KCAW - Sitka

A fishing vessel that overturned just outside of a Sitka harbor this weekend was refloated early Monday morning.

Around 1 p.m. on Saturday, the Coast Guard responded to a vessel that had capsized at the entrance to Crescent Harbor in downtown Sitka. Coast Guard Marine Science Technician Allysia Helton was at the scene. She said all four passengers on the F/V Ocean Cape managed to quickly get off the boat. No injuries were reported.

“There were quite a few members of the community that were there on scene immediately after it happened, and they helped the crew get off the vessel and make sure everything was okay,” Helton says. “And throughout the response we had lots of community members that came to the site to help out where they could. It was a really good show of small town support.”

By the time the Coast Guard arrived, the crew of the Ocean Cape was already working with a local marine salvage operator. Helton says Hanson Maritime worked to secure the boat’s fuel vents and contain spilled fuel and oil with floating booms.

“The crews continued throughout the day to remove fuel from the tanks at low tide, and they were able to recover approximately 800 gallons of oil and oily water from the vessel between Saturday and Sunday,” Helton says.

The boat was refloated early Monday morning and returned to its stall at Crescent Harbor, with some damage to its hull that’s still being assessed. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but Helton said weather conditions likely played a role.

“Saturday was pretty windy,” Helton says. “From what we’ve been told it sounds like the wind played a pretty significant role in the vessel rolling over to its side.”

The F/V Ocean Cape is owned by fisherman Chris Ystad, who also serves on the Sitka Assembly. In an email to KCAW, Ystad expressed his appreciation for everyone who offered assistance at the scene and with the salvage operation.

The Sitka School Board is facing the uncomfortable possibility of cutting up to 15 teaching positions next year, unless the legislature comes through with some eleventh-hour funding for education across the state.

Six of the teaching positions on the chopping block are retirements. This method of reducing the size of the workforce is the easiest, but it still creates some tough choices about where to fill vacancies, where to make some classes larger – often called the PTR, or pupil-teacher ratio – or what programs to cut entirely.

On top of the six retirements, another eight or so teaching positions would have to be cut if nothing changes. Currently the district employs 27 teachers who have not completed the three full years needed to become tenured, and — in anticipation of possible cuts — have not yet been issued contracts.

At a special budget work session with the school board on March 9, Superintendent Frank Hauser said that shifting the remaining untenured teachers around to fill critical roles would not be simple.

“Of those 27 people, we will potentially have to have some displacements, if the board decides to change some PTRs and reduce PTRs at certain schools that could have a ripple effect and displacement of some staff,” Hauser said. “We know we have a couple of positions open at Baranof Elementary School, if we have to lose some teachers at Keet Gooshi Heen, then those teachers might be displaced to another school depending on what their certification is.”

This predicament occurs in every school district board room across the state this time of year, since Alaska is one of very few states that doesn’t appropriate money for education until after most districts have prepared their budgets for next year.

As in past legislatures, at least two bills have been introduced to increase the base student allocation, or the money that the state contributes for the education of each child in the state. For students who have special needs, that number goes up by a multiplier of thirteen — but the added revenue can still fall short of the money needed to cover the extra staffing for special needs students.

District special education director Chris Voron said that Baranof Elementary is going to require a special needs case manager, to keep up with the expected 12 special needs students in kindergarten and first grade next year.

Voron said it was an unusual set of circumstances, between the pandemic and other issues, creating the special needs bubble.

“The most common areas of eligibility are speech impairment, or early childhood developmental delay, those are categories in early childhood that I would say there is an increase in need that we’re identifying,” Voron explained. “So the pandemic has had a effect on our special education needs. However, we would say that doesn’t really account for everything that we’re seeing. It’s just these are the families, these are students, that are here currently, coming into kindergarten next year. We just have a very significant amount of students that are what we call ‘low incidence,’ meaning students with autism, students with medical conditions, students that have those higher level of needs.”

