Rosemarie Alexander

Juneau police are looking for tips they hope will lead them to five stolen firearms.

Police say a 7 mm rifle, a .338 Winchester Magnum rifle with synthetic stock, two .22-caliber rifles, and a .308 bolt action rifle were taken earlier this month from a home in the 8100 block of Threadneedle Street.

Lt. Kris Sell says firearm thefts are often linked to drug users. She says typically when someone needing drug money steals guns, there’s an immediate attempt to sell them for quick cash.

The person may not have a reasonable explanation for selling so many guns at once and may not be willing to provide identification. She says the person may try to sell the guns out of a car, or may have ground off the serial numbers.

Anyone with tips about firearms being sold in this way should notify Juneau police at 586-0600, or the Juneau Crime Line website.

Sell says vehicle license numbers and physical descriptions of the person are particularly helpful.

Juneau Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich has been passed up again for a superintendent’s job in another state.

Gelbrich and David Peterson of Belfair, Wash. interviewed on Monday for the position in the Nampa, Idaho school district. Peterson was selected Thursday night by the Nampa Board of Trustees, according to the Idaho-Press Tribune.

Peterson has already accepted the job and will start July 1. He has been superintendent of the North Mason School District in Washington state since 2007.

Gelbrich has been in Juneau since 2009 and has recently been looking for a position outside Alaska. He was an unsuccessful finalist for a job in Kalispell, Mont. in January.

“It’s a competitive process. I mean, there are talented people out there,” Gelbrich said after Monday’s interview in Idaho.  He was unavailable for comment on Friday.

Gelbrich says he would like to be closer to family in the Pacific Northwest.

Budget cuts in residential substance abuse treatment would cost the state more over the long term, according to mental health professionals and addicts.

A legislative subcommittee has proposed a $2.04 million reduction to inpatient programs that treat alcohol and drug abuse.

The House Finance Committee has been taking testimony this week on the state operating budget.  Members were told the result would be a 20 percent cut in funding to about 16 residential facilities statewide, including Juneau’s Rainforest Recovery Center.

The Alaska Behavioral Health Association represents community mental health and substance abuse treatment centers throughout Alaska. Executive Director Tom Chard has been talking to the providers about the reduction.

“Our residential substance abuse treatment providers tell me that they’re at capacity and the demand is past what they can supply,” Chard said.

Leona Haakanson-Crow is in treatment at Rainforest Recovery.  Once she made the commitment to treatment, she said, it took her two months to get into the program.

“There are alcoholics and addicts that are trying to get into recovery and I please ask you, don’t cut the funding,” Haakanson-Crow said. “I’m coming up on three months clean and sober and it’s been a long time and I’m very grateful.”

About half of the proposed reduction, or $1.o4 million, is actually a reallocation from inpatient to outpatient treatment.  The subcommittee believes that would increase access to care for about 223 people.

But residential treatment is the best preparation for sobriety, according to Dr. John Pappenheim, director of Behavioral Health Services at Bartlett Regional Hospital.

“Residential substance abuse treatment helps people develop skills that support them in remaining sober, stable, employed, housed and contributing productively in the community,” Pappenheim told lawmakers.

“While it may seem as though decreasing funding for residential treatment will save the state money, exactly the opposite is true. Whatever money is saved will be spent several times over, on the Department of Corrections, Office of Children’s Services and medical services,” Pappenheim said.

The cuts are proposed to the Department of Health and Social Services, which funds everything from Pioneer Homes to youth centers. Amendments to the spending plan will likely begin early next week.

Annual Democratic fundraisers held across the country this time of year have long been called the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, after Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

Tongass Democrats have changed the name.  The Southeast Alaska group held its first Bartlett-Gruening Dinner on Sunday in Juneau, to honor Alaskans with an admirable past, instead of a president with a questionable history.

Jefferson was the third president of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson also was a slave holder and some Democrats say that’s a blot on his history.

Jackson was the seventh president.  He may be most remembered for the Indian Removal Act, the forced relocation and resettlement of Native American tribes from southeastern states to present-day Oklahoma.

