Rosemarie Alexander

“Negotiate, educate, appreciate now.  Negotiate, educate, appreciate now.”

Contract bargaining between the Juneau School District and teachers resumed Monday evening, and as negotiators entered NEA-Alaska offices they were greeted with chants and signs calling for a fair contract.

This is the first negotiating session since early October.  Teachers are working for the second year on a one-year contract that remains in effect until a new agreement is reached.  They’re clearly frustrated by the lack of bargaining.

Despite blustery winds and temperatures in the low teens, about 20 teachers gathered outside the downtown Juneau office building where the session was held.

Juneau Education Association negotiators entered to cheers, while school district officials heard “settle our contract.”

Teachers received no salary increase in last year’s contract. They’re asking for no less than a cost of living increase in this year’s agreement.

The two sides met in arbitration in October.  The arbitrator’s opinion is expected by the end of the year, but it’s only advisory.

School district officials maintain there is no money in the budget for a raise for teachers.

 

 

 

Juneau’s Eaglecrest is the Cinderella story in this year’s Powder Magazine Ski Town Throw Down.

That’s according to magazine editors John Davies and John Stifter, as they watched the small ski area amass enough votes to beat Whistler/Blackcomb and Mount Washington resorts in the first two rounds of the competition.

Eaglecrest is now in the Sweet 16 against another British Columbia resort, Red Mountain in Rossland.

While Red Mountain calls itself “the last great, unspoiled resort,” Eaglecrest is even less spoiled.  It’s not a destination resort, but a city-owned ski area with no lift lines and a small mountain feel. Eaglecrest calls itself Alaska’s best-kept secret.

Ski Town Throwdown is patterned after the March Madness basketball championship with six rounds.  The Throwdown began with 64 U.S. and Canada ski areas, 16 in each of four geographic regions.

If Eaglecrest defeats Red Mountain, it will be in the Elite 8 competition.

Voting is Monday and Tuesday on Powder Magazine’s Facebook page.  You can vote once each day.

Beginning at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Eaglecrest will hold a Rock the Vote party at Juneau’s Red Dog Saloon, with Wi-Fi for voting, regular vote updates and, of course, the final count at 11 p.m., Alaska time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Juneau Pioneers’ Home opened its doors in July 1988.  It was the last of the six state-operated homes to be built.

The home celebrated its first 25 years at a party on Saturday, recognizing four staff members for their work.

Fred Abad was a certified nurses’ aide when the home opened with 21 residents. Twenty-five years later, Abad, Tessie Punongbayan, Nelda Reynolds, and Veronica Hermano are still on staff.

Like Punongbayan, they told the crowd assembled Saturday that the elders give them joy and pride in their work.

Giving the service for our residents, seeing their smile every day, makes me proud  to be working here.  

State Pioneer Home Director Ken Truitt thanked the staff for their service, then turned to the residents:

I think this is a celebration of you and your lives.  We’re honored and we’re humbled that you would choose to live your lives with us. 

The homes provide an intermediate level of care for people who need help with medications, meals, housekeeping and other daily routines, or care related to Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia.

Saturday’s open house showed off a new kitchen for residents who still like to cook as well as  the new grand piano.

T.J. Duffy is among several volunteers who come to the home each week to play the piano. Duffy organized an effort to replace the old one, donated many years ago by the family of Juneau music pioneer Carol Beery Davis.

“The more I played it the more difficult I realized the piano was to play,” Duffy said. “The Pioneer Home needed a bigger and better piano, because this is a big hall, it’s about two stories tall and it’s about 50 yards long, so it needed a bigger piano and something pretty.”

Duffy took the request to Rep. Cathy Munoz, who worked with the rest of  Juneau’s legislative delegation for a grant to the local chapter of the Pioneers of Alaska, which gave the money to the Pioneers’ Home for the piano.

The studio grand is an ebony Hailun.  The interior is birds’ eye maple. While it’s beautiful to look at, it also has a lovely sound and a number of special features Duffy thought would benefit the Pioneers’ Home.

“The lid is hydraulic and it won’t come crashing down. It kind of floats down and that’s unique to this brand of piano.  Same with the cover on the keys.  It won’t crash, it won’t hurt anybody, and there’s a lot cats here and people bumping into it,” he said.

Over the last 25 years, 366 Alaskans have called the Juneau Pioneers’ Home their home.

Of those who live there now, the average age  is 86; the oldest person is 99.

The Juneau Pioneers’ Home is 25 years old. To celebrate, the community is invited to an open house on Saturday.

The Juneau home opened in 1988 and is one of six in the state-owned system.

The Pioneer Homes are assisted-living centers, not nursing homes. To qualify, Alaskans must be at least 65 and have lived in the state for more than a year.  The average age in the homes is currently 86.

Forty-five residents live in the Juneau home on Glacier Highway, on one of the Twin Lakes. It can be seen from Egan Drive.