Sitka School Board members did not have a lot of ideas at this point, except a general willingness to use district reserves to balance the budget next year — but not all the reserves. They looked at scenarios where the state raised the base student allocations by different amounts, from $250 to $450, and even by $1,000, which many education advocates say is the minimum needed to keep up with inflation since 2016 — the last time the BSA was adjusted.

Any of those numbers — if they come to pass — would provide relief for the district. Sitka assembly member Tim Pike sat in on the worksession. He’s also a teacher at the high school. The uncomfortable conversation around potential teacher layoffs was familiar, because it happens — to some degree — almost every year.

He urged board members to come up with a plan, and hope they don’t have to use it.

“I can remember previous superintendents who would say, ‘Gosh, I’m crying wolf all the time here,’ ” Pike said. “You know, at some point, that will show up, but most of the time — and up until now, and all my time here — it has never showed up. Because the state does come through with money in the end, but we don’t know what it is until after we’ve all gone through the pain and suffering of this process.”

The Sitka School Board’s draft budget for 2024 stands at just under $24 million. The board will finalize its budget for adoption, and submission to the Sitka Assembly, on April 20.

Content warning: This article includes mentions of sexual assault and abuse that may be uncomfortable for some readers. Resources are available at the bottom of this post.

A former Sitka doctor accused of multiple counts of sexual assault four years ago is now behind bars.

On the first day of what was expected to be a lengthy trial, 79-year old Richard McGrath made a surprise plea deal. He will spend the next two years in prison.

McGrath has nearly come to trial twice. His first court date, in 2020, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. His second, last July, was declared a mistrial when the court failed to impanel a full jury.

But McGrath’s four-year journey to justice ended the morning of Monday, March 6, a few minutes before jury selection was to begin for a third attempt at a trial. Judge Michael McConahy put the question to McGrath.

“So, to the charge of sexual assault in the third degree, as I read to you, what is your plea?” McConahy asked.

“Guilty, your honor,” McGrath responded.

Two of McGrath’s three victims were in the courtroom for the hearing, and they visibly reacted to his admission of guilt. Over the weekend, two of them had consented to a deal that — if the judge agreed — would see McGrath sentenced to 17 years in prison, with 15 suspended, and permanently lose his medical license.

A third victim did not think that was sufficient. A relative, Jessica Hames, spoke on the victim’s behalf.

“Mr. McGrath was hired into a position of trust and power as a doctor by the city of Sitka,” said Hames, reading from a statement. “He abused that power and violated the sacred trust between doctor and patient. I do not care how old and feeble Dr. McGrath is, or pretending to be, at this moment. He is a dangerous, sick predator who caused irreparable damage to these women. I would like to ask every man in this courtroom including you, your honor: How you would like this to be handled if it were you who had been violated?”

Bailey Woolfstead, with the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions, explained some of her rationale for the deal. She had received medical records which indicated that the 79-year old defendant was in a state of “mental decline” that would create issues of competency in the event his case went to appeal. She said that the protracted delay had been exceptionally hard on the victims, and while there was never any certainty of winning a conviction in front of a jury, she had little doubt that she could prove some of the charges.

“I’m imagining we’re having at least one woman on a jury,” Woolfstead said, “and based on those experiences and how doctors regularly perform or exam: For example, going to perform a breast exam, they’re going to tell you they’re doing it. And it’s certainly not going to involve things like squeezing someone’s nipple, or taking your breast out of your bra and shirt without telling you what’s going and what’s happening.”

McGrath still faces a civil lawsuit brought by the victims, with a trial scheduled for this July. Woolfstead said that the plea deal would bring finality to this aspect of a complicated case, and perhaps – most importantly – put McGrath behind bars.

“Dr. McGrath going to jail this morning,” said Woolfstead. “As the court knows, there’s a statutory requirement that if he pleads guilty to a sex crime, he is going to jail today.”

McGrath’s attorney, John Cashion, did not offer any counterargument in the proceedings, telling Judge McConahy that he intended to argue mitigating factors at his client’s sentencing hearing on June 12. In the meantime, “I’ll certainly be asking the court to honor the plea agreement,” he said.

