KYUK - Bethel

Pete Williams accepted the city manager position at a special city council meeting Tuesday and will begin working under the new title Jan. 2.

Williams has been serving as acting city manager since September when former City Manager Ann Capela terminated her contract more than a year early.

Mayor Rick Robb said in interim Williams has proven himself the best candidate for the job.

“He’s gone over financial documents. He’s asked the right questions. He’s been holding people accountable. He’s been holding the other department heads accountable. He’s been solving problems,” Robb said. “Instead of saying why we can’t do things, he’s been finding ways how we can do them, and that’s what I like.”

The city manager serves as the chief executive officer of the city and oversees all city department heads under the supervision of city council.

Williams has served as Bethel’s port director for the past six years and has regularly stepped in as acting city manager while the current manager was on leave or council searched for a new hire.

“I think Pete earned extra points, because he got in there and did the job, and he demonstrated that he could do the job,” Robb said.

Williams will continue serving as port director until he hires a replacement.

He already has hired a new public works director and is offering the job of finance director to Jim Chevigny.

The council approved the hiring of Chevigny on Tuesday, Robb said.

“He has a lot of business background, and he has municipal experience and financial audit experience,” Robb said. “So he had a pretty good background.”

The city has been searching for a finance director since September.

Chevigny would replace Acting Finance Director Hansel Mathlaw, who will continue working with the city as assistant finance director.

Chevigny will move from Fairbanks and begin in his new position in late January.

While the search for the new Bethel city manager presses on, a new public works director has been hired to replace Muzaffar Lakhani.

Bill Arnold, formerly the city’s utilities maintenance foreman, has taken Lakhani’s place.

Arnold is not new to the duties of the public works director, having filled in as acting director several times in his eight years with the city.

Arnold has been creating a list of issues to address, such as infrastructure and clean water, since he took the job.

Three businesses are vying for Bethel’s final liquor store license.

One business has already submitted its application, and the other two are in the three-week public notice period required before applying.

If the other two get their applications in on time, it’ll be up to the Alaska Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to decide which of the three businesses holds the final license.

But how will they choose?

The Players: The three competitors are Kusko Liquor, which would replace Cezary’s Auto Body and Paint; the main Alaska Commercial Company store; and Bethel Liquor Store LLC, which would replace Fili’s Pizza restaurant.

The Limit: Bethel is limited to just three liquor store licenses because of its population size. State law sets a limit of one license per 3,000 people or a portion of that, so Bethel gets three.

The Deadline: The two businesses in the public notice phase have to submit their applications by the second weekend of January in order to compete with the already submitted application. That’s because only applications submitted within the same 30 days are considered competing. The clock started ticking on December 16 when Kusko Liquor submitted its application first.

If all the applications are received before the second weekend of January, the board will decide on one applicant at its next meeting using some of the following criteria:

If an application doesn’t meet all state and local requirements, then it’s out.

If an application is protested by its local government and the board approves the protest, then it’s out.

If the board determines any application isn’t in the public’s interest, then that one’s out. The factors for considering public interest are safety, suitability, size of the premises, proximity to other licensed premises, and community amenities associated with the premises like entertainment, dining, and tourism. The local governing body can also add its preferences and priorities to this list.

If there are still competing applications after these factors have been considered, the board will resort to a drawing, essentially pulling a name out of a hat and declaring it the winner. Any loser has a right to appeal.

The board next meets in February 2017.

Ice crews have plowed a 25-mile stretch of the Middle Kuskokwim from Kalskag downstream towards Tuluksak.

The remaining stretch to Tuluksak will most likely be completed after Christmas.

Mad Max, the crew’s 52-year-old plow truck, broke down Wednesday one mile above Edward Wise’s fish camp, after plowing just a few hundred feet that morning.

The harmonic balancer tore a hole in the timing gear cover, and parts have been ordered.

The delay could prevent people from traveling to see friends and family during the holiday.

One after another, Alaska State Troopers received reports Sunday of a rash of burglaries in Emmonak.

The door to the Emmonak Clinic was damaged and a window at the Ryan Air office was broken, as was the the door to its warehouse.

The door to the airport’s Department of Transportation building was also broken into, and its garage door damaged.

Troopers are investigating the incidents and ask anyone with information to contact them at 907-949-1300.

Two businesses in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta are applying for the region’s first marijuana store licenses: The Green Tree , 260 C Osage Ave., Bethel; and Kuskokwim Enterprises, 3 Slough View Drive, Aniak.

Both businesses are in the first week of a three-week required public notice period.

The notice informs the public of the businesses’ intent to apply and allows the public to submit comments or objections to their local government, the applicant, and to the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office.

The Marijuana Control Board has 90 days to grant or deny a license once the applications are submitted.

How the stores would get licensed marijuana or marijuana products, like edibles, if they do get a store license are still-to-be-resolved areas of local law.

There are no licensed facilities for growing, testing or manufacturing marijuana in the region, and without a road connecting stores to their products, businesses will rely on airplanes for transporting their merchandise.

The catch is that airplanes are under federal jurisdiction, where marijuana is illegal, flying over a state where it’s not.

“Well, all of marijuana is ‘operate at your own risk’ to some extent,” said Cynthia Franklin, director of the Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office.

She calls the state’s marijuana industry “risky business.”

“We don’t have any idea how the federal government is going to react to the reality of Alaska, which is that if you want to have a (marijuana establishment) in an area of the state that’s fairly inaccessible, you might be violating federal transportation rules,” Franklin said. “But keep in mind, everything that we’re doing is federally illegal,”

The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a memorandum saying that, in states that have created robust marijuana regulations, if you are a licensed establishment operating in full compliance with these regulations then you won’t be a priority to prosecute.

But it offers no guarantees.

“If you look at the end,” Franklin said, “it sort of disavows everything and says, ‘we can still do whatever we want.’”

And the memorandum, as mushy as it is, could disappear under Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. Attorney General.

The marijuana business in Alaska is still young and in rural Western Alaska, untested.

With a new administration taking over the Justice Department, how the state and federal regulations will co-exist is still to be seen.