Lakeidra Chavis, KTOO

Licensed child care availability is up 21 percent in Juneau compared with last year, according to a local organization.

Child care providers and its supporters say that’s good news for a market that historically has struggled to meet demand.

Joy Lyon is the executive director the Association for the Education of Young Children, a Juneau-based organization that researches and provides services for child care in Southeast Alaska.

“We’re really excited that now we 21 percent more child care spaces than we did last year, at this time, so there’s an increase of 80-some spaces that is  the result of three different initiatives.”

One of the big initiatives relaxed city zoning rules that apply to child care centers, which the Juneau Assembly passed late last year.

One change let at-home child and day care providers have up to 12 children, instead of eight, without needing a permit from the city.

“The zoning laws have led to four new group homes, so they’re able to provide support for more children,” Lyon said. “That’s the model we hope to encourage for the other 30 family child care providers, and then two new centers have started since last year, which has led to the increase. One of the centers would not have been able to start without that change to the zoning laws.”

That center is the Gehring Nursey School.

On a recent morning there, about a dozen babies and children are running around, eating snacks and preparing to paint. Some are crowding in a circle to listen for an impromptu story time.

The five women that work at the day care also have their own children here. One teacher says watching her children grow up while working is a bonus.

Amy Myers is an administrator at the daycare. After getting pregnant two years, she says one of her first thoughts was: What about child care?

“I heard that there were waitlists for pretty much every day care,” she said, “and then not only were there waitlists for child care, there were no infant spots.”

She says if you’re lucky, the search starts early.

“So really it’s that moment you find out you’re pregnant, you have to get on a waitlist for somewhere,” Myers said.

Myers decided to be a stay-at-home mom, and eventually started working at the day care center.

Issy Kako-Gehring runs the center and says just two years ago, it couldn’t have existed under the city’s zoning rules for child care providers.

In 2014, she says she began meeting with Juneau Republican Rep. Cathy Muñoz and Juneau Assembly member Jesse Kiehl to address the issue. Those meetings eventually led to the zoning changes.

Two other initiatives have also contributed to additional childcare availability, Lyon said.

The first is the Hiring, Educating and Retaining Teaching Staff, or HEARTS initiative, which the city sponsors. The program’s goal is to the provide educational resources and help retain child care teachers.

The second initiative is a $1,000 grant that Lyon’s organization offers to new child care startups.

Kako-Gehring said families turning over is another factor.

“Part of that reason, I think, is that a lot of families are moving,” she said. “We’ve had at least 10 families in the last year, to move out of state, young families.”

Juneau has an aging community and the cost of child care here forces families to make important decisions, she said.

For mothers, she said, do you work and pay a thousand dollars a month for your child to be in day care, or do you stay home and watch them grow up?

“There’s a lot that’s involved in this 21 percent and it has to be looked at from every angle,” she said. “The 21 percent increase could also mean that less women are in the workforce.”

Kako-Gehring said her day care isn’t at capacity. That’s a good thing, she said; her workers aren’t overwhelmed. But when they do open a spot — it’s filled almost immediately.

A few other child care centers I called in Juneau had long waiting lists, too, especially for infants. But for the first time in five years, child care capacity in Juneau is rising.

Earlier this year, the state passed Senate Bill 91, a reform of Alaska’s criminal justice system. Its proponents hope it will reduce recidivism and the likelihood of repeat offenders.

But as the bill’s effects trickle down to local governments, Juneau city officials are realizing there are a lot of questions left unanswered.

Juneau City Attorney Amy Mead briefed about a dozen city officials Wednesday afternoon on the crime bill. Mead summarized the more than 20 recommendations listed in a December 2015 report from the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission. Many of the commission’s recommendations were implemented in SB 91.

After she finished the laundry list rundown, she asked, “Are there any questions?”

Juneau Assembly members had a lot, ranging from funding to prosecutions.

“We’re tasked with finding creative alternative sentencing options and I, off the top of my head, do not know what those things look like,” Mead said. “So we’re trying to do some research and trying to figure out what other communities have gone through this (and) what they have used.”

