Lisa Phu

The first big fall storm will lessen in severity as it makes its way north.

A high wind warning is in effect for the southern panhandle through Friday afternoon. National Weather Service meteorologist Pete Boyd says Hydaburg is seeing gusts over 60 mph with Ketchikan’s wind up to 40 mph. Gusts up to 50 mph in Annette Island are expected to rise.

Boyd says the wind won’t be quite as strong as the storm makes its way to Juneau.

“What we’re going to see is heavy rain starting this afternoon and that rain is going to continue tonight. We will be expecting to see the winds picking up into the 15-20 mph range going for tonight into Friday. We’ll probably be seeing some higher gusts getting up into the maybe 30-35 mph in exposed locations,” Boyd explains.

Boyd says the heavy rain may cause small streams and rivers in the Juneau area to rise, but at this time, they’re not expected to rise to flood levels.

The city and borough of Juneau is looking for artists to design, produce, and install public art in the new Mendenhall Valley Public Library.

Scheduled completion for the library isn’t until 2015, but it’s not too early to start thinking about artwork.

“For this art project, the reason it’s out right now and we’re looking for an artist is because the design is not complete and the design team has decided that they would like to integrate the art into the design somewhat, so that’s part of the reason we’re putting it out now instead of after the building is being fully designed and being constructed,” says Jennifer Mannix is contract administrator for the CBJ.

The new library will be located in Dimond Park. NorthWind architect James Bibb is part of the design team. He says the new library will play a key role in the Valley, “The Valley is sort of considered to be a suburb where there’s not a very definitive sort of city center or center for the neighborhood as much, but Dimond Park has become sort of the next what we see as a very central location for community activity with the school system there, the swimming pool, the ball fields.”

The selection panel wants the artists to incorporate certain themes into their proposed work. Community is one of them. Another is integration with the natural environment.

“Artworks that respond to our weather, our land forms, our waterways, flora and fauna, other features, and because the library is designed to have a very nice connection to the outside, art works that enhance rather than obscure that connection, ” says Donna Pierce, library project manager

The call for artists is part of CBJ’s Art in Public Places program. One percent of the library’s construction costs must go toward art. The selection panel will decide how that money gets spent.

“Artists have the option of proposing in different price ranges. The total budget for the project is $105,000, so the panel could select several different pieces of art that add up to that or they might just select one large one,” Mannix says.

The city is advertising for artists nationwide. Proposals are due October 4th.

A pre-submittal meeting takes place 10 am today in CBJ’s engineering department conference room in the Marine View Building. Mannix, Bibb, and Pierce will be present to answer questions.

The oldest operating hotel in Alaska will get a makeover – on TV.

The Travel Channel’s reality show Hotel Impossible will be in the capital city next week to film an episode on the Alaskan Hotel.

According to the show’s website, each episode features a hotel that is having problems or is not living up to its potential. Hotel Impossible host Anthony Melchiorri identifies problem areas and works with staff to transform the hotel.

The Alaskan Hotel recently celebrated its centennial anniversary. It opened September of 1913. The hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Current owners are Michael and Bettye Adams.

Hotel Impossible is employing two local general contractors while in Juneau – Alan Wilson with Alaska Renovators and Greg Stopher of Stopher Construction. Stopher says he is getting paid to work on the show. He wouldn’t specify the amount but says it isn’t very much.

This is not the show’s first time in the 49th state. Hotel Impossible filmed an episode at Yakutat’s Glacier Bear Lodge September 2012, which aired this past January.

“They come in and they beat you up pretty hard and then give you some ideas of what to do,” says Pete Eads, general manager of the fishing lodge

Eades says Hotel Impossible updated Glacier Bear’s website, bought the lodge space at travel expos on the East Coast, offered ideas on how to save on shipping costs, and renovated a room. Glacier Bear Lodge spent $100,000 to renovate an additional ten rooms.

Eades says up to 85 percent of the lodge’s business is from returning clients every year. The occupancy rate of the lodge has only increased one-and-a-half percent since Hotel Impossible.

“I know for a fact we’ve got maybe two or three reservations of people who saw the show and wanted to come to Alaska, but they were talking about how it’s going to just make the lodge go off the hook and it did not do that,” Eades says.

Hotel Impossible is revisiting the Glacier Bear Lodge this weekend before traveling to the capital city. The television crew arrives in Juneau on Monday and will be here for a week.

The fossil of a Thalattosaur discovered near Kake two years ago is a complete specimen, the first to be found in the western hemisphere. Scientists speculate it could be a new species of the prehistoric marine reptile.

The fossil was found along the shores of Keku Island near Kake the summer of 2011. It was excavated in two rock slabs from an outcrop with the hope they would reveal a complete Thalattosaur, a marine reptile that inhabited the seas 210 million years ago. The rocks were stored at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks.

It wasn’t until earlier this year that earth sciences curator Pat Druckenmiller got a fossil preparator to work on them.

