budget has not been finalized. The funding will be divided between Juneau, Sitka, Hoonah, Kake, Hydaburg, Angoon and Klukwan over five years. Implementation begins July 1.

The Alaska Association of School Boards and its partners won the Promise Neighborhoods grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The idea behind Promise Neighborhoods is that helping children succeed in distressed communities improves the entire community.

In this newscast:

• The Alaska Legislature ended its session in the early hours Sunday morning,
• a Juneau woman won a coveted Rasmuson fellowship, along with 5 other local artists,
• and the Flume Trail is back open.