Recent News

The City and Borough of Juneau is getting a new eight cubic yard, vacuum street sweeper.

But as City Manager Rod Swope explains, it can only be used in the Mendenhall Valley.

“Funding for this was acquired through a federal government congestion mitigation/air quality program transferred through the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to us,” said Swope at Monday’s CBJ Assembly meeting. “And the funds are to be used to improve air quality in federally designated non-attainment areas, of which the Mendenhall Valley is one.”

Assembly members appropriated a 250-thousand dollar grant for purchase of the street sweeper.

Woodstoves are the main contributor to the valley’s air quality problem. That’s why the city periodically prohibits their use when the level of fine particulate matter in the air is high. But CBJ Lands Manager Heather Marlow says dust is also a factor, which the vacuum street sweeper should help mitigate.

“These street sweepers have a particular design to them where they don’t kick up as much dust if you will as they go through and clean the street. It’s more of a contained cleaning, rather than the exterior broom type that you typically see,” says Marlow.

Other factors that contribute to particulates in the air include vehicles and power plants.

The city and state Department of Environmental Conservation monitor air quality in the Mendenhall Valley from atop Floyd Dryden Middle School.

A citizens’ initiative to impose a “plastic bag tax” on certain stores in Juneau will go to voters this fall.

The CBJ Assembly last night had the option of adopting an ordinance in place of the initiative. But instead of passing the ordinance or delaying action on it past August 22nd, which would have put the initiative on the ballot in October 2012, the assembly simply declined to act on it. That puts the initiative on the municipal election ballot this year.

Mayor Bruce Botelho, participating by telephone, said some in the community had urged the assembly to table the ordinance and delay the vote.

“We’ve all received emails and I suspect calls arguing in opposition to it. I think that explains why it would be inadvisable for us to forgo the initiative process by attempting to adopt the initiative by ordinance itself,” Botelho said.

The initiative would require a 15-cent per bag fee, levied at the point of sale, for all retail outlets in Juneau with annual gross sales of 15-million dollars or more. Stores would remit the tax to the city, just like the CBJ sales tax, and the revenue would go into the city’s general fund.

Dixie Belcher is with Turning the Tides, a local nonprofit concerned about the effect plastic bags have on the environment – especially the ocean. She says the goal of