Casey Kelly

A judge has denied a motion to immediately stop work on the City and Borough of Juneau’s massive cruise ship dock expansion. But he’s agreed to hear arguments about a longer term injunction.

The Alaska Commercial Fishermen’s Memorial in Juneau wants to block the project from moving forward until the Alaska Department of Natural Resources completes the transfer of submerged tidelands to the city.

Even though construction on the first of two floating berths on the city’s downtown waterfront isn’t scheduled to start until after the 2015 cruise season, the Juneau Assembly last month approved a $54 million contract award to Seattle-based Manson Construction.

The nonprofit fishermen’s memorial has long been opposed to the docks, citing concerns over how they will impact the annual Blessing of the Fleet, as well as the view of Gastineau Channel from the memorial.

Judge Louis Menendez on Tuesday issued an order denying the group’s request for a temporary restraining order to keep the city from working on the project. Menendez said the nonprofit failed to show it would face “immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage.” He also denied the memorial’s motion for expedited consideration of the case. Menendez set a February 24th hearing on the memorial’s request for a preliminary injunction, which could stop work on the project indefinitely.

City Attorney Amy Mead said the law department will respond in writing to the memorial’s motion for an injunction prior to the hearing. While she declined to discuss specifics, Mead believes the city has a good case.

“We’re fairly confident that the fishermen’s memorial is not going to meet its burden in order to obtain from the court a preliminary injunction,” said Mead.

Juneau Port Director Carl Uchytil says the city remains confident the state will approve the transfer of submerged tidelands to the city. The Department of Natural Resources last month issued a final decision approving the land conveyance. But the memorial appealed and the decision was put on hold while it’s under review by Commissioner Joe Balash.

Uchytil says the city considered options that would have appeased the fishermen’s memorial, but the Assembly ultimately decided to move forward with the docks.

“The Assembly pretty much made the decision not to engage in any other discussions, you know, put it to bed,” Uchytil said. “Once the Assembly made that decision, I don’t think it’s proper that another department undermine that decision.”

Attorney and fishermen’s memorial board president Bruce Weyhrauch did not respond to requests for comment in time for this story.

The State of Alaska is looking for temporary office space for about 200 employees in Juneau, who will need to move during an extensive remodel of the Douglas Island Building.

The move will affect employees from the departments of Fish and Game and Corrections. Tom Mayer, Director of the state Division of General Services, says the renovation project will start around the 1st of May.

“The goal really is to find one building where we don’t have to have two agencies with multiple divisions that are inside their building right now all split all over town for a long period of time,” Mayer said. “It’s basically a 15 month project roughly.”

The state this week issued a request for information to see what office space is available in the Capital City. Mayer says the facility should be at least 20,000 square feet, with a minimum of 56 parking spaces. After gauging the availability of space, he says the state will likely solicit bids for a short term lease.

The Douglas Island Building renovation is a complete overhaul with an $18 million budget, which has already been appropriated.

“The building originally was built in 1961. So it’s obviously very old, really hasn’t been remodeled much in the past,” said Mayer. “The project is going to include new curtain walls, HVAC systems, plumbing, electrical, windows, drainage, roof, carpeting, paint. It’s basically going to be a new building when it’s done. I’m not in the contracting world or construction industry, but I would call it a gut and remodel, yeah.”

Mayer says the renovation will create space for additional employees, but he couldn’t say how many or from what departments.

In 2010, Juneau’s legislative delegation secured $2 million for planning and design of a new State Office Building to house about 500 employees. A year later, the Parnell administration shifted course and decided to renovate the existing building in Douglas instead.

Final design for the Alaska Class Ferry is expected to be complete by the end of this month, clearing the way for the state to award a construction contract to a shipyard this summer.

Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Reuben Yost says the state has preliminary estimates from Vigor Alaska, formerly Alaska Ship and Drydock of Ketchikan, and Elliott Bay Design Group of Seattle. If the shipyard and architect are close on the final estimate, Yost says the ferries will be built in Ketchikan.

“When we have the contract design complete we will get estimates from both entities. That’s in early March,” Yost told the state House Transportation Committee Tuesday. “Then based on that, we will either be negotiating a maximum price with the shipyard or we will be advertising.”

In late 2012, when Governor Sean Parnell announced the scaled down Alaska Class Ferry design, he said his goal was to have “Alaskans build Alaska’s ferries in Alaska.”

Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (D-Sitka) asked Yost what factors the department will weigh when deciding whether to award the contract to Vigor Alaska or go outside.

“I think everybody’s got a vested interest in seeing the vessel built in Alaska,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “Presumably we would still build the vessel in Alaska even if the maximum price is a little bit higher than competitor shipyards in the lower 48, just because we’re keeping dollars in state. But do you have any sense of how big that discrepancy has to get before you would look at awarding the contract to an out of state shipyard?”

