Recent News

For the first time in 14 years, the board of directors for Juneau’s Bartlett Regional Hospital is using a competitive bid process to select a management company.

The board tonight (Monday) will hear presentations from three firms that responded to a June request for proposals. Tennessee-based Quorum Health Resources has managed the city-owned hospital since 1997, and is seeking a new contract. It’s joined by Kentucky-based Alliant Management Services and PeaceHealth, headquartered in the Seattle area.

Last year, Quorum came under fire from some Bartlett employees, who said the local management team fostered “a culture of fear” at the hospital. But Bartlett Board Chair Kristen Bomengen says the criticism wasn’t the driving force behind the decision to use a competitive bid process.

“Once you’ve worked with one company for so many years, it’s only appropriate to go out and re-bid. And so, in any case we would have been going out to receive more statements of interest,” Bomengen says.

All the bidders have decades of health care experience. Quorum is the largest hospital management company in the country, and operates the Sitka Community Hospital in addition to Bartlett. Alliant’s hospitals are clustered in Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. And PeaceHealth has six hospitals in the Pacific Northwest, including Ketchikan Medical Center.

Under its current contract, Quorum is paid between 350-thousand and 400-thousand dollars a year. The amount is tied to the Consumer Price Index. But Bomengen says the board won’t just look at cost when deciding on a management company.

“We want to make certain that we have management advice from people who are tracking what changes we’re going to be looking at in the health care industry. We would like to see an understanding of Juneau’s circumstances,” says Bomengen. “We’re interested in the kind of expertise that they’ll be able to deliver. One of the things we do through our management services contract is a lot of our purchasing and we try to get the best value for medical equipment and ongoing medical supplies.”

All three companies have representatives in Juneau for today’s meeting, which starts at 3:30 p.m. in the hospital boardroom. Bomengen says an hour and 15 minutes has been set aside for each presentation, which will be open to the public. The board may go into executive session to discuss financial aspects of the bids. An offer is tentatively scheduled to be made to one of the companies at the end of the meeting.

The body of a Juneau woman was found in a ditch Friday morning near the intersection of Valley Boulevard and Mendenhall Loop Road.

Juneau police have identified her as 48-year-old Marilyn Williams, born on February 26, 1963.

A witness on his way to a bus stop saw the body and called police. Capital City Fire and Rescue also responded. A medical team pronounced her dead at the scene, according to police spokeswoman Cindee Brown-Mills.

“It doesn’t appear to be foul play at this point,” Brown-Mills said. “They’ve requested an autopsy.”

The body will be sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage for the autopsy.

During the investigation, police closed off Valley Boulevard at Diane Street and Kiowa Drive for about an hour, as well as the outbound lane of Loop Road between Floyd Dryden Middle School and Valley.

Brown-Mills said Williams was found face down in the ditch just before Kiowa. She was dressed in a jacket, jeans, shoes and a hat.

Williams lived close by. Her family members have been notified.

The case remains under investigation.

A humpback whale calf has been disentangled from fishing gear near Juneau.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration spokeswoman Julie Speegle says the calf and its mother were spotted Wednesday morning by a charter fishing boat near Halibut Cove on Shelter Island. The whales appeared to be heading up Lynn Canal at about 5 knots. Other whale-watching boats monitored the pair until a NOAA team could arrive on-scene.

“The calf was trailing a bouy and it was entangled in the line, said Speegle. “Our whale disentanglement team did spend several hours observing the lines and how they were wrapped around the calf to figure out exactly which lines to sever in order to free the calf.”

The five-member, specially-trained disentanglement team also attached a transmitter to track the calf in case it raced away before they could return in a separate boat to free it.

“Mama was nearby and she was very protective of her calf throughout this whole operation,” said Speegle. “At times, she tried to position herself between the rescuers and the calf to protect her calf.”

Speegle said the calf was freed from the fishing lines Wednesday evening just west of Berners Bay.

The road out of Juneau is getting a little longer this summer. Crews are extending Glacier Highway, the capital city’s northernmost land route. It’s a step in what officials hope will be an approximately 50-mile highway, to the north and west along Lynn Canal.

