Rosemarie Alexander

The capital city’s bus system wants to hear from you – whether you ride the bus every day, or have never been aboard.

Over the last few months, CBJ-operated Capital Transit has been updating its five-year Transit Development Plan.

So far, the study shows the current system has high ridership, general passenger satisfaction as well as a number of challenges.  Some of those include crowded buses, too much service to areas with low demand, and not enough to parts of the borough where demand is higher.

Transportation planning company Nelson Nygaard is working on the transit plan. Consultant Paul Lutey says an evaluation of Capital Transit and public comments indicate several issues to be addressed.

“Those are largely related to operational issues. Making sure that the buses are running on schedule, and a few other little tweaks like getting the express route to the downtown transit center and a little bit further into downtown, but also to serve some new areas that we heard some demand for, like Riverside Drive, like Costco and Home Depot,” Lutey says.

Lutey and others working on the study will explain several scenarios for service and have maps of the proposals at meetings Tuesday and Wednesday.

Geoff Slater is also with Nelson Nygaard.  He says the next phase of the plan is to develop alternatives for the future.

“This is a combination of us determining what would work well for the system, but it also has to do with local priorities.  So what we want to do is match up what really will work best for the system and what’s most important for people. That’s really the point of the meetings.  We do have different options on ways to do things and we want to do the one that works the best and would be the best received,” Slater says.

Tuesday’s meeting is from 4:30 to 6:30 at the Mendenhall Valley Library in Mendenhall Mall.  There’s another meeting on Wednesday at the downtown library, also from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The Director of Audience at the Juneau Empire says the newspaper may be entering a period of stability.

Former managing editor Charles L. Westmoreland has returned, replacing John Moses, who left earlier this month.  No word as to whether he was asked to resign, and Moses also would not comment.

In April, publisher Mark Bryan was replaced, just days after the paper rolled out a digital content pay wall.  Reporters have been coming and going.

But Director of Audience Abby Lowell says reporting staff is up, with the hire of three reporters in the past few months.

Lowell’s job itself is new.  She says Empire owner Morris Communications created the position at papers it owns outside Alaska, so when current publisher Rustan Burton took over, he added Director of Audience.

Lowell was already working for the paper, applied and got the job.

“Basically it’s my job to help make sure the paper is valuable to all the audiences we serve.  Whether it’s an advertising audience, whether it is readership, whether it’s contacts for stories, I want to make sure we are valuable to them and that the proper messages are getting to the right folks,” she says.

Lowell says she has her hands in a “little bit of everything,” from advertising to circulation to the newsroom and the web.  She studies web analytics, conducts surveys and reaches out to the community. One new thing is “lunch with the publisher.”

“It’s all of us reaching out to the community and saying ‘hey we’re doing this and we want your input, would you like to come over for lunch some time and talk you us about what you see were doing, and where you see opportunities?’  Essentially, give us the good, bad and the ugly.  It’s OK, we want to hear it,” Lowell says.

The Empire also is starting a new Readers’ Council, which Lowell calls another editorial board that is unaffiliated with the newspaper.  She says the group would contribute opinion pieces to the paper.

Lowell says the Readers’ Council would be another way the Empire hopes to engage the audience so readers feel they have a say in what goes into the capital city’s newspaper.

 

A new trophy will be placed in the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears trophy case on Monday morning.

The shiny silver football is symbolic of Saturday’s well-fought medium-schools championship game that Juneau dominated much of the time.  Juneau also brings home the sportsmanship award.  The game was played at Anchorage Football Stadium.

As Rosemarie Alexander reports, the final score of Juneau 49, Soldotna 56 is the outcome of a game that could have been won by either team.

The game was barely underway and junior running back Eric Nordgren was already in the end zone. Then a pink flag fell to the field and Juneau’s first touchdown was called back on a penalty.

Crimson Bears Head Coach Rich Sjoross said he’d never seen a game with so many momentum swings.

“They’re down, we’re up; we’re down, they ’re up.”

I reached Sjoross on his cellphone just after the awards ceremony.

That play, he said, also set the emotional tone for the game.

“We scouted them, came up with a play, hit an 80-yard touchdown and then it comes back on a penalty.  So we go from elation and they go from disappointment and then the penalty flag comes late and then we’re disappointed and they’re elated,” Sjoross said.

A short time later, the Soldotna Stars scored then Juneau took over. The Stars struggled to contain Bears’ running back Demtrius Campos, who is small, light and negotiates traffic well.  Before the end of the second quarter, Campos, Nordgren and junior wide receiver Adam Empson scored four Juneau touchdowns; Soldotna had three.

The game was seen statewide on GCI cable channel one.  The Alaska School Activities Association has signed a seven-year agreement with the company to broadcast all state playoff games.

This was an exciting one for television.

“It’s one of those games that ages all the coaches, but it’s great for TV,” Sjoross said.

Tied game

“Snap, the kick is up and it is good and Soldotna has come from two touchdowns down to tie this one up 42 to 42,” a play-by-play announcer said.  

