Katie Anastas

Black Press Media, the owner of three Alaska newspapers, is seeking a new owner as it restructures its finances. The Canadian company’s U.S. branch, Sound Publishing, owns the Juneau Empire, the Peninsula Clarion and the Homer News.

Boyd Erman, a spokesperson for Black Press, didn’t answer questions about whether the Alaska papers would continue to publish long-term or whether layoffs were planned. But he said the company plans to continue publishing its newspapers during the restructuring process.

“The purchasers and the company are committed to continue providing journalism excellence and outstanding advertising solutions to the many communities that Black Press serves,” Erman wrote in an email.

Along with the three papers in Alaska, Black Press publishes 94 newspapers in Canada, 35 newspapers and websites in Washington and six newspapers in Hawaii.

The proposed buyers are Carpenter Media Group, which operates newspapers throughout the southern U.S., and two Canadian investors. Black Press has filed for creditor protection in Canada, which allows them to come up with a plan to pay off debt under court supervision and avoid bankruptcy.

Across the country, local news has shrunk as investment firms buy newspaper chains. Large chains like Gannett have made headlines for laying off staff. Regional chains have bought newspapers and closed or merged others. More than 2,800 newspapers have closed since 2004, with the number of journalists working at local newspapers dropping by 60%.

The Juneau Empire began publishing in 1912, as the Alaska Daily Empire. Last spring, Sound Publishing stopped local daily printing of the Empire and the Peninsula Clarion. Instead, both papers are now printed twice a week — the Empire in Washington. 

The Empire’s staff has also shrunk over the last several years. In 2017, the paper had a managing editor, a digital editor, a state reporter, a crime and courts reporter, a city reporter, a general assignment reporter and a photographer. In 2021, there were four newsroom staff, and the paper moved its offices from Channel Drive to the Jordan Creek Center. Now, the paper has one editor and one reporter. 

Editors for the three Alaska papers and their publisher declined to comment on Black Press Media’s potential sale.

The company’s announcement came on the same day that founder David Black announced his retirement. In a press release, his family thanked the company’s employees, readers and advertisers for their support of community news.

“The Black family is confident that the restructuring of Black Press announced today will be successful and enable Black Press to continue to provide high quality community journalism, and that the proposed new owners will be excellent stewards of Black Press’ treasured publications,” the release read.

Case documents say the company’s earnings “have steadily fallen” over the last decade, as print readership has declined and advertising revenue has dropped.

“The Company has limited remaining cash on hand and is unable to make payments on its secured funded debt obligations as they become due,” the documents say. 

According to case documents, Black Press Media’s sale is expected to happen by March 15.

KDLL’s Riley Board contributed reporting.

Correction: The Peninsula Clarion is printed twice a week in Anchorage, not Washington.

Juneau schools will be closed Tuesday after more than 20 inches of snow fell over the holiday weekend.

RALLY and after-school activities are also canceled, and there will be no remote learning.

A school board meeting on the district’s budget will be held by Zoom only, at 6 p.m.

Most city offices and facilities, including City Hall, will open at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Dimond Park Aquatic Center will open at 11 a.m., and Treadwell Arena will open at 12:15 p.m.

The Parks and Recreation Department’s youth basketball practice is canceled.

Capital Transit buses are running on winter routes until 12 a.m. Wednesday morning. The city expects to return to normal service on Wednesday.

This story has been updated to reflect Wednesday’s update from Capital Transit.

Juneau School District leaders are bracing for tough decisions as they face a projected $9.5 million budget deficit.

“The truth is that this district must make both immediate and long-term financial changes,” Superintendent Frank Hauser told the school board on Wednesday.

After Administrative Services Director Cassee Olin resigned last month, the district temporarily hired Lisa Pearce to manage the budget. Pearce found that this year’s budget overestimated revenues by $5 million and underestimated expenses by about $2 million.

The incorrect estimates were partly due to accounting errors, Pearce said. Some numbers were entered incorrectly in the district’s accounting software. Others were left out — for example, the budget didn’t include the superintendent’s salary or benefits.

