KCAW - Sitka

Last Wednesday (4-1-15), eight legislators introduced a bill that would allow Alaskans to donate sport- and subsistence-harvested fish and game to non-profit meal programs. Under House Bill 179, schools, senior centers, and other non-profits could legally serve donated fish and game, such as moose, venison, caribou, and salmon. Alaska law presently bars the sale of such foods.

Sitka Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is the primary sponsor of HB 179. He says it’s about writing legislation to catch up with the times.

“Out in the bush, a lot of people in Western or Northern Alaska will donate caribou to the senior center, so that elders can eat caribou stew and that happens very frequently,” said Kreiss-Tomkins. “That’s technically not simpatico with the rule of the law. So this bill basically brings what happens in Alaskan communities – which is people coming together and donating fish and game for children or for elders – and makes that compatible with what Alaska’s laws say.”

Kreiss-Tomkins says the bill also responds to a statewide movement within schools to eat food that’s healthier and locally sourced. As examples, he mentioned Sitka’s Fish to Schools program and community supported agriculture in the Mat-Su Valley.

The bill had seven co-sponsors when it was read across the floor. They include Reps. Cathy Muñoz (R-Juneau), Charisse Millett (R-Anchorage), Dan Ortiz (I-Ketchikan), Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak), Neal Foster (D-Nome), Sam Kito III (D-Juneau), and Tammie Wilson (R-North Pole).

Kreiss-Tomkins considered such early sponsorship unusual, but indicative of the bill’s widespread support.

“We’ve sponsored a number of different pieces of legislation but this is one we’d like to see pass in the law quickly,” said Kreiss-Tomkins. “We’re on that path right now. So I think that’s why [this bill] got a little more attention. It’s got hearings coming up, it’s got a huge list of co-sponsors, and it’s a Kumbaya Alaska issue. Everyone gets it.”

HB 179 is in hearings this week.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s authority to unilaterally set subsistence bag limits is being tested in the state’s highest court.

The Alaska Supreme Court this month heard oral arguments in a case brought by former state Sen. Albert Kookesh and three friends from the senator’s hometown of Angoon, who were cited in 2009 by troopers for over-fishing their subsistence permits.

The outcome has flipped in two lower courts. The Supreme Court could be the last stop for the case, which the defendants are trying — in part — to frame as a Native rights issue.

The case — officially titled Estrada, et al v. State of Alaska — is not very hard to understand, at least from a fisherman’s perspective.

Sen. Kookesh, who at the time represented Angoon and many other communities in the former District C, was fishing for sockeye in Kanalku Bay not far from town.

Kookesh, Stan Johnson, Rocky Estrada, and Scott Hunter were using a set net and doing pretty well. They had landed 148 fish.

A state trooper dropped by in a float plane to check on the fishermen. Only Kookesh, Johnson, and Estrada held subsistence permits. The bag limit that season was 15 sockeye for each permit, putting the group over their limit by 103 fish. Scott Hunter had not yet obtained his permit.

The trooper wrote tickets for the men, and the illegally-caught fish were turned over to the Angoon Senior Center. Scott Hunter’s violation was later amended to fishing without a permit.

But Sen. Kookesh and the two others decided to contest the tickets. In a 2010 ruling, Judge David George — presiding in Angoon District Court — agreed that the state had violated the Administrative Procedures Act because the Department of Fish & Game set the 15-fish bag limit unilaterally, with no public process.

Judge George dismissed the case.

The state subsequently appealed. The Appellate Court found that the state — through the Board of Fish — has the constitutional authority to delegate responsibility to the Department of Fish & Game to set bag limits, as well as to use other measures, like emergency closures, to manage the state’s resources.

The Appellate Court overturned the lower court’s dismissal. Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to settle things.

Kookesh’s defense team submitted a 52-page brief to the state’s high court last October. The justices heard oral testimony this March.

