Recent News

New officers have been named for Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation, the parent company of the subsidiary that runs the Kensington Mine about 45 miles northwest of Juneau.

Frank Hanagarne, Jr. will become the new Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice-President next month. He recently was Chief Operating Officer of Swiss miner Valcambi and director of corporate development for Newmont Mining.

K. Leon Hardy, who started work at Coeur d’Alene Mines eight years ago and was most-recently Senior Vice-President of Operations, will become Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice-President.

It was just last July that former Chief Financial Officer and VP Mitchell Krebs was promoted to President and Chief Executive Officer as long-time CEO Dennis Wheeler retired. It was expected back then that Krebs would continue with his duties as CFO.

The chief executive of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, or SEARHC, is stepping down.

Roald Helgesen is leaving SEARHC to become chief exectuive officer of the statewide Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. He says his last day is in December, to ensure a smooth transition to a new CEO.

In a letter to the SEARHC, Helgesen says he believes he can use his skills even better at the tribal group. Headquartered in Anchorage, ANTHC was formed in 1997 to manage statewide Native health care, including the Alaska Native Medical Center, the state’s largest Native hospital.

Helgesen started at SEARHC answering phones in 1993 and made his way to vice president of administration before leaving in 2004 for work in the Lower 48. He returned in 2007 as president and CEO.

SEARHC operates Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in Sitka as well as facilities in Juneau and 16 other communities throughout Southeast Alaska.

Helgesen announced his resignation Tuesday and was unavailable for comment, meeting with the board much of the day on a transition plan. The Southeast health group will conduct a nationwide search to replace him.

Governor Sean Parnell revealed the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund Dividend in Anchorage on Tuesday morning. Cameras clicked away as he held up a large white card with the printed amount of $1174, followed by applause. This year’s dividend is $107 less than last year’s dividend of $1281.

The dividend is calculated as a share of each Alaskan’s share of the state’s oil wealth savings account, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests a portion of state’s oil revenues in stocks, bonds, and real estate. The dividend amount is based on a formula that includes an average of the last five years of realized earnings divided by the number of eligible Alaskans.

Department of Revenue Commissioner Bryan Butcher says the Fund has weathered several rough years by ending the fiscal year 2011 with a total value of $40 billion, the highest ever in state history.

“2008 took quite a beating all across country with investments and because of what happened on Wall Street,” said Butcher. “But we bounced back quite nicely from that.”

This year, Butcher says a total of $760.2 million in dividends is being paid out to 647,549 Alaskans.

Almost 535,000 Alaskans will receive dividends by direct deposit on October 6th. Butcher says paper checks will go out the same day to nearly 93,000 Alaskans.

Governor Parnell says the Pick Click Give charitable deduction program set aside the most amount of money ever – nearly $1.6 million is going out to about 400 non-profits and charities statewide in only the third year of the program.

Juneau will file a petition with the Local Boundary Commission to annex lands proposed for a Petersburg borough.

The Assembly voted last night (Monday) to challenge Peterburg’s plan to incorporate an area previously identified for annexation to the City and Borough of Juneau. It includes all the territory from the southern CBJ boundary and east to the Canadian border; the Tracy Arm / Ford’s Terror Wilderness and Endicott Arm as well as Holkam, Windham and Hobart bays.

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

Juneau previously did not file to annex the area, in deference to Goldbelt, which had said it preferred not to be in any borough.

The corporation says it’s currently neutral on the Petersburg petition. The Goldbelt Board of Directors is to decide its borough preference over the next couple of months.

There was no discussion last night on the Assembly’s resolution to file the annexation petition. It calls for all or a portion of the lands on the mainland south of Juneau’s southern boundary that were recommended years ago as a model borough.

October 26 is the deadline for filing competing petitions and opposing briefs with the Local Boundary Commission.

The City and Borough of Juneau will remain part of the Tongass Futures Roundtable.

A resolution to repeal CBJ support for the group failed on a tie vote at last night’s (Monday) Assembly meeting. Mayor Bruce Botelho recused himself from the discussion and vote, because he currently serves as facilitator of the group.