After the meeting, Mayor Ken Koelsch said it’s clear that there’s more work ahead.

“My reaction to that is that there are more dark areas than light areas, so there’s more things we don’t know than we know,” Koelsch said. “So it’s going to be trial-by-error situation from what I can see, trying to figure out exactly what this bill means and what it means for the city.”

Koelsch said he found the consequence of failing to fulfill community service requirements confusing. Previously, if someone was ordered to do community service for a crime instead of jail, and refused to do the service, they would go to jail. Under SB 91, Mead said, that’s no longer the case. The court can still fine them.

But Koelsch said it’s unclear what will happen if the offender can’t or refuses to pay the fine.

Juneau Police Chief Bryce Johnson also attended the meeting. He said some of his officers are frustrated and confused with some of aspects of the bill.

“They’re getting a lot of calls right now,” he said. “People found out, hey, you can’t be put in jail for a property crime under $250. Gosh, I’ll go out and do more. So we’ve gotten a lot more calls than we did before because that seems to be at least a short-term response. So they’re feeling the pinch of it, they’re certainly feeling an increased workload.”

If the bill is effective, it might also lessen the likelihood of repeat offenders. But in Juneau, there are a lot seasoned ones.

“Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. ” Johnson said. “A lot of the people that we arrest, they’ve been arrested many, many, many times. So hey, if the state and service providers can figure out a way to keep them from offending again, I’m all for it. Don’t misunderstand me, I think that’s a great idea.”

He said he respects the intent of the bill but things still need clarification.

“A lot of it is, is this was a sweeping change to the criminal justice program that happened pretty quick. … There is still a lot of unknown,” he said.

Misdemeanors that used to land people in jail don’t under SB 91, Mead said. Which means the city may be able to reduce what it pays the state to cover the jailing costs. It’s been about $400,000 a year since 2002.

Halfway through the meeting, Assembly member Jamie Bursell asked Mead a question that seemed to be on a lot of people’s minds.

“Regarding treatment options, with our lack of community resource centers, what will we do in the interim?”

After a long pause, Mead said, “That is a fabulous question and I don’t know how to answer that.”

But Mead told the assembly that she knows other cities have gone through this before, and succeeded.

About 30 tribal officials and community members recently discussed ways to get a new youth court up and running in Juneau. It’s an opt-in program for youth tribal members in Southeast Alaska that’s an alternative to the regular justice system.

SueAnn Lindoff is in charge of the new program of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. She hopes they’ll be able to start taking youth through the program in a few weeks,  a student or two at a time.

“I don’t want five students because I’m a strong believer in quality versus quantity,” Lindoff said.

The framework for the program has a strong emphasis on tribal mentorship and tradition. During the meeting, people suggested youth could work with elders to learn about traditional values and stories.

“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel; we don’t want our personal identity to be first with this program,” she said. “What we want to do is we want to put a spoke in the existing wheel already — if it means make it bigger, make it stronger.”

The youth wellness court program has had hiccups; a coordinator left earlier this spring and planning large meetings has been difficult. This meeting was in a conference room on the top floor of the Andrew Hope Building.

Lindoff said it’s been a huge learning experience for her. She compared it to learning to drive a stick shift.

“If you don’t know how to drive, and you’re used to driving an automatic, well you jerk and jerk and stall,” she said.

But eventually, she said, you learn. The group, which had just met for the first time all summer, created a four-person task force to tackle major aspects of the program and to determine what troubled or disadvantaged youth might be missing. Another meeting is planned late September.

The U.S. Department of Justice awarded the Central Council a $550,000 grant last year to create the youth recidivism program for three years.

There are only a few hundred Tlingit speakers in the world, according to linguists and researchers.

In a world where English is considered the dominant language, Tlingit is endangered, linguistically speaking.

The Sealaska Heritage Institute hopes to combat that.

The organization announced the release of two free apps Monday, aimed at making learning the language more accessible.

Katrina Hotch is behind two recently released apps to help people learn Tlingit.

Earlier this week, I sat down with Hotch and Kathy Dye. Dye walked me through the Tlingit Games app, which has two naming games in it.

