KCAW - Sitka

Kake is now experiencing one of its biggest outbreaks of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, with 32 active cases reported as of March 11.

Kake city schools have moved to remote learning through at least the end of this week.

The outbreak started after Kake High School basketball teams traveled with family and fans to Juneau for the small schools regional basketball tournament on March 2-5 at Thunder Mountain High School, where community members are suspected of catching the virus.

Thunder Mountain’s activities director, Luke Adams, told KCAW that masks were mandatory for spectators and non-playing team members but optional for players on the court.

In a call with KCAW, Kake superintendent, Rich Catahay said the teams — as well as accompanying fans and family members — followed masking protocol and were diligent about testing before and after the tournament. Catahay says the city made sure to report the positive cases to the Alaska School Activities Association.

The city is offering antigen tests to those who believe they’ve been exposed or are experiencing symptoms, as well as preventive measures for the elderly and immunocompromised.

The next booster and children’s vaccine clinic will take place April 1.

Alaska School Activities Association basketball director Isaiah Vreeman said in an email that the association was unaware of the outbreak, but that since the state 1A tournament was more than 10 days away, “this might not be an issue.”

The state 1A/2A tournament will be held March 16-19 in Anchorage at the Alaska Airlines Center and the UAA Seawolf Sports complex.

The first brown bears of spring have been spotted in Sitka. Not a moment too soon, the assembly is reviving a bear task force to address increasing conflict between bears and humans within the community.

The new task force will spend six months investigating Sitka’s bear history, reviewing the work of the last task force — which was established in 2005 — and studying bear deterrent efforts in other communities.

Assembly member Crystal Duncan, who sponsored the discussion item with Rebecca Himschoot, said the decision came on the heels of Sitka’s worst year for bear killings in the last 30 years.

“We want to prevent that,” Duncan said. “And we know that it needs to start now.”

Last year’s bear activity was unprecedented. Fourteen bears were euthanized in Sitka last year — more than double any other year on record since 1980.

The Sitka Tribe of Alaska asked the Assembly to prioritize the community’s bear issue during the government to government meeting this winter. And on March 8, Fish and Game wildlife biologist Stephen Bethune told the assembly that the community needs to figure out a way to deal with its garbage problem.

“If there was one, one method that is going to significantly impact our issues, it’s bear resistant containers,” he said.

City Administrator John Leach said that whatever the bear working group came up with, there would be a price tag for the city to consider.

“We talk about bear proof cans — they’re expensive,” Leach said. “We may not be able to do that across the entire community, and may be targeted to higher traffic areas for bears. But there’s a cost to that.”

The task force will include representatives from Fish and Game, the city, the Sitka Tribe, BIHA and the Sitka National Historical Park, and other groups.

The city is also seeking two at-large volunteers to join the task force.

A pair of documentary filmmakers is examining the implications of the rapid growth in cruise tourism projected for Sitka.

Their film “Cruise Boom” depicts significant worry about the community’s future amid the dramatic increase in cruise passengers. Parts of the film are already available to watch online.

Sitka is expected to see upwards of half-a-million cruise passengers in the 2022 season. Before this, the most in one summer was 280,000 – and many remember the congested intersections, the overflowing sidewalks and the inability to run simple errands downtown during peak hours.

And if you’re a business owner, how do you prepare for the surge, especially when — as COVID-19 has shown — there’s no guarantee that the big numbers will materialize?

Linda Anderson is one of many downtown Sitka merchants who outlasted the slowdown of the pandemic only to be faced with an altogether different problem: the rebound.

“Every business in town is looking for people,” she says in the documentary. “It’s not just little clerk jobs. There’s a lot of jobs out there that aren’t filled now.”

Filmmaker Atman Mehta says that the rapid expansion of cruise tourism puts Sitka into its own category.

“I think that while there are broad implications,” Mehta explained, “I think Sitka is unique in a way because of the kind of rise in Sitka is going to be much quicker than other places.”

“Preparation,” is one of two films that filmmakers Mehta and Ellen Frankenstein have offered online. The other is called “Benefits and Impacts.”

Frankenstein is the CEO of Sitka-based ArtChange, Inc., which is producing “Cruise Boom.” In addition to covering main street, they’ve been to municipal planning meetings, toured Sitka’s cruise facility, and visited some of the popular nonprofit venues for cruise tourism in Sitka.

Frankenstein feels that Sitkans in the front lines are rising to the challenge.

“It’s been really amazing to go behind the scenes,” said Frankenstein. “Both of us have no experience in the tourism world. And there’s a lot of thinking going on. A lot of hard work and a lot of collaboration that’s really impressive.”

There’s also a lot of uncertainty in both short films — and a lot of worry. In one clip, Sitka Sound Science Center Director Lisa Busch worries about whether the community is prepared for what’s coming.

“I’m worried about how we’re going to get this all done in time, and the worst case scenario is that we’re not ready, and the experience is not good,” she says in the documentary. “The best case scenario is this remains a wonderful visitor destination and a great community to live in.”

Mehta believes the anxiety felt by Busch and others is justified, based on what has happened elsewhere in the world where cruising has shouldered its way in.

“What often happened in other cruise destinations is that when there is such a rise in tourism, is that you see generic stores selling jewelry and trinkets — stores which are often owned by either cruise companies or other very powerful and rich institutions,” Mehta said. “They tend to show up and price out local businesses and local residents. They drive rents up and property prices up. And I think it’s important to ensure not only that the flavor of town doesn’t change, but also that Sitka doesn’t become sort of a hyper-seasonal economy, in which most of the businesses cater only to tourists. I think it’s going to be important for town to avoid that.”

