KYUK - Bethel

Three hunters were stranded at their campsite after the river they used to get there froze over while they were camping.

Lester Pavila, 27, Gerrett Kashatok, 32, and Eugene Chadwick, 36, were stranded at their camp and had to be rescued, according to a Trooper dispatch.

All of the men were from the village of Kipnuk.

The river they traveled to get to their campsite froze over, and they were no longer able to use their boat.

State Troopers picked them up by helicopter the following day.

The report says that the three were returned home in good health.

The Central Bering Sea Advisory Committee will hold public meetings in Bethel Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss a range of fisheries related topics.

One of those topics is Tier 2 Fisheries Management, which seeks to define subsistence users based on need.

The meetings will take place at the Bethel Fish and Game office this week.

For more information on other topics and specific times, visit the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s website.

The city of Bethel has had some trouble collecting taxes in recent months, but one tax they’re not having trouble collecting is the 12% sales tax from alcohol.  Since the city sold its first legal alcohol in April, Bethel has collected over a quarter of a million dollars from Bethel’s two alcohol vendors. A third vendor recently opened but those numbers were not included. .

At 5 p.m. you can see people stopping at the city’s new liquor store on their way home to pick up a six pack or bottle wine. Each purchase includes a bit to pay alcohol taxes to the city.

AC Quick Stop, which opened in May, paid $271,652 to the city in alcohol taxes. That means the store sold about $2.5 million from sales before taxes. The city is well on its way to meeting and possibly exceeding former Bethel City Manager Anne Capela’s estimated alcohol tax revenue of about half a million per year. She made that prediction based on the amount that the city brings in from cigarette sales tax.

Though most of the alcohol sales took place at the AC Quickstop liquor store, Fili’s Pizza paid the city $5,606 which means they made about $47,000 before taxes.

The city’s tax revenue reveals that the two vendors combined made almost $2.4 million since the first beer was sold on April 8, 2016.

But is it worth it? In other words — does the money the city makes from alcohol taxes help… more than it hurts by increasing the rate of alcohol-fueled crime? District Attorney for Bethel, Michael Gray, thinks it does help because he hasn’t seen any increase in crime, at least in Bethel.

“We were really expecting to see a real significant uptick. And so far, in terms of the cases referred to us, we just haven’t seen it,” Gray said.

The Association of Village Council Presidents recently passed a resolution condemning the effect of alcohol sales on the villages. Gray says the villages are another matter that’s difficult to measure, though he suspects legal sales may have caused an increase there.

“In August and September, we were noticing a significant uptick in the referrals for sexual assaults in the river villages. I can’t say that that’s related but I certainly suspect that it may be,” Gray said.

Gray says the additional revenue should be used to help Bethel’s police department.

“For years they’ve been understaffed, they have a hard time. Bethel’s a hard town to recruit people to come and live in.” Gray said.

Though Gray doesn’t explicitly support a liquor store, he thinks the income will make a positive difference if it’s used for law enforcement.

Several people were in custody Thursday after state authorities apparently raided the Alaska State Housing Authority, or ASHA housing neighborhood in Bethel.

Alaska State Troopers lead several people away in handcuffs Thursday afternoon. At least three were put in the back of police cars, but witnesses said there were more.

Western Alaska Alcohol and Narcotics Team’s Sgt. Kevin Blanchette carried an AR-15 and spoke about the effort.

“We’re currently conducting an investigation,” he said. “It’s an ongoing case involving the sale and distribution of narcotics here in Bethel.”

ASHA housing is one of Bethel’s most densely populated areas with many of the housing for low-income residents.

Bethel’s first liquor store in 40 years is on the next block, where an armed conflict occurred earlier this year.

Blanchette thanked the community for its help in the raid, echoing the words of FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office earlier this year when visiting Bethel.

“The troopers and other agencies are putting their best foot forward to help take care of the problem here in Bethel and everywhere else,” Blanchette said. “We ask the public if they have any info that could help us in our investigation to definitely give us a shout.”

Troopers have not released the names of the individuals taken into custody or if charges are pending.

The investigation is ongoing.

Alaska telecommunications company GCI has announced $100,000 in donations to support nine suicide prevention efforts across the state.

Two village organizations in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region will receive some of that money.

GCI’s Suicide Prevention Grant program partnered with the Alaska Community Foundation, which was established in 1995 as a grant distribution center, to administer the donations.

According to a news release Wednesday, GCI decided to launch their new program earlier this year in response to suicide rates in the state being twice the national average.

The Native Village of Paimute will get $15,000 for local leaders to attend training, and the Native Village of Tununak will get $9,500 dollars to fund more activities for youth in their village.

Organizers reviewed over 40 applicants through a strict review process; awards ranged from $5,000 to $15,000.

The goal of the grant program is to fund promising new programs, and to help successful programs reach more people in need.

The Association of Village Council Presidents has selected its first female CEO: Vivian Johnson Korthuis. The decision comes on the third day of the regional nonprofit corporation’s annual convention, after a year fraught with challenges. Some see this convention, and the change it has brought, as the light at the end of the tunnel.

Vivian Korthuis, AVCP’s first female CEO, said at the end of Thursday’s meeting that she was overwhelmed but confident.

“I think the opportunity exists now to really take AVCP to the next step,”  Korthuis said.

When asked how she would grow AVCP, she pointed to changes in the bylaws that led to her appointment.

“Well I think the board of directors has created a path for the company, and my job is to help them do that,”  Korthuis  said.

Korthuis grew up in the Village of Emmonak and eventually attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She is the first female CEO of a major tribal organization, and also the first to be hired – not elected.

This came about when the executive board asked delegates for control over the process and, in a three-quarters vote, it was granted. Marcy Sherer, vice president of the Native Village of Napaimute approves of the change.

“CEO really should be a hired position so that the executive board has oversight control and can manage the company through the CEO. In that aspect, it’s a very positive move,” Sherer said.

Sherer agrees with her new CEO that this could be a new start for AVCP.

“I think that this is a turn in history, a turn of the page in history,” Sherer said.

But not everyone agrees.

“It’s kind of a strange feeling,” said Mike Williams Sr., who is the alternate delegate for the village of Akiak. He didn’t like the way the vote went down, though he does think Korthuis has strong credentials.

“What we lost is having that direct voice and involvement cut off from the rest of the member tribes,” Williams said.

In the months leading up to the meeting, AVCP’s legal counsel Liz Pederson circulated a letter to the tribes informing them of the proposed changes. Williams and others responded with their own letter, calling the actions illegal under the bylaws. The final voting on the issue, done in a closed meeting on Wednesday, supported AVCP’s recommendations.

The same group raised questions earlier this year about the state of AVCP’s financial health, a topic that took up most of the first day’s meeting. Questions about whether grant funds were spent in compliance with federal regulations went without explanation for some time, and during that period former AVCP president Myron Naneng abruptly resigned.

Regardless of the dissent at this point, the AVCP Executive Board appears to have received the nod from its members to proceed with the recovery plan it laid out during the first day of the meeting.