KRBD - Ketchikan

The $2-per-pack boroughwide tobacco tax was approved narrowly by Ketchikan voters in Tuesday’s local election.

In the final count on Wednesday by the Canvass Board, which tallies absentee, questioned and special-needs ballots, the proposition passed by a margin of 28 votes; 1,256 voted yes and 1,228 voted no.

Overall, the Canvass Board’s tally didn’t change any of the preliminary results reported at the end of Tuesday’s election.

Judith McQuerry and Rodney Dial won the two Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly seats. Trevor Shaw and Kim Hodne won the two open School Board seats. Incumbents Judy Zenge and Julie Isom will keep their seats on the Ketchikan City Council.

The second borough proposition — to extend the half-percent schools sales tax another five years — passed by a wide margin.

Wednesday’s Canvass Board meeting lasted more than four hours.

There were a number of people who chose to write-in their choices for elected seats, and there was one candidate registered as a write-in, so those ballots had to be hand-counted. That slowed the process.

Kevin Johnson, who ran as a write-in for School Board, ended up with 621 votes – not enough to win but a respectable number for a write-in candidate.

The Ketchikan City Council will decide Thursday whether to approve a nearly $2.5 million contract with BAM to replace water and wastewater pipes on Tongass, Front and Stedman streets.

The general contractor BAM was the low bidder for the project, which will coincide with street reconstruction that the state Department of Transportation has planned.

According to a memo from City Manager Karl Amylon, the city has close to a million left in an account dedicated to the pipe replacement project; and another $1.3 million available through a low-interest revenue bond.

Amylon writes that the city will fund the remainder of the contract through Wastewater Services Fund reserves.

Also Thursday, the Council will decide whether to purchase a trash compactor to replace Dumpsters at The Plaza mall.

According to a memo from Solid Waste Supervisor Lenny Neeley, the Dumpsters at the mall must be emptied almost daily because of the volume of garbage, but most of that garbage is easily compactable.

Neeley writes that while a compactor would cost about $30,000, the city would save about $33,000 the first year because of reduced pickups at the mall.

Under an agreement with the city, The Plaza would provide electricity for the compactor.

The Council also will vote Thursday on a resolution honoring KJ Harris, who has resigned his seat because of health concerns.

He first was elected to the City Council 11 years ago.

The Council will have to appoint someone to fill Harris’ seat until next fall. The city soon will start accepting applications for anyone interested in serving.

Thursday’s meeting starts at 7 p.m. in City Council chambers.

Public comment will be heard at the start of the meeting.

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly voted Monday to approve about $230,000 of the borough’s cruise passenger head tax funds to help pay for City of Ketchikan tourism-related projects.

The Assembly also approved $25,000 to help fund publication of the “Our Town” magazine; and $40,000 from the borough’s economic development fund to pay for legal expenses.

That last item is related to the borough’s challenge of the state’s assessment of Vigor Alaska shipyard’s property value.

The borough claims the state-owned shipyard is exempt from taxes, and shouldn’t be included in the borough’s overall property value determination. By including it, the borough argues, the state has falsely inflated the borough’s required local contribution to the Ketchikan School District.

A pretrial hearing on the matter is set for mid-December.

The grant to the city initially was earmarked for the city-owned museum’s bathroom renovation. But that caused some concern among Assembly members.

Assembly Member Glen Thompson says the state has questioned some of the borough’s use of its share of state Commercial Vessel Passenger funds – commonly called CPV funds.

He proposed amending that to a more general grant for projects that fit CPV guidelines.

Those guidelines stipulate that the funds be used on projects that directly benefit cruise passengers.

“What this allows us to do is give them the money they need to do the improvements, but it doesn’t tie it to anything specific other than CPV-related; and it puts the onus on the city to defend their expenditures,” he said. “They could certainly spend it on something else that’s CPV-related inside city limits and use other funds for the museum or do other substitution spending, but it takes the earmark off of it as opposed to the museum.”

Assembly Member John Harrington noted another benefit from the amendment.

“The other thing this does is, it avoids the city having to spend any money on a valuation to make sure that’s how much the bathrooms cost,” he said. “It’s an outright grant for the total amount and I’m happy with that. It saves them money and keeps it clean.”

The amendment passed 6-1 with Assembly Member Stephen Bradford voting no.

He noted that taking away the earmark means there’s no possibility of a refund to the borough if the bathrooms end up costing less.

The main motion passed unanimously.

The bathroom portion of the museum renovation is estimated at about $475,000.

Also Monday, Bradford noted that Ketchikan was voted “Community of the Year” at the recent Southeast Conference annual meeting in Wrangell.

He added that Southeast Conference’s 2017 fall meeting will be in Ketchikan.

Three adults and a 2-year-old child received minor injuries following a three-vehicle crash Saturday morning on South Point Higgins Road.

According to Alaska State Troopers’ online dispatch, troopers and North Tongass Fire
Department crews responded to the accident at about 10:45 a.m.

Troopers report that a 19-year-old man had been driving east on South Point Higgins when he looked away from the road.

His car struck another vehicle that was parked along the roadway. The owner of the parked vehicle had been placing her 2-year-old child into a car seat at the time.

The impact caused the parked car to move forward and strike another parked, unoccupied vehicle.

