Rosemarie Alexander

The Parnell Administration is trying to explain a proposed 249 percent increase in licensing fees for real estate professionals.

The Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing plans to raise the license fee from $275 to $685.

Legislators have been getting lots of complaints about the increase. In a House Finance Commerce Subcommittee hearing yesterday (Monday), lawmakers pointed to a recent audit of the division that found about $500,000 in expenses incorrectly charged to professions.

The audit also showed income to boards and commissions had not been properly credited. Alaska Association of Realtors past president Jerry Rice said the real estate industry has overpaid more than $3 million in professional services that were not credited in the analysis used to set the new fee.

But Division Director Donald Habeger says the current increase followed a spike in the number of complaints about real estate transactions that left the board with a deficit of a $150,000.

The subcommittee has asked the administration to respond to the audit and questions from the industry.

A Coast Guard helicopter this morning (Tuesday) pulled a Wrangell man from his boat this morning as it was sinking.

Forty-seven-year-old Lester Kuntz was rescued in Keku Strait, just south of Conclusion Island.

The Coast Guard launched an unsuccessful search for him yesterday after he was reported missing. Spokeswoman Charley Hengen says Kuntz had been traveling from Kake to Wrangell, when the wind and seas kicked up. She says he had filed a float plan with his family before he left Kake.

Hengen says Kuntz motored into a safe area to wait out the storm, but when the tide went out a hole was punched in his 22-foot Bayliner.

He reportedly had trouble communicating until this morning when he left the area and was able to contact a nearby vessel that relayed a message to the Coast Guard helicopter, which was already searching for him.

She says the helicopter literally hoisted Kuntz from his boat, The Keeper, as it was sinking beneath him.

Kuntz has been flown to Wrangell where he is reportedly in good condition.

Douglas Post Office users likely will not know if their store will stay open or be closed until sometime next year.

The first public comment period on the proposal to close the downtown Douglas facility ends November 7th. That’s 60 days after more than 150 people packed a community meeting to oppose the idea.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Ernie Swanson says comments from the meeting and collected since then will be incorporated into a recommendation to be made by Alaska Postal District Officials. The recommendation will then be considered by the USPS Western Area Office in Denver.

“The folks in Denver would have to agree with the decision in Alaska or send it back for reconsideration,” Swanson says. “Assuming they agree it would go on to headquarters, where the ultimate decision would be made. If that decision is to pursue the closure, it would be posted at the Douglas Post Office and people would have another 30 days to appeal the decision and those appeals would go to the Postal Regulatory Commission.”

The commission is an independent agency of the government that oversees postal rates and service matters. The commission will take 30 days to consider the the postmaster general’s decision and could ask the postal service to reconsider or make changes.

“That would obviously require some time for our follow-up,” Swanson says. “If they say we agree with your case and you may proceed with closure, it could happen not within the next 30 days but sometime after that. So it could conceivably happen – if it happens – sometime early is 2012.”

The Douglas Post Office is one of five Alaska facilities targeted for shutdown by the financially strapped USPS. The federal agency in July proposed closing 3,700 offices nationwide, including 36 in Alaska. Since then all the rural postal stations in the state have been spared. Douglas, Elmendorf Air Force Base, the Anchorage Postal Store, and Fairbanks’ Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base Post Offices are still in question.

Proposal of Closure notices have gone up at the Eielson and Fort Wainwright stations, but Swanson says it doesn’t mean the post offices will be closed. Instead it triggers another period for customers to let the postal service know how they feel about it.

Alaska’s congressional delegation says the decision is likely founded on inaccurate information. In a letter sent yesterday (Thursday) to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, they asked for details of the decision as well as the method employed to calculate use rates of the post offices at each base.

Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young told Donahoe that thousands of soldiers, airmen and their families rely on the facilities and have no means of access to a post office off base.

They said both stations also made a profit in the last fiscal year.

Alaska ranks first in the number of deaths caused by guns, according to 2008 data released by the CDC.

A corresponding analysis indicates the states with the highest rates also had the highest gun ownership. The Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C. says those states have lax gun laws.

The CDC has been collecting data on violent deaths in Alaska since 2003, according to its website. The latest data available is from 2008. The CDC did its last survey of gun ownership by state in 2002.

Kristen Rand is the Legislative Director for the Violence Policy Center, which analyzed the CDC data.

“These numbers include all gun death categories which are homicide, suicide, and unintentional, so that would include the gun hunting accident, cleaning your gun accidents. So anyone who dies of a gunshot wound in the United States would be included in these numbers,” Rand says.

She says the 2008 numbers indicate that 60.6 percent of Alaskans owned guns, and 20 of every 100-thousand people died by gunshot.

Mississippi ranked second with 19 deaths by firearm per 100-thousand people, followed by Louisiana, Alabama, and Wyoming.

According to the Violence Policy Center, more than 30-thousand Americans die annually in gun suicides, homicides, and unintentional shootings.

Sealaska Heritage Foundation President Rosita Worl is the Alaska Federation of Native’s Citizen of the Year.

 

Worl was presented the honor on Friday at the annual convention in Anchorage. It is the highest award given by the AFN Board of Directors.

AFN President Julie Kitka said Worl has dedicated her life to working for Alaska Natives “from one corner of the state to the others.”

“I venture to say there’s nobody’s life that’s not been touched by the efforts that she has put into her work helping the Native community over her lifetime,” Kitka said.

Worl, an anthropologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, also serves on the AFN Board of Directors, the Sealaska Corporation board, as well as numerous other boards and commissions.

She said no one works on their own. Asking her family, friends, colleagues, and all subsistence users in the audience to stand, she told the crowd:

“You are my source of inspiration. You are the ones who give me strength. You are the ones who make me believe that our way of life is worthy of protection.”

The annual AFN convention ended over the weekend. It was carried live on 360 North and will repeat beginning Monday, October 31. For details and times, go to www.360North.org.

SEARHC President Emeritus Ethel Lund, of Juneau, has received an award for her work in protecting and promoting respect for Alaska Native women and children.

Gov. Sean Parnell today (Friday) presented Lund the Shirley Demientieff Award at the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention in Anchorage.

The award is given at AFN every year by the governor for advocacy on behalf of Alaska Native women and children. Parnell has vowed to reduce domestic violence and sexual assault during his administration.

During his AFN speech, he pledged an additional 15 Village Public Safety Officers for rural villages next year as well as more money for rural education.

“We will not rest as long as the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault steals the hopes and dreams of women and children and men in this land,” Parnell said.

Demientieff was a prominent Athabascan activist and community leader. She died in 2007, known for her work to curb suicide, domestic violence and sexual assault among Native people. She helped found Alaska Natives Standing Up for Justice, which criticized the treatment of Natives in the justice system.

Lund, a Tlingit, is known statewide for her work in health care. A founder of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Care Consortium, she helped develop a landmark agreement with the federal Indian Health Service. The Juneau SEARHC clinic is named for Lund. She currently oversees regional operations and village-based health programs across Southeast Alaska.

Lund described Demientieff as ”a gracious and caring woman” who had an impact on the entire state. She said she was humbled to receive the award for her work.

“I feel doubly blessed that my life’s work has been one of challenge and reward,” Lund told the AFN crowd. “It involved my mind, heart and soul.”

Lund is a former president of the Alaska Native Sisterhood Grand Camp, as well a local president of ANS Camps 1 and 70. She has served as chairwoman of the Alaska Native Health Board and Alaska Tribal Health Directors, and was vice chair of the National Indian Health Board.

She was president of SEARHC at its founding in 1975 and has been President emeritus since 1999. SEARHC is one of the largest health care organizations in Alaska.