Jeremy Hsieh

Update | 3:49 p.m. Friday

The House Finance Committee has noticed budget and Medicaid meetings for next week and intends to continue meeting in Anchorage. Room 120 of the Capitol building is set up for the public to watch remotely.

House Speaker Mike Chenault’s office has confirmed that the House will meet Tuesday in a technical session only.

Update | 11:06 a.m. Friday

Senate President Kevin Meyer’s office has confirmed that Tuesday’s Senate floor session will be a technical session held in the Capitol.

Original post | 9:57 p.m. Thursday

Alaska lawmakers are due back in Juneau on Tuesday, but who actually comes and how long they stay is unclear.

“It’s still up in the air,” says Juneau Sen. Dennis Egan.

He’s concerned his colleagues may not want to finish the special session in the capital city. Anchorage is already hosting some committee meetings this week.

A spokeswoman says Senate President Kevin Meyer intends to put out a memo Friday about the Senate’s meeting plans. Technical floor sessions, which don’t require a quorum and often last only a few seconds, are a possibility. Such sessions fulfill a constitutional obligation to keep the special session live.

House Speaker Mike Chenault said Thursday through a spokesman that he intends to hold floor sessions in Juneau, but is unsure about committee meetings.

“And they’re blaming it on construction at the Capitol building. Bull,” Egan says. “The City and Borough of Juneau has bent over backwards to provide space free of charge – free of charge – for the legislature to meet.”

Major earthquake renovations of the Capitol building have effectively put lawmakers and the governor out of their offices. But Egan says alternative space is ready.

Juneau Parks and Recreation has coordinated with the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council to free up its downtown arts and culture center for the legislature.

State epidemiologists have confirmed the first case of paralytic shellfish poisoning in Alaska this year.

The case originated with recreationally harvested clams on a private beach near Ketchikan. The victim had typical, but not severe, symptoms within half an hour of eating the clams on April 24.

Leftover clams were tested for the PSP toxin and came back with levels more than 13 times over the Food and Drug Administration’s threshold for commercial shellfish.

“The real scary part of course is that death can result in a really short period of time,” says department of health spokeswoman Dawnell Smith.

Early paralytic shellfish poisoning symptoms include lip and tongue tingling. That can progress to fingers and toes, losing control of your arms and legs, and difficulty breathing. It can be fatal within a few hours.

Commercially harvested shellfish are tested and safe to eat. There’s no convenient way to know if recreationally harvested shellfish are safe.

“You know, every, every year this comes up. Somebody gets sick, or begins to feel ill and goes and reports it,” Smith says.

State epidemiologists’ last confirmed case of paralytic shellfish poisoning was in December.

Update | 4:08 p.m.

Gov. Bill Walker says he’s disappointed in the legislature, but won’t take any more action to preclude the its departure.

Original post | 2:55 p.m.

Alaska lawmakers voted today to leave Juneau, for now.

The House and Senate each passed a resolution to let legislators recess until May 12. The vote in each house followed caucus lines, with minority Democrats in opposition.

Proponents with the Republican-led majority caucuses said the break would offer a cooling off period amid the budget impasse that led to the special session. Opponents said the break means leaving Juneau with an incomplete budget and a duty unfulfilled.

Imminent renovations would effectively put legislators out of the Capitol building. Proponents of the recess alluded to holding committee hearings on the special session’s unresolved legislative business — Medicaid expansion, the budget and a bill to implement sexual abuse prevention education in schools — during the recess on the road system.

Juneau Sen. Dennis Egan said the capital city will be ready for legislative business to resume May 12.

House Speaker Mike Chenault told reporters Tuesday he was interested in moving the legislature’s ongoing special session out of Juneau.

That sort of talk causes heartburn in the capital city, but many legislators’ offices have already made the move for what’s supposed to be the off-season. A select council of legislators already contemplated this situation in November.

Juneau Mayor Merrill Sanford acknowledges that noisy summer Capitol renovations are imminent and is sympathetic to legislators and staffers who have exhausted their housing leases.

“Whatever we can do to keep them here, we would like to. I understand this is a special situation right now, with the Capitol being remodeled,” Sanford says.

Working through jackhammers isn’t realistic. But, he says, there are alternative meeting spaces in Juneau. Sanford says Centennial Hall has already been set aside for a possible October special session.

“We at the city level have been trying to foresee what they might need and foresee what might happen,” he says. “So yes, we’ve been talking about it and trying to figure out what we can do to facilitate them.”

Lawmakers also foresaw legislative business running into Capitol construction. The Legislative Council manages the administration of the legislative branch and discussed the scenario in November during an Anchorage meeting.

“I think I’d like to get on record that it would be a very difficult situation for us to conduct legislative activity in that building during the construction phase,” said Anchorage Rep. Mike Hawker.

North Pole Sen. John Coghill clarified that they were talking about a possible special session. Then, Anchorage Sen. Kevin Meyer reminds the council that the new Legislative Information Office in downtown Anchorage would be available.

“I think that was designed to accommodate a special session, if necessary–” Meyer began.

Hawker interjects, “That would be a correct statement.”

Meyer: “… so, if we have that situation, it sounds like we have some options.”

Meyer is now the president of the Senate.

Juneau Sen. Dennis Egan piped up at the meeting, too.

“I just wanted to point out that Juneau does have space available for special session as well, and we’ve done it before,” Egan said.

By statute, when the governor calls a special session, he controls where it takes place. The legislature decides where to meet when it calls itself into special session.

The Juneau Police Department has released this surveillance video showing the suspect in last week’s snatch-and-grab robbery outside the Little Hong Kong restaurant at the Mendenhall Mall.

The suspect’s face isn’t visible in the video, but police hope someone can identify him by his clothes or gait.

Police say the suspect rode a bicycle and took a bag of cash and receipts from a petite restaurant employee as she was leaving Thursday night. She chased him down, knocked him to the ground and took his bike, but he got away on foot with the bag.

Call 586-0600 with tips, or report them online at JuneauCrimeLine.com. You may be eligible for a reward.

Several hundred people turned out Saturday for a rally at the Capitol building for education funding while lawmakers worked inside.

That’s despite the rainy, snowy, windy weather. Organizer Alyse Galvin was wearing a custom, yellow T-shirt — over her puffy winter jacket.

The shirts say “Keep the promise” and “Respect the process.”

The promise refers to multi-year funding increases budgeted to local school districts statewide that lawmakers and then-Gov. Sean Parnell put in place last year. Gov. Bill Walker has proposed reducing those funding bumps in light of the budget crisis.

The Senate Finance Committee earlier this month proposed major reductions in school funding beyond the governor’s proposal, which is what the “respect the process” line calls attention to.

“As different as those bills were, the big huge cuts, they did not allow for process,” Galvin said. “They did not allow for public testimony. That was all done and voted on after public testimony.”

Galvin is part of the grassroots group Great Alaska Schools. She lives in Anchorage but plans to stay in Juneau through the end of the legislative session.

“The goal is that that we’re going to be the watchdog in the building, translate it to the people in real speak, and make sure that they’re aware that people are paying attention to what’s happening in, not only in the meeting rooms, but also behind the doors,” Galvin said. “We’re gonna kind of keep track of who’s going in the closed doors and hopefully, you know, shed some light for the people.”

The legislative session is supposed to wrap Sunday, though lawmakers have repeatedly overrun the 90-day limit in recent years.