KFSK - Petersburg

Petersburg School District buildings sustained damage from the heavy snowfall in December and January.

Superintendent Erica Kludt-Painter says most of the damage happened at the middle and high schools.

“There’s been damage on the front of the building near the library. There’s been damage on the back side,” she said. “The band is actually practicing in the auditorium right now because there were some substantial leaks.”

The ceiling of the band room sustained significant damage. There is a huge water stain many feet across and missing tiles indicating where the water had seeped through. Other classrooms also had some damage to their ceilings, as did the library.

Kludt-Painter says most of it stemmed from ice chunks building up on top of the roofs.

“Once they finally came down, they sounded like a car hitting the building, they were so huge,” she said.

The school district has been working with its insurance company and adjusters, who took a lot of photos last week. One of the causes of the leaks is the building’s flat design. The high school section of roof is 36 years old, and the middle school is just a few years younger. Another area of roof, including the gym, is around 40 years old.

“This is a huge campus with a lot of flat roofs, unfortunately in Southeast Alaska,” said Kludt-Painter.

The newer elementary school fared better. Kludt-Painter says that building is easier to maintain because of its single-story shape.

“The new — which is now 10 years old or so — the roof at the elementary held up pretty darn well,” Kludt-Painter said. “Over there, there were no leaks. There were of course, cracks here and there in some ceiling tiles and things like that, but overall the roof did its job.”

The cost to fix the damages is still unknown.

A roof replacement for the secondary schools has been at the top of the district’s capitol list of projects. It’s also on the borough’s capitol projects list.

“It’s been a need,” said Kludt-Painter. “And of course it’s got the multi-level — I mean, it’s a beautiful building — but it’s a real problem when you have ice build-up and water and snow and all those things.”

A total roof replacement would likely cost millions of dollars. Kludt-Painter says the project will probably be done in pieces. Insurance will pay for some sections of it that were affected by the snow and ice.

Right now, the district has a maintenance director with three or four custodians. They are trying to fill the assistant maintenance position. The crew used a snow blower on parts of the roof over the Christmas break. That was followed by dozens of volunteers shoveling off snow after the break. But it wasn’t enough to prevent the damages.

School was closed at the middle and high schools during the first week of January because of the heavy snow loads on the roofs. The district will be making up those days on in-service days Feb. 21 and April 15 instead of extending the school year further into June.

A Petersburg police officer was fired from the department after posting an offensive social media post. The post appeared to be supportive of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany, but the former officer says it was taken out of context.

The Juneau Empire newspaper broke the story about Johnny Duane Pickle on Jan. 7. The 43-year-old started work as an officer with the Petersburg Police Department at the end of last June. He was paid just over $30 per hour.

The Empire story showed a Facebook post made under the account of J.D. Pickle. The post included a photo of Pickle’s son wearing a Hitler mustache, standing straight, and making a Nazi salute. It was accompanied by the comment, “Just showed this to my son. He said that would be his dream come true. Got to raise them riech.”

In an interview with KFSK’s Angela Denning, Pickle said the post was taken out of context and was a comment responding to a friend. He said the image was of his son playing out his favorite movie with his cousins. The film, Jojo Rabbit, is a modern comedy about Nazi Germany.

Pickle: If you haven’t watched it, it’s pretty entertaining and it’s got kids fighting in the war. And they were just one little boy was Captain America, and he was part of the Jojo Rabbit army.

Denning:  And the comment says, “Raise them reich.”

Pickle: Yeah, there’s absolutely no harm meant behind it.

Denning: Okay, but when you combine the Nazi solute with the comment, “raise them reich…”

Pickle:  I understand how that — that was perceived. Looking back on it, it didn’t look good.

Pickle was raised in Virginia and worked there as an officer for a few years before coming to Petersburg. He says the borough fired him after talking to him once during an investigation.

A brief statement from the borough’s clerk and Human Resources Director Debbie Thompson said a complaint about Pickle was posted on the borough’s Facebook page on Dec. 12. Pickle was placed on administrative leave while the police department conducted an internal investigation.

The statement said that the borough doesn’t comment on personnel investigations, however, it confirmed that Pickle was no longer employed by the borough as of Jan. 3. Pickle was still in the probationary period of his employment.

Mayor Mark Jensen declined comment, calling it “an administrative issue.” Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht declined to answer any further questions. Police Chief Jim Kerr did not respond to calls from KFSK.

Pickle says he didn’t mean to offend anyone with his post and said the Holocaust was horrible.

“Nothing malicious was meant behind it,” he said. “When they told me it was antisemetic remarks, I had an idea what that was, but to get the true meaning, I actually Googled it. I was like…’Oh, I can…yeah.’ I see why it raised such a stink and I regret ever posting that because of what has resulted from it.”

Miri Cypers is the Pacific Northwest Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that works to fight hate and promote civil rights. She calls the post “disturbing.”

