KCAW - Sitka

The fastest job growth in Alaska over the next 10 years will be in agriculture. But if you’re thinking about cows or potatoes, think again.

The Alaska Department of Labor projects that marijuana cultivation will lead all industries in job growth statewide between now and 2030.

The biggest declines in jobs are projected to come from broadcast and print media.

The data is published in the October issue of Trends, the monthly report of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Cannabis cultivation emerged as Alaska’s leading high-growth industry for jobs because — unlike every other sector — it did not suffer a setback during the pandemic in 2020.

Job growth in marijuana cultivation and production actually increased by 8.2% that year, far ahead of the only other sector to remain in positive territory. Millwright jobs saw growth of about 2%.

Statistically speaking, marijuana is lumped into the “farming, fishing, and forestry” category, but state economists say that job growth in this category is driven by marijuana. Its dominant occupations are farmworkers and laborers, which represent about 40% of marijuana employment. This is also where almost 80% of the sector’s growth is expected to come from in the next 10 years.

Typically, health care is a strong sector for job growth, and the numbers suggest a post-pandemic rebound may be on its way: 14 of the top 25 fastest-growth jobs are in health care, with jobs ranging from surgical techs and registered nurses, to dietitians and recreational therapists. All those jobs fall below veterinarian, however, which is expected to see 16% more growth in the next decade.

The list of occupations expected to decline in Alaska reads a little like a 1990s career aptitude test: Fallers and logging equipment operators are on the decline, as are insurance sales agents, printing press operators and mechanical drafters.

Leading the pack in job declines, however, are broadcast announcers, news analysts, reporters, journalists, and broadcast technicians — which are all expected to see losses around 35% by 2030.

Alaska is a relatively small state in a large broadcasting world, however, and that tends to inflate the statistics somewhat. The actual number of broadcast and journalism jobs the state will lose is 36, with a third of that loss occurring during the pandemic. The data don’t capture how many people in the arts, design, entertainment, sports and media category transitioned to freelance work or became self-employed, which is common in this sector.

Factoring pandemic job losses into the overall picture for the next 10 years is important to consider. Other jobs in the bottom 25 include bartenders and ushers, lobby attendants, and ticket takers. The discussion in Trends points to an apparent contradiction: “If we were to look only at 2020-2030, these occupations would appear to be among the fastest growing — but they hemorrhaged jobs during the pandemic, making the recovery look like massive growth. From pre-pandemic levels, the decade decline is around 5%.”

Searchers recovered the body of an overdue hiker from Sitka’s Mt. Verstovia on Friday evening.

76-year old Mike Motti was a veteran of Sitka’s Mountain Rescue team. He regularly climbed above treeline to a knoll overlooking Sitka, known locally as Picnic Rock, to celebrate his birthday.

Troopers were notified around 5 p.m. that Motti was overdue from his annual trek up the mountain. A ground team was deployed along with a helicopter from Air Station Sitka.

Searcher’s found Motti’s body about two hours later by the trail, just below Picnic Rock. He had apparently died of natural causes.

Motti was a fixture in emergency medical services in the region. Over his career, he helped organize and lead an emergency medevac department for the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium before the advent of commercial medevac services. He was a wilderness medical associates instructor who taught many wilderness EMT courses for a variety of first-response agencies.

Don Kluting, who was Motti’s colleague for many years on Sitka Search and Rescue, says he had an understated approach to training. On Kluting’s very first day on the team, Motti harnessed him to ropes and sent him down a 100-foot cliff.

“My knees were shaking I’m sure as I went over the edge,” said Kluting, describing his first hour in training. “I’ve never rappelled before, I’d never been lowered over a rock face before or anything. And here I am being introduced to this gentleman that I’ve never met before. And you know, he’s in charge. And he’s tied this rope off to a tree. And they’re talking about, ‘Yeah, we’re just going to lower you over this edge and down to the bottom.’”

Kluting would eventually become captain of Sitka Search and Rescue and serve alongside Motti for 29 years.

Motti joined the organization in March of 1983 and was still an active volunteer when he died. Sitka Search and Rescue captain Matt Hunter says Motti was the team’s “most active member,” working as search dog handler, medic, and most recently, leading the incident management team.

Don Kluting doesn’t know how many lives Motti can be credited with saving, but he believes the way his life ended will resonate with the people who are dedicated to this line of work.

“How fitting is this, that he gets his last helicopter ride, and it’s a beautiful night, the moon’s out,” said Kluting, “And he died with his back against the tree looking at the most beautiful view ever.”

