Lisa Phu

Goodwill exhibited during the holiday time often extends well beyond. One holiday tradition that strives to leave a lasting impression is Shop with a Cop.

Juneau Police Department Lt. Kris Sell says Shop with a Cop helps foster good relationships between children and uniformed officers:

“Some of what kids need these days are relationships with adults and someone that they get to know a little bit, someone who’s making good decisions, and so these are just more positive adults to put in their life.”

Several officers from Juneau Police Department, Alaska State Troopers, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration law enforcement spent time with selected Juneau children before Christmas. Each child was picked up at home by an officer in a marked vehicle and, together, they went shopping for presents to give to the child’s family.

The officers try to make the time with the children as positive as possible. “We talk to them about, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up? What are your dreams?’ We want to talk a lot about, ‘Where do you want to go with your future?’ And, ‘What do you think would make you happy?'”

Nominations from officers help determine what families are chosen to participate in Shop with a Cop. “We get our nominations from a number of different sources, including families that officers just kind of run across,” explains Sell. “Maybe we have had contact with that family at some point and thought they’re getting a pretty tough situation, pretty raw deal.”

Sell hopes the program will create a personal relationship between youth and uniformed officers.

“We want this to be part of kids’ whole impression of these group of adults, that we care about them, we want the best for them. It’s okay to come up to a uniformed police officer and just talk to them,” Sell says.

Shop with a Cop also puts officers in a unique situation. Sell recalls delivering groceries to a family of one of the children, “One of the adult members teared up over just all the food we had brought. It was just a really touching experience for us. Of course, like most cops, we’re uncomfortable with positive emotions, so we ran from the house and fled,” Sell says laughing.

Shop with a Cop in Juneau is organized by the Capital City Chapter of the Alaska Peace Officers Association. In its fourth year, close to $2,700 was raised for the event.

Many Juneau families in need during the holiday season were still able to put presents under the tree and share a festive meal thanks to charity organizations and community programs like Adopt-A-Family and angel trees.

St. Vincent de Paul provided Christmas gifts for 150 children.

“The children put down one thing that they needed and one item that they wished for and so what we did is we tried to make sure we got the item they wished for and if the need was a coat or something like that, we got all new coats for the kids. We had hats and gloves, socks, we had toys,” said volunteer Louise Wertheimer.

Roughly $50 was spent on each child and Wertheimer said volunteers were able to find almost everything that was desired. “We couldn’t find a green Power Ranger suit or a blue Power Ranger suit.”

As parents picked up gifts on the days leading up to Christmas, St. Vincent volunteers gave out more than 150 turkeys and 75 food baskets.

“It makes you so happy and at the same time it just brings tears to your eyes. They give you a hug and thank you and they got tears running down their face and they tell you that we wouldn’t be having Christmas if it wasn’t for St. Vincent’s, and that’s what makes it all worthwhile is to know that we have helped these families with the children that really need the help,” said Wertheimer.

Carol Pitts is the community resource coordinator at The Salvation Army. As of Christmas Eve, she said the Salvation Army had assisted just over 200 families, totaling 650 people. Those numbers are down from last year when the Salvation Army helped 237 families, but Pitts, who was working Christmas Eve, said requests for food and gifts were still coming in, “We have some emergency situations that just kind of come up at the last minute and people didn’t realize that they were going to need assistance and then they are in a situation where they do.”

While the number of families signing up for assistance remained somewhat consistent, Pitts said the number of those willing to adopt a family was down this year, “Normally, I have about 25 to 30 people who will adopt and that’s organizations and individuals and families. This year I had 13.”

The remainder of families received food boxes donated by various organizations and community members, as well as toys brought in through angel trees.

The Salvation Army continues their efforts even after the holiday season.

“Christmas is just one of the many times that people need assistance and, of course, it’s just more important at Christmas time because it can be a very difficult time and puts a lot of extra burden on families, but people need food all year round,” Pitts said.

Throughout the year, the Salvation Army provides food, grocery store vouchers, and clothes on Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon.

The Juneau International Airport is finally addressing a big complaint from travelers through the capital city. At the end of January, food will be served in the departure area. And travelers may notice another change – the long-standing Glacier Restaurant and Lounge is becoming Brandi’s Airport Bar.

Ethan Billings has owned the Juneau sports bar and night club Marlintini’s Lounge for the past 20 years. Now, he’s getting into the airport concessions business. He recently signed a contract with Juneau International Airport to run food and beverage services for the next two to four months starting Jan. 1.

“This opportunity fell in my lap and I like challenges and we’re ready to rock and roll. So I’m going to keep some existing staff, I’m going to hire some knowledgeable people, and we’ll see where we go with it,” said Billings.

Billings has only had a few weeks to prepare. The airport originally solicited short term proposals for food and beverage concessions this past summer. The airport received proposals from three parties – Abby’s Kitchen, Kim Mungle, and 64 Thunderbird, LLC. A committee ranked Abby’s Kitchen the highest.

After entering into negotiations with the airport, Abby’s Kitchen terminated the process on Dec. 4, less than a month before the contract was supposed to begin.

Airport board president Jerry Godkin says the board was very disappointed, but understands:

“It was just a big hurdle for them. They had never been through a process where they were getting a liquor license, all the hurdles with the city, the state, and all the things to run a restaurant and run a bar, and have to negotiate parking. It was just a big hurdle, I think, for them with all those steps and they’re still trying to maintain a successful catering business that they do.”

