KRBD - Ketchikan

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker was joined in Ketchikan on Thursday by U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, state Sen. Bert Stedman and state Rep. Dan Ortiz to sign a bill accepting a land trade between the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska Mental Health Trust.

The trade puts parcels of Trust land close to communities in Ketchikan and Petersburg into Forest Service ownership, in exchange for federal land that the Trust plans to log.

The Ketchikan Public Library has a huge picture window in its large activities room. The view is Deer Mountain – the iconic backdrop to Alaska’s First City.

Walker pointed to the mountain, clear against a bright blue sky, noting to the small audience gathered for the signing that they picked this spot on purpose.

“This couldn’t be a better location,” he said. “You’re really looking out at the fruits of your labor.”

Until Walker penned his name to Senate Bill 88, a large chunk of that mountain belonged to Alaska Mental Health Trust, which uses its land to make money for mental health services.

In Southeast, the easiest way to make money from the land is resource extraction. Logging.

But, nobody wants Deer Mountain logged.

The Trust and the U.S. Forest Service have been working on a plan for about 10 years to get Deer Mountain and other sensitive parcels close to Southeast neighborhoods exchanged for more remote Forest Service sites.

That was moving slowly, though. And so, following threats last summer from Mental Health Trust officials that they would log Deer Mountain, lawmakers sped the process up.

Walker noted that the exchange required action from the House and Senate in Washington, D.C., and Juneau.

“It took all four bodies to make this happen,” he said. “It’s one of those things that, everybody knew it was the right thing to do, but it just took a while to get there.”

Murkowski was on hand for the signing. She said the land trade will benefit all the stakeholders.

Mental Health Trust will be able to make money off its land; the timber industry will get a source of trees to keep them in business; and the communities of Ketchikan and Petersburg will not be harmed by logging activity close to homes.

“It’s really one of those win-win-win situations,” she said.

Stedman represents much of Southeast Alaska. He thanked Walker for his work on this bill, and other efforts for the region.

“He’s been very dogmatic in helping us create and maintain jobs in Southeast,” Stedman said. “I really appreciate that. It’s definitely made a difference. We see it all across Southeast, and we’re particularly going to see it on Prince of Wales coming up here.”

Viking Lumber on Prince of Wales will be a big beneficiary of the logging activity that the Trust now can move forward with.

The federal land that now belongs to the Trust includes parcels on Prince of Wales and in the Shelter Cove area of Revilla Island.

Ortiz noted the hard work that legislative staff members put in to getting the various bills passed, and local efforts organized by residents of Ketchikan and Petersburg.

A Ketchikan group called Save Deer Mountain was founded by Ray Troll and Bob Weinstein. Both were there to witness the successful end to their efforts.

“This is an example of how local communities, local governments, state governments and federal governments can all work together on an issue and agree,” Weinstein said. “When they do, it’s a success.”

He said it’s nice to know that the beautiful view out the library window will be preserved for future generations.

Also on Thursday, Walker signed another bill at the Ketchikan shipyard.

On the deck of the not-yet-finished state ferry Tazlina, surrounded by shipyard employees, Walker signed a bill officially naming the ferry and its sister ship, the Hubbard, which will be built by Vigor Alaska after the Tazlina is complete.

A Princess Cruise Lines ship traveling through Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage hit a humpback whale that became lodged on the front bulbous bow.

The whale was removed after the Grand Princess docked Wednesday morning in downtown Ketchikan, and the dead animal was towed to a nearby beach.

In a statement released Wednesday, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement said its officers are investigating the cause of the whale’s death.

Gary Freitag of the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program said he will be involved in the necropsy to determine how it died.

Freitag said it’s possible that the whale already was dead before it was struck by the ship.

“You really don’t know whether the ship had anything to with it or not,” he said. “The necropsy will have a tendency to determine, the best we can, whether it was hit while it was still alive or whether it was dead, floating. You can also look at the decomposition and see how long it was before the animal was hit — whether it was right away or whether it was floating around for a week.”

Freitag said he hadn’t yet seen the dead whale himself, but he was told it was about 30 feet long, which means it was a calf.

“Humpbacks are usually 40- to 50-foot when they’re adults,” he said. “So, it’s a young humpback, from what I understand.”

Freitag said he’s working with NOAA officials to schedule the necropsy, which likely will take place Thursday.

He said there are a lot of logistics to work out first, including rounding up volunteers to help.

Gov. Bill Walker came to Alaska’s First City on Saturday to experience this year’s sun-filled Blueberry Arts Festival.

He is attending fairs and festivals around Alaska in place of scheduling the governor’s picnics that have been traditional for the past few years.

“What an honor to be back. I had never seen a slug race before I came here. I think that’s unique to Ketchikan,” Walker told the crowd from the main stage during Blueberry Arts Festival.

Walker also lent a hand judging the blueberry pie-eating contest, and walked around various art- and food-vendor booths, meeting with local residents.

Taking a break for a short interview with reporters inside the First United Methodist Church, Walker skirted the topic of whether he and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott would seek re-election in 2018.

Walker said their intention is to seek another term, but that’s not their focus now.