Indian Health Services has a hotline for callers to report suspected child abuse or sexual abuse by calling 1-855-SAFE-IHS (855-723-3447) or submitting a complaint online (IHS.gov website). The hotline may be used to report any type of sexual abuse regardless of the age of the victim. The person reporting by phone or online may remain anonymous.

Locally, people can call AWARE in Juneau at 907-586-1090. 

Alaska’s governor says he’ll appeal a pending federal court ruling that threatens to shut down the Southeast king salmon season.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy was unequivocal when answering a question from a listener during Alaska Public Media’s “Talk of Alaska” on Tuesday.

The Duvall, Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy filed suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2019, arguing that a flaw in the agency’s environmental analysis left a small population of endangered killer whales in Puget Sound exposed to further harm due to the interception of their primary food source: king salmon, also known as chinook.

In barest terms, the proposed remedy to correct this alleged oversight by the NMFS involves shutting down the Southeast Alaska salmon troll fishery until the full impact of the chinook harvest on Southern Resident killer whales can be assessed.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game intervened in support of the National Marine Fisheries Service; so did the Alaska Trollers Association. It hasn’t gone well. Although a federal judge in 2020 declined to impose an injunction against the Southeast troll fishery, the latest “Report and Recommendation” in the U.S. District Court of Western Washington, by U.S. Magistrate Judge Michelle Peterson, leaves open the possibility that the Wild Fish Conservancy could prevail.

The ruling includes a proposed order vacating the Incidental Take Permit, or “ITS,” issued by NMFS that allows the Southeast troll fishery to harvest chinook year-round. If a judge signs off on the recommendation, trolling for king salmon in Southeast might be off-limits for ten months of the year, making the fishery uneconomic and unviable for many trollers.

Although the state joined the lawsuit, it’s been relatively quiet about the case. That changed on Tuesday morning when Juneau troller Tom Fisher posed the question directly to Gov. Dunleavy on Alaska Public Media’s “Talk of Alaska.”

“My question is, will the state commit all resources necessary to take this court case to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals? And if necessary, the Supreme Court?” Fisher asked.

“Yes. The answer is yes,” Dunleavy responded. “Because this is another example of opportunities being curtailed in Alaska. And again, I think we do fisheries better than the Feds did when we were territory. So the answer to that is yes.”

“We very much appreciate the governor’s conviction on pursuing this lawsuit to the end,” said Amy Daugherty, director of the Alaska Trollers Association. “You know, it’s just so frivolous, and so harmful to all of Southeast and our way of life here. So it’s such good news.”

Daugherty says her job has changed dramatically since the Wild Fish Conservancy filed suit three years ago. The existential threat to Southeast trolling — which is somewhere between 700 and 800 small businesses across the region — has grown, as the suit has progressed. She says the issue has not been overhyped.

“I think, it’s extremely valid,” Daugherty said. “The Wild Fish Conservancy has a lot more means certainly than the Alaska Trollers Association. And they seem to be applying it with absolute conviction. So we’re just doing everything we can: We’re getting a lot of resolutions, we’re getting new money every day, a lot from fishermen, a lot from organizations, processors, stores even. And we’re just hopeful that there will be some common sense, you know, brought forward through this process.”

It’s unclear what the immediate impact of a ruling in favor of the Wild Fish Conservancy would have on Southeast trolling, given the this newly reelected governor’s interest in fighting the suit to the bitter end. During the same “Talk of Alaska,” Gov. Dunleavy didn’t just go to bat for trollers, he reaffirmed a commitment to the industry as a whole, and to subsistence harvesters on Alaska’s interior river systems whose way of life is threatened by a still-unexplained collapse of king salmon and chum runs.

“I would say that this is priority number one when it comes to resources for this administration for the next four years,” Dunleavy said, in response to another caller. “And you know, missing a fishing season — two or three fishing seasons — has a detrimental effect not just as you said on food, but also on the fact that it’s difficult to pass down the ways of life and the culture if you can’t bring the kids out the fish camp.”