Attorney John Starkey spoke on behalf of former Sen. Kookesh and his two fishing partners. He argued that the 15-fish bag limit was arbitrary, and failed to account for the traditional approach to sockeye harvest in Angoon.

“The problem with the bag limit,” Starkey argued, “is that there’s no showing — there’s no requirement in the regulation — that the department consider reasonable opportunity in setting the bag limit.”

Starkey reinforced the argument originally supported in District Court by Judge George, that the subsistence harvest limit in Kanalku Bay was set in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, with no input from the community. His reasoning held implications for fish and game management far beyond Angoon.

“To read this one statute as somehow allowing the Board (of Fish) to delegate its responsibilities to the department — and the department doesn’t have to do it in regulation, they can simply name the bag limit — undermines practically the entire structure of not only the entire subsistence statute, but also the structure of 16.05, that defines the administrative functions of the department and the regulatory functions of the Board,” he said.

16.05 is the set of statutes establishing the office of the the Commissioner of Fish & Game, the department, and the Board of Fish.

The fishermen’s case boils down to one key idea: Must the state set harvest limits in regulation by the Board of Fish, or can it set harvest limits in permits from the Department of Fish & Game?

The Alaska Attorney General’s office sees things quite differently. When a justice asked the state to elaborate on the claim that the Kanalku Bay subsistence permit was set without public input, attorney Seth Beausang responded:

“I would respectfully quibble with your honor a bit to say there hasn’t been a public process. The Board of Fish and the Board of Game are perhaps the most public of agencies. They have public meetings like no other agency where they adopt regulations on a regular cycle.”

Beausang also disputed the claim that the state took no account of Angoon’s traditional subsistence needs or manner of harvest when it established the 15 fish bag limit, as sockeye returns went into decline.

“There was a period of about five years where the department tried to work with the community and tried to come up with a solution other than lowering the bag limit, which was set at 25 at the time,” Beausang said. “There was a period where the department tried to engage the community to agree to a voluntary cessation of fishing, which was successful for a time, and ultimately proved unsuccessful. And only after all those efforts was the department forced to reduce the bag limit to 15 in 2006.”

Perhaps the most compelling argument brought by the state was that Kookesh and his friends Stan Johnson and Rocky Estrada were simply breaking the law. Regardless of how that bag limit was established, whether or not it was adequate to the needs of Angoon — the men were over it.

“These harvest limits are clearly listed on these permits. The defendants applied, signed for these permits acknowledging that they would comply with the harvest limits, and they did not,” said Beausang. “They harvested more than three times the sockeye than was allowed by the permits. Even if the harvest limits had stayed at 25, as the defendants think should happen, they would have been well, well over the limit. Even in that case.”

But in his rebuttal, attorney Starkey again drove home the idea that Sen. Kookesh and his partners were cited for exceeding a harvest limit that was set illegally.

“There are many permit hunts — that’s true. There are many permit fisheries,” he said. “There are not permit hunts and fisheries across the state where the department unilaterally sets the bag limits behind closed doors — that’s the difference.”

Kookesh lost his seat in 2012 to Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, when redistricting brought Angoon into a district with Sitka and Ketchikan. Kookesh remains on the board of directors of Sealaska, Southeast’s regional Native Corporation.

A decision from the supreme court could come as early as this spring.

Staff cuts next year may be a foregone conclusion, as the Sitka School Board wrestles with an uncertain financial future.

At a public hearing Monday night at Sitka High, the board laid out a set of numbers that are basically unchanged from February — a projected deficit next year of $2.2-million.

And although staff reductions remain on the table, disregarding costly new standards is not.

In past years, the school board has managed to make ends meet through attrition, and the redistribution of staff. But board president Lon Garrison’s language this year has become more blunt.

“No matter what, I think we’re going to be looking at reduction in force at some point. Whether it’s 2 people, 10 people, 20 people, I don’t know. At $2.2-million, that would be roughly equal to about 20 positions. I’m not suggesting that’s what we’re going to do. But that’s what that number could be equal to.”