Yost said the most important thing is for the project to stay within its $117 million budget.

“If we face a situation where we had very strong evidence that the vessel could be built within the existing budget out of state, through a competitive bid process, but not at the Ketchikan shipyard, then we would have to seriously consider whether we would continue with this process,” Yost said.

According to Yost, Vigor Alaska and Elliott Bay Design Group are bound by confidentiality agreements that prevent them from sharing cost estimates with each other.

Yost said the state hopes to award a contract by June, with the first ferry completed by mid-2016 and the second vessel by mid-2017.

The 280-foot Alaska Class Ferries will be used primarily in Lynn Canal and on shorter Alaska Marine Highway System routes in Southeast Alaska. The vessels will be able to carry up to 300 passengers and 53 vehicles. Initially, the Parnell administration wanted open car decks on the boats, but the design was changed after input from the public and ferry designers.

Note: This story originally referred to Vigor Alaska by its former name, Alaska Ship and Drydock.

The Juneau Empire no longer allows anonymous online comments on its website.

The newspaper on Sunday removed all previous comments published at juneauempire.com. Now, real names are required to post remarks about articles and interact with other readers.

The Empire joins a growing number of media outlets in Alaska and nationwide that have ended anonymous comments or done away with commenting on their websites altogether.

Publisher Rustan Burton says the move is designed to promote civility and respect in the comments section.

“People felt like people were taking it too far online, that there wasn’t enough oversight, there wasn’t enough accountability, because these people could say whatever they wanted. It didn’t have to be backed up,” Burton said. “And it’s not hard to take a look at those comments, and you can see that there are people out there who don’t care about the conversation. They don’t care about the argument, or having a good discussion. They really want to just stir the pot.”

Burton says feedback has been mostly positive since the change was announced last week.

“The 17 people that really liked the online commenting without putting their names next to it were pretty upset about that,” he said. “Other people commented online that they were very happy about this. And everyone that I’ve spoken to in person has been very positive about it. They’ve just said, ‘Hey, it’s about time.'”

The Anchorage Daily News, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and Alaska Dispatch, as well as KTOO, allow people to post remarks through Facebook.

The Empire will only allow comments from subscribers. Last year the paper introduced an online paywall. The same website log-in that allows people to read articles will allow them to comment.

“We wanted to maintain control of the whole thing, and as we talked about it we realized that the Facebook option still didn’t give us the complete control we want,” Burton said. “Plus we were taking them away from our website, and we didn’t want that to happen. We wanted the conversation to stay on our website.”

Former print and broadcast reporter Brian O’Donoghue chairs the journalism department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He says systems that require people to attach their real names to online comments, whether it’s Facebook or something else, are desirable.

“It’s the same reason why we quote people by name in the paper – talk is cheap,” O’Donoghue said. “When it’s your identity by name backing that comment, then I think there’s a lot more reason to take it seriously and there’s also a civic value in discouraging just sort of bullying comments from folks that are masquerading behind concealed identities.”

The only issue O’Donoghue sees with news organizations using Facebook comments is that they tie themselves to the changing rules and privacy policies of Facebook itself.

He says the Empire’s decision to limit comments to subscribers may have the unintended consequence of limiting discourse.

“Traditionally, anybody could write a letter to the newspaper that did or did not subscribe to the newspaper,” said O’Donoghue. “Or perhaps read the newspaper at the public library, or borrowed a friends’ copy of the newspaper, or just wanted to express themselves on a topic of public interest to the community.”

The Juneau Empire is one of several media outlets in Alaska owned by Georgia-based Morris Communications. That includes the Peninsula Clarion in Kenai and the Homer News. Burton says the company is leaving it up to local papers to decide what to do about online comments.

The Alaska Commercial Fishermen’s Memorial in Juneau is asking a judge to stop the city from moving forward with plans to develop two floating cruise ship berths on the downtown waterfront.

It’s the latest attempt by the nonprofit memorial to alter or block the $54 million project.

Attorney and memorial president Bruce Weyhrauch last week filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in Juneau Superior Court. The motion seeks to keep Juneau from entering into an agreement or paying any money to build the docks until the State of Alaska completes the transfer of submerged tidelands in Gastineau Channel to the city.

Last month, the state Department of Natural Resources issued a final decision approving the land conveyance. But the fishermen’s memorial appealed and the decision has been temporarily stayed.

The memorial has consistently opposed the design of the docks over concerns about how they will impact the annual Blessing of the Fleet. Weyhrauch says the memorial board would prefer to work with city officials rather than go to court.

“That invitation has always been open to the city to resolve this matter,” Weyhrauch said.

