KRBD - Ketchikan

An alleged assault and robbery on Schoenbar Trail has led to the arrest of a 20-year-old Ketchikan man and a 17-year-old Ketchikan girl.

According to the Ketchikan Police Department, the incident took place on the evening of Aug. 23rd. The victim told officers that multiple men had assaulted him after he showed up for a meeting he said was arranged by the 17-year-old girl.

The victim identified one suspect who he said was accompanied by two unknown men. The victim reported he was hit with blunt objects, and a knife was held to his throat.

The victim reported that his personal belongings, including cash, shoes and eye glasses, were taken, and then he was told to count to 100 or he’d be stabbed.

According to police, the 20-year-old man was arrested on Aug. 30th and charged with first-degree robbery, second- and third-degree assault, tampering with evidence, and second- and fourth-degree theft.

He was transported to Ketchikan Correctional Center, but was released on bail on Aug. 31st.

The 17-year-old girl was arrested and charged with second-degree robbery. She was placed at the Ketchikan Regional Youth Facility.

The investigation is continuing.

KRBD does not identify defendants until after they’ve been indicted by a grand jury.

In a 5-1 vote Tuesday, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly approved a motion to provide about $400,000 for the borough’s share of library services.

The Ketchikan Public Library is owned by the City of Ketchikan, and the borough has helped fund that library for many years through a non-areawide property tax charged to residents outside of city limits.

For the past several years, some Borough Assembly members have questioned the value of library funding.

During its Aug. 22 meeting, the Assembly voted to stop that payment, but that decision was reconsidered and brought back on Tuesday for another vote.

The Assembly’s meeting chambers were packed, and when Children’s Librarian Amanda Kiely asked those in the audience who support library funding to stand up, the vast majority rose.

George Pasley, the outreach librarian, spoke specifically to the services his position provides. He brings books and library materials to people who are physically incapable of coming to the library themselves. That includes seniors at the Pioneers Home and Long Term Care, people who can’t leave their homes, and people in the hospital.

Pasley gave one poignant example of a woman who had been hospitalized by a judge’s order. He said she called him and asked him for some books.

“So, I took her the books that she asked for, which happened to be hymnals,” he said. “The nurses came and said, ‘How did you get here.’ I said, ‘Well, she had a phone. She called the library and I came.’ And they said, ‘Well, this is the first time she stopped screaming since she came in.’”

In all, 10 people spoke during public comment, urging the Assembly to approve library funding.

No citizens spoke against the library appropriation.

The only Assembly member who spoke against it was John Harrington.

Speaking by telephone, he said the borough faces diminishing state funding, and unless the state Legislature figures out a budget solution.

“Things are going to get worse, this next year,” he said. “The vetoes will get deeper. Somehow, somewhere, sometime, we are going to have to start taking a look at the budget or plan on raising the taxes.”

Harrington proposed reducing the library appropriation by $40,000, but that amendment received no second and died. Harrington was the sole vote against the main motion.

Assembly Member Mike Painter, who has voted against library funding in the past, was absent.

 

In other assembly action

The Assembly also voted 5-1 to establish Oct. 8 as a sales tax holiday in the borough. The Ketchikan City Council also approved a similar measure. That day is the first Saturday following the Oct. 6 distribution of this year’s Permanent Fund Dividends.

Chelsea Goucher spoke during public comment in support of the sales tax holiday.

“People are super encouraged by sales tax holidays,” she said. “It’s almost a mental thing. People are more excited by that than maybe a sale that might be a lot more than the tax percentage. So, people love it. Business owners love it. And it does lead to more sales throughout the year once people get out and see what is available in town.”

Assembly Member Glen Thompson was the only vote against the motion.

The Assembly spent a long time talking about the state Department of Education and Early Development’s decision last month to reject the Ketchikan School District budget.

DEED officials disagreed with the borough’s inclusion of certain in-kind services as part of the local contribution to school funding. Borough Manager Dan Bockhorst asked for direction from the Assembly, and recommended that the borough formally object to the state agency’s decision.

After much discussion, the Assembly decided to direct Bockhorst to sign off – under protest — on an adjusted school district budget.

At the end of the meeting, the topic of Deer Mountain came up.

The Alaska Mental Health Trust board last month voted to start the process of a timber sale on Deer Mountain by Jan. 15, unless Congress approves a land trade for other Southeast timberland.

Assembly Member Bill Rotecki suggested that the community negotiate with Mental Health to develop a Plan B.

“The feedback is that they would actually prefer to be bought out of the land, rather than an easement on the timber,” he said. “But I’d like to request that the manager to continue to develop a dialogue so if it turns out there isn’t action on the part of Congress that we have an opportunity to engage.”

Rotecki said the value of the timber has been estimated at about $2 million, so be believes the land would be worth quite a bit more.

During his visit to Ketchikan last week, Sen. Dan Sullivan covered a variety of topics.

Alaska’s junior senator touched on a number of topics during his talk to the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce.

Alaska’s economy in the face of low oil prices has been a big topic for a while, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Sullivan said that as a U.S. senator, there are three primary areas where he can offer support as the state figures out to respond.