Some members of the public present asked if the district was obligated to continue with the adoption of new state standards, and if so, at what cost.

Garrison responded that the district really had no choice but to deal with the terms of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or its latest incarnation as “No Child Left Behind.”

“And if we don’t deal with it, if we just say, ‘To heck with y’all, we’re not going to do it!’ The federal money that comes to the state, and the state money that comes to us, would be sequestered or retained.”

Superintendent Mary Wegner said the federal money in question totaled about $900,000. She said it went primarily into payroll.

“We use most of our Title I money to pay a portion of a teacher’s salary, as well as our Title II money. So rejecting those funds would have a significant impact on our staff.”

Nevertheless, the cost of implementing new standards in Math, Science, English Language Arts, and Social studies is high — an estimated $1.6-million. Wegner said that the math portion was covered by an unexpected increase in student enrollment last year, but the district will have to bear the brunt of the three other subject areas, plus new testing for students and evaluations for teachers.

Although it looks like there’s a potential for a net savings of $700,000, board president Garrison says that’s not the case.

In a follow-up interview with KCAW, Garrison said that the state is moving forward with testing on the new standards, and the district is obligated to prepare students for them.

He also said that state statute requires districts to evaluate their curricula every six years in any case. Adopting the new state standards has compressed that timeline, and consequently increased expenses in the short term.

Superintendent Mary Wegner — also in a follow up interview with KCAW — reports that district teachers have already invested three years in training to the new standards. Changing now, she said, would “give teachers whiplash.”

Garrison told the audience at Monday’s hearing that this was the worst deficit the district has faced in his three terms on the board. But he also stressed that the board was interested in a moderate approach to the problem.

“We are not just going to slash and burn. We’re going to do what we’ve always done, and take a very deliberative look at this and do what’s best for Sitka’s students.”

 

A devastating landslide near Sitka last year has produced an interesting discovery — evidence of early human occupation.

Against unbelievable odds, a pair of Forest Service hydrologists mapping the Starrigavan slide found a curiously-shaped rock amid the thousands of tons of rubble. They recognized it instantly as a prehistoric stone tool.

Some finds in archeology are made through careful research and painstaking excavation. But some finds are just an unbelievable stroke of luck.

“I’m Jay Kinsman, archeologist for the Forest Service in the Sitka and Hoonah Ranger Districts, and what I’m holding is a t-shaped handmaul. Basically, a prehistoric hammer.”

The Starrigavan Valley made headlines last September, when heavy rains brought down over 100 acres of the mountainside in three distinct slides. Starrigavan is about 8 miles from downtown Sitka. A prime watershed, Starrigavan was home to monster stands of spruce and hemlock until it was logged in the early 1970s. The Forest Service has done extensive habitat and stream restoration work in the valley recently — much of which was wiped out by the slides.

Hydrologist Marty Becker was one of the first Forest Service personnel to assess the slide when the area was still considered unstable. He and fellow hydrologist KK Prussian had returned this February to do some geological mapping in safer conditions, when they found the hammer.

“KK was just taking some final notes, so I had a little time and I walked up on the base of the slide to take a better look at it. When we had first gone out there I was sinking up to my knees. It had set up by this point, and I was able to walk on it. I was looking at some rocks — picking up some cool ones to give to my kids — and I noticed this rock that was kinda funny-shaped.”

The handmaul is L-shaped, with each leg about three inches long. It used to be T-shaped, but at some time one arm of the T broke off. Nevertheless, paleolithic and later cultures were not quick to dispose of things that still had utility, even if they were broken. Becker realized immediately that this rock was custom-made.

“And I noticed it felt real comfortable in my hand. Like it just fit perfectly. I brushed it off, took a closer look, and realized what it was.”

This kind of T-shaped handmaul is not particularly rare in Northwest Coast archeology — but it is uncommon in the Sitka area. This is only the third of its kind found locally. One other was found by a trail crew at Salmon Lake, another was found near Hoonah.

