Pablo Arauz Peña, KTOO

In this newscast:

• Juneau’s COVID-19 response team hopes to bypass some of the problems people have had signing up for a vaccine by hosting its own local vaccine clinic next week.
• Washington state’s attorney general and a legal coalition of 40 Tribes, states and community organizations filed a motion to block the sale of the National Archives building in Seattle.
• State Republican Rep. Lance Pruitt lost his legal challenge today in Alaska’s Supreme Court.
• Federal and state entities signed a 50-year right of way permit for the controversial Ambler Road project on Wednesday.
• The first baby of 2021 born at Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau came into the world at 7:50 on Tuesday morning.

Juneau’s COVID-19 response team hopes to bypass some of the problems people have had signing up for a vaccine by hosting its own local vaccine clinic next week.

People 65 and older and health care workers who haven’t already been vaccinated can sign up for an appointment  Jan. 15-17. The clinic will be at Centennial Hall. Registration opens up online Monday.

Emergency Operations Chief Robert Barr says the city is still using the same scheduling software that the state uses, but the signup process will be more user-friendly.

“One of the big challenges that people have had is, when you go to just the homepage of this bit of software, you have to sort of search through all the hundreds of other vaccine clinics that are going on throughout the state right now, and so we’re going to bypass that by having those direct links specifically to our clinic,” Barr said.

Both the vaccine and the administrative service are free. But participants should bring a government-issued ID.

There are only 1,100 doses of the Pfizer vaccine this time around.

“I do think on Tuesday or Wednesday, we will have some folks that are a little disappointed that they weren’t able to get one of those 1,100 appointments but I just would assure them ahead of time that we will do more of these as soon as we get more vaccine,” Barr said.

Those who can’t get in on this round can still sign up on the state’s site to get vaccinated at another location in Juneau.

Barr said those who sign up for the city’s clinic must be able to schedule a time for a second vaccine dose in early February. 

 

In this newscast:

• The appointment process to get vaccinated against COVID-19 opened up on Wednesday for Alaska’s roughly 90,000 seniors, but it didn’t go smoothly.
• A handful of protesters showed up at the state capitol building in Juneau on Wednesday morning,  but they didn’t stay for long.
• The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska issued a statement condemning the extremist violence in Washington, DC.

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska put out a statement today on behalf of tribal citizens condemning the extremist violence in the nation’s capital.

President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson says he’s afraid of what the events are demonstrating to the rest of the world.

“I think our democracy is unfortunately, extremely fragile right now,” he said. “And I think enough is enough, you know, we need to come together. We need to build a stronger, better country, a stronger, better economy. And this, this isn’t doing that.”

While Peterson says he’s not taking a position for or against President Trump, he says Trump’s video address — where he called for peace but continued to claim the election was stolen — was unfortunate.

“If he really believes that this election was lost, okay, great. Go make that speech somewhere else. This isn’t the time. Right now is the time to defuse the situation, not to continually use it as an opportunity to incite,” he said.

He also says many tribal citizens are veterans who have “fought to ensure our country is a nation of laws and not of men.”

“I don’t support anything that is violent,” he said. “But you know what, peaceful protests, you know, should happen. [This] should be how we can demonstrate our views. Bringing violence into it does nobody any good.”

Peterson represents over 32,000 Tlingit & Haida tribal citizens in Alaska and outside the state.

 

In this newscast:

• An avalanche on Mt. Juneau Monday morning turned out to be harmless, but it could be a sign of more to come.
• Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s emergency disaster declaration has been expanded to include relief for residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed.
• Getting the new COVID-19 vaccines to rural Alaska is no small logistical feat.
• More than two dozen Native American and Alaska Native tribes, along with Washington and Oregon, are suing the federal government to stop the sale of the National Archives building in Seattle.

In this newscast:

• KTOO’s Jeremy Hsieh has a look back at Juneau’s biggest stories of 2020.
• Congress signed the most significant law to fight climate change in years, maybe ever.
• A judge in Anchorage says she could rule as soon as tomorrow on a request by environmental groups to block the Trump administration’s lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.