The game features a colorful array of about a dozen birds common throughout Southeast, there’s even a hummingbird that flies in and out of your screen.

Dye designed the birds herself; each one took about a day, with the goal is to match what someone might see in our actual world with their Tlingit names.

Hotch has been working on the language app since the year began — editing and gathering audio, some that’s decades old, from Sealaska Heritage Institute’s archives.

“There’s also years and years of work of collecting the audio,” Dye said, “that a lot of current and past employees have been working on, and that’s been going on for many years.

“Yeah, there’s so many people that have done a lot of work in the language and it’s exciting to make it more accessible to everyone,” Hotch said.

The other app, Learning Tlingit, has about 300 entries in three main categories—alphabet, vocabulary, and phrases.

“One of the more difficult but super useful phrases for a beginning learner is ‘I don’t know,’” Hotch said.

Hotch says she’s not a fluent speaker, so she tried to pick entries that would be helpful for someone who’s learning.

“What’s probably going to be some really popular category phrases is introductions and learning Tlingit and probably meal time,” she said, “everyone eats, yeah?”

She says the goal was to create a game that exemplifies the organization’s mission.

“Especially Haa Shuká ,” Hotch said, “that’s the concept of, you’re connected to the past, present, and future. We have audio of all of these speakers, and some of them have gone on, but we’re making it available for present and future generations to help perpetuate the language and culture.”

The institute hopes apps like this will give people the tools they need to learn and maintain the language.

Hundreds of people gathered Thursday at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve to celebrate the opening of a newly completed Huna Tribal House and the National Park Service’s 100^th anniversary.

Not everyone could make it. Some event speakers and tribal members — including me —  got stuck at Juneau International Airport because of fog near the park. But that didn’t stop us from watching the event from afar.

Two decades in the making, the Xunaa Shuká Hít, which roughly translates to Huna Ancestor’s House, celebrates the four major Huna Tlingit clans that lived in the area that became Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. According to the park service, villagers fled an advancing glacier hundreds of years ago. Clan members couldn’t return to area because it was taken over by the National Park Service in the 1980s.

But as the fog cleared Thursday morning, and tribal members paddled to the shore in newly carved canoes, Glacier Bay called its people back to their homeland.

Planes traveling to the area weren’t able to land. About a dozen people leaving from Juneau couldn’t attend and Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowksi was one of them.

“We are sitting here waiting for the fog to lift in Gustavus, along with a fair number of Alaskans who are hoping to go out, to be part of the celebration,” she said.

She was hoping to catch a late morning flight, but it didn’t work out. At that point, the terminal’s only television was tuned to live coverage of the event.

The last time Murkowski was in Gustavus was in 2012. Officials were trying to break ground for the tribal house.

“I saw the details and the plans,” she said, “I was really looking forward to being able to see it ‘live and in color,’ as they say. So maybe we’ll yet get out there today, but it remains to be seen.”

Across the lobby, Bert Frost sat with a couple of his colleagues. He’s the regional director for the National Park Service in Alaska. He said it’s an important part of American history — and this event emphasizes that Alaska Native history is a part of that.

“A lot of people don’t understand that there’s a Native tie to those lands,” Frost said, “it wasn’t just created in 1917. This is the homeland for the Huna Tlingit.”

He hopes that the tribal house will help rebuild the relationship between the tribal community and the National Park Service.

“We always haven’t had a great relationship with the Native people,” he said. “So through this effort of building this tribal house and the things it represents to the Huna Tlingit and the National Park Service, is the coming together for all of these entities.”

Adrienne Fleek also works for the park service as the Alaska Native Affairs liaison.

“There’s a really big commonality between the mission of our organization, of preserving and protecting special places in America for future generations,” Fleek said, “with the Alaska Native way of being, of preserving and protecting our resources.”

She’s planned to meet up with family at the ceremony and is dressed for the occasion.

“I have a traditional Tlingit vest on,” Fleek said. “On the back it is a Raven emblem and on the front is Coho. Traditionally when you go to a ceremony, you wear regalia to show who your family is.”

And she wasn’t the only one sporting regalia.