Transportation Commissioner Marc Luiken told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that construction is ongoing.

“We are well on our way to being able to complete that about 3-mile extension this fall. It’ll be a gravel road out there initially; we’ll eventually get out there to probably put a chip seal on it. And then eventually we’ll improve it beyond that,” he said.

The work involves widening and upgrading an existing gravel road from Glacier Highway’s current end to Cascade Point, on Berners Bay. Miller Construction won the contract for the $2.5-million-dollar project.

Plans for the longer road, to the Katzehin River, are less clear. A new ferry terminal would be built, connecting drivers to Skagway and Haines.

Environmental groups sued to block the road. Two federal courts have ruled that planners should have considered improved ferry service as an alternative to laying down pavement. That’s blocked plans to begin construction.

Luiken says his staff, the governor’s office and the Federal Highway Administration are still considering what to do next.

“Really, it boils down to two options. We can either appeal to the Supreme Court. Or we can conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement that addresses the issues that the Ninth Circuit (Court) brought up in their ruling,” Luiken says.

He says either option would take up to two years. Both could take place at the same time.

Not eggs, after all.

Scientists have done a more detailed examination of that mysterious orange goo that showed up recently in a lagoon near Kivalina.

They are fungal spores.

Samples were sent down to the NOAA’s National Ocean Service Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research in Charleston, South Carolina. Doctor Steve Morton, a research oceanographer there, said they used an electron scanning micrograph to examine in greater detail the tiny orange balls that were seen in earlier pictures.

“It was just a very interesting, unusual event,” said Morton. “I’ve been during oceanographic work on red tides for 20 years now. This is the first one I’ve ever seen that’s caused by a fungal spore.”

Morton says the spores are consistent with a fungus that causes rust, or the discoloration that appears on plant leaves and stems. But it’s still unclear which of the 78-hundred types of rust fungi is the Kivalina goo.

Initial analysis by NOAA’s Ted Stevens Marine Institute at Auke Bay showed what appeared to be a concentration of microscopic eggs, possibly of an invertebrate like a copepod.

There’s not much that’ll make you feel better when you lose by 64 points. But after suffering their second straight blowout – 84 to 20 at the hands of the Homer Mariners last night (Thursday) – Thunder Mountain High School Head Coach Bill Byouer told his team it’s not the end of the world.

“I’m not dead, and neither are they,” Byouer said. “So they’ll be in here come Monday and we’re going to be fighting hard again and try for next week.”

The Falcons came out strong, forcing a Homer fumble on the first play from scrimmage. Less than two minutes later, Thunder Mountain Quarterback Camden Thomas connected with Sam Jahn on scoring strike from five yards out.

But Homer was simply too quick, too savvy, and too good for the out-manned Falcons. Mariners Running Back Dylan Day had eight touchdowns, including five on the ground, one after a catch, one on a fumble recovery and another on a punt return.

The Falcons’ other touchdowns came on a one-yard quarterback keeper by Thomas with 8:03 left in the first half, and a 57-yard scamper by running back John Jolly to cap the scoring with 2:38 left in the game. Between those two scores Homer pretty much dominated both sides of the ball.

To make matters worse, Byouer says seven of his players had to leave the game due to injury.

“JV stepped in there and still worked hard,” said Byouer. “I mean, I got young, young freshman out there, sophomores, you know, and they’re learning.”

Byouer can only hope another week of practice will help his young players take on their next opponent – Nikiski. The Bulldogs are 2-0 and coming off a 48-0 win over Sitka on Wednesday. They’ll be in Juneau for a showdown at Thunder Mountain next Saturday (8-27).

Meanwhile, The Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears play the North Pole Patriots tomorrow (Saturday) in the first Railbelt Conference game of the season.

The game is played in North Pole. The Patriots had their shake-down game last week against West Anchorage – and lost to the Eagles by a score of 44-28.

The Crimson Bears first game of the season last week was an easy victory over Thunder Mountain.