A final decision by the US District Court of Western Washington on the Dec. 13 “Report and Recommendation” in the case of the Wild Fish Conservancy versus the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA), et. al., is pending.

The Sitka Assembly is moving forward with plans to donate $25,000 to the Alaska Trollers Association, to support the organization’s ongoing legal fight against a Washington environmental group that hopes to shut down commercial fishing for king salmon in Southeast Alaska. And other organizations and locals are piling on, in anticipation of a lengthy — and costly — appeals process.

Alaska trollers and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game intervened in a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service brought by the Wild Fish Conservancy in 2020. The Duvall, Washington-based group argues that commercial trolling in Alaska threatens an endangered population of killer whales in Puget Sound by depriving them of king salmon – their primary food source. And they’ve been successful in court: In December a US District Court judge issued a report that, to make a long story short, puts the Southeast king salmon fishery at risk of closure.  And that means a bigger hole in the troll association’s pocket, as it anticipates a lengthy appeals process.

In early January, trollers drummed up support at the assembly table. And at its Jan. 24 meeting, more folks came out of the woodwork in support of the organization. Roger Hames of Hames Corporation, which owns a major grocery store in Sitka, said he’d been asked to contribute $5,000, but he’d likely contribute $10,000. Tad Fujioka is chairman of the board for Seafood Producers Co-Op. He said the Alaska Trollers Association had requested around $48,000 from SPC, but employees asked them to donate more money from their profit sharing pool.

“So even though ATA only asked for $48,500, the SPC board voted to contribute $59,000. It’s a investment in our company’s future. We can’t afford to lose access to troll salmon. And neither can Sitka,” Fujioka said. “So I encourage the assembly to be similarly farsighted, and make this investment alongside your citizen fishermen.”

And Jacquie Foss said it’s not just fishermen who have contributed to the trollers’ cause: The trollers association is receiving a lot of individual donations, and contributions from municipalities like Craig, Port Alexander and Pelican.

“I feel super just grateful to live in a place where everyone’s rallying around small boat fishermen. And so I know Sitka’s the biggest and it’s the most, and our ask might feel like a lot,” Foss said. “But a third of the fleet is here.”

Most assembly members said they’d support a $25,000 donation to the legal fund, and some said they’d be open to contributing beyond that amount in the future. Assembly member Tim Pike said he wanted to shift the conversation around ‘why’ the contribution was necessary.

“I heard it here a couple of times tonight, you know, ‘Trollers paid a bunch of taxes, so we owe it to them.’ I don’t see it that way,” Pike said. “I see it as a community investment. I see it as coming out of all of our pockets. I see it as something for all of us to contribute to. I don’t see it as ‘trollers have earned this.’ Okay, you’ve earned it because you are Sitkans, and you’re part of our economy. But I think it belongs to all of us, it doesn’t just belong to the trollers.”

City administrator John Leach said they would be putting more resources toward supporting the trollers association in the suit by putting pressure on the congressional delegation. He said staff and the city’s lobbyists had a meeting with staff from Senators Murkowski and Sullivan, and from Representative Peltola’s office last week to discuss options.

“It was reiterated by all all staff members on the call that it’s a very important issue for all three members of the delegation,” Leach said. “They found legal counsel with MSA and the salmon treaty expertise to assist them and are coordinating with each other regarding a possible amicus brief that they could file jointly with the court, and said they intend to circulate a draft internally among themselves as early as this week.”

Along with a separate resolution supporting the Southeast troll fishery, the assembly approved the $25,000 donation unanimously. The ordinance will come before the assembly for a final reading at the next regular meeting on Feb. 14.

Southeast trollers turned out at a Jan 10 Sitka Assembly meeting to voice concerns about a court case that could shut down commercial salmon trolling in Southeast Alaska. The lawsuit is about Washington killer whales and Alaskan king salmon. Fishermen and representatives from the Alaska Trollers Association asked the local assembly to consider contributing $25,000 to their legal defense fund.