“Because trust in law enforcement is so important,” Cypers said. “And I think that the actions that he took displayed a true lack of judgment and in a time where hate is rising and antisemitism is rising, these kinds of behaviors can really create a barrier for people being able to trust law enforcement and building stronger relationships with the community.”

Cypers is grateful the department and police chief acted quickly. She says the rise of hate and extremism is becoming more common in society and in social media in general, but she doesn’t see it as a widespread phenomenon in law enforcement.

Pickle says he plans to stay in Petersburg and is currently looking for another job.

Joe Viechnicki contributed to this story.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting that was planned for this month in Ketchikan will be held in Anchorage instead in March. The decision is a loss for Ketchikan’s winter economy and is leaving some feeling cut out of the decision-making process.

The seven-person board decides on regulations for state-managed commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries. It was scheduled to tackle over 150 proposals for Southeast fisheries starting Jan. 4 at the Ted Ferry Civic Center in Ketchikan after a year of pandemic-related postponements.

But this month it was postponed again because of the rising COVID-19 case counts in Southeast. Now that meeting is planned to start March 10 at the Egan Center in Anchorage.

“A lot of things at play and I guess I would call it almost retreating at this point but we’re looking at conducting the rest of our meeting schedule in Anchorage,” said Glenn Haight, the board’s executive director on Tuesday.

“You know first thing is we want to try and get past this surge, no guarantees we can do that but come March we think it’s a little safer than earlier,” Haight said. “It gives us at least about a month and a half to get past it.”

Haight said Anchorage’s larger hospital capacity played a role in the decision as the state sees COVID case numbers set new record highs this month. He said meetings for other parts of the state might be affected if the board  postponed this Southeast meeting further.

“All indications that I’ve got from the board is they really feel the need to get this meeting cycle done this year so that they can move onto the next one next year,” Haight said. “And any loading up that you do, postponing you do is going to require likely enough additional budget, and that has its own set of challenges.”

Because of the move, Southeast residents who can’t travel to Anchorage will have a chance to testify remotely from some Department of Fish and Game offices during the meeting. The board will consider changes to herring fisheries first because herring seasons start in March. Salmon and other finfish proposals will be next, followed by shellfish and groundfish.

Leaders with Ketchikan’s tribal and local governments said they’re disappointed by the decision.

Gloria Burns, president of Ketchikan Indian Community’s Tribal Council, said KIC spent a great deal of time and energy preparing for in-person testimony by its members, with much of it centering around the traditional harvest of herring eggs. Now, she said the meeting will take place during the heart of the herring egg harvest season.

“It almost feels as though, from my perspective, as though it’s a purposeful intent to go ahead and keep the testimony that could have been provided from being provided in-person,” Burns said.

The Southeast meeting includes proposals from both subsistence and commercial harvesters to change the state’s management of the commercial sac roe herring fishery in Sitka Sound.

Ketchikan city mayor Dave Kiffer said the move disenfranchises people from Southeast. He said phone or video testimony is not as effective and he’d rather the meeting be rescheduled for a later date in Ketchikan.

He called the decision a double whammy for his community.

“First of all the financial impact of being able to have between 100-200 people coming to town, staying in hotels, eating at restaurants, buying things, the simple fact that we will lose at least $20,000 on renting our civic center, you’re looking easily at a $100,000-200,000 hit to our community that we were kind of counting on given all the other economic issues that are swirling around us,” Kiffer said.

Other organizations like the Juneau-based hunting and fishing group Territorial Sportsmen and the commercial fishing organization Alaska Trollers Association last year asked for a delay until 2023 because of health concerns and COVID-19 spread.

Commercial salmon troller Matt Donahoe of Sitka said he’d prefer the meeting be held in Southeast Alaska, but he was concerned with holding an in-person meeting in Ketchikan. The biggest problem he sees is the new dates overlap with the end of Southeast’s winter troll season.

“It leaves trollers with a really no-win choice of staying in town or going to Anchorage for the Board of Fish, or getting that last trip in between the tenth and the fifteenth of March which last year in 2021 was the most lucrative trip of the winter troll season,” Donahoe said. He’s hopeful the board will deal with salmon proposals at the end of the meeting to allow troll fishermen to finish their season and attend the meeting.

Other commercial fisheries for herring eggs, crab, halibut and black cod are also underway just before or after the new meeting date. The board also had a meeting scheduled in March on statewide shellfish proposals. Now that could be pushed back to later that month or into April.

The comment deadline for the Southeast meeting has been extended, it’s now Feb. 23 There’s a March 3 deadline to sign up for remote testimony.

Petersburg’s assembly hasn’t taken any action to block the move — so ATVs and other all-purpose vehicles are legal to drive on any street with a speed limit of under 45 mph in 2022.

