Jeremy Hsieh

Juneau is buying bike racks that double as public art with locally inspired motifs.

The city is paying Minneapolis-based Dero Bike Rack Co. $20,883 for the custom order.

“When these racks are installed – this is just going to be glorious,” said Bob Aldrich, who’s in sales at Dero. “These are the coolest racks that we are fabricating this year, without a question.”

Dero makes thousands of racks a year. Juneau is buying 15.

“Every one of which is a one-of-a-kind, unique design that will be present nowhere else in the universe as presently constituted,” Aldrich said.

The designs include a Tlingit-style raven, a boat, waves, mining tools, an umbrella, and of course, rain boots. Each rack will accommodate at least two bicycles.

Juneau Engineering Director Rorie Watt says the racks are in keeping with a 2009 urban plan that encourages accommodations for cyclists and pedestrians.

“We thought it would be nice to have some bike racks that, you know, had a little flair to them,” Watt said.

Aldrich said they hope to ship out the racks in mid-November.

Project manager Skye Stekoll says some of these racks will replace old ones, some will displace racks in good shape to lower profile locations, and some are going to spots with no racks at all. They’ll be installed next spring.

Public opposition to a middle school sports travel ban adopted by the Juneau School Board last month continues to be one-sided, and the anonymity of the ban’s community supporters is breeding skeptics of the official explanation.

Floyd Dryden Middle School eighth grader Kathy Tran is one of many venting about the policy – and the way it was adopted.

“They said that there was a lot of people that supported this ban. And I was like, ‘Who?’” Tran said.

In more than a dozen interviews with board members, school officials, students and parents, no one has been willing or able to answer that question. Not one person spoke in favor of the ban during public testimony at the school board’s two meetings on the policy.

Board members say there is community support for the ban, but are unwilling to identify from whom.

“At this point, you know, we’re hearing it off the record,” said school board member Barbara Thurston, one of the three “no” votes.

Meanwhile, parents are organizing opposition. About 40 people picketed a school board meeting last month at Thunder Mountain High School. A Facebook group called Save our Middle School Sports created in February has 209 members. And in a nearly empty room in a nearly empty mall on a Tuesday, a dozen people were putting together a repeal campaign.

Jennifer Lindley, a Floyd Dryden mom and repeal organizer, said the school board acted undemocratically.

“They voted in favor of an unspoken minority that none of us can seem to find,” Lindley said. “I don’t know who my counterpart is.”

School board members on both sides said there is no hidden agenda, and that the board itself raised the travel policy issue.

The four school board members who voted for the ban argued it reduces the burden on already strained budgets and reduces the fundraising borne by local businesses and the community. They said it eliminates unfair differences between how travel requests are handled at Juneau’s two main middle schools.

School Board Vice President Sean O’Brien, said casting his “yes” vote was “agonizing.”

“The challenge is, is we have an obligation to kinda create a, a relatively equitable playing field,” O’Brien said.

Floyd Dryden Principal Tom Milliron uses a case-by-case approach, weighing the amount of time lost in the classroom against the potential benefits of travel.

Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School Principal Molly Yerkes does not allow out-of-town sports travel. She said it’s not right to spend so much time and effort arranging travel when staffing cuts have left her school without a fulltime certified nurse and sometimes a single adult supervising 150 students at lunch.

Neither principal asked the school board to weigh in, though Yerkes said she does support the ban because it clarifies district priorities.

O’Brien said significant differences in kids’ opportunities, like sports travel, could lead to school shopping.

School board member Lisa Worl voted against the travel ban. She said the travel policy is one of many differences between the schools, for example, with classes offered and community involvement.

“So there just is a real difference between the schools. I mean, there’s no right and wrong, it just is.”

Worl said the travel ban sets a board precedent favoring uniformity over local control.

If the budget and staffing situation changes, Yerkes said she expects the school board would lift the ban and said she would reinstitute out-of-town travel.

“And so I think that Molly Yerkes has done the best that she can with what she has, and focus it on more of an intramural, cause that way she can get more kids to play in sports,” Worl said.

Opponents say the budget effects of out-of-town travel are negligible, because it’s paid for almost exclusively with fundraising. The school district pays indirect costs, such as substitutes for teachers traveling as coaches. They say if Juneau cannot or is not willing to support fundraising, it fails.

The Juneau Chamber of Commerce, whose members independently bear much of that cost, has not taken a position. President and CEO Cathie Roemmich says her board of directors intended to discuss the ban last month, but put it off because several members were out of town.