“We knew that we had sort of the tail end of the animal and it was going into the rock but we didn’t know how far in it went or if we had all of it. When he came up, we said, ‘Well, let’s just start cleaning in this area where we think roughly the skull might be,’ and bingo, it was right on top of the skull,” Druckenmiller says.

In the next week, fossil preparator J.P. Cavigelli from Wyoming worked to uncover about half of the skull from the tip of the nose to the eye socket.

All under a microscope, Cavigelli used handheld jackhammers and a small hand blaster to do his work.

“It’s fairly tricky because the rock and the bone are almost the same colors. It’s a very subtle change which is why you have to do it all under the microscope. By the time you get the last layer of rock off with the sandblasting outfit, it’s hard to see unless you know what to look for,” explains Cavigelli.

Cavigelli has prepared various fossils but this one is unlike any he’s encountered before.

“I’ve never done anything Triassic. I’ve never done such a complete small animal like that. I should say I’ve done some fishes but fishes – bah – a fish is a fish. This is a reptile, much more exciting,” Cavigelli says.

“It was like an iguana. It basically had the ability more than likely to come in and out of the surf and feed. And it was about three feet in length,” says Tongass National Forest geologist Jim Baichtal, who was part of a group that discovered the Thalattosaur fossil more than two years ago.

“From anything outside of China, this is the only full specimen that exists, which is really exciting for us. It’s a key thing in the evolution of this branch of marine reptile,” Baichtal says.

Baichtal says pieces of fossilized Thalattosaur bones had been discovered in Southeast Alaska before, but never a complete specimen. “The Thalattosaur that we just recently discovered must have floated down quietly to the bottom of the ocean and laid there. It didn’t come tumbling down and disarticulated and break apart.”

Museum of the North curator Druckenmiller says having a complete skeleton this well preserved allows more to be discovered about the Thalattosaur.

“First impressions from what can we see of the parts that we have cleaned suggest that this is unlike any other Thalattosaur that’s known from, say, Europe or China. It’s very likely we may have a new species.”

Baichtal describes further, “All of the thalattosaurs that have been discovered have teeth all the way out to the end of their rostrum or their nose or their jaws, and the one that we have actually has no teeth out to the end at all.”

Druckenmiller says Cavigelli will be back this winter to uncover the rest of the fossil. He hopes there’s evidence of where the skin or body outline used to be.

“The other thing that would be entirely possible on a skeleton this well preserved is actually to preserve stomach contents and to get direct evidence of diet, and for an animal like this that we know really very little about and that has such strange skull and teeth, that would be really, really important information,” says Druckenmiller.

Once the specimen is cleaned up, Druckenmiller will start comparing it to other Thalattosaurs.

If it is indeed a new species, Druckenmiller, Baichtal, and others involved will get to come up with a new name for it. Druckenmiller says the fossil will be displayed at the Museum of the North.

Baichtal hopes a cast of the Thalattosaur will make its way back to Southeast Alaska where residents can enjoy a fossil that came out of rocks from their own backyard.

Five finalists have been selected for the city and borough of Juneau lobbyist.

They are the Anderson Group, Bob Evans of Anchorage, the team of Mark Hickey and David Rogers, Kevin Jardell of Juneau, and Sam Kito, the third, also of Juneau.

Assembly member Randy Wanamaker sits on the lobbyist search committee. He says the finalists were chosen from a pool of 11 proposals based on certain criteria, “Their knowledge of how the state budgeting process works and how the different departments works, their familiarity with the community, and their experience in the state.”

Lobbyists Linda Anderson and Yuri Morgan are with Juneau-based Anderson Group LLC. Clients include the Fairbanks North Star Borough and the City of Homer.

Bob Evans is a lobbyist for many entities including Kodiak Electric Association and Neeser Construction.

Mark Hickey and David Rogers, both of Juneau, teamed up on one proposal. The two lobby for Apple Inc. Hickey has multiple municipal clients including Kodiak Island Borough, City of King Cove, and the city of Akutan.

Kevin Jardell lobbies for Exxon Mobil Corporation, Fairbanks Natural Gas, and Catholic Community Services among several others.

Sam Kito, the third’s lobbying group is Kito, Inc. Clients include the North Slope Borough, GCI, the Alaska Travel Industry Association, and Icy Straight Point.

The assembly will hold a special meeting and conduct interviews during executive session on September 21.

Wanamaker says the assembly will negotiate the length of contract, fee, and start date.

“To me they need to be on board either in November or December at the latest so that they are familiar with what we are doing in terms of setting strategic goals and legislative initiatives to help the community before the legislative session starts in January,” he says.

City manager Kim Kiefer says the lobbyist finalists proposed annual fees ranging from $52,000 to $85,000.

Sailing is thriving in the capital city through a club called Southeast Alaska Sailing, also known as SEAS.

The mission of the group is to promote an appreciation of sailing. That’s done through organized races in the spring and summer as well as a weekly event called Get Out The Boat.

Lisa Phu was on board the sailboat Surprise for the 3-day Labor Day Regatta to Taku Harbor.