Earlier this year, timber representatives pulled out of the roundtable. The Southeast Conference, and several other communities as well as the State of Alaska also quit, citing the group’s inability to increase logging in Southeast Alaska.

Assembly member Merrill Sanford proposed that Juneau do the same. He says roundtable members have done little to address timber supply.

“There should be enough in the Tongass National Forest to supply two, three or four sawmills in Southeast Alaska,” Sanford said, “and we have done nothing but hurt the economy of our small towns by not having an integrated resource available for them and this group is not working on that. They said that was one of their primary goals.”

The Tongass roundtable started five years ago in an attempt to find consensus among stakeholders of the nation’s largest national forest. It included the U.S. Forest Service, conservation groups, the timber industry, and Native organizations, including Sealaska Regional Native Corporation.

CEO Rick Harris told the Assembly the roundtable has been effective in improving communication among the users and residents of the national forest.
And while there has been less progress on timber, he says it goes beyond that to other Tongass resources.

“Kind of the moniker was timber and beyond so that’s what we’ve focused on. We can understand people’s frustration that we have not found a solution to timber but that’s been a 30 to 40 year fight as it is.” Harris said he believes the roundtable has made substantial progress.

The Parnell administration has formed a state Timber Jobs Task Force, which represents one side of the policy debate over Tongass issues. It has no representatives from the conservation community.

Juneau lawmakers are looking for members to serve on a new Taku River Task Force.

The river is the most abundant salmon-producer in Southeast Alaska. It’s also one of the most studied in terms of biology, but with the renewal of mining at the headwaters, many other questions remain.

“We’re just trying to find out exactly who controls the Taku River,” says Juneau Sen. Dennis Egan.

He says it’s not even clear what agency is responsible for monitoring industrial vessel traffic on the river – the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Natural Resources, or Environmental Conservation? Or the U.S. Coast Guard?

The task force will also look at the effectiveness of state and federal laws and regulations regarding the river as well as review the health of Taku River fish stocks, habitat and game resources.

A proposal to create a legislative task force to study the issues went nowhere during the last legislative session. But the meetings between sport and commercial fishermen and Taku River property owners proved to be contentious. Representative Beth Kerttula says it was clear everyone needed the same information.

“It just was obvious we were not operating with the same information,” she says. “Some of it was good, some we weren’t sure about and we needed to be sure about it. So our common sense way to go forward was to find out the facts and get them out there for everybody.”

While the catalyst for the task force is the redevelopment of the Tulsequah Chief Mine at the headwaters of the Taku River, it’s the extraordinary salmon production of the river that drives everyone’s concerns, says gillnetter Jev Shelton.

“With or without the Tulsequah Chief Mine, the river really does deserve an added measure of protection to be sure that productivity isn’t compromised,” he says.

Canadian company Chieftain Metals hopes to start production of the multi-metal mine in 2014. The main access to the mine is up the Taku River.

Shelton is among the advocates for the task force. He believes it should result in real protections of the river.

“This is intended to be a forum for trying to put together, hopefully, a piece of legislation that could get through and provide a more institutionalized protection for the river, to which chieftain or anybody else would have to respond appropriately,” he says.

Egan says it’s important to make sure that any activities on the river don’t hurt the fishing industry and other river users.

“I’m not opposed to mining,” he says. “I just want to make sure they do it right and we set guidelines on our side of the border.”

The eight-member committee will represent Alaska Natives with ties to the Taku River, commercial and private recreational property owners in the Taku River valley, commercial and sport fishing, and a biologist who does not work for government. State resource departments will provide expertise to the group.

“It’s up to the task force to make recommendations, not bureaucrats,” Egan says. “We tried to keep government out of it, but using government as the resource to these eight members of the committee.

People interested in serving on the Taku River Fact-Finding Task Force should contact Kerttula, Egan, or Rep. Cathy Munoz. Meetings will start early next month. A final report will be submitted to the delegation by mid-December.