The district did erroneously identify one party in favor of the ban, its Activities Advisory Committee.

A district memo plainly states, “The Activities Advisory Committee is in agreement with the revision.”

“That couldn’t be farther from the truth,” said Activities Advisory Committee member Tom Rutecki. He’s been a member since it was founded in 2008. The committee discussed middle school travel last school year, but never made recommendations to the school board.

“And I pointed that out to them, I sent them individual emails, and I said, ‘Why are, why are you saying this? We never did this,’” Rutecki said.

It was not corrected in the memo, though Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich verbally noted the error during the meeting. He declined interview requests about the ban.

Seventh grader Leah Kleinman plays basketball at Floyd Dryden. The night the school board adopted the travel ban policy, she presented a 350-signature petition opposing it.

“You play, and you have fun, then you want to like, travel somewhere,” Kleinman said. “It’s like, ‘Hey guys, let’s go Ketchikan, yeah.’ But, now it’s like, you’re just gonna stay there and you’re just gonna play DZ. And then they will eventually stop coming to us.”

That’s already begun, even though the ban doesn’t take full effect until next school year. Middle school officials in Ketchikan and Sitka say their athletes aren’t as likely to come to Juneau, if Juneau stops traveling.

Floyd Dryden students Kathy Tran and Leah Kleinman said they have learned something from the ban: There’s a lot of politics in sports.

Alaska’s high court became the first state supreme court in the country yesterday to hear an appeal in one of more than a dozen climate change lawsuits.

The lawsuits pit young people against their states. The plaintiffs claim the state has an obligation to protect the atmosphere from excessive carbon emissions.

Nelson Kanuk is a freshman at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the main plaintiff in Alaska’s case.

His family’s home in the 600-person village of Kipnuk became uninhabitable because of spring floods, melting permafrost and erosion. This summer, his parents, two brothers and three sisters moved to Bethel, about 100 miles away.

“So we’re thinking of hopefully rebuilding our home in Kipnuk, or we might move out of town to possibly Kenai,” Kanuk said. “Somewhere we can start over.”

 The state has three main arguments for why the court should dismiss his case:

• Climate change is a political question that only lawmakers and the governor can address. Not the courts.
• The injury to these youths from climate change is so ubiquitous that they don’t have legal standing.
• And finally, the atmosphere, unlike, say, clean water, isn’t a public trust resource that the state has a legal obligation to protect.

The science of climate change was not disputed.

Assistant Attorney General Seth Beausang argued the case for the state.

“My argument is not that that nothing can be done to stop global warming,” Beausang said. “It’s just that it shouldn’t happen in the context of a lawsuit. Where I think it should happen is at the political level, so if people are concerned about climate change, you know, they should get involved. And, you know, we live in a democracy and you should get as involved as you possibly can.”

While it’s not up to the court to write policy, attorney for the plaintiffs Brad DeNoble argued it is the court’s role to compel the state to come up with policy.

“You can declare the constitutional rights. You can declare that the atmosphere is a public trust resource. You can order the state to develop an accounting,” DeNoble said.

Similar lawsuits are pending in 12 other states, federal court — even Ukraine and Uganda. That’s according to Julia Olson, director of Our Children’s Trust. Her Oregon-based nonprofit helped Kanuk and other young people file these suits.

So far, Olson says only a trial court in Texas has backed the plaintiffs. Texas filed an appeal.

Alaska Chief Justice Dana Fabe didn’t give a timetable for when to expect a decision. Opinions typically come months after arguments are heard.

You can watch Gavel Alaska’s webcast of the Supreme Court proceedings and read tweets from the event here.

An Anchorage superior court judge has approved a deal allowing Lynden Inc. to buy out its shipping competitor, Northland Services.

Right now, there are basically two ways to ship a lot of stuff in and out of Southeast Alaska: Alaska Marine Lines or Northland Services.

So when Lynden, AML’s parent company, announced in April it was buying its competitor, the risk of a regional shipping monopoly raised a red flag at the Alaska Department of Law.

The department put together a deal that leaves Southeast Alaska with two competing carriers: AML and the soon-to-expand Samson Tug & Barge.

The plan requires AML to assist Samson with its expansion into Southeast. The specifics are confidential, but Samson would buy assets from AML, lease space aboard AML barges, have a guaranteed barge charter from AML during peak shipping seasons, and have the option to rent AML terminal facilities and storage in Southeast and in Seattle.

A 60-day comment period closed last week with no formal objections. Judge Andrew Guidi approved the deal on Monday.