Board member David Noon, who was elected to the board in October, said he was “incandescent with rage.” He said the budgeting errors made it harder to advocate for more state funding, which educators across the state say hasn’t kept up with inflation.

“These are appalling errors,” he said. “This makes our advocacy position with the state a lot more difficult.”

Pearce said she didn’t find signs of intentional mismanagement of funds. Instead, she said the district’s revenue estimates were off, which allowed them to avoid budget cuts.

“You didn’t have Hawaii trips and you didn’t have $50,000 bonuses,” she said. “You were being squashed from a revenue side, and the bottom side on the expenditures was not stopping. It was kind of a freight train that was coming from both directions.”

The district’s funding from the state is based on enrollment. Each year, the school board agrees on an enrollment estimate when building the budget. This year’s budget was based on a mid-level projection, which ended up being an overestimate. And that meant the district overestimated this year’s revenue. 

“The board has been, I guess, optimistic — not wildly optimistic — but certainly not willing to acknowledge the downward trend in our student population,” board President Deedie Sorensen said. “And I think part of that is that, just like everyone else in town, we don’t want to acknowledge that Juneau is shrinking.”

Pearce told the board she didn’t think it was possible to resolve the $9.5 million deficit in one year. The City and Borough of Juneau already contributes as much as it can to the district’s operating fund.

Hauser called the district’s budget crisis “uncharted territory” for Juneau. He mentioned the Copper River School District, which filed for bankruptcy in 1986 and had to reduce teacher salaries.

The board asked Hauser to come up with a list of all possible budget cuts. Their next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 16.

The Juneau School District is facing a $9.5 million deficit in its operating fund as it begins work on next year’s budget, City Manager Katie Koester told the Assembly on Monday night. District leaders will have to address the deficit by the end of June.

The city consistently contributes as much money as it can to the school district’s operating fund. But at an Assembly meeting Monday night, Mayor Beth Weldon said that their options for helping with the deficit are limited.

“We have to look as an Assembly at how we can help them,” Weldon said. “But unfortunately, because we fund to the cap, our hands are pretty well tied. If you have creative ideas, I’m sure they want to hear it.” 

Nearly $2 million of the deficit carried over from the last fiscal year, and $7.5 million comes from the current year.

The district has temporarily hired Lisa Pearce, a school finance consultant who previously worked as the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District’s chief financial officer, for budget development. She’s taken over for Cassee Olin, the district’s director of administrative services who resigned last month. 

According to a report the district provided to city leaders on Friday, staff salaries and health benefits were “significantly under budgeted” this year. That makes up more than $5 million of this year’s deficit.

Employer contributions to staff retirement plans were also under budgeted, according to the report. Lower-than-expected enrollment has also contributed to the deficit because state funding is based on the number of students in a district.

In an interview after the meeting, Koester said the Assembly could consider moving some expenses from the district’s budget to the city’s.

“That doesn’t mean that the Assembly will, and that doesn’t mean that the school district will want to have those conversations, but I think that’s the kind of creative thinking the mayor was talking about,” Koester said.

Questions about state funding will also loom over this year’s budget process. Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed state budget does not include a permanent increase to per-student funding, nor does it extend the one-time education funding passed last year.

District leaders will discuss the updated budget on Tuesday night. The school board’s work session begins at 4:30 p.m. on Zoom, and the regular meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the Juneau-Douglas Yadaa.at Kalé High School library and on Zoom.

KTOO’s Clarise Larson contributed reporting.

Sounds of early 20th century phones filled the Juneau-Douglas City Museum on Friday night. Ten-year-old Otis Beard studied them closely as they rang.

“There’s a little metal ball clanking from each one really fast,” he said. “It goes at almost light speed. It looks really cool.”

Jim Simard, the former head librarian at the Alaska State Library’s historical collections, says he used diagrams pasted inside the phones to help get them back in ringing condition.

“It’s a beautiful machine,” he said. “They’ve got a magneto that puts out about 60 to 80 volts.”

Museum Director Beth Weigel said the exhibit is a chance to showcase the phones while Juneauites are thinking about the future of the Telephone Hill neighborhood, which faces redevelopment and possibly the loss of its historic homes. 

