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A small, vacant lot in downtown Juneau is at the center of a dispute between the state of Alaska and the U.S. Department of the Interior. It’s the latest development in a years-long effort by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to protect traditional lands.
Last week, Tlingit and Haida President Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson signed a deed to place a small parcel of land into federal trust. Putting land into trust makes the tribe eligible for certain federal programs and services, including some tax credits and exemptions. It could essentially create Indian Country — a small spot where tribal law would apply, to the exclusion of many state and local laws.
The piece of land put into trust is less than 800 square feet, near the corner of Capitol Avenue and Village Street. But Peterson said it’s about more than just the land. It’s a landmark decision about tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
“These lands were unlawfully and illegally taken through the years,” he said. “We’ve legally and lawfully tried to get them back and tried to protect them into perpetuity.”
The Central Council has four other applications pending. If the Interior Department approves them, a total of 3.5 acres owned by the tribe would be put into trust. Peterson said there are no immediate plans to change how the land or buildings are used, but one goal is to make sure the tribe can keep using the part of town known as the Juneau Indian Village as its headquarters.
Now, the state of Alaska is challenging the Interior Department’s decision on the first lot, saying it “undermines key terms” of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act by creating a reservation. The act established Alaska Native corporations rather than a reservation system.
“This could throw into question the laws that apply as you walk through a single city block,” Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor said in a statement.
In its lawsuit, the state argues that putting this land into trust “jeopardizes the State’s rights to tax and to enforce land use, natural resource management, environmental, and public safety regulations on that trust land.”
Land placed in trust can become exempt from most state and local taxation and regulation, and it could give the tribe legal jurisdiction over that land beyond the rights a land owner has.
In 2006 the Akiachak Native Community and other tribes sued the Interior Department, seeking review of a policy that barred Alaska Native tribes from putting land into trust. The State of Alaska appealed that decision, but the challenge was dismissed. Then, under the Obama administration, land-into-trust regulations were revised to allow Alaska Native tribes to submit applications for the first time since 1980.
In 2017, the Craig Tribal Association became the first Alaska tribe to be approved for such an application.
Then, under the Trump administration, the Interior Department withdrew the revision. But the department issued a new solicitor’s opinion late last year that allows land to be put into trust for Alaska Native tribes again.
Peterson said having Indian Country in Alaska opens up new federal funding opportunities in the form of tribal economic development bonds. They can only be spent on facilities within a reservation, largely excluding Alaska Native tribes from the program. He said the state has an opportunity to collaborate with tribes and move forward.
“The state isn’t hurt by our sovereignty,” he said. “There are countless states in the union that thrive and prosper right alongside their tribes.”
Peterson said the state’s lawsuit is setting the relationship between tribes and the state back.
“This endangers all applications for future land to trust for all tribes — not just in Juneau, not just in an urban center, but all the rural applications,” he said.
The Interior Department also has pending applications from the Ninilchik Traditional Council and the Native Village of Fort Yukon.
Two of Juneau’s child care centers are closing after months of trying to hire new administrators. The closures will worsen Juneau’s shortage of child care options, particularly for infants and toddlers.
The Gold Creek Child Development Center and the Aurora Lights Childcare Center were two of only a handful of child care centers in Juneau that accepted kids under 16 months old. And Discovery Preschool had to close waitlist applications this week as Gold Creek and Aurora Lights families sought other options.
“Our waitlist is so long that some of these children will be in first or second grade by the time we have space available,” said Rosemary Williams, the owner and administrator of Discovery Preschool.
Williams said the waitlist was already long, especially for their infant room. Gold Creek and Aurora Lights’ closures have added to the backlog.
“I have parents that are pregnant on the waitlist for the infant room, parents that are planning on getting pregnant asking about waitlist applications, just because the child care need in Juneau is so huge,” she said.
Closures of child care centers during the pandemic caused many workers to leave the industry. Now, as more and more parents have gone back to work in person, persistent staff shortages have kept child care scarce in Alaska and nationally.
Gold Creek closed on Friday as board members search for a new executive director. The close is temporary, and the nonprofit center’s board will try to reopen in the next 90 days while it is still licensed to operate by the state. Before the closure, between 40 and 45 students were enrolled, and others were on a waitlist. When fully staffed, it has room for 60 students. The closure meant layoffs for a dozen staff members, most of whom had worked there for less than a year.
Gold Creek’s former executive director left in mid-November. The center’s volunteer board has offered the job to eight applicants so far, but none have accepted it, according to board member Ashley Snookes.
She said most of them were local parents with full-time jobs who ultimately decided against the career switch.
“There’s been a lot of interest in helping us in the short term, but finding somebody who wants to make this their long-term career, I think that’s a little bit different,” Snookes said. “We just haven’t been able to find the right person.”
Gold Creek serves federal employees, including those who work for the Coast Guard, the FBI, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. It will remain closed until the board hires a new executive director.
Aurora Lights Childcare Center is closing Thursday after its own search for a new administrator proved unsuccessful. They announced the closure to families and staff in mid-October and intended to stay open through March, but a drop in enrollment and loss of staff caused them to close this week.
Outgoing administrator Betty Csech said other child care centers were offering higher wages and benefits for similar positions.
“We don’t have outside resources like some of the other, bigger centers that may be funded by the state or funded by federal funds,” she said. “We work off of what we bring in from tuition, so it’s really hard to compete with others that can offer higher wages and benefits that we just cannot as a smaller facility.”
Csech said Aurora Lights had eight students and three staff members on its last day Wednesday. She’s not sure where those students will go.
This story has been updated to clarify that Gold Creek’s closure is temporary.
We want to hear more about the impact of the child care shortage on our community. Are you a parent or child care provider affected by these closures? Share your experience with us. We will contact you if we wish to use any part of your story.
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Attorneys throughout Alaska will offer free legal advice on Monday.
The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day event provides free legal counsel for Alaska-based civil issues. Those can include family law, estate planning, public benefits, employment law or landlord and tenant issues.
Eric Vang is an attorney with Alaska Legal Services in Juneau. He said the goal is to give low-to-moderate income Alaskans the information they need to figure out next steps.
“If you have no experience with the legal system before, and let’s say you get a legal notice from a state or federal agency, you may not know that’s something you could appeal,” he said.
Krista Scully is the Alaska Bar Association’s pro bono director. She said people can prepare for the clinics by gathering any paperwork that might be relevant to their cases.
“If people have paperwork, if they have an active court case, or let’s say it’s a housing issue and they have questions about their lease, any sort of supporting documentation would be really helpful to bring,” she said.
This is the first year services will be offered in-person since the pandemic began. Events will be held in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and — for the first time this year — Bethel.
Anchorage-based attorneys will fly to Bethel to support local attorneys at their clinic. Scully said they expect to get questions about disaster recovery efforts after the September storm caused by Typhoon Merbok.
“This is when we start to see those legal needs arise because enough time has passed,” she said. “The FEMA process is winding down, so a lot of those denials will be happening soon.”
Bethel’s clinic will be from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Juneau residents can go to the Alaska Legal Services Corporation from 9 a.m. to noon and the Dimond Courthouse from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
In Anchorage, services will be available from noon to 2 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Mountain View Girls and Boys Club.
In Fairbanks, they’ll be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the JP Jones Community Center.
Alaskans can also get civil legal questions answered year-round at the Alaska Bar Association’s virtual legal clinic.
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