Alaska Sports Broadcasting Network’s Bob Barger was on the sidelines.

“Hey, if you have a seatbelt on the recliner at home, ladies and gentlemen, bucket it in because it’s going to be turbulent here in the fourth quarter, I assure you that.”

The game was tied twice in the second half.  In the fourth quarter the Stars picked off a Crimson Bears’ pass then scored, breaking a 49 to 49 tie; it was the 15^th touchdown of the game.  The score was 56 to 49, with seven minutes remaining.

The game ended with Soldotna in possession inside the Juneau five-yard line, where the Stars ran out the clock.

After the game, Soldotna quarterback Colton Young told Barger that Juneau was the toughest team the Stars have played all year.

Here’s how Barger described the Crimson Bears:

“Sure they came out on the short end, but they controlled a good part of this game and to me, they’re a champion, too, they’re a runner up. They’re not a loser, they are a runner up.”  

Juneau had 405 yards total offense; Soldotna, 486.  Juneau had 4 penalties for 45 yards, with two touchdowns nullified.   Soldotna had one penalty for five yards. Every extra point Juneau’s Manasse Maake kicked was good. Same for Soldotna’s kicker. The Stars failed on one two-point conversion.

Sportsmanship Award

The Crimson Bears were number one in sportsmanship for medium schools, an award given by the Alaska Schools Activities Association.  According to Coach Sjoross, the 2013 Crimson Bears are the first JDHS football team in 25 years to get the sportsmanship award.

“You know in today’s society, that’s a big deal.  With many issues with coaches and players, and fans with referees, and all that kind of stuff, you know you just read stories all throughout the nation,” Sjoross said.  “To get a sportsmanship award from a group of people that really don’t know the kids other than to evaluate them on the field, that’s a pretty special thing.”

In other Alaska high school football news, Nikiski won the small schools championship game against Monroe, on a score of 36 to 28. West Anchorage beat Service, 28 to 16, to claim the large schools trophy.

For those who have GCI cable, all three championship games can be seen on demand.

A special election on Monday could put Eaglecrest Ski Area on the map outside Alaska.

Eaglecrest is included in Powder Magazine’s Ski Town Throwdown, competing against Whistler/Blackcomb Ski Resort, near Vancouver, British Columbia.

Whistler/Blackcomb is many, many times larger than Juneau’s city-owned ski and snowboard area.  But if enough people vote for Eaglecrest, not only will there be bragging rights, but Powder Magazine will feature Eaglecrest and Juneau in one of its monthly editions.

General Manager Matt Lillard says the international magazine reached out to Eaglecrest to include it in the competition, which has several rounds.

“Right now we’re just focusing on beating out Whistler/Blackcomb. They’re obviously a much bigger area with definitely a much bigger following than us.  So we’re going to try to get everybody out there and win this round then we’ll start focusing on the next one after that,” Lillard says.

Ski Town Throwdown is a competition among a variety of ski towns and resorts across the U.S. and Canada.

“If we can keep going it just shows that we’ve got passionate skiers, a great area and it just gets our name out there more and more,” Lillard says. 

Fans vote through Powder Magazine’s Facebook page one day only.  For Eaglecrest, voting will be open for 24 hours on Monday, Oct. 28.

 

 

State Wildlife troopers in Sitka have charged the Sea Mountain Golf Course groundskeeper for attempting to poison brown bears.

Wildlife Trooper Jake Abbott says the investigation shows golf course employee, Kevin Taranoff, placed food laced with anti-freeze coolant near the Sea Mountain Restaurant.

The poisonous food could be what killed two dogs that visited the area last week.

A month ago, the bears tore holes in the golf course. At Taranoff’s request, the Department of Fish and Game set a bear trap, but Abbott says Taranoff ended up taking matters into his own hands.

“At that time the grounds keeper had made some comments along the lines of ‘if you don’t deal with the bear I will.’  So upon hearing that I became suspicious that this person had most likely attempted to poison the bears as a way of dealing with the bear problem,” Abbot says.

Taranoff  told several Sea Mountain employees about his attempt to poison the bears, Abbott says. After the dog deaths and those conversations, Abbott filed charges and cited Taranoff on Wednesday.

“He subsequently admitted that he was the person who had tried to poison the brown bears,” Abbott says.

Taranoff acted alone without the permission or knowledge of golf course management. He is facing a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine, or one year in jail, or both.

 

 

 

The Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears should be considered proud runners-up for Alaska’s medium-schools football championship.

While the Bears lost to the Stars, it was a well-fought game, with Juneau ahead most of the time, and the two teams tied for much of the second half.

The game was played at Anchorage Football Stadium and carried in Juneau on cable television and KINY Radio.

In a cellphone call just after the game, head coach Rich Sjoross aptly described it as a game marked by constant momentum swings.

Juneau brings home a silver football trophy and another award that they should feel very good about:  The Alaska School Activities Association gave the Crimson Bears the Sportsmanship Award.

Check back later for statistics and more details of the game.