Casey Kelly

Juneau City Manager Rod Swope has made it official – he’s retiring for good on March 31, 2012.

Swope already retired from the city once, more than two years ago. At the time, the CBJ Assembly unsuccessfully went through the process of trying to find a replacement. Swope took six months off, and agreed to come back and work on a two year contract. Now he says he’ll stay on a little longer than that.

“That two year time would have been up at the end of this month, at the end of October. But I’ve agreed to stay on through the end of March,” says Swope.

That means he’ll be stepping down in the middle of the city’s biennial budget process. Swope generally puts the budget together early in the calendar year. The assembly then holds hearings on it during March and April, and approves it – with changes – in May or June.

The assembly is scheduled to hold its annual retreat tomorrow (Tuesday), where the topic of recruiting a new city manager will be on the agenda.

Results of a survey to track the rate of domestic violence and sexual assault in Juneau will be released today (Monday).

The survey was sponsored by the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center, and the state Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, with support from AWARE – Juneau’s domestic violence and rape prevention center.

It’s part of an effort to get a better understanding of the amount of sexual assault and domestic abuse across Alaska. A statewide survey in 2010 found that more than 37 percent of adult women in the state experience sexual violence in their lifetime and more than 47 percent are abused by a partner.

More than 600 Juneau women responded to the survey between April and June of this year.

A new state office building will NOT be built in Juneau any time soon.

The Parnell Administration has changed course. Instead of building a new 140-thousand square foot office building, Administration Commissioner Becky Hultberg says the Douglas Island Office Building will be renovated.

The administration was expected to announce the location of the proposed facility that would house about 500 employees from the departments of Labor, Public Safety, and some Fish and Game and Corrections employees.

But Hultberg says an analysis made possible by a $2-million legislative appropriation has led to a different conclusion.

“It enabled us to have a better understanding of the condition of the existing buildings we have,” Hultberg says. “Prior to this there were some assumptions made, some very limited work done, but really the appropriation enabled us to do the detailed work that has led us to this conclusion.”

Hultberg says an engineer’s study shows the old Douglas building is structurally sound and can be renovated for $15 to 20-million.

It does not resolve the question of the old Public Safety building, which has been considered a temporary home for the department since the 1970s. The lease for the so-called Plywood Palace, which houses the Department of Labor, expires next year. The poorly constructed building has long been a pain to the administration. Hultberg says the administration is negotiating with the building’s owner.

She says the administration will have to move public safety employees, but it’s not clear where.

Once the new Libraries, Archives and Museum complex is built – several years from now — space will be available in the State Office Building, Hultberg says.

A new capital city office complex was first proposed in 2009 at the old subport, owned by the Mental Health Trust Authority. Legislation allowing the Authority to develop office space and lease it to the state did not survive that session, but planning and design funds were granted last year.

Juneau State Representatives Cathy Munoz and Beth Kerttula carried the legislation on the first proposal.

Both say they’re disappointed, but say it’s good that a state facility will remain in downtown Douglas.

Munoz says it’s important the administration is still planning to invest in Juneau.

“Going back two or three years when we were working on the Mental Health Trust project that was a great opportunity. It’s unfortunate it didn’t get through the process then, but obviously there are new considerations today that we weren’t looking at two or three years ago,” Munoz says.

Kerttula says Juneau legislators are committed to working with the administration on a new office building.

This story will be updated with more details.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is warning local waterfowl hunters to be safe after a report of someone firing shots toward the runway at the Juneau Airport.

Area Management Biologist Ryan Scott says the hunters were allegedly not on the nearby Mendenhall Wetlands State Game Refuge.

“A couple things there,” says Scott. “One, it’s obviously not very safe to be shooting that direction. Two, during the waterfowl season, waterfowl hunters can use a shotgun to hunt ducks and geese on the refuge, but you’ve got to be on the refuge.”

Scott says the incident is under investigation. He’s not aware of any pending charges at this point.

The waterfowl hunting season stretches from mid-September to the end of the year. Since 2003, Scott says the department has required a permit to hunt on the Mendenhall refuge.

“The purpose of that permit was so that we could have some time with the hunter, explain some of the issues and concerns out there, and then provide them with the information to make sure folks make good decisions out there,” Scott says. “I would say 99.9 percent of the waterfowl hunters utilizing the refuge use very good, safe hunting practices. But it could just take a couple things and it could really reflect negatively on everybody.”