Samson Vice President Cory Baggen says she’s excited about clearing the last major legal hurdle in her company’s expansion.

“Right now, our tentative plan is to start service into Southeast Alaska on November 8th,” she said. “I admit, we’re still working out some of the final details, since the decree did just go through on Monday. So we’re still working through some of the last, last minute details.”

The buyout may not change much in Southeast, but AML President Kevin Anderson has said it will help his company in western Alaska and Seattle.

The parties have 60 days to finalize and execute some contracts in the plan. But otherwise, Assistant Attorney General Ed Sniffen says the transaction is complete.

In Barrow at the top of the world, receding sea ice is reshaping life. University of Alaska Fairbanks freshman Nelson Kanuk thinks the state is obligated to combat atmospheric climate change. He argues the atmosphere is a public trust to be preserved for future generations, like clean water or navigable waterways.

Kanuk sued the state last year when he was a senior at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka. The lower court dismissed the case, but on Thursday the Alaska Supreme Court is taking it up on appeal. As part of the educational outreach program Supreme Court LIVE, the courtroom will be Barrow High School’s auditorium. The case is Kanuk v. the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

School officials and local attorneys have been helping students cram on the justice system, the case, even court etiquette and how to dress.

“The biggest challenge, frankly, is how in the world are we going to manage all those cell phones?” Principal Bev Gillaspie said.

Her auditorium can hold 285 people. Between students, staffers, and guests, it’ll be standing room only.

“Everyone who goes into that facility will be wanded,” she said. “We figure it will take us about an hour just to get everybody through security, and into the seats so that we can begin the process of hearing the court case.”

State troopers and local police, about a dozen altogether, will handle security.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Brad DeNoble, said Barrow is a fitting choice.

“You know, it’s interesting cause, Barrow has, gosh, of all places, Barrow is being hit one of the hardest with climate change,” DeNoble said. “You know, they’ve got a very vested interest in, in, in the outcome of this.”

The case itself hinges on three questions:

• Does the state have an obligation to protect the atmosphere?
• Does the judicial system even have jurisdiction, or is this exclusively the domain of the legislative and executive branches of government?
• And, do Kanuk and fellow plaintiffs have standing? That is, a personal interest and injury that the court can address?

Kanuk plans to be there. He said he was surprised the court agreed to hear his appeal after courts elsewhere dismissed similar cases. The Oregon-based nonprofit Our Children’s Trust helped Kanuk and other young people file suit in at least nine states and against the federal government.

Kanuk is optimistic something positive will come of this.

“Well, (I’m) keeping my fingers crossed,” he said.  “And, hopefully that we get moving forward with forming some kind of climate reaction policy, both at, you know, the state legislative level and also the federal level as well.”

Assistant Attorney General Seth Beausang, who’s arguing against DeNoble, says he’s confident.

“This case is a novelty, and I think, I think the plaintiffs even make that, you know, clear in their briefs, as well,” Beausang said.

For classroom and case materials, visit the Supreme Court LIVE page.

Gavel Alaska is tentatively planning to provide a live webcast of the Supreme Court’s hearing beginning at 12:30 p.m. Thursday at 360north.org. This story was updated with the sidebar.

Throwing out visitors who overstay their welcome is a common late night practice in downtown bars. But one guest on Monday night was particularly unwelcome at the Alaskan Hotel & Bar.

Take a look at this video posted on the Alaskan Bar’s Facebook page:

Around 9:15 p.m., C. Scott Fry, the hotel and bar manager, watched the black bear walk down the sidewalk past the hotel  lobby.

“And as soon as he got to the bar door, it made a left and walked in like he wanted to have a beer,” Fry said.

Ariel Svetlik-McCarthy was tending bar last night. She says it had been quiet up to that point. She realized the bear was inside and freaked out.

She yelled, “No bear! Get out! No! You can’t be in here!'”

Within seconds, the black bear obliged. It looked underage, too, she quips.

Area management biologist Ryan Scott with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game recalls bears visiting Bartlett Regional Hospital and private homes. But, he says, bears going inside buildings is rare.

“Sounds to me like they did great, and it’s good news the bear did oblige,” Scott said.

Alaska wildlife officials have put down two nuisance bears in Juneau this summer.

(Editor’s note: This story was updated with additional comment from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Full disclosure: Ariel Svetlik-McCarthy is a friend of the reporter. Also, the entire Facebook post was included in an earlier version of this story, but stability problems led us to just embed the video.)