“We have a lot of work to do to fix Alaska, and we are remaining focused on that,” he said.

Walker said other state lawmakers have work left, too.

He said while the Legislature has made some accomplishments, they still need to find a solution to Alaska’s fiscal challenges.

“They have a tough job to do and they’re doing it. They’re getting it done,” he said. “Not as quickly as they would like, not as quickly as I would like, but we’re not done yet. We still haven’t figured out how to pay for the services we provide. Until we get that figure out, it’s not going to be done.”

Walker said he expects there will be another special session this fall for the Legislature to find a way to fund government. But, he said, his office will work with lawmakers in the interim to find out what options are most likely to pass.

The ongoing national debate over health care, and whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act is something Walker said he has paid close attention to.

Walker said he’s part of a coalition of governors trying to help provide options and input to federal representatives. He said he doesn’t want what happens in Washington, D.C., to hurt Alaskans.

“I expanded Medicaid – accepted Medicaid expansion – that’s now provided health care for 35,000 Alaskans who didn’t have health care before that,” he said. “We don’t want to lose that kind of coverage. We don’t want those folks to go uninsured as a result of what happens in Washington. So, we’re very involved in that process.”

While President Donald Trump has been pushing for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, with or without a replacement, Walker said that, overall, he believes Alaska will fare well under the Trump administration.

Walker said he looks at the president’s appointees, especially Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.

“I think that Secretary Zinke is someone who understands the opportunities we have in Alaska with responsible resource development… There are many areas of development in Alaska that we’ve been wanting to do responsibly, but we haven’t had access under federal land to do that. I think we’re going to see a difference in that,” he said.

Asked whether he would return next year to enter the blueberry pie-eating contest, Walker said he’s not sure he’s up for that kind of competition.

Walker is scheduled to return to Ketchikan on Thursday to sign Senate Bill 88, which approves a land transfer between the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska Mental Health Trust.

Ketchikan’s Deer Mountain was one of the parcels that the trust had said it would log if the transfer didn’t take place.

The transfer will put that parcel, and other sensitive sites in Southeast, into Forest Service ownership.

The judge and attorneys in the case of Jordan Joplin have agreed to reschedule his trial to mid-April of next year citing new charges of first- and second-degree murder.

When he was charged only with first-degree theft, Joplin, 32, was scheduled to face trial this month. He was indicted in mid-July on murder charges, too.

All of the charges are related to the March 16 death of Ketchikan surgeon Dr. Eric Garcia.

Joplin’s defense attorney Deborah Macaulay, participating by phone in a Wednesday scheduling hearing, told Superior Court Judge Trevor Stephens that there is a large amount of new evidence, also called discovery, for her office to go through before a trial.

“Given the immense amount of discovery that we’ve received recently … I think the earliest this could probably go is January or February,” she said.

Stevens, though, wanted to schedule a trial date that would likely not have to be changed. The parties agreed to push it out farther. Joplin’s trial is now scheduled to start on April 16, and will tentatively last three weeks.

Joplin has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. He remains in custody on $200,000 bail. His next hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Nov. 7.

Prosecutors have so far not revealed the cause of Garcia’s death. Police said in March that there were no obvious causes after a routine autopsy, so a toxicology screening was ordered.

The results of that screening have not been announced.

Alaska State Troopers rescued two overdue boaters in the Prince of Wales Island area over the weekend.

According to the troopers online dispatch, a notice was put out by the U.S. Coast Guard late Saturday that two men in a 16-foot skiff had been reported overdue in the Whale Pass area.

The men had last been seen in the skiff about noon that day on the north side of West Island.

The troopers’ boat, the Enforcer, responded to the area to search. It was blowing about 25 knots with gusts to 35, with 5- to 7-foot seas.

Just after midnight, the Enforcer crew saw a light on the Prince of Wales Island shoreline across from West Island.

Using thermal imaging equipment, they saw a heat signature from one person on the shore. Three crew members went to shore in a skiff, and found the two men cold and wet, but unharmed.

The boaters were William Davidson, 68, of Virginia, and Henry Davidson, 70, of Oregon.

They and their vessel were brought back to the Enforcer, and then to the Whale Pass dock.

The men told Troopers the seas were too rough for them to make it back to Whale Pass on their own, so they had decided to beach the skiff and wait the weather out. They did not have a two-way radio with them, or any other way to make a distress call.

A Klawock couple has been charged with four counts of willful failure to pay their individual income taxes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

A statement released Wednesday said Archie W. Demmert III and his wife, Roseann Demmert, earned income from commercial fishing through the company Vetta Bay LLC, which was owned by Archie Demmert. It was on this income that they allegedly failed to pay taxes.

The couple allegedly has not paid income tax for 13 separate tax years, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Steward, who is prosecuting the case.

“It comes to the attention of the IRS when there’s significant periods of time like that,” she said.

She added that the 13 years were not all consecutive.

“There were attempts to levy some of their assets that were successful, to pay some of the tax years that they hadn’t paid,” she said.

The Demmerts allegedly owe more than $400,000, not including penalties and interest.

If found guilty, they face a maximum sentence of one year in prison for each separate count. They also face a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.

The court has not yet set a date for the couple’s initial appearance.