Scott says about 300 people apply for permits every year, making it one of the most popular hunts in Juneau.

Sealaska Regional Native Corporation owns about 25-thousand acres of subsurface mining rights in an area being contested by the City and Borough of Juneau and Petersburg.

The area includes Hobart Bay, where Juneau’s Native Corporation Goldbelt owns 30-thousand surface acres.

Sealaska Vice President Rick Harris says the company will follow Goldbelt’s lead in commenting on the dispute.

“We’ll support them in whatever way is necessary to achieve a result that’s best for Goldbelt’s shareholders and also our shareholders,” says Harris.

Juneau plans to file a competing petition to Petersburg’s proposed borough boundaries, which includes land previously slated for annexation to the CBJ.

So far, Goldbelt hasn’t expressed a preference for which borough, if any, the corporation’s land should be in. Earlier this month, Goldbelt Vice President Derek Duncan sent a letter to the state’s Local Boundary Commission saying it would make a statement in the near future.

Harris says sand rock and gravel are quite prevalent in Hobart Bay, and that some precious metals are nearby.

“We don’t believe that it’s on our property,” Harris says. “We think that if there’s any precious metals, they’re actually to the north of our property.”

October 26th is the deadline to submit competing petitions and opposing briefs to the state’s Local Boundary Commission on Petersburg’s proposed borough.

The CBJ Assembly plans to introduce an ordinance Monday to make its petition official.

Dr. Janice Sheufelt had no idea she could win an ultra-cycling event. After years of competing in short bike races, she just started long distance training in the last year.

“I figured, well, I’m doing all this training, it would be a good year to do an ultra – ultra meaning extra-long distance bike race,” says Sheufelt.

She found the Furnace Creek 508 on the Internet. Despite its name, the course is actually 509 miles. It starts just outside Los Angeles, and stretches through Death Valley and the Mojave Desert, before curving back to the finish line near Joshua Tree National Park. It crosses ten mountain passes and has a total elevation gain of over 35-thousand feet.

To prepare Sheufelt biked around Juneau – a lot.

“To the end of the road, and then up Eaglecrest, out Thane, out North Douglas, and then to the end of the road and back,” she says.

By the end of the summer, she figured she’d been up to Eaglecrest 56 times this year. She also did a couple 24-hour rides in Washington, where the roads aren’t as hard to come by and the weather isn’t so wet.

“I did one 16-hour overnight training ride in Juneau, but the second eight hours it just poured rain the whole time – this was in July. And that was just miserable,” says Sheufelt.

Instead of a bib number, contestants in the Furnace Creek race pick a totem, or animal, to represent them. As they go through each checkpoint, riders shout out their animal’s name, and that’s how race officials keep track of everyone. Sheufelt, who’s half-Tlingit, chose “wooshkeetaan” as her animal.

“Of course, no one knew what wooshkeetaan was, but by the end of the race everyone was just calling me the Alaska shark,” she says.

Sheufelt had no idea she was doing well in the race until the second to last checkpoint. That’s when her support team, which consisted of husband Jim, daughter Megan, and friend Peter Apathy from Sitka, told her she was in second place in the women’s field and tenth overall.

“And I was like, ‘Oh come on, really?’” she says.

Really. And at the last checkpoint, Sheufelt’s team found out she was only 15 minutes behind leader Seana Hogan, a well-known ultra-cyclist and six time winner of the Race Across America.

“They didn’t tell me that, because they wanted me to just keep riding my own race and not change anything,” she says.

Going up a hill during that last leg, Sheufelt she caught a glimpse of a rider she didn’t recognize.

“It turns out it was her [Hogan],” Sheufelt says. “And she was stopped momentarily and her crew was tightening some bolts on her bike or something. And, I rode by her and she did a big double take and yelled something at her crew, and then I knew the race was on.”

Hogan would give chase, but finish 12 minutes behind Sheufelt, who was the only solo female racer who had never competed in the Furnace Creek 508 before.

“My goal was just to finish, so I was completely shocked to win the race,” Sheufelt says.

Beating out world class competition in her first ultramarathon hasn’t gone to her head. The win qualifies Sheufelt for the Race Across America, but she says, “I definitely know I am not doing that. Because that takes a minimum of nine days, and that’s a bit much.”

The 45-year-old – who’s administrator of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s Ethel Lund Medical Center – says she may do another race similar to Furnace Creek, though, including the Fireweed 400 in Southcentral Alaska.