That’s a statewide change in regulations that took effect on Jan. 1. Local governments are allowed to opt out, but Petersburg’s assembly hasn’t made that decision. Assembly members heard from police chief Jim Kerr Monday that ATVs need to be registered and insured and will be treated like other vehicles.

“If people want to start driving recklessly, like I said, we’re going to impound them. If they want to run from the police on their quad, they’re going to get arrested,” Kerr told the assembly. “I see it as a benefit. They might use it to run down to the harbor really quick. They might use it to transport their hunting stuff back and forth. So I don’t see an issue at this point. I guess time will tell if there’s an issue or how the community reacts to it.”

In 2017, voters said no to a local law that would have allowed off-highway vehicles on local streets. Two years later, the assembly voted against making a similar change.

Several Petersburg assembly members thought it should go back on the ballot.

Jeff Meucci asked to have the discussion and said he wanted to find out the will of his colleagues.

“You know if we wanted to refer this possibly to the public safety advisory board to have them look at it and see,” Meucci said. “I just wanted it to be a discussion item so that we are at least aware of it in case we wanted to do something different.”

ATV users need a drivers license and can be ticketed like other motorists. The only road with a speed limit over 45 is Mitkof Highway, so that’s the only road where ATVs are not allowed.

The change does not allow snow machines on local streets.

Petersburg’s active COVID-19 case count dropped to single digits this week, the lowest total since late October.

Petersburg Medical Center reported nine active cases as of Tuesday morning. That includes seven cases that have been reported in the past seven days. The community has a testing positivity rate of 3.6% and just 11 pending test results.

The medical center’s dashboard shows just under 60% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated. The total number of cases since the start of the pandemic is now at 570, with three deaths.

The remote island town of Petersburg, Alaska continues to deal with a widespread outbreak of COVID-19. More than 7% of the town’s 3,000 residents got infected in November alone.

On the front lines of this outbreak is a team of home health nurses going door-to-door treating patients.

Kirsten Testoni is one of those nurses. She manages a team of eight.

“You come in with sort of a plan but your day goes from zero to 60,” Testoni said.

Three years ago, there were only two home care nurses in this office. The additional staff has come from other departments: emergency rooms, clinics and long-term care. Lena Odegaard had worked in all of them.  She says she likes home health because she can focus on one patient at a time but it’s also challenging.

“There’s just so many elements you can’t control,” she said. “Whereas, when you’re in the facility, you can kind of restrict visitors and what people are doing to a point.”

Sometimes, there are patients who should go to the hospital but they don’t want to.

“We find that quite often in home health, especially during this pandemic,” Odegaard said. “Sometimes there’s a little bit of a resistance.”

Many times the nurses will transport patients to the hospital themselves or they can call an ambulance.

Stephanie Romine says home health is different than her many years working in the hospital.

“You never know, you can walk in and find someone on the floor,” Romine said. “You really don’t know what you’re walking into a lot of times.”

Many hospitals have home health departments but it’s different in a rural town like Petersburg, says Jared Kosin. He heads the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association.

“You’re going to have almost, in some respects, a more nimble health care system because everybody knows everyone,” Kosin said. “When we’re in a crisis like this, can we meet this problem head-on before it becomes a bigger problem and requires hospitalization?”

During this latest delta surge in Alaska, it’s been crucial to keep people out of the hospital — not just Petersburg’s local clinics, but also keeping people from getting medevaced to the bigger hospitals in Anchorage.

Plus, it’s a more personal way to receive care. This team in Petersburg is planning on keeping up this level of home health care even when they’re no longer caring for COVID patients.

Testoni visited a small house this week where three people are infected with COVID. She wore two face masks, goggles, a hairnet, a gown and blue rubber gloves.

Natocha Lyons, one of the patients, answered the door. Lyons is 43. She was in a black sweatshirt, her blond hair pulled back.

“Sorry my house is not cleaned,” Lyons said when Testoni arrived. “I don’t have any energy.”

In the last week, she had been to the ER twice.

“I was so bad and so weak I couldn’t even get up to go pee at one point. I had to have help from my son,” Lyons said.

Home health drove her back and forth to the hospital. She received oxygen, IV fluids, monoclonal antibody treatment and steroids.

“If it wasn’t for the home health people I wouldn’t have made it because I was too weak to drive myself, I was too weak to even walk, I was too weak to do anything,” she said. “It’s been very scary for me.”

Like many Petersburg residents the home care team has been caring for this month, Lyons isn’t vaccinated. And she hasn’t changed her mind even after two trips to the ER. But Testoni never pushes the issue.

“That’s not our role,” she said. “We don’t do that. We are going to take care of people regardless of what their choices are.”

As she walked back to the car, Testoni said her job isn’t to convince patients of anything. It’s to meet them where they are. And so far, that’s been enough to keep them alive.