Edward L. Keithahn, in a 1962 article for the journal “American Antiquity,” says this type of hammer was most often associated with sites that also had petroglyphs, or stone-carved artwork found along the coast. But since this particular tool came down in a landslide far from shore, Jay Kinsman has another theory about how it might have been used.

“My guess is that it would have been used for harvesting cedar. One of the many uses of cedar was as planks. And there was just a tremendous amount of cedar on that slope that came down.”

Kinsman says someone would have used the maul to drive wedges made from a softer material like wood, antler, or bone into yellow cedar trees to split off planks. And as for caching heavy tools on a mountainside, Kinsman says trail crews do the same thing to this day while a job is in progress.

What’s not clear at all — and may never be — is just how old the hammer is. Typically, archeologists date stone and other inorganic objects by dating the carbon-based materials in the sediments in which they’re found. The Starrigavan landslide gave up this object quite miraculously, but at the cost of separating it from its original surroundings. That means we may never really know who made it.

There are known archeological sites in the area, ranging in age from 300 to 1200 years old. Iron tools were introduced in Southeast to the Tlingit and Haida in the mid 18th century, but a serviceable stone tool might have been used indefinitely. It could be much, much older.

All we know is that at some time in the remote past, a human painstakingly made this object and set it down on a mountainside. Much later, another human — a Forest Service hydrologist — was standing on a mountain of rubble, and was compelled to pick it up.

Jay Kinsman says this is at the heart of what he does.

“As archeologists that’s one thing that we learn. We train our eye to pick out those things that aren’t quite natural, or are different from the natural environment.”

The T-shaped handmaul is protected by a number of federal laws, starting with the US Antiquities Act. Kinsman says it will become a part of the collection of the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, but could likely end up on permanent loan to an entity in Sitka for display.

Police departments across the state have been taken aback by a state Department of Corrections proposal to end funding for local jails. Sitka is one of several local departments who say the cuts are so deep, it could force their jail to close.

The proposal is only the beginning of budget negotiations between the governor and legislature. But the Department of Corrections says it doesn’t have many options.

(You can find breakdown of funding for the community jails program here.)

Nelson: We’re going to give her a tour of the jail. She’s going to basically see it all. We’re going to give her full access, lock down the inmates, let her walk down the hallway, and see it all…

Jail Supervisor Dave Nelson interrupts a card game and shoos the inmates back into their cells, in preparation for a quick tour. In general, those held at the Sitka jail are allowed to use the hallway between cells, for calisthenics or board games or just to jog back and forth. Otherwise, there isn’t much space.

Once the cell doors slide shut, Nelson leads the way in. “Essentially the cell block is just one big long hallway,” he says. “The males are on this side, and the females are on that side.”

There are four cells on the men’s side, plus a holding tank and segregation cell, all lining the one narrow hallway. There are no windows. A TV mounted at the end of the hall is playing one of the Ice Age movies. Since we’re in here, Nelson and Jail Officer Noah Shepard are taking the opportunity to serve coffee.

The Sitka jail has a total of 17 beds, though Nelson says it could accommodate about 23 people if needed.

“Right now we’ve got four in here,” he says. “[But] up until last week we were running at 13, 14, for about a month straight.”

Alaska doesn’t have the county jail system common in the lower 48. But when the nearest state prison is often at least a flight away – in Sitka’s case, it’s the Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau — community jails like this one serve as temporary holding facilities.

This is where people are held when they’ve been arrested, while waiting to be arraigned; or after arraignment, while bail is set. The jail also houses prisoners in town for court appearances.

Nelson estimates that in 2014 Sitka saw about 500 unique bookings, averaging four to six inmates at any given moment.

The funding for all of this comes from the state. But Governor Bill Walker’s proposed budget, released earlier this month, would end that contract, and zero out state funding for all 15 community jails in Alaska.

Sitka Police Chief Sheldon Schmitt said that proposal came as a shock.