Memorial services for Mike Motti are pending.

A Juneau fisherman and his two dogs are safe after a Tuesday morning Coast Guard rescue in Freshwater Bay, about 18 miles southeast of Hoonah.

Watchstanders at the Coast Guard headquarters in Juneau got a mayday call from the 33-foot Bailey Bay shortly before 5 a.m. The fishing boat’s skipper, Robert Johnson, said he was alone on the boat with his two dogs, and he was taking on water.

That was the last call Johnson made from the Bailey Bay.

Coast Guard personnel from Station Juneau, Air Station Sitka, and the cutter Douglas Denman responded. Several vessels in the area also heard the call and helped the Coast Guard narrow down the search area.

Just before 8 a.m., a helicopter from Air Station Sitka found Johnson — wearing a survival suit and signaling with a handheld flare — on a beach with his dogs in Freshwater Bay.

In a news release, Lt. Trevor Layman, with the Sector Juneau Command Center, said that the help of other mariners along with Johnson’s own preparedness contributed to the rescue.

“All these factors allowed us to do our job in an efficient manner to bring the man and his dogs safely home,” he said.

The crew of the Douglas Denman found the Bailey Bay submerged and reported that it was producing a small sheen. It reportedly has less than 75 gallons of diesel fuel on board.

The vessel owner plans to conduct salvage operations. The cause of the incident is under investigation.

Alaska Wildlife Troopers have concluded their investigation into the shooting of a brown bear killed by a 16-year-old in a Sitka neighborhood early Wednesday morning.

Sitka police received a call shortly after midnight on Oct. 12 from a boy who reported shooting a bear outside his home on the 1400 block of Edgecumbe Drive.

According to police dispatch reports, the teen was home with an 18-year old. When the 16-year-old heard a noise, he took a .44-caliber handgun outside to investigate, was startled by the bear and fired.

The bear ran away. Sitka police officers subsequently recovered the carcass across the street, and stored it for the night in a department pickup truck.

Sitka police later issued a citation for negligent feeding of game to the teenager. The case was turned over to wildlife troopers, who investigated it as a potential defense of life and property – or DLP – shooting, which allows a resident to legally kill a bear under some circumstances. People who claim a DLP must recover the hide, skull and claws of the animal, and turn them over to the state.

KCAW spoke with trooper Kyle Ferguson, who said he investigated the case “from a wildlife perspective.” Ultimately, Ferguson did not issue any citations.

Police returned the carcass to the teen’s home in the morning. State management biologist Stephen Bethune supervised the processing of the animal, which was a sub-adult male.

A proposal to build a new seaplane base in Sitka seemed to be gathering steam before the pandemic. But some fresh community opposition last year, and a significantly higher cost estimate this year, are proving to be major setbacks.

The existing seaplane base is more than 50 years old. It was damaged by a storm in 2016 and has other problems, according to the city’s public works director Michael Harmon.

“I think you’re aware it’s at the end of its functional life,” Harmon said. “We’ve done some emergency repairs to it, to keep it afloat. Even those repairs will soon be coming to the end of their design life.”

Harmon said the existing seaplane base’s location isn’t ideal for an expansion that would meet Sitka’s future needs. In 2019, the assembly scored around $800,000 in federal grant funding to study the environmental impact of constructing a new seaplane base at the north end of Japonski Island, on uplands adjacent to Mt. Edgecumbe High School.

Harmon said the Department of Education’s commitment to selling that property to the city kicked the project back into high gear last year.

“When we made it a high legislative priority and lobbied the state to participate in selling the uplands, that allowed the project to get off dead center, so to speak, over all the years,” Harmon said, “And really elevated into a moving forward project with the federal funding.”

In 2021, the FAA’s study found that developing the base would have ‘no significant [environmental] impact’ to the area. So the assembly adopted a resolution to support it. At the time, the project was estimated to cost around $15 million, with the plan to fund most of it with federal grants, including the land purchase.

“Really solidifying the location and to move forward into the design phase of the project, which, that was a large commitment on the FAA funding side,” Harmon said. “Once you do that, you’re committing to build some sort of project or you’re at risk of needing to pay back any funds that we’ve spent in those phases.”

But the city was seeing some community pushback around the proposed location. In September of 2021, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska sent a letter to the state and the FAA citing concerns about the location and impacts on marine life, like spawning herring, as well as on patients at the nearby Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center.

And supporters and staff from Raven’s Way, a residential substance treatment program for teens, spoke against the proposed location at assembly and school board meetings.

