Casey Kelly

The Juneau Airport’s two-and-a-half-year terminal renovation project is coming to a close – a year later than expected and more than a million dollars over the original price tag.

Airport Architect Catherine Fritz says all that’s left to do is to go through the final punch list and pay McGraw Custom Construction the final 90-thousand dollars of its contract.

The work ended up costing just under 11.2-million dollars, up from the original estimate of 10.1-million. Fritz says unforeseen conditions exposed during construction and design errors contributed to the increase. But the airport also requested additional work not included in the original plans. For example, renovation of the departure lounge.

“Because of the timeliness and the integral nature of other work in the departure lounge that was in the contract, we were able to use existing contractor and subcontractors to accomplish work that wasn’t originally in the scope,” says Fritz.

She says McGraw was able to utilize surplus materials, saving money on the departure lounge work.

Renovations began in May 2009 and included adding about 10-thousand square feet to the terminal building, modernizing the baggage claim area, and a new down escalator for passengers arriving at the airport. Fritz says a geothermal heat pump system installed during construction has already reduced operating costs.

“The energy efficiency improvements were significant, but we also modernized a lot of our facility for the convenience and expectation of travelers,” she says.

The City and Borough of Juneau owns the airport, so about half of the project was paid for with local sales tax revenue. The rest came from state and federal grants.

Over the next two weeks, City and Borough of Juneau Engineering Director Rorie Watt will hold a series of informational meetings on the AJ Mine.

Starting tomorrow (Thursday), four sessions will be held to talk about the history of the old mine and the city’s current consideration of reopening it. Then, a week from tomorrow (October 20th), Watt will host the first of two sessions described as an open discussion about the city’s water system study. The AJ ore body is located in Last Chance Basin, Juneau’s main source of drinking water.

On Monday, Watt told the CBJ Assembly Committee of the Whole that the meetings are designed to bring the public up to speed before the drinking water study gets underway.

“The intention is, if they’re new they can come to an introductory session and then come to a water session, or if they’ve been following it all along, come to a water session,” says Watt. “But just trying to open the doors and get as much input as possible.”

The city and borough owns two-thirds of the old AJ Mine and Alaska Electric Light and Power owns the rest.

Earlier this year, a committee appointed by Mayor Bruce Botelho produced a report that attempted to define under what circumstances, if any, the city should promote development of the mine. In August, the assembly created a 250-thousand dollar AJ Mine Capital Project Fund to pay for the water study and other work surrounding the effort.

All of the upcoming meetings will be held in the CBJ Engineering Conference Room on the 3rd floor of the Marine View Building. See the full schedule below:

Introduction to the AJ Mine:
October 13th – 12:00 noon
October 13th – 5:00 p.m.
October 19th – 12:00 noon
October 19th – 5:00 p.m.

AJ Mine Related Water Study:
October 20th – 5:00 p.m.
October 26th – 12:00 noon

The Alaska Division of Elections has rejected a recall application for Ketchikan state Representative Kyle Johansen. District One Republicans, who launched the recall effort in May, plan to meet to decide whether to appeal. KRBD’s Deanna Garrison has the story.

The Juneau Canvas Board met today (Tuesday) and certified the results of last week’s municipal election.

City Clerk Laurie Sica says the board added nine absentee by mail ballots that came in over the weekend and were postmarked by the October 4th deadline.

Newly-elected Juneau Assembly members Randy Wanamaker, Jesse Kiehl and Carlton Smith will be sworn in next Monday at the assembly’s next regular meeting.

Sally Saddler and Sean O’Brien will be sworn in to the school board at its next meeting, currently scheduled for October 18th.

The City and Borough of Juneau is finalizing an annexation petition to be filed with the state’s Local Boundary Commission for lands that Petersburg wants to include in a proposed borough.

Last night, the CBJ Assembly approved several maps to be included in the petition. They show 92.6 percent of the contested area is in the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s Juneau Game Management Unit; 93.7 percent is in the U.S. Forest Service’s Juneau Ranger District; and 71.4 percent in the Juneau Recording District.

The area was previously identified for annexation to Juneau. It includes all the territory from the southern CBJ boundary and east to the Canadian border; the Tracy Arm / Ford’s Terror Wilderness and Endicott Arm as well as Holkam, Windham and Hobart bays.

Before now, the CBJ hadn’t filed for the area in deference to Juneau Native Corporation Goldbelt, which owns 30-thousand acres at Hobart Bay. Goldbelt hasn’t expressed a preference for which borough it wants to be in, now that there will be competing claims for the land.

Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho says the Local Boundary Commission may still decide not to include it in either Petersburg or Juneau.

“But absent our intervention there will be only one petition asserting a claim over that land,” says Botelho.

October 26th is the deadline for submitting competing petitions and opposing briefs to the Local Boundary Commission. The assembly will introduce an ordinance to approve its petition at its regular meeting next Monday.

A resolution authorizing City Manager Rod Swope to apply for state funds to pay for half of a new Mendenhall Valley library is on its way to the Juneau Assembly.

On Monday, the assembly’s Public Works and Facilities Committee sent the resolution to the full panel for approval.

The nonprofit group Friends of the Juneau Public Libraries has committed one-million dollars to the project, which is estimated to cost at total of 14-million. Friends president Jeff Vogt says it’s important to get it done now, while state funding is available.

“If we let this slip by our fear is that instead of looking at a 7-million dollar project to the city – of which the Friends have already committed a million at least – if we let this slip by at this point in time it could slip by for a long, long time,” Vogt says.

In addition to the Friends money, the city could count the value of the land at Dimond Park, where the new library would be built, toward its half of the project. Juneau Library Director Barbara Berg says other funds could come from an extension of the city’s one-percent temporary sales tax, private foundations, and fundraising.

“There’s potential for Rasmussen [Foundation money]. The Library Endowment Board has approximately 300-thousand dollars available at this time in its major project fund to put toward this, and the Friends are intending to run a capital campaign and other fundraising to support this project,” says Berg.

Applying for the grant now doesn’t commit the city to the project. The assembly will vote on the resolution next Monday.