The federal government’s main areas of influence and responsibility are infrastructure building, resource development and taking full advantage of Alaska’s strategic military location, he said.

In support of infrastructure, Sullivan said Congress was able to approve a five-year highway bill last year, rather than a continuing resolution as it has in recent years.

“What we were able to do as your delegation is defend a very favorable formula, put in there by Don Young and Ted Stevens, in terms of what Alaska pays in and what Alaska pays out,” he said. “So, we have a highway bill. It passed. The president signed it. For the next five years, it’s going to bring the state close to $3 billion dollars.”

Sullivan said $20 million of that will go to the Alaska Marine Highway System in the first year, with increases for the ferries each year following.

Regarding resources, Sullivan said he defines that term broadly to include not only timber and mining, but fisheries.

Alaska is the “superpower of seafood,” and needs to be able to maintain that resource, he said.

“Almost 60 percent of all fish and seafood products landed in the United States of America comes from Alaska shores — 60 percent,” he said. “We are the 800-pound gorilla in the industry.”

Sullivan said he’s worked with Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young to push for healthy management of fisheries, and to encourage research for the industry.

When it comes to timber, though, Sullivan said it’s challenging to get bills approved if they include measures favorable to logging.

The delegation has had some success with small land transfers, such as easements to allow road construction, he said.

“When you go off on smaller chunks, you can start to do that,” Sullivan said. “I think that’s really important: more federal lands to Alaskans, so we can develop those for the private-sector employment opportunities we need here.”

Sullivan said another extremely valuable resource in Alaska is the children, and it’s essential to provide a useful education for future generations.

He touted the Every Student Succeeds Act, which he said passed the Senate overwhelmingly.

“Essentially, over the last 20 years, the power to educate our kids has been going to Washington, D.C.,” he said. “What we were able to do with this bill is take that power and start shifting it back to where it belongs: Teachers, local school administrators, local school boards and the states.”

Regarding Alaska’s strategic military use, Sullivan said the state offers the ability to deploy troops quickly to many different locations, and a great base for missile defense and air-combat power in the Pacific.

“Let me give you just one example,” he said. “You may have seen that the F35 announcement, that Eilson Air Force Base is going to get two more squadrons. This is in addition to the F22s.  Those are called Fifth-Generation fighter aircraft. Alaska is going to have over 100.”

Sullivan said he plans to continue encouraging U.S. military investment in Alaska.

An ordinance that would limit the number of retail marijuana stores in city limits to one was approved in first reading Thursday by the Ketchikan City Council.

The original measure called for a limit of two stores, but Council Member Julie Isom proposed an amendment reducing that to one.

More retail stores can open outside of city limits, if the Ketchikan Gateway Borough chooses to let that happen, she said.

“If the borough can come up and say we want one or two or three or however many we want, it’s not in our control. But in city limits? The boundaries aren’t very far in city limits,” she said. “I’d like to see just one.”

There was some question about whether the ordinance – which needs to come back for a second reading — would be officially approved before retail marijuana applications are received by the state Marijuana Control Board, and whether that matters.

City Attorney Mitch Seaver told the Council that the state hasn’t been clear on that topic.

“It may or may not be a race to the marijuana board within the time that it takes the ordinance here to become effective,” he said.

Two potential marijuana retail businesses – one on Stedman Street and one on Water Street – have started the permitting process at the borough level, but City Clerk Katy Suiter told the Council that she hasn’t yet received notice that either has turned in a state permit application.

Isom’s amendment reducing the number of pot shops allowed within the city to one passed 5-1, with Judy Zenge voting no.

The main motion then passed unanimously.

The measure will return for a second vote during the Council’s Sept. 15 meeting.

Also Thursday, the Council unanimously approved a motion to move forward with implementing a task force to look into ways to improve the lives of the city’s homeless population and those with alcohol problems.

There was some discussion before the vote with representatives of local nonprofit agencies that provide some services that the task force would address.

Renee Schofield of the Ketchikan Wellness Coalition says the community has many resources to help homeless people and those with substance abuse problems. Those services just need better coordination.

“So, what’s critical here is that we become Lego blocks. And we figure out how to put the people together – the right people in the right places – not reinvent the wheel,” she said. “I personally don’t want to spend a ton of money doing more research. I don’t need more lip service and neither does the community. We need to find who is doing what, get everybody to the table and find out how to dovetail what we’re doing.”

Schofield and other nonprofit representatives stressed the need to talk directly to the people they’re trying to help, to hear from them what they need.

City Manager Karl Amylon agreed, and said he would work with the service providers to come up with a plan.

The City Council also voted unanimously Thursday in favor of a resolution urging Alaska’s congressional delegation to work toward passing a U.S. Senate bill that would provide federal timberland in exchange for Deer Mountain, which is owned by Alaska Mental Health Trust.

The trust recently announced it was moving forward with a plan to log the face of Deer Mountain, and many local residents strongly oppose that idea.

Alaska’s Sen. Dan Sullivan has been in Ketchikan for a couple days this week.

He spent Tuesday meeting with local officials, touring around town and celebrating the new House District 36 Republicans office at The Plaza mall.