“An increase in seaplane noise, foot and vehicle traffic related to seaplane operations is expected,” said Raven’s Way director Annette Becker, addressing the assembly last September. “My concerns include significant interruptions in academic instruction and psychotherapy services.”

Because of the feedback, Harmon said that the FAA is circling back to its initial review and may require additional mitigations around the project. He said that pushes the city’s timeline back by about a year, with construction finishing in 2025.

And now the budget stands at around $34 million, more than double what public works projected last year. Harmon said that’s due to the increased scope of the project, more accurate funding estimates as well as historic national inflation levels. He estimated that the city would only have to contribute around $2 million in matching funds, but also said city staff would work on a scaled-back design to present to the assembly at a future meeting.

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz did not necessarily see the increased costs as a deal-breaker.

“$34 million is quite different than $15 million,” he said. “However, with such a small match, I think a business case can be made on that side as well. It’ll be an interesting discussion for sure.”

While waiting for the FAA to conclude its environmental re-assessment, Harmon said the city can take its own next steps: securing the land. They negotiated the purchase price with the state last year, just shy of $800,000. But if the city doesn’t acquire the land before the end of the year, the Department of Education can renegotiate the purchase price.

Sitka is cracking down on short-term rentals run by non-resident owners.

The Sitka Assembly voted 5-0 Tuesday to adopt new rules that require vacation rental owners to live on the same property for at least six months a year. And all permits for short-term rentals will sunset when a property changes hands.

Short-term rentals are most often run by property owners through vacation rental sites like Airbnb and VRBO. Since 2017, the number of permitted short-term rentals in Sitka has nearly doubled, prompting community concerns about the impact on Sitka’s already tight housing market.

Operating short-term rentals in a residential zone requires a conditional use permit from the city’s planning commission. Under the updated rules, new applicants must occupy the property for at least 180 days a year in to secure a short-term rental permit from the city. Additionally, all short-term rental permits will sunset when a property is sold. And it cleans up city code to define a short-term rental as any property rented for fewer than 30 days.

Former city administrator Keith Brady now owns a real estate business in Sitka. He urged the assembly to hold off on the code changes and look for other ways to discourage non-residents from buying Sitka properties and turning them into short-term rentals.

“One idea is to increase our property taxes, but give exemptions to those who…live here who are residents of Sitka,” Brady said. “We do have a housing crisis. Trust me, I hear it. I have a lot of people on my list looking for rentals, looking to buy. But I don’t think this is the right way to go about doing it.”

So how much are short-term rentals actually impacting Sitka’s housing market? The answer isn’t so simple. Earlier this month, the Alaska Department of Labor listed Sitka as the community with the second highest number of short-term rentals in the state. But it also showed Sitka has the state’s highest vacancy rate for long-term rentals. Planning Commission member Wendy Alderson voiced support for the ordinance and challenged that data, saying it’s collected at a time of year when the rental market is in a seasonal transition.

“I don’t know if you fill out the rental survey, if any of you have rentals. I do. And interestingly enough, when you fill out that residential rental survey, it specifies ‘Check if vacant the week of March 11.’ So you have to have a vacant rental the week of March 11 in order to check “vacant,’” said Alderson.

“To me, I’ve always thought that that indicates that, you know, it’s a shoulder season, and short-term rentals are usually empty the week of early spring. And if you haven’t filled your place seasonally, and you’re turning it over and waiting for short-term rentals, it’s going to indicate that you have a vacant rental, which I’ve always thought indicates that it’s it’s a false number.”

This spring, Alderson supported a measure to put a temporary moratorium on short-term rental permits. But the freeze narrowly failed at the assembly table. So the assembly went back to the drawing board, and held a town hall to get community input. The idea for new restrictions on short-term rental permits sprung from that meeting.

Assembly member Kevin Mosher noted that the process to get Tuesday’s ordinance to a final vote had been long and public. And even though some questioned whether there was enough data to demonstrate the impact of short-term rentals on Sitka’s housing market, he said they couldn’t afford to wait to do something.

“If we wait till we have all this 100% concrete data, it’s going to be too late. Especially a place like Sitka, where we don’t have other places to live,” Mosher said. “We are in a housing crisis. And this is the beginning step and trying to help find solutions.”

Assembly member Dave Miller, however, was conflicted.

“This is that decision that I’m sure whichever way I vote, I’m gonna lose, I’ll say, friendship.,” he said. “Because people feel pretty strong about this.”