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Katie Klan and Angela Brock of the Homer band Burnt Down House perform a Red Carpet Concert at KTOO Public Media during the 2019 Alaska Folk Festival. (Photo by Annie Bartholomew/KTOO)
After an emergency meeting on Thursday, Mar. 12, the Alaska Folk Festival’s Board of Directors has cancelled the event.
The board says they’re concerned about safety due to the COVID-19 virus. It’s the first time the festival has been cancelled in its nearly 46-year history.
In a letter, the festival’s Board President Ian Putnam wrote that the board has been consulting with the state and the City and Borough of Juneau. All agreed that the only “socially responsible” option was to cancel the event.
Vice-President Andrew Heist says that in searching for a silver lining, the board is proud to make this difficult decision early to help set an example for other organizations in similar situations.
The annual festival draws thousands of musicians and spectators to Juneau each year.
Sayéik Gastineau Community School will be closed Friday, Mar. 13. School officials were notified on Thursday that a student was tested for “multiple viruses.” They are still waiting for the results.
The school district emailed parents Thursday evening saying they’re closing the school and cancelling all after-school activities and meetings as a precaution. And, so that they’ll be able to clean the school and gather more information.
All of the other schools in the district will operate on normal schedules Friday according to the email.
A Juneau woman who sued the state of Alaska for sex discrimination won her case on Friday.
Jennifer Fletcher is a state legislative librarian. She’s also transgender. And she paid thousands in out-of-pocket costs for surgical treatment, because the state’s health insurance won’t cover sexual reassignment surgery for transgender employees.
Fletcher and her lawyers at Lambda Legal said that this violates Title VII — the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination. They argued that the surgeries she wanted to get would have been covered if she weren’t transgender — and that’s discrimination based on her sex.
They argued that a federal ban on sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender nonconformity, gender identity, transgender status and gender transition.
The state argued that its denial of coverage for Fletcher’s surgery wasn’t discriminatory because it was not motivated by her sex. It’s a blanket policy that applies equally to men and women.
But U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland agreed with Fletcher. However, the decision could be appealed to a higher court.
Fletcher wrote in a message Friday that she hopes this decision will keep other people “like me from having to face these same struggles, from being harmed by being singled out for discriminatory treatment. I hope it will make their lives easier.”
Sens. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River, Tom Begich, D-Anchorage and Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, discuss pending legislation during an at-ease in the Alaska Senate on April 15, 2018. (Photo by Skip Gray/KTOO)
Anna MacKinnon, a former Republican state senator from Eagle River, said she started last week as a special assistant to the commissioner.
MacKinnon left the Alaska Legislature in 2018.
In her new role, MacKinnon will join the boards of two state corporations: The Alaska Energy Authority, which invests in projects that reduce the cost of energy in Alaska. And Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which finances businesses and focuses on economic growth in the state.
For now, she’s working to catch up on the two corporations.
“I’ve been fairly disconnected over the past year,” MacKinnon said. “So, understanding what has happened with the organizations and how they’re investing in communities across Alaska.”
She said she’s in Anchorage for the AIDEA board meeting that starts on Wednesday.
Both MacKinnon and a spokesperson at the Department of Revenue say that in her new role, she’ll be working special projects.
Deputy Commissioner Mike Barnhill said they’re looking for projects that fit her areas of expertise — likely in the treasury and tax divisions. MacKinnon led the Senate Finance Committee for five years.
MacKinnon will be making $135,168 annually.
Her husband John MacKinnon is the commissioner of the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
The airport in Aleknagik. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development; Division of Community and Regional Affairs’ Community Photo Library)
Last year, the state’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities started to look for ways to cut costs at the more than 200 airports it owns and operates.
The vast majority of those airports are in rural areas and get fewer than 2,500 passengers each year. And that’s where the state is exploring ways to reduce its workload.
Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner John Binder told legislators in a House finance subcommittee last week that the Department of Transportation, or DOT, has flagged 18 airports that it could close, sell or spend less time maintaining.
But Binder said the process will take time.
“We certainly do not have the intent to go out and just rapidly close a bunch of airports,” he said.
Some of the airports DOT has targeted are in areas where there isn’t much of a need for them anymore.
“Aleknagik, for example, we completed a bridge out in Dillingham that connected that community with the larger town of Dillingham, reducing the need for that airport,” he said.
While DOT has targeted these airports for changes, it’s still early in the process with many of them. But Binder said they’ve taken the first steps to transfer ownership of the airport at Aleknagik. It has also moved to stop maintaining and to close the airport at Portage Creek.
Binder said it takes time to go through a process with the Federal Aviation Administration to change how it manages each airport. They’ll also talk to the communities, tenants and pilots that use each airport.
He said DOT is hoping to get through a lot of that process in the next year.
The airports the state has targeted for a reduction in maintenance are Flat, Lawing, Ophir, Sheep Mountain, Basin Creek, Funter Bay, Livengood, Bettles SPB, Goose Bay, Naknek, Quartz Creek (Cooper Landing), Excursion Inlet SPB, Kasilof, Ninilchik, and Quartz Creek (Kougarok).
Watch the latest legislative coverage from Gavel Alaska.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed Lucinda Mahoney to be commissioner of the state’s Department of Revenue on Feb. 4, 2020. (Photo courtesy of the governor’s office)
Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced Tuesday that he has appointed Lucinda Mahoney to be the state’s newest Department of Revenue commissioner.
Mahoney currently owns a consulting and investment management business called Value Solutions LLC. She is the former chief financial officer for the Municipality of Anchorage.