Activities Director Judy Neary says Saturday’s open house will celebrate the 25th anniversary and honor its residents.  She says while it may be a state-run facility, it’s a home. 

This is a home and we have been so lucky to serve so many Alaskans that homesteaded, who were brave souls to move up to Juneau and live in Alaska, and their stories are so fantastic.  It’s an honor for us to take care of them.

 Neary says the open house is a chance to meet the residents, hear the new grand piano, and see a newly remodeled section of the home.

 A lot of people haven’t ever come into the Pioneer Home. So I think it’s reassuring for people to see how cozy it is here, how friendly everybody is, how much we really do love each resident that’s here.

The Juneau Pioneers’ Home open house is from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday.  The home is located at 4675 Glacier Highway, near the intersection of Vanderbilt Hill Road.

 

 

 

A county government building in New Jersey was dedicated Wednesday to the USS Juneau, 71 years to the day the Navy ship was sunk in the Battle of Guadalcanal.

More than 600 men died on Nov. 13, 1942, when two Japanese torpedoes struck the ship.  Among them were 20 Hudson County, New Jersey men.

A number of their family members attended the dedication.  Juneau Assembly member Randy Wanamaker also was there.

They read the names of all the men from New Jersey who perished on the ship.

Wanamaker says a number of World War II veterans were guests of honor at the dedication.

The USS Juneau was built in Hudson County at the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock’s building 77. The ship was launched in the Hackensack River in October 1941.  At the time, its namesake was the capital of the Territory of Alaska.

Following the war, the U.S. Navy gave building 77 to Hudson County. It now houses several county government departments.

Wanamaker has been fascinated by the ship since he was a kid and heard stories from his mother about Juneau children collecting dimes for the ship’s silverware.

More than 500 people attended the New Jersey dedication, which brought city officials from miles around.  Wanamaker read a proclamation from the City and Borough of Juneau.

He says a model of the USS Juneau is in the Hudson County building, and a small museum includes artifacts, numerous letters from crew members and newspaper stories about the light cruiser.

Last year, Wanamaker organized Juneau’s dedication of a new waterfront memorial to the ship.

Two other Navy ships bore the name USS Juneau. Another light cruiser was commissioned in 1946 and served in the Korean War before being scrapped in 1962.  The third was a transport vessel launched in 1966 and decommissioned in 2008 at a ceremony in San Diego, which Wanamaker also attended.

(This story was updated to clarify the commission and decommission dates for the other vessels named USS Juneau)

Juneau teachers and the school district go back to the bargaining table on Monday (Nov. 18).

Teachers are working on a one-year contract that expired in June, but remains in effect until a new agreement is reached.

Teachers have come before the school board at every meeting this fall — with this message:

“Our district has not entered negotiations in good faith,” said Mendenhall River 5th grade teacher Adam Berkey.

Impasse, failed mediation, arbitration;  all mark the history of contract negotiations over the last couple of years between the Juneau School District and Juneau Education Association.

Now the two sides await an arbitrator’s opinion.  It’s only advisory.

They met with an arbitrator in mid-October.  There have been no negotiations since.

The school board allows public comments at the start of every meeting and that time has become the teachers’ platform this fall.

Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School teacher Kathleen Portfield was the first to address the board on Tuesday.

“Please direct the superintendent to come back to the table with no less than the current increase in the cost of living for 2013, currently 2.7 percent for the first six months.”

JEA vice president Dirk Miller has more than 24 years in the district as a parent and physical education teacher.  He said he doesn’t remember a time when there’s been “such a disconnect” between the district and its staff.

He explained why teachers quickly rejected the district’s last offer in early October.

“Almost a year (it) seems like we’ve been stonewalled. The district really didn’t offer us anything. Zero in salary increases; even some safety measures didn’t get addressed. So this year we come back to the table and the best you have to offer is cutting health insurance then rewarding a very few members with a one-time bonus.  That’s not going to heal this division,” Miller said.

The teachers have not minced words.  At each monthly board meeting they’ve described low morale, feeling devalued, even anger toward the administration.

Sixteen-year high school teacher Tonja Moser acknowledged that negotiations seldom go well, but said this year is the worst.

“You haven’t bargained in good faith.  Ten times to the table without a single penny, unless it was a divisive offer, is not a respectful thing to do to us,” she said.           

The district blames flat funding from the Legislature, a problem for schools across Alaska.

Juneau superintendent Glenn Gelbrich said he hopes Monday’s negotiating session will get JEA and the administration closer to a solution, but every dollar requires a tradeoff.

“Reality is that our resources are what our resources are.  And to every additional dollar we spend on the salary side, for whatever employee group, not just teachers, we have to balance that with the interests of the programs we offer to kids,” he said.     

In the meantime, briefs are due to the arbitrator next week. The advisory opinion is expected before the end of the year.