“I don’t think people understood exactly what the ramifications would be,” he said in an interview Monday (2-9-15).

In FY2014, Sitka received $711,262 to fund its jail. That pays for the jail supervisor and four jail officers, plus contracts for inmates’ meals and laundry. Without the state money, Schmitt said, the city simply couldn’t run a jail for anything other than overnight stays.

“There’s a lot of costs that are kind of hidden,” he said, noting that if the state does cut funding for local jails, the responsibility for those prisoners would shift to the Department of Public Safety, and the State Troopers. “What are you going to do with these prisoners? Who’s going to take care of them?…And if you’re going to transport everybody, who’s going to do all that, and, what’s it going to cost?”

“I just think it was not fully considered,” Schmitt said.

But at the Department of Corrections, the question is: what would you rather we cut?

“Let’s start with, how did we arrive at the community jails, because we certainly didn’t start there,” said DOC Commissioner Ron Taylor.

The Department is facing a 5.3% cut this coming year, and, like all state agencies, has been told to prepare for a 25% cut over four years. Much of the DOC’s budget is tied up in its 12 prisons, which together house about 6,000 prisoners.

A 5% cut would be the equivalent of shutting down two of those prisons, Taylor said, but “there’s absolutely no way that we can close two facilities within a six-month or three-month or four-month period of time.”

Those cuts are coming, Taylor said, but not in time for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Taylor ticked off the other main areas of the Department’s budget: there’s the cost of healthcare for prisoners, which he says the DOC has little control over.

Then there’s probation and parole; and reentry programs, which help prisoners readjust to life on the outside. Taylor said he is loath to touch those programs because they reduce recidivism, and bring down costs over all.

That leaves the community jails program. The Department is spending about $10.5-million this year on contracts with jails in fifteen communities, covering more than 150 beds. Taylor said that at any given time, about half those beds are empty.

“[We’re not saying] that we want to close jails, because that is obviously not what we want to do,” he said. “I think what we’re talking about is, we need to have the conversation. To say, how can we make those community jails become more effective, and fit more in line with the reentry management system that we are managing?”

Taylor admitted that the Department didn’t consult with local communities before proposing the cut — there simply wasn’t time, he said. The DOC is now reaching out to see what the impact might be.

The answer so far seems to be: quite a big one. Police departments from Sitka to Dillingham to Unalaska to Wrangell have told reporters that the cuts represent nearly all their local jail funding. In Haines, the funding represents 40% of the police department’s entire budget.

Sitka’s Chief Schmitt said the cuts would have major ripple effects.

“I definitely think it’s a big deal for the community of Sitka, to lose the jobs,” Schmitt said. “But also…I think [it’s a big deal] from a public safety point of view as well, that we’re going to be moving all these prisoners back and forth on an almost daily basis on airplanes, and housing them God knows where.”

On that last point, one of the inmates in the Sitka jail had a suggestion: maybe a Super 8, he said.

Sitka Community Hospital has a new CEO, and a new CFO; about a million dollars on hand; and no plans to ask for more money from the city.

Two months after a financial crisis forced it to request an emergency loan from the Sitka Assembly, an event followed by the abrupt departure of its CEO, Sitka’s city-owned hospital is taking stock and moving forward.

When Rob Allen signed on as interim CEO of Sitka Community Hospital last month, he says his first goal was to move the organization from “crisis mode to urgent mode.”

“What really helped was getting that million-dollar line of credit,” Allen said. “It really kind of gave us a cushion and stabilized us.”

That was the $1-millon loan from the City of Sitka, approved by the Assembly on December 23, after former CEO Jeff Comer, on the job for barely three months, discovered the hospital didn’t have enough cash to meet its short-term expenses.

So far, Allen said, the loan has given the hospital the breathing room it needed —  and he hopes he won’t have to return to the Assembly for more.

