KYUK - Bethel

The deadline to file as a candidate for the Bethel City Council election is this noon Monday, Aug. 22.

Three council seats sit open, and so far only one person has filed for candidacy: Mary Weiss, who already serves on council after taking Chuck Herman’s spot following his resignation earlier this year.

Council members serve two-year terms.

Byron Maczynski and Zach Fansler’s terms are ending this year, and neither of them have filed for re-election.
Fansler won the House District 38 Democratic Primary on Tuesday, and with no competitor, he’s expected to win the general election.

Bethel City Council elections are October 4.

Troopers confiscated 19 bottles of vodka on their way into the dry village of Alakanuk on Wednesday.

Joey Buster, 20, of Anchorage was flying the contraband through the St. Mary’s airport on his way to Alakanuk.

During the flight, one of the bottles broke in his bag and blew his cover, “making the contents readily apparent,” according to a Trooper dispatch.

Criminal charges for alcohol importation are pending.

Update 11:14 a.m. Friday, Aug. 19, 2016: Authorities have released the name of the teenager who died of an apparent heroin overdose in Quinhagak this week and say they are still investigating.

Jamie Roberts, 19, was pronounced dead Monday evening after more than two hours of resuscitation efforts.

Robert’s body has been sent to the State Medical Examiner for autopsy.

Western Alaska Alcohol and Narcotics Team, or WAANT,  is in charge of the investigation.

Two men also overdosed that night and were medevaced to Bethel for treatment. Both have been discharged.

A fourth overdose was treated on site.

---

Quinhagak responds to a series of apparent heroin overdoses

Original post 4 p.m. Aug. 17, 2016: One of the men from Quinhagak’s four apparent heroin overdoses earlier this week has returned to the village.

The other man has not yet returned. The third person, a woman, is dead. The fourth person was treated on site.

Earlier reports stated three overdoses, but as of Wednesday afternoon, Trooper spokesman Tim DeSpain said four overdoses happened within the same timeframe.

Quinhagak tribal administrator Patrick Cleveland said one right after the other, three people apparently overdosed on heroin Monday evening.

“The first person that was found was unresponsive,” Cleveland said. “Not breathing, lips had turned blue and had to be revived with CPR.”

A medevac picked up the man, and before the aircraft could land in Bethel, another overdose was called in. When the medevac brought the second man to Bethel, word of the third overdose reached them, but that person was already dead.

“The young lady that passed, I think she was just out of high school, and the two men are late 20s, early 30s,” said Cleveland.

The deceased was 19 years old, DeSpain said. Her body has been taken to Anchorage for autopsy.

The fourth person, DeSpain said was treated in the village and not flown out. When the fourth overdose occurred hasn’t been released.

Cleveland said that in the 700-person village, no one is unaffected by the tragedy.

“I mean it pretty much shocked the whole community,” Cleveland said.

The overdoses have ignited anger at the drug dealers and a drive for change.

Michelle Matthew with the City of Quinhagak is organizing a community meeting for 5 p.m. today at the school gym to discuss the issue of drugs in the community and what people can do about it. Her expectations for the gathering run high.

“I hope people get a sense of hope and fearlessness, because that’s what’s driving these drugs to run amok in our villages,” she said. “Because people are afraid to speak up, and now we are.”

Matthew said the tribe is discussing placing extra security measures at its tribally-owned airport, something that she said has been brought up in the past.

The WAANT Trooper division — the Western Alaska Alcohol and Narcotics Team — is in town investigating the overdoses, and a team from Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation is expected to arrive today to debrief first responders and families.

BETHEL — Villages in southwest Alaska now have access to help from more health care workers following the certification of dozens of community health aides.

56 people from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta received their certification this summer. They have been providing health care to people across the region at clinics run by the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

Rahnia Boyer, who is the corporation’s vice president of village health, says the aides have been trained and hired through a program that allows people who live in the area to serve their own communities.

The recent round of certifications means that several villages now have full-time health aides, including Crooked Creek, Shageluk, Chuathbaluk, and Nunam Iqua.

Sleetmute and Pitka’s Point are the only villages without a full-time health aide.

An accused sex offender made a run for it by the Bethel courthouse Tuesday morning.

Troopers report that Brenton W. White, 21, of Quinhagak slipped out of his restraints at about 8:25 a.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of the Bethel courthouse. A search ensued, and about an hour later, he was spotted running across the highway and trying to hide in an abandoned home.

A trooper and a probation officer took him into custody but not without minor injuries. White scratched and bruised his captors, and then complained that one of his legs had been hurt.

White was medically cleared before being taken to the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center where he was charged with escape, resisting arrest and two counts of misdemeanor assault on a police officer in addition to his original charges of furnishing alcohol to minors in a dry village and touching two of them sexually.

After almost two weeks, the boil water notice has been lifted from Bethel’s Trailer Court neighborhood. Last month a routine sample revealed E. coli present in the pipes of one home. Cliff Lindroth is the manager at the neighborhood’s water processing plant.

“We got the green light from the Department of Environmental Conservation. They came out here on Tuesday, we got the results back from the YK lab, all tests came back negative,” Lindroth said.

The tests confirm what Lindroth has said for the last week – the containment was isolated to one home and not a system wide problem.

“I apologize to people for the concern and inconvenience they’ve had during this period of reacting to what was kind of a false turd in the punch bowl,” said Lindroth.

Lindroth blames unorthodox piping systems inside the contaminated home for the scare.

“It’s not uncommon for somebody to just put a piece of hose in there and clamp it on with some hose clamps. And maybe that was the same hose that was lying out in the yard. The same hose that’s been lying in the bottom of somebody’s boat,” he said.

City workers volunteered their time to help identify the problem. The Trailer Court water system is independent from the city’s system.

Lindroth says that as a result of the scare, the plant will be doing more regular testing to make sure everything is normal moving forward.