Rosemarie Alexander

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has approved an increase in Juneau’s electricity rates. After 16 months of study, review and several public hearings, the commission says Alaska Electric Light and Power is justified in raising rates another 4 percent, effective immediately.

The RCA released the order about 8 p.m. Friday.

The privately owned utility company requested the 24 percent increase in May 2010. The commission allowed the company to begin charging 20 percent of that in July 2010.

The across the board rate hike actually shows up less on monthly bills, says AELP spokesman Scott Willis:

“The interim rate raised the average electric bill about 18 and a half percent and the final rate raised it to a total of 22 percent,” Willis says.

Customers will now see an increase of about 3 and a half percent. In monetary terms, that’s about $2 to $3 more a month at an average household use of 750 kilowatt hours per month.

The commission’s 44-page order details all the arguments put forth by the company, the state attorney general’s office and a citizen’s group, Juneau People Power Project. Listen to Morning Edition for more details.
To read the RCA’s order click here (PDF).

Tired of the August rain? Well, August is over and the first day of September gave us a day to dry out before the heavy rains of the fall begin.

According to the National Weather Service, Juneau got nearly five inches more rain than usual for the month of August. And the daily high temperature was about five degrees below normal. National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Fritsch has the data.

The national chain OfficeMax is coming to Juneau. The office supply company says it will serve all of Southeast Alaska.

OfficeMax plans to open a retail store in Nugget Mall early next year. It owns two stores in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks.

OfficeMax already has business contract customers throughout Southeast Alaska, according to company spokeswoman Nicole Miller.

“We see this as a natural desire to expand our products and services to this area of the state,” Miller says. “We do have some customers from the region that do go up and get service out of our Anchorage stores, so we look forward to expanding our services to this region and this new store is going to help us do just that.”

The Juneau store will employ about 25 associates and sell office supplies, office furniture, technology products, and have an in-store printing service.

The 17,000 square foot OfficeMax will be located at the south end of Nugget Mall, next to the new 11,000 square foot PETCO. Both will have separate outside entrances, with no interior mall access.

CBJ Community Development Plan Reviewer John Young says OfficeMax received its CBJ building permit Wednesday for commercial renovation and tenant improvements. PETCO has already started renovating its Nugget Mall space.

OfficeMax has about 1,000 retail stores across the U.S. and operates stores in Mexico on a joint-venture.

It also has a catalog business and contract services in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zeeland.

OfficeMax is a publically traded company on the New York Stock Exchange.

Petersburg’s plan to form a borough is drawing opposition from several surrounding communities. While Juneau, Kake and Kupreanof say they don’t oppose a Petersburg borough, they are concerned about its boundaries.

Petersburg is on Mitkof Island, where the Wrangell Narrows meet Frederick Sound. Its proposed borough would be about 4-thousand 347 square miles – both land and water.

The new Petersburg boundaries would stretch into an area previously identified for annexation to the city and borough of Juneau: All the territory from the southern boundary of the CBJ and east to the Canadian border. It includes the Tracy Arm / Ford’s Terror Wilderness, Endicott Arm, as well as Holkam, Windham and Hobart bays.

Thirty-thousand acres at Hobart Bay are owned by Goldbelt, Juneau’s Native Corporation.

Mayor Bruce Botelho says Juneau has never filed to annex the area, in deference to Goldbelt, which previously opposed putting its Hobart Bay land in a borough.

In 2007, Juneau made the decision to wthhold trying to move in that direction “unless there was some triggering action,” Botelho says. “One of those that was contemplated was the possibility that another community would start the annexation or incorporation of those lands.”

Goldbelt Corporation says it is currently neutral with regard to which borough – if any — should encompass Hobart Bay. In a letter to both Botelho and Petersburg Mayor Al Dwyer, Goldbelt Operations Vice President Derek Duncan says the Goldbelt Board of Directors will decide its borough preference over the next couple of months.

Petersburg’s new boundary line would abut Juneau’s boundary at Holkum Bay. Dwyer believes the lines are justified, based on past use by Petersburg fishermen.

“You know we expect there’ll be development in those areas we’ve delineated,” Dwyer says.