“We have these old phones in the education collection, and we’re always fascinated by all the stuff we have that people can handle,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of interest in Telephone Hill right now.”

Telephone Hill was home to Alaska’s first commercial telephone service. Edward Webster and his family ran the company out of their house there.

The exhibit also includes three photos of the neighborhood, each taken about 50 years apart. Juneau resident Skip Gray took two of them, in 1973 and 2022. He used to live on Telephone Hill, and he’s spent the last year and a half combing through photos he’s taken of the neighborhood as the city discusses a redevelopment plan for the area.

Looking at the photos on the wall, Juneau resident Katie Henry says it’s important to keep the green space that remains on Telephone Hill.

“I think that hill provides a relief for the encroaching urban feel of the downtown,” she said. “The green is critical. It’s part of what makes it still feel OK to be downtown.”

The state of Alaska transferred ownership of Telephone Hill to the City and Borough of Juneau last year. In October, designers shared four preliminary redevelopment ideas. One involves building new housing among the existing homes. Others would remove the houses and add new homes or apartment buildings.

Peter Metcalfe lived on Telephone Hill in the 1970’s and 80’s. He said he’s open to the city adding new housing, but he hopes they’ll preserve the greenery there, too.

“I’d prefer they consider some new housing, perhaps, but office buildings and apartment buildings? Give me a break,” he said. “It’s one of the very few open spaces. Does the city of New York regret Central Park?”

Stuart Sliter, whose grandmother operated a switchboard in Douglas, said the exhibit brought back lots of memories.

“When you look at some of the old directories that they have here available for us to paw through, I find that I knew almost everybody in the Douglas section, it was such a small town then,” she said.

Sliter remembers having tea at the Webster House. She said she’s unsure how the city or the current tenants could afford to keep all of the houses on Telephone Hill. 

“I can’t imagine that the City and Borough of Juneau can keep it and maintain it as just a showpiece,” she said. “And the people that live there probably couldn’t afford to buy it at today’s prices. It’s prime property.” 

Project leaders plan to give an update on Telephone Hill to the Assembly later this month. It will include results from a historic site study and a public survey. Tuesday, Jan. 9, is the last day to fill it out.

The Juneau-Douglas City Museum exhibit runs through November.

The Glory Hall is seeking a commercial tenant for the ground floor of its downtown Juneau space.

Work to convert the building, which previously housed the Glory Hall’s emergency shelter before it moved to the Mendenhall Valley in 2021, began in November. Once construction is complete, the building will have seven affordable housing units upstairs and a 2,000-square-foot commercial space downstairs.

Tom LeBlanc, with Carver Construction, is overseeing the project. Standing on the third floor Thursday morning, he said work is moving along well.

“All the framings are done up here,” he said. “Now the subs will be coming in – the electricians, the plumbers – so we still have a little ways to go. But so far, so good.”

Mariya Lovishchuk, executive director of the Glory Hall, said the building will have a one-bedroom apartment and six efficiency units. While the Glory Hall’s Forget-Me-Not Manor in Lemon Creek provides addiction treatment and behavioral health services on site, the downtown units are meant for tenants who don’t need that kind of support.

“These apartments are going to be for people who are below median area income, and people will have to be able to live independently and successfully in these units without on-site staff,” Lovishchuk said.

Lovishchuk hopes to have tenants move into the apartments in June. Rent will be below the fair market rent – in Juneau, fair market rent is $1,138 for an efficiency unit and $1,307 for a one-bedroom. They’ll also accept housing vouchers.

“There are so many people in Juneau looking for housing, with or without vouchers, and just cannot find the actual units,” Lovishchuk said. “We are really hoping to solve even a small portion of this.”

The downstairs space will have a full commercial kitchen, but Lovishchuk said they’re open to all kinds of businesses interested in supporting the Glory Hall’s mission to provide housing. The commercial lease will subsidize rent for the upstairs tenants.

“We’re really hoping to have somebody in there before the tourist season really, really picks up,” she said.

Lovishchuk said tenant applications will likely be available in April. She said people interested in the commercial space can contact her by email at info@feedjuneau.org. A committee of board members will review proposals and negotiate a lease.