Recent News

Are Juneau shoppers willing to pay 15 cents for each plastic shopping bag they carry home from the store?

Voters will have a chance to answer that question in the October municipal election.

Grocery, hardware, sundry and liquor stores with total annual sales of at least 15-million dollars over the last five years would collect the tax for city coffers as a way to reduce the use of the bags.

The citizens’ initiative will be on the ballot as well as renewal of the CBJ temporary 3 percent sales tax, two school bond issues, and an ordinance exempting municipal officials from the state’s financial disclosure law.

Three assembly seats and two school board seats are also up for election.

The sample ballot is now on the city’s website at juneau.org/clerk/elections.

Sunday September 4th is the last day to register to vote in the CBJ municipal election, which is October 4th.

Voter registration forms are available at the city clerk’s office, all state elections offices, Juneau public libraries, and online at elections.alaska.gov.

A 20-year-old Juneau man is behind bars after allegedly leading police on an early morning chase Sunday.

Keith Hanson is charged with driving under the influence, failure to stop, and driving without a valid license.

According to a JPD press release, police responded to a report of a vehicle fire near Douglas Harbor at about 3:30 Sunday morning. At about the same time there was another report of a single vehicle collision with a utility pole at the corner of St. Ann’s and Savikko Park Road. A witness told police that a van sped away from the area. Officers located the van and tried to pull it over. It eventually came to stop at the Channel View Apartments, where Hanson allegedly got out and tried to run.

Hanson was booked at Lemon Creek Correctional Center on 10-thousand dollars bail. Investigation into the vehicle arson and utility pole accident are ongoing.

In high school football action over the weekend, the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears took down the Palmer Moose 29-13 on Friday, improving to 3-0 on the year, while the Thunder Mountain Falcons struggled against the Nikiski Bulldogs, losing 46-6 and dropping to 0-3.

McLean Cannon has this recap.

Juneau runners took the top spots in the Capital City Invitational cross country meet this weekend (Saturday).

Sidney Browning finished the 5 kilometer race in 21:16 to best the girls’ field, followed by Juneau-Douglas High School classmate Martina Miller at 22:10 – one second ahead of Ketchikan’s Courtney Galloway, who was third. Katie Jones was the top Thunder Mountain girl, finishing 11th with a time of 22:57.

JDHS’s David Francis had the top boys’ time at 16:52. Sitka’s Niko Friedman was second at 16:57, followed by Juneau’s Jesse Miller at 17:01. James Steeves came in sixth for Thunder Mountain with a time of 18:38.

The Capital City Invitational was held Saturday at Savikko Park.

It will now be September 2nd before Alaska Electric Light and Power and Juneau rate payers know the size of a pending rate increase.

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska today (Friday, Aug. 26) extended its decision for the second time. Last month the commission announced it would issue its final order today, a month later than expected.

A-E-L & P requested a 22 percent permanent rate increase in May 2010. The commission granted 18 and a half percent in July 2010, with the final decision to come 12 months later.

The commission can extend its timeline with the consent of the parties – A-E-L & P, the state attorney general’s office and Juneau People’s Power Project. All agreed with both extensions.

Now it will be next Friday when the commissioners are expected to announce the amount of the permanent increase. If it’s less than the interim, the company would have to refund the difference.

Current general residential rates are 9 and a-half cents a kilowatt hour June through October and just over 11 and a- half cents/kwh November through May. If the commission grants the full 22 percent increase, general residential rates would go up slightly more than one-third of a cent per kilowatt hour. If a household uses 750 kilowatt hours a month, customers’ would pay an average of $16 more each month for electricity. The rate does not affect the standard customer charge, which is $8.88 a month.

A-E-L & P’s last permanent rate increase was in 2005 and was 4-point 41 percent.

The company says expenses have gone up significantly since then. It also hopes to recover costs of the Lake Dorothy hydroelectric project, which went online in August 2009. Utility regulations require new projects be complete and part of the operating system before a company can include an investment in its rate base.

Juneau longshoremen will hold an informational picket Monday to protest the practice of using foreign workers to tie up cruise ship shuttle boats.

The picket will start about 1:30 p.m. in Marine Park, timed to coincide with the arrival of Holland America’s Zuiderdam.

When cruise ships anchor in Gastineau Channel, they use shuttle boats to transport passengers to shore and to pick up cargo and supplies. Longshoreman and Juneau Docks and Harbors board member John Bush says the practice of having foreign workers tie up those boats has been going on for years.

“As we read it, the longshore work is tying up and cargo, and the foreigners can’t do it. They don’t have Green Cards and they don’t have transportation TWIC cards, security cards,” Bush says. “One quote of one of my buddies is, ‘These are shovel ready jobs and we don’t need shovels.’ We’re Americans and we want to do this work, and we’re longshoremen.”

Bush says the longshoremen are working with Alaska’s congressional delegation and US Customs and Border Protection to end the practice. He says Monday’s informational protest will be the first of its kind.

Drew Green with Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska directed calls to the longshoremen’s employer, Southeast Stevedoring. Officials with the company did not return calls seeking comment.