Outside forces – like the European debt crisis and turmoil in the Middle East – present both challenges and potential for Alaska’s economy.
That’s the message Governor Sean Parnell had for the Juneau World Affairs Council today (Monday), in a speech reflecting on his first trip overseas as the state’s top elected official.
Parnell says he met business and government leaders on the trip, who called Europe’s debt crisis “a potential global contagion.” He pointed to the United Kingdom, where consumers buy more than 30-million dollars in Alaska seafood every year.
“They believe that if one of the countries in the EU defaults, cascading effect on the UK diminishes the value of their currency. That makes our seafood more expensive for them to buy, which means they will end up buying less of our seafood upon a default,” says Parnell. “That’s just one example of how this translates back to Alaskans.”
But the governor says there are also opportunities in Europe. Many Eurozone countries, looking for a safe energy alternative to Middle East oil, are thinking of buying liquefied natural gas from the shale-rich Lower 48. Parnell says that opens up other markets to Alaska’s gas.
“Kind of some interesting worldwide dynamics when it comes to gas,” Parnell says. “But what it all pointed to was that Europe is going to need natural gas, which has a cascading effect on where other countries get their gas, including the Pacific Rim.”
Recently Parnell has given more credence to the idea of an all-Alaska pipeline to Valdez, where a plant could make liquefied natural gas for export. But he also hasn’t given up on the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act goal of a pipeline through Canada to the Lower 48.
Parnell visited London, the Netherlands, Rome and Israel on his overseas trip. He said the Israel portion was paid for by the Israeli government. The governor’s Spokeswoman Sharon Leighow says the state will pay for the rest. In his opening remarks, Parnell said politicians need to make sure such trips have a tangible benefit. In this case, he said the benefit was the opportunity to promote Alaska products.
The City and Borough of Juneau has received 25 applications from people interested in replacing outgoing City Manager Rod Swope, who’s retiring at the end of March.
CBJ Human Resources Director Mila Cosgrove wasn’t surprised by the number of applicants. But the number from out-of-state was a little surprising, given that advertising for the position was limited to Alaska.
“I think that people are interested in the opportunity of coming to Juneau and the job market is still pretty soft down south,” says Cosgrove.
In late October, the Assembly decided on an expedited search for Swope’s replacement. The application deadline closed on December 1st, and the assembly’s self-imposed timeline calls for offering the job to someone by January 30th.
City Manager and City Attorney are the only positions hired by the assembly. But Cosgrove says she’s there to provide support if members request it.
“As a general rule, my office will collect the applications and do some level of screening for qualifications and checking references and that type of thing,” Cosgrove says. “The assembly, at least with the last city manager process we did was very hands on in terms of wanting to interview and select the candidates. I would imagine that will be the case this time as well.”
Deputy Mayor David Stone says the Assembly is looking for a person who has good management experience with a municipal budget as large, or larger than Juneau’s.
“And of course we’re unique in that we have some enterprise boards – hospital, the airport; we’re unusual even for the state of Alaska. We’re one of the very few that owns an airport,” Stone says. “I think we’re looking for strong leadership skills. Because this is a strong manager form of government, the manager’s really the CEO.”
Stone says it’s likely that the list will be pared down significantly at tonight’s Committee of the Whole meeting.
“I think we want to make it manageable. So I’m assuming we’re going to whittle it down to four or five, maybe a few more than that. But I doubt that we’d go much higher than that,” he says.
Stone says the finalists will be invited to come to Juneau for a series of in-person interviews. Those will likely take place in mid-January.
Among the applicants is current Deputy City Manager Kim Kiefer, who served as interim manager in 2009 when Swope took a six-month sabbatical.
Below is the list of all the applicants.
Bill Allen
Ginger Blaisdell
Bruce Carlile
Todd Crossett
Buddy Custard
William Durham
Scott Hahn
Jay Henry
Tecumshea Holmes
Mustafa Iflazoglu
Gail Jones
Kim Kiefer
Alan Lanning
William Lee
Christine Pomeroy
Eugene Rehfeld
John Schempf
Ronald Schmucker
George Shirk
Harry Staven
Thomas Steele
Eric Strahl
Jeffery Tubb
Stephen Vincent
Ron Wild
The investigating officer for a hearing into last year’s fatal Coast Guard helicopter crash off the coast of Washington State says he’ll consider an additional charge of dereliction of duty against the crash’s sole survivor, Lieutenant Lance Leone.