According to Troopers, the driver, his passenger, the woman and the child all complained of minor injuries and were evaluated by EMS on scene.

They all refused further treatment.

The 19-year-old driver was cited for negligent driving.

Vandals caused up to $1,400 worth of damage earlier this week to vehicles that are dedicated to transporting seniors and people with disabilities.

Catholic Community Services operates Ketchikan Senior Services and the transit service for seniors and people with disabilities.

Marianne Mills, the Juneau-based director of Catholic Community Services, said she got a call early Tuesday morning reporting the vandalism.

“Five out of six of our vehicles had been vandalized,” she said. “On each of the five vehicles, one of the tires was slashed.”

Officials with the Ketchikan Senior Services discovered the vandalism at about 4 a.m., Mills said, and they contacted the police to give a report, before scrambling to get the vans fixed.

“Bob the mechanic at the borough was extremely helpful,” she said. “And the site manager and the dispatcher should be commended on how they just took care of everything so quickly with the help of Bob and Shaub, who provided assistance with the tires in a very expedient manner so we were able to continue our transportation service without turning down any of our para-transit clients, which is pretty amazing.”

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough contracts with the senior center to provide required ADA public transportation services.

The center also receives transit funding through the state, Mills said.

Ketchikan Police Department Deputy Chief Josh Dossett said police are investigating the vandalism, which took place in a gravel parking lot near Berth 4 downtown.

“There are security cameras in the area,” he said. “I don’t know if they actually covered that part of the lot. That’ll be part of the investigation to find out.”

Insurance should cover the cost of repairs to the five vehicles, Mills said.

She said repairs were completed quickly enough that they were able to maintain service for all of their scheduled clients.

Representatives of Ketchikan High School’s volleyball team came to the Ketchikan School Board on Wednesday with a long list of complaints, including gender bias, alleged violations of Title IX, and objectification of the athletes involved in volleyball.

Volleyball team captain Kinani Halverson told the board that she felt sexually objectified when a school board member attended a game and polled audience members about how the uniforms fit on the girls.

“This poll served to bring unwanted, unnecessary and inappropriate attention to our athlete’s bodies,” she said. “It should never have been used as a justification to alter our uniforms. My personal take is that someone who represents me as a student of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough was found to be the one discriminating, objectifying and sexualizing me as a young woman and athlete. Personally, as a victim of sexual assault, I refuse to stand for this behavior.”

Halverson said she’s angry and hurt, and wants an apology as well as an independent audit of the district’s compliance with Title IX, a federal rule that school districts provide equitable opportunities to girls and boys.

As a result of that board member’s informal poll, Halvorson said, the school spent $2,000 on new shorts, when what the team really needs is new jerseys. But, she said, nobody asked the team or its coaches.

Tylynn Ward is one of those coaches. She said there are ongoing issues, but the uniform issue is particularly worrisome, because of the attention placed on the team members’ bodies rather than their abilities.

“The way these girls are being viewed not as athletes but as girls in bootie shorts, if you will. It’s not OK,” she said.

While not named by the speakers, Board Member David Timmerman said he was the one who polled people about the uniforms. He said he loves volleyball, and he asked some other female athletes who had been watching the game why they didn’t play that sport. Timmerman said they told him it was because of the uniforms.

He said he then polled about 50 people of various ages over the course of a weekend and everyone told him they were not comfortable with the uniforms.

“So, me as a parent, also being uncomfortable with some of them – and I’m talking about the very, very short shorts,” he said. “I want to look down and see everybody as an athlete, and I think everybody in that gym wants to, too. There’s people on the national level, there’s colleges that are switching to longer uniforms that aren’t so revealing. If somebody wants to say I was objectifying in a sexual manner? That’s not it at all. If anything, I’m trying to protect the women – the girls that are out there.”

Timmerman did apologize to Halverson and other students who were upset.

The medical room also was inadequately supplied for the first couple of weeks of volleball practice, some speakers noted.

Ice machine wasn’t plugged in and there was no tape during a practice when two players rolled their ankles, Coach Rebecca Clark said.

Clark also told the board that the activities coordinator apparently dropped the ball on lining up volunteers and referees for a day-long volleyball event, even though a list of names was provided weeks in advance. Clark said the only certified referee in town was notified 15 minutes before the first game.

“Our coordinator did not coordinate,” she said. “To me, that’s the basic job description: You’re a coordinator. It should have been taken care of. Unfortunately, I’m not going to go into more, but I just feel like this isn’t the only incident.”

“There’s a lot going on where either the coordinator needs some help or we need a new coordinator.”

April Edenshaw said concerned parents and coaches did try communicating first with Ketchikan High School officials, but received little to no response.

“Or dismissive comments such as, ‘By not responding to your email or phone calls, it is actually an answer,’” she said.

Edenshaw said the group is concerned about inequity, not just for volleyball, but in how much fundraising is required for various sports.

“In some instances, girls are required to fundraise more than boys, even if it is the same activity or sport,” she said.

Sharyl Yeisley told the board that because Ketchikan High School didn’t send a representative to a regional sports scheduling meeting, the volleyball team has very few home games and an arduous travel schedule, which will be more expensive than anticipated.

That means the team will have to raise even more money than they had planned for.