One of his first moves as CEO was to hire a CFO – Chief Financial Officer. The hospital’s longtime finance chief, Lee Bennett, resigned on December 3, just as the financial crisis came to light.

In early February (2-2-15), Allen hired Cynthia Brandt for that role. Based in Anchorage, Brandt will work onsite at the hospital Mondays through Thursdays, through the end of April.

Allen said that for both him and Brandt, goal number one is to stabilize the hospital’s finances. Goal number two is to figure out what went wrong.

“And hopefully we’ll have a much clearer story that we can tell about the past couple years,” Allen said. “Because if you look at past years’ financials, you know, four or five years ago, the hospital was in pretty strong shape.”

But for the moment, Allen said, he’s concentrating on the present.

In the first six months of this fiscal year, from July 1 to December 31, 2014, the hospital lost $1.13-million. In December alone, the last month for which there are complete numbers, the hospital saw a net loss of $143,578.

Some of the problems are clear: the long-term care unit, which provides much of the hospital’s operating revenue, had just nine residents in December,  down from the budgeted 12. There were also fewer acute care patients.

And Allen says the hospital’s billing system is a mess. That may be in part because of the switch to electronic medical records in 2014. He says it was not a smooth transition.

“My speculation is there was a real problem there with billing for, I think, a few months, when they were doing the change-over to electronic medical records,” he said. “There was a real problem getting the bills out the door, and that eventually meant that there was no cash coming in. And now we’re just trying to get caught up.”

“That’s why our accounts receivables…is almost $6-million , which is really high,” he said.

That’s the amount the hospital is owed but hasn’t yet collected, whether from insurance companies, patients, or federal programs like Medicare or Medicaid.

And then, there’s the credentialing issue. In order to bill Medicare or Medicaid, providers at the hospital must be credentialed with those programs. But several of the hospital’s provider credentials had lapsed, an administrative snafu that could cost the hospital hundred of thousands of dollars in bills it must either pay back or write off.

Allen says there are a few bright spots. The hospital has contracted with an outside collector to follow up on bills over 60 days old. That money is expected to start coming in this month.

And in the meantime, the hospital is tightening its belt. There have been no layoffs, and so far, none are planned, Allen says.

But positions that open up due to retirements are not being filled. On low-census days, when there are few or no patients, staff that is not completely necessary – including administrative staff – are sent home without pay. The hospital normally gives benefited staff three floating holidays each year; those have been cut. And purchases are on hold unless they are absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile, the hospital is searching for a new CEO.

It has several options: The recruiting firm B.E. Smith, which found Jeff Comer, has a clause in its contract that if a CEO leaves within two years, it will conduct another search without charging its fee.

The hospital is also exploring the idea of a management contract with a company like Providence Health & Services, which could provide a CEO.

A third option is Allen himself. His contract runs through April 17: three months, at a salary of $12,500 a month. But he said he might be open to staying longer.

That will depend in part on his other obligations. When he was hired, he was in the midst of launching a new charter business, R&R Marine, and he’d have to find someone to run it.

But also, he said, he wants to make sure he’s the right man for the job.

“I wanted to make sure that I can do this job,” he said. “I don’t have the medical background, that was my weakness. I think that’s why I was the second choice candidate last summer, because I don’t have that medical experience running any kind of medical operation. So it’s a very steep learning curve…I wanted to make sure it’s a good fit.”

Allen was the runner-up for the CEO position last summer. His family owns the local shipbuilding and tour company, Allen Marine, though he sold his share several years ago. Born and raised in Sitka — and a former Sitka Assembly member — he now splits his time between Southeast Alaska and Massachusetts.

And despite the hospital’s many woes, he’s confident this crisis will pass.

“We’re going to move forward,” he said. “I’m confident the hospital is going to be here. And you know, we’ll work hard on coming up with a credible plan for the community, and see where that process leads us.”

For now, that plan remains in the future. You “have to figure out where you are and how you got there before you can figure out where [you’re] going,” Allen said.