Mehta cautions that the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how volatile the cruise industry is, and that becoming too dependent on the cruise sector could prove devastating if companies chose to one day alter their routes and bypass Sitka altogether.

The producers say that they’ll be filming “Cruise Boom” throughout the summer in Sitka, with a premiere screening  sometime in the late fall.

A Sitka school bus driver has been charged with driving under the influence and child endangerment after police say she drove her school bus the wrong way on Edgecumbe Drive and hit a parked car on Feb. 25.

In a statement released Monday, police said Kristi M. Coltharp, 61, had been charged with one count of driving under the influence and one count of endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree. The statement said Coltharp was ferrying 21 school children when she lost control of her bus.

Police said the bus was seen shortly before 3 p.m. traveling in the wrong lane of Edgecumbe Drive, nearly striking a marked police car and hitting a parked vehicle and a stop sign. Police chased Coltharp, who eventually came to a stop but not before veering into several sidewalks and curbs.

Police said Coltharp had a breath alcohol level of 0.17 % – more than twice the legal limit of .08 — and failed a field sobriety test.

No injuries were reported. Sitka School District Superintendent Frank Hauser confirmed that the bus was pulled over after leaving Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School.

“Keet Gooshi Heen Principal Casey Demmert was notified immediately, and he and staff assisted students and contacted families impacted by this incident,” Hauser said. “He and staff reached out to all impacted families yesterday.”

Hauser said the district has no information beyond what was provided by police. He said the district is cooperating with the investigation.

In an email to elementary school parents, Hauser said Coltharp is not a Sitka School District employee. The district website lists Island Bus Company as the contractor providing bus services for the district.

Police said Coltharp is ordered to appear in court on March 1.

State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is recovering from a broken leg after he went paragliding with a fellow legislator in Anchorage over the weekend.

Kreiss-Tomkins, D-Sitka, broke both bones of his right leg below the knee on Saturday and underwent surgery later that afternoon. He was released from the hospital on Sunday.

He said he had gone paragliding with Rep. Laddie Shaw, R-Anchorage, at Flattop Mountain, taking advantage of the mild weather in the city.

“It was my first time flying there, needless to say,” Kreiss-Tomkins, 33, said. “And so I had basically taken a more conservative — and also longer — flight path, and so had much less elevation as I was approaching landing than would have been ideal. And so that resulted in kind of a non-ideal landing.”

The hard landing broke the tibia and fibula in his right leg. Kreiss-Tomkins said that he landed in snow not far from the parking lot, where EMS personnel were able to reach him without difficulty.

Although Kreiss-Tomkins and Shaw are in opposing political parties, he said they have something in common: a love of adventure.

“He’s a Navy SEAL and he is a Vietnam vet,” said Kreiss-Tomkins. “And he’s lived quite a life. And we have a lot of shared interests. We’ve been friendly over the years, and he has been sort of a source of encouragement to pursue paragliding.”

Kreiss-Tomkins traveled over the winter break to California, where he became certified in paragliding.

He said he’ll take time to consider his future in the sport.

“I really enjoy being active and doing sort of adventurous outdoorsy things, but ultimately want to be sort of sober about cost-benefits,” he said. “If you’re on crutches for six weeks, you’re not outdoors being active. So I’ll have to evaluate the cost going forward. I’m not quite sure just yet.”

The injury and subsequent surgery kept Kreiss-Tomkins from participating in Tuesday’s House floor session. However, he appeared in committee hearings by phone on Wednesday afternoon.

He said that he planned to be back in Juneau on Wednesday night. He expects to spend the next six weeks or so moving around the capitol on crutches.

Rainfall in Sitka broke records on Wednesday, and February is shaping up to exceed the month’s typical rainfall by leaps and bounds.

Rick Fritsch is a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Juneau. He said Sitka’s airport recorded 2.16 inches of rainfall.

“Just as a point of reference for that, the previous record for the airport in Sitka for the 16th of February [was]  0.93 inches. So, more than doubled the previous record which was set in 1988,” said Fritsch.

“When a record gets broken by that much, even in today’s climate of climate change, that’s still kind of extraordinary,” Fritsch said.

Extraordinary enough to cause one confirmed landslide. Fritsch said the weather service received a report early Thursday of a landslide across Green Lake Road, blocking access to the city’s hydroelectric dam. In an email to KCAW, electric utility director Scott Elder said the time of the slide is unknown, but it was reported to their office at 9:10 a.m. He said that staff from the nearby hatchery cleared debris from the road by mid-day.

Wednesday wasn’t an outlier. So far, Sitka has recorded just over 13 inches of rain this February, well above the average 3.5 inches.

“We’re talking about just shy of 10 inches above normal already,” Fritsch said. “And we just hit the half-point of the month.”

The trend is present throughout Southeast. Fritsch says Juneau recorded more than double its January record for rainfall. He says rainfall records shattering by such a wide margin lines up with trends climate scientists predicted years ago.

“Eight or ten years ago, the [Intergovernmental] Panel on Climate Change said that, among other things, we’re going to see not only an increase in precipitation on an annual basis, but we’re also going to see an increase in extreme precipitation events,” Fritsch said.

“And that gets back to, when records fall, more and more frequently they’re falling by very large numbers,” Fritsch said.

Fitsch says it looks like March will be drier, and summer will be wetter, meaning that water shortages won’t be a huge concern as they have been recently in some parts of the region. And it could be good for salmon runs.

But Southeast summers also depend on snowpack for moisture through the late summer months, and Fritsch says much of that snow has already melted.