Around the corner, Lillian Austin is watching a livestream of the event. She’s wearing a traditional black vest, with her tribe’s Thunderbird stitched on the back — one of the four big clans from Glacier Bay.

“It’s pretty good, that building there,” she said. “It took them five years to do this building, it’s got all of the different clans’ designs, we’re Thunderbird.”

Austin is a tribal elder who grew up in Hoonah, and spent summers in Glacier Bay as a child. Her nephew, Herb Sheakley, is one of the carvers for the project.

As of Thursday afternoon, she was still waiting for reliable transportation to the event.

Austin said like everyone else in limbo at the airport, she was excited and hadn’t seen the tribal house.

If the weather permitted, it would be the first time she’s visited Glacier Bay in more than 50 years.

Juneau-based nonprofit Southeast Alaska Land Trust, or SEAL Trust, was denied its city property tax exemption earlier this year.

Now, the Assembly will reconsider it.

It’s a first for the organization, which preserves more than 3,000 acres of land throughout the region.

The nonprofit has been around for about two decades with the goal to preserve and protect some properties, such as wetlands, from development.

Most of the land it owns is in Juneau.

SEAL Trust director Allison Gillum is trying to find the stack of property value estimates she received in late March.

“The notice of assessed value cards, which any landowner in town knows pretty well, you get them around March each year,” she said.

All land in a community is taxable, though the city offers a lot of different exemptions.

So when the stack of cards came in the mail, instead of a letter saying the organization qualified for the exemption, Gillum knew something wasn’t right.

“In previous years we received those cards and our total taxable amount has been zero because we’ve been exempt and this year we received cards with our full property value, which was a surprise to us,” Gillum said.

In this case, the exemption in question was for charitable purposes. Nonprofits qualify when their properties improve the “moral, mental and physical welfare of the public.”

The city’s Assessor’s Office determines a property’s value and whether it qualifies for the exemption.

SEAL Trust’s 14 parcels, or properties, in Juneau are mostly wetlands.

Juneau’s assessor Robin Potter denied the exemption earlier this summer. “Land preservation alone does not provide a charitable service” to the community, she said.

The organization also needed to prove that the land was being used for a charitable purposes, such as recreational facilities or improvements.

Gillum disagrees.

“People who live here in Juneau and Southeast Alaska, and Alaska in general — I think most people don’t need facilities to be able to recreate,” she said. “I think the natural landscape that we’re trying to protect is a wonderful backdrop to recreational activities.”

Attorney Rob Palmer represents the Assessor’s Office in the appeal.

“The reason for the denial was that SEAL Trust, according to the assessor, did not present enough information for the assessor to know that the property was actually being used for a charitable purpose,” he said.

SEAL Trust appealed the assessor’s decision, but the appeal also was denied.

“Her opinion is that SEAL Trust did not qualify for the charitable purpose exemption,” Palmer said, “but that SEAL Trust might qualify for the community purpose exemption.”

The nonprofit has previously qualified for that exemption since 2011, but after a meeting last summer, the nonprofit decided to pursue a different one this year.

During a Board of Equalization meeting in July 2015, the assessor told the organization that the nonprofit never qualified for community purposes exemption either, because land wasn’t being transferred to the city.

“CBJ did not adopt an exemption policy, and up until to date, all those parcels had been getting an exemption once the SEAL Trust took them over, and that was an error because we don’t have a law for that,” Potter said. “So they are taxable, and they’ve been getting a full exemption ride for several years now.”

Palmer said he knows of the recording but he couldn’t comment on what was said.

The Trust’s annual operating budget is about $300,000.

A lot of the funding is restricted by grants and a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gillum said.

Losing the exemption means the land valued at $400,000 will result in about $4,000 in property taxes.

At Monday’s assembly meeting, members voted to hear the appeal.

Their final decision is expected to take about half a year.

The trust hasn’t paid any taxes yet, Gillum said, the appeals have cost the organization time and money.

“As a small nonprofit this kind of issue can take a toll,” she said, “so we’re trying to address this issue without it taking over too much.”

The nonprofit did apply for the same tax exemption for land it owns in Sitka, which was approved.