On Wednesday, he met with Ketchikan High School students, and spoke to a packed Chamber of Commerce lunch.

Sullivan said visiting communities in Alaska, and hearing directly from constituents, helps keep him inspired in the Senate. It also helps him know what’s important to Alaskans in those individual communities.

An issue that’s come up repeatedly in Ketchikan, he said, is Deer Mountain.

“You know when you meet with community leaders – the borough mayor, the city mayor, the managers, private sector – and you hear the same topic in every single meeting, with a lot of passion and a lot of concern: It’s very helpful. You get it. I get it,” he said.

The Alaska Mental Health Trust board recently voted to move forward with logging the face of Deer Mountain if federal legislation to trade that land for other timberland doesn’t pass by Jan. 15.

Sullivan is a co-sponsor of that federal legislation. He said he and Sen. Lisa Murkowski will work hard to get it approved, but there are limits to what they can do. He said other lawmakers are easily swayed by groups that might oppose the trade.

“I’m not sure we can get it through the Senate, because there might be outside environmental groups that think they know more about what’s going on in Ketchikan than you guys do,” he said.

But, as a former Alaska Department of Natural Resources commissioner, Sullivan said he knows many of the state and Mental Health Trust officials involved. He said he’s working on getting a meeting scheduled, so he can ask: “’Do you really understand that the community seems very, very, very uniformly opposed to what’s going to happen here?’ And that’s not necessarily a good thing to have a strong community like this, that’s a pro-resource-development community, to be really, really upset at the Mental Health Trust Authority.”

Sullivan said Alaskans shouldn’t be working against each other, and the different officials should be able to find a solution.

A recurring theme in Sullivan’s address to the Chamber of Commerce was the need for streamlined federal permitting processes. He said it can take many years, and millions of dollars, to get the permits before any construction can even start.

During a media event after his talk, Sullivan gave some examples of attempts he’s made to alleviate the burden of federal regulations. One bill he sponsored would have required federal agencies to remove one old regulation for any new one they plan to implement.

“Canadians are doing it. The UK is doing it. This is an idea whose time has come,” he said. “Because a lot of other industrialized democracies are recognizing that their agencies … never have to prioritize their regulatory regime. Unfortunately, we had a floor vote on that and it didn’t pass.”

But, Sullivan said, he will continue to fight for that kind of streamlining, which he said has public support.

Another bill he sponsored that almost passed would have allowed state environmental agencies to waive federal permitting requirements – including lengthy, expensive Environmental Impact Statements – for projects involving rebuilding or repairing any of the 61,000 structurally deficient bridges in the nation.

Sullivan said those projects wouldn’t change the footprint of the structures; they would merely improve safety. But, the bill fell short of passing by two votes.

Sullivan talked about judicial reform – specifically splitting the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Alaska along with West Coast states, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Arizona.

Sullivan, who was a law clerk for the Ninth Circuit many years ago, said it’s way too big.

“And those judges rule – judges in Pasadena, Calif, who don’t know where Ketchikan is on a map – and they’re ruling on Tongass National Forest and Roadless Rule issues when they don’t have a clue,” he said.

Sullivan said he’s put forward a bill to split the court. But, he said, California lawmakers tend to block that kind of legislation.

Sullivan addressed the presidential election, as well. With Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton polling ahead of her Republican rival Donald Trump, Sullivan said he’s worried about what that means for Alaska.

He said Clinton opposes Arctic development and resource development in general, and favors additional regulations on gun ownership. If she wins, and sticks with those policies, Sullivan said that will create more challenges for the state.

“But, I’ll work with anybody,” he said. “I have a good relationship with a lot of the Obama administration officials… I’ll work hard to bring people up here, (and) have them understand Alaska better, because most don’t.”

Sullivan said he’ll also do what he can during confirmation hearings for cabinet appointees, using that process to vet the candidates and make sure they understand Alaska’s needs.

During his Ketchikan visit, Sullivan also planned to meet with local U.S. Coast Guard officials, and with veterans at the Ketchikan American Legion Wednesday evening.

The city of Ketchikan and a seasonal-business owner have reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit the city filed last year to recover the cost of demolishing a Water Street building damaged in a fire in fall 2011.

The Alaska Duty Free building was alongside the downtown tunnel.

After the fire, the city asked the owner to take care of the damaged structure.

When owners Villa Machini Inc. took no action for a year, the city in September 2012 hired a local contractor to demolish it.

In 2014, the city of Ketchikan started the process of recovering the approximately $125,000 cost, which included asbestos removal.

Last year, the city filed a lawsuit in Ketchikan District Court seeking to foreclose on its lien against the property.

Now, the tentative settlement, which still needs approval by the Ketchikan City Council, would allow the city to sell the property to recover its costs.

According to the agreement, the city of Ketchikan can bid on the property, which currently has a small restaurant leasing the site.

If the city buys the site, then the lease would transfer to the city.

If the sale price exceeds the amount owed to the city, Machini would receive those excess funds.

The settlement is in front of the City Council during its regular Thursday meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. in City Council chambers.