Jackson hailed from Tennessee, where long-time Juneau resident Connie Munro lived for 13 years before moving to Alaska.

“I was just feeling really uncomfortable that President Jackson was a celebration — the Democrats’ annual dinner,” she said.

Munro and her husband Alan moved to Juneau in 1971 and affiliated with local Democrats.

Over the years, Connie Munro has learned more about Jackson and wonders why anyone known for the Trail of Tears would be the poster president for the modern-day party.

“You know it was such a horrible thing and I just felt it was real amazing that in Alaska they would honor someone who did this,” she said.

Tongass Democrats’ chair Nancy Courtney said party officials had discussed a name change. Then a handful of local Democrats started boycotting the annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinners. She also heard from Sen. Mark Begich’s office. Begich had received complaints about the name of the annual Juneau dinner, where he has been keynote speaker for the last five years.

Last year a subcommittee was created to come up with a new name.  Munro and Kim Metcalfe were on it.

“We thought that naming it after two great Alaskans, our first U.S. senators, would be a better way to go,” Metcalfe said. “It doesn’t hurt to change things and let’s not recognize presidents who have done bad things in the past.”

The significance of Senators Bob Bartlett and Ernest Gruening is clear. Both men advocated for statehood, helped guide Alaska into statehood and served as the new state’s first U.S. senators for nearly a decade.  Both were Democrats.

At Sunday’s inaugural Bartlett-Gruening Dinner, Democrat Phil Smith reminded party faithful that Bartlett’s and Gruening’s statues are even in National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

“Each state of the union is invited to place two statues of their most significant citizens and the two statues that our state has selected to put in the United States Capitol are those of Edward Lewis Bartlett — of course we knew him as Bob, because when he was a little kid, his sister couldn’t say Edward Lewis so she called him Bob and it stuck his whole life,” Smith said. “And the other statue is Ernest Henry Gruening.”

From now on, Courtney says, the annual Democratic fundraiser will be called the Bartlett-Gruening Dinner.

The Republican version of the event is the Lincoln Day Dinner.

Listen to Bartlett-Gruening history:

Former Olympian Hilary Lindh was clocked at 58 mph and Juneau ski racer Chris Hinkley at 53 mph on Saturday in the Town Downhill at Eaglecrest Ski Area.

With Lindh’s time of 50.32 seconds and Hinkley’s 49.79 seconds, they were the overall winners of the third annual race for skiers whose ages ranged from 10 to well into their 60s.

Skiing in the age group 19 to 25, Lucy Squibb was second overall for women with a time of 53.07. Hailley Jones was third, skiing the course in 53.53 seconds for girls ages 10 to 13.

With a time of 51.34, David Lowell was second overall for men. Don Meiners was third. He raced the course in 51.58 seconds. Both skied in the over 26 age group.

The radar gun clocking speeds was at one point in the course. Overall results were based on the best of two runs. Seventy-four people participated.

Full results list here.

Juneau School District Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich has once again made the short list for the top job in another school district.

Gelbrich is one of two finalists for the superintendent’s job in the Nampa, Idaho school district. Gelbrich and David Peterson of Washington state will be interviewed Monday, according to Idaho Education News.

Peterson is superintendent of North Mason School District in Belfair, Wash.

Nampa has had an interim superintendent since May of last year, the result of an abrupt resignation. Since then the district has been in difficult contract negotiations and is trying to erase a $3.5 million shortfall.

Gelbrich faced similar issues this past year as the Juneau district negotiated an agreement with teachers.  Juneau is also dealing with a $4.3 million budget shortfall for the next school year.

In a Nampa School District news release, Gelbrich says he’s delighted to be considered for the job.

“The efforts underway in the school district and the livability of this vibrant community make it an ideal place to live and work,” Gelbrich stated. “I look forward to the opportunity to get to know the stakeholders in the community better as a part of this process.”

Nampa is a city of about 84,000 people in southwest Idaho.

In January, Gelbrich was a finalist but passed up for the superintendent’s job in Kalispell, Mont.

Gelbrich came to Juneau from Oregon in July 2009. His contract with the Juneau School District expires in June 2016.