Abby’s Kitchen declined to comment for this story.

ESS Support Services in Anchorage has held the food and beverage concession contract at Juneau’s airport since 1993. It ends Dec. 31. Billings plans to change the name from Glacier Restaurant to Brandi’s Airport Bar, but keep the same menu. “At this point, since this is kind of a late notice in getting going on this, it’s going to pretty much be the same at this point, and then when we get the kinks out of the operation and the takeover, we’ll look at expanding or subtracting and upgrading the menu or doing whatever we need to do,” he says.

Cup of Joe’s coffee stand on the first floor will keep the same name and in late January, another coffee stand is scheduled to open inside the departure lounge. In an area that currently only has vending machines, Billings says the stand will serve food, “The grab and go kind of stuff that you can just go grab and take on the plane as well as coffee and beverages and then some other snacks as well. It’ll be prepackaged stuff but it won’t be candy bars and snack bars; it’ll be more sandwich-oriented items.”

Billings is contracted to run food and beverage concessions at the airport for up to four months. In the meantime, Renee Loree with the city’s finance department says a second RFP for a temporary contract will go out:

“We are re-scoping the work that was initially put out there. We are allowing vendors to reply. We would welcome Abby’s Kitchen replying again as well as Kim Mungle. 64 Thunderbird could submit again as well.”

Airport architect Catherine Fritz says a total reconstruction of the area currently used for food and beverage will be complete fall of 2016. Future plans include full service dining with views out to the airfield and expanded service on the secure side.

“We’re looking at a model that will serve both the secure and non-secure sides from a single kitchen so we have a lot of great ideas and optimism about the longer term picture. It’s been the short term interim that has been the real difficult puzzle piece to fit in,” Fritz says.

Fritz says the airport is allowing Billings to operate food and beverage services with no revenue to the airport. She says the next contract will have concession fees.

People looking to get insurance coverage that starts on the New Year have an extra day to enroll.

The original deadline was 8 p.m. in Alaska. United Way navigator Crystal Bourland says the government has granted a last minute extension. The new deadline is 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

The extension applies to the actual enrollment, not the application process. People who want coverage to begin Jan. 1 still need to have the application process completed today.

“I would recommend that people, if they are needing coverage by Jan. 1, go ahead and get online or call the call center, whichever way you’ve already gone about it, and make sure that you’re through the application process, and then also be looking at those different plans, and go ahead and enroll in a plan today or tomorrow,” says Bourland.

First month’s payment is due to the insurance company – either Premera or Moda Health – Jan. 10.

Bourland says Tuesday’s deadline is just the first. Open enrollment goes until March 31.

The City and Borough of Juneau is declaring a parking holiday as it terminates its contract with Aparc Parking Solutions.

City manager Kim Kiefer says the Aparc parking meters will be covered up starting next week, but free downtown parking begins today.

“We’re encouraging people to try to stick to a couple hours free on the street. What we want to do is turn over spaces downtown. It’s important for our downtown core businesses that are staying open during the winter and we want to be able to provide the public access to those businesses,” Kiefer says.

Meanwhile, the City and Borough of Juneau has filed a complaint for damages against Aparc in Juneau Superior Court. The city entered into a contract with the Nevada corporation in September 2010 and has paid close to half a million dollars, yet the parking system continues to be plagued with problems.

Juneau city attorney Amy Mead says Aparc has been unresponsive to the city’s prior complaints, “We have been open to hearing any proposal from Aparc that they wanted to forward to us that would give us a working system and we feel like they have not provided us any viable solutions or recommendations or proposals that would meet our needs.”

City manager Keifer says the downtown parking holiday will last until the end of January. Loading zone, one-hour, and 15-minute parking spaces continue to be enforced by community service officers and passes are still needed to park in the Marine Park Garage and the Downtown Transit Garage.

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Mixed messages about Juneau parking persist

If you still aren’t enrolled for health insurance, United Way navigator Crystal Bourland will walk you through the process step-by-step at Sunday’s enrollment event at Juneau’s downtown library.

“If you’re uninsured right now, underinsured, or you purchase your own plan and that’s either changing or it’s been cancelled or you want to see if you can find some more affordable options, then this is really specifically for those people to kind of get plugged in and hopefully get some help,” Bourland says about Sunday’s event.

Fifteen laptops will be available for people who are ready to start the application process or may have begun but haven’t completed enrollment. “It really just depends on where people are at and if they have the correct information on them. It could be that maybe they just set up an account that day, and hopefully some people can go all the way through the process,” Bourland says. “There are a few stages of it and some of it will depend on how prepared people are coming into it.”

Bourland says for Sunday’s event, it’s important to know dates of birth and social security numbers for everyone in your household; bring income verification, like a 2012 tax return or a pay stub; policy numbers of individuals in the household who do have health insurance; and some sort of photo identification.

Monday is the final day to enroll for coverage to start Jan. 1. Otherwise, the open enrollment period goes through March 31. “People have that amount of time to sign up and enroll in a health care plan and not face a penalty for not having insurance,” says Bourland.

People who don’t have medical insurance in 2014 will face a tax penalty of $95, which goes up each year.

Sunday’s health insurance enrollment event is from 2 to 4 p.m. at the downtown library.