Is Petersburg’s petition to include those areas in a borough the trigger for Juneau annexation? That’s the question Juneau will answer over the next few weeks, after research, public input and much deliberation.

Juneau Assembly member Peter Freer believes it is. Over the last decade several Southeast communities have expanded their boundaries: Ketchikan through annexation, Wrangell and Skagway have incorporated, and a number of other communities are examining new boundaries.

“It is in our interest to act and define that area that we believe should ultimately be part of our borough,” Freer says.

Meanwhile, both the city of Kake and the organized village of Kake plan to protest the Petersburg borough. The small first class city of about 560 is on the northwest coast of Kupreanof Island. The new borough would encompass a large part of the island, which Kake says are ancestral lands.

John Janik is Kake city administrator.

“They’re taking up what appears to be half of the island if not more,” Janik says. “And the land they’re trying to encompass is historically Native cultural land.”

On the northeast shore of Kupreanof Island, the tiny second class city of Kupreanof – population about 30 –– is also opposed. But Wrangell, which became a borough in 2008, says it doesn’t have any major issues with the proposed Petersburg borough boundaries.

The Local Boundary Commission will consider the concerns of other communities in its decision. October 26 is the deadline for filing competing petitions and opposing briefs with the LBC.

The Juneau Assembly will take up the issue again later this month.

Pressure bombs – plastic bottles filled with Drano, water and tinfoil – have been exploding around Juneau.

Police have received several calls in recent weeks about the homemade bombs found in various places; the remnants of one near the road on Dudley Street just last week. There’ve also been reports of explosions, then pieces of bottle and tinfoil found.

JPD spokeswoman Cindee Brown-Mills says the bombs apparently are easy to make.

“The acids in the Drano react with the tinfoil and cause a vapor so what you’re going to see looks like foggy stuff inside the bottle. And then pressures going to build up and expand the bottle and the bottle’s going to explode. It looks like it happens pretty fast in the video that I watched,” Brown-Mills says. “If they don’t shake it and just leave it and then somebody disturbs it that may cause it to start (blow up).”

Police say the pressure bombs can cause serious injury and even death. That’s due to the unpredictable nature of the explosive time frame and blast pressure, coupled with shrapnel.

Possible indications of the bomb are strips of metal foil inside a plastic soda or water bottle, or a cloudy buildup inside the bottle.

Anyone who finds such bottles should leave them alone and call police. JPD also would like information on the previous incidents. Call Juneau Police at 586-0600 or log onto juneaucrimeline.com.

Dov Gartenberg will be the first year-around Jewish Rabbi in Juneau.

He says Dov is pronounced like the bird or the past tense of dive – and he goes by either.

“In Hebrew it’s pronounced Dov. If anyone reads the book of Exodus, it’s one of the main characters; but Dov means bear. In moving up here I’m in my natural habitat,” Gartenberg says.

Juneau’s Jewish community did not call Gartenberg to be its rabbi, though he’s been a practicing rabbi for years. Instead, he moved to Juneau because his wife has taken a position at Bartlett Regional Hospital. The congregation, which has only had temporary rabbis for special holidays, convinced Gartenberg to become the year-round spiritual leader of Temple Sukkat Shalom.

“The word ‘rabbi’ means teacher in Hebrew. A rabbi is someone who teaches Torrah. It literally means ‘instruction,’ but is the Jewish scriptural tradition – which is different than the Christian tradition,” Gartenberg explains. “We share with the Christian tradition the Bible, at least the Hebrew Bible, but we also have what we call rabbinical literature. We are interpreters of that tradition to the Jewish community and to the broader world, whether the rabbi is in Juneau or Jerusalem.”

Jewish congregations are autonomous and not part of any hierarchy. Gartenberg says he has no plans to overhaul Juneau’s Jewish community practices. The congregation has had a religious school and year-around programs for many years and acquired its own building in 2005.

“What I will do is strengthen what they already have, and bring some rabbinical leadership that they haven’t had year around,” Gartenberg says.

Temple Sukkat Shalom is located at 211 Cordova Avenue in West Douglas. It is the only synagogue in Southeast Alaska.