The Juneau Assembly last week voted 6-3 to award a contract to build the docks to Seattle-based Manson Construction.

City Attorney Amy Mead told the Assembly that the hold placed on the state’s land transfer is a formality until DNR Commissioner Joe Balash can rule on the memorial’s appeal.

“This is an automatic stay that went into place once the fishermen’s memorial gave notice that they were appealing the decision,” said Mead. “So the stay will stay in effect until the final decision from the commissioner is made.”

Mead on Friday said the city is waiting hear from the court about the schedule for responding to Weyhrauch’s motion. The case has been assigned to Judge Louis Menendez.

Juneau Port Director Carl Uchytil says the Docks and Harbors Department feels it’s in the best interests of the community to move forward with the project.

“Docks and Harbors, the board, and presumably the Assembly feels that the risk of not acting outweighs the remote chance that Mr. Weyhrauch would be successful in any appeal process,” Uchytil said.

Construction on the docks is not expected to start until September 2015, with completion not expected until May 2017. Juneau gets nearly a million cruise ship visitors a year. The $54 million project is being funded entirely with Juneau’s share of the state’s cruise ship passenger fees.

The business plan competition for Southeast Alaska entrepreneurs was sponsored by Haa Aanì, the community development arm of Sealaska Corp., as well as the Nature Conservancy.

The winning entrepreneurs will receive up to $40,000 in seed money for consulting services to develop their businesses ideas.

Two of the 12 finalists for the Path to Prosperity contest were guitar makers.

“Got the news that I made the top 12 and I saw the list of people and I saw Tongass Guitars, and I remember thinking that was my second choice of the name,” recalled Kevin Skeek of Hoonah, co-owner of Raven Guitars. “And I was like, who is this guy!? How did this leak out!? Who do I have to!?”

Skeek eventually joined forces with Steve Helgeson, the other guitar maker in the contest. They chose Raven Guitars as the name for their business. Helgeson, who’s from Wrangell, says they bonded at a small business boot camp the finalists attended in October.

“It was obvious that we shared a passion for guitar building, and had a common vision about guitar construction, and design, and aesthetic,” Helgeson said. “We also shared a passion for natural resource sustainability, and social sustainability and community sustainability. So really, we just had so much in common that it was a no brainer.”

The company aims to use Southeast Alaska timber – mostly Sitka spruce, yellow and red cedar – to manufacture high quality acoustic guitars. They have a few prototypes, which Helgeson says sound quite nice.

“It’s a very bright and strident sound,” said Helgeson. “In my mind it’s similar to a mahogany guitar.”

The other Path to Prosperity winner also uses Southeast forest products. Wes Tyler and his wife Sue own Icy Straits Lumber and Milling in Hoonah. For years, they’ve been trying to expand their business into cabin construction and home building supplies. For the contest, Wes Tyler says the company rebranded that portion of its business as Alaska Legacy Homes and Products.

“Through that we’re going be able to open up our markets, develop log cabins or stick frame cabins with log features and things like that,” he said. “We’ll also be able to have packages of the different kinds of things that go into homes, like a siding package, or a paneling package, or trim package.”

Like the guys from Raven Guitars, Tyler says he prefers to work with wood from the Tongass National Forest.

“You can make anything you want to out of it and it’s the best around,” Tyler said.

Path to Prosperity sponsors Haa Aanì and the Nature Conservancy received 59 proposals for the 2013 contest. The twelve finalists were set up with consulting services, including the small business boot camp and help writing a business plan. The winners were selected based on the quality of their plan.

Haa Aanì President and CEO Russell Dick says the contest has three main goals.

“Jobs, conservation, sustainability,” Dick said. “That’s what it’s about – being able to create a platform for employment and lifestyle in rural communities, because rural communities drive the culture of our state in my mind and we want to be able to support that.”

So what’s next for the winners?

Helgeson says Raven Guitars will use the financial award for more training, as well as marketing, branding, and imaging. They hope to open a manufacturing shop in Wrangell within the year.

“We anticipate that in our first year we’re going to try to complete 44 guitars,” he said.

Within five years he hopes to have about 10 full time employees and be manufacturing 500 to 1,000 guitars per year.

Tyler says the plan for using Alaska Legacy Homes’ award is similar. He says they’re thankful for the consulting services offered through the contest.

“We’ve had experience where the rubber meets the road a whole bunch,” said Tyler. “But where it really counts in trying to figure out things in a business fashion, why that was extremely valuable.”

The Path to Prosperity is a four year project. The Nature Conservancy and Haa Aanì will accept proposals for this year’s contest starting in March. The 2013 winners were announced at the Juneau Economic Development Council’s third annual Innovation Summit.