Captain Andrew Norris is leading the Article 32 hearing, taking place this week in a courtroom at the Juneau Federal Building.
Norris was already investigating Leone for one count of dereliction for failing to navigate the helicopter to avoid hazards. Leone is also charged with destruction of government property, and negligently causing the deaths of two of his crewmates.
The new dereliction charge is for not following proper Crew Resource Management procedures. It follows testimony yesterday (Thursday) from Leone’s commanding officer, Air Station Sitka Commander Doug Cameron, who suggested Leone may have been reluctant to question the helicopter’s pilot-in-command, Lieutenant Sean Krueger. Cameron speculated that Leone deferred to Krueger, because of rank and experience.
Krueger died in the crash, but Leone is only being charged in the deaths of Aviation Maintenance Technicians Adam Hoke and Brett Banks.
The Article 32 hearing – similar to a grand jury proceeding in civilian court – began on Wednesday and is expected to wrap up today (Friday).
Norris will then make a recommendation to Rear Admiral Thomas Ostebo, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District in Alaska. Ostebo will decide whether to drop the charges, pursue discipline internally, or through a court martial.
Thirty-five percent design drawings are complete for two Juneau docks and harbors projects, with construction on both set to begin next fall.
Upland improvements associated with a 62-million dollar rebuild of the city’s cruise ship docks will begin along the downtown waterfront in late September 2012. In October of next year construction will begin on a redesign of Statter Harbor in Auke Bay.
Port Director Carl Uchytil says construction is being timed to avoid the busy summer tourist season.
“We will start when the last cruise ship leaves, or maybe even a little bit sooner than that,” he says.
Uchytil updated the Juneau Chamber of Commerce on a number of docks and harbors capital projects yesterday (Thursday).
The department plans to hold more focused meetings in the next month with cruise dock and Statter Harbor stakeholders. They’ll meet with waterfront sales vendors next Wednesday, December 15th as well as January 12th at City Hall. On December 20th, port officials will hold a meeting on the Statter Harbor redesign at the University of Alaska Southeast. Times can be found on the city’s website.
The group behind a citizens’ initiative to re-establish an Alaska Coastal Management Program plans to have signature gatherers in every corner of the state.
Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell approved the Alaska Sea Party’s initiative application yesterday. Organizers expect to receive petition packets in about a week, and will need 25,875 signatures to put the measure on next year’s statewide ballot.
Lead Sponsor, Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho says the group wants that many signatures before the start of the legislative session on January 17th. That would give lawmakers an opportunity to adopt “substantially similar” legislation instead of putting the issue to a vote.
“We are organized. We await the booklets and we will have a presence in every district in the state,” Botelho says.
He declined to say how “substantially similar” any potential legislation would need to be to meet the group’s approval. But he said the initiative language would “set a benchmark.” Botelho said the Sea Party will likely spend about 150-thousand dollars on the petition gathering effort.
The Alaska Coastal Management Program provided one-stop state and federal permitting for developers seeking to build projects along Alaska’s vast coastline. It also gave local communities input during the permitting process.
Without it, initiative co-sponsor, Kodiak Island Borough Mayor Jerome Selby, says more communities will resort to litigation.
“If we don’t have a coastal zone program, we then have react to a decision that has already been made. And as everyone knows, that’s a much more difficult task to try to change a decision that has been made and finalized by the federal government. And realistically about the only effective way of doing that is through lawsuit,” says Selby.
The coastal management program shut down this summer after legislators and the Parnell administration failed to reach an agreement to reauthorize it during the regular and special legislative sessions.
The governor’s office says it will not introduce a bill to re-establish the program, and in an e-mail pointed to a permitting office within the Department of Natural Resources that “allows communities to weigh in numerous times for each project under review.”