The Seattle-based environmental group Wild Fish Conservancy wants to stop the Southeast troll fisheries, which they say harm an endangered population of orcas. The group has argued the government failed to adequately address the impact of Alaska’s king salmon harvests on Southern Resident Killer Whales, whose population in the Puget Sound area of Washington has dropped to critically low levels.

And in December, a federal judge in Washington issued a report that puts the fisheries at risk of closure. The Alaska Trollers Association is a defendant in the 2020 suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Sitka fisherman Matt Donohoe is the president of the Trollers Association. He says they object to the report and expect their legal expenses to increase.

“Anyone claiming that Southern Resident killer whales are starving because Alaska trollers were taking food from the mouths of their babies would be laughed out of court. That’s what we thought,” Donohoe said. “Yet a judge is recommending that the historic Southeast Alaska troll fishery, which for 100 years has never closed, will shut down this winter. If that happens, the industry will die, and so will a large part of Southeast Alaska’s economy.”

Around a dozen fishermen asked the assembly to help with the organization’s legal defense fund. And it’s not just trollers. Linda Behnken leads the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association– both her group and the trollers drafted a report outlining research into the decline of Southern Resident orcas. She said the lawsuit ignores a large body of science, which indicates that pollution, not fisheries, are the biggest threat.

“Everything they eat is coming out of waters that are polluted. They’re struggling with habitat issues, they’re struggling with what’s been done in the world around them. They’re in Puget Sound,” Behnken said. “It’s not even fisheries, let alone the fishery is 1000 miles away up here, and that our fishermen have worked for years to keep the resources up here healthy, to keep our rivers clean, and to take care of the whole ecosystem and to now have this overreach by an area that’s not done their job to take care of that habitat, I think, really illustrates who else will be at risk if this lawsuit perseveres.”

When it came time for the assembly to consider the proposal, there was support, and some said they’d be interested in giving more than $25,000. Assembly member Chris Ystad, who is a fisherman himself, said he saw it as an investment.

“I think the Sitka troll fleet produces more than $25,000 in tax revenue every year to the city. So I don’t think it’s too much for them to ask for some of that back to fight their battles,” Ystad said. “It’s an investment for us to make sure that the troll fleet is still able to operate.”

Assembly member Crystal Duncan suggested calling for other Southeast communities to throw in money, noting that like Sitka, communities of Craig and Petersburg had donated to the fund previously.

“I’m just wondering, if this is a Southeast wide problem, rather than us take and elevate that number beyond $25,000…I guess the question is have we reached out to say, ‘Here’s what has happened since. Here’s how much we’re requesting of Sitka. Can you match that?” Duncan said.

She also wondered whether the assembly would be setting a precedent that would lead other industry groups to request money to help with legal fees. Sponsor Thor Christianson didn’t take issue with that.

“I am hard pressed to think of [an] event that has threatened to wipe out a huge portion of our economy in one fell swoop,” Christianson said. “That is the definition of emergency. So if somebody came forward with a similar issue, yes, we would discuss it.”

And then there was a question of where the money should come from. City Administrator John Leach and municipal attorney Brian Hanson said the Fisheries Enhancement Fund could likely be used. But Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz preferred the money come from the city’s general fund. As for whether the assembly could offer more than $25,000, Eisenbeisz noted that while no one at the meeting spoke against the measure, the assembly had received some negative feedback in their inboxes.

“It’s it’s going to be shocking to the people in this room, it was actually kind of surprising to myself, that the assembly actually had a lot of pushback in our emails from donating even this amount,” he said. “I didn’t expect that. But it’s, for better or for worse, what we saw. So I think we should start here. And then as things develop, keep an eye on the pulse on that. From the people in this room and the strength of the people in this room, I have no doubt that we will be continued to be informed on that.”

The Sitka assembly didn’t take a vote at the meeting. Assembly members Christianson and Kevin Mosher, who co-sponsored the discussion item, said they’d bring an ordinance to the table for the assembly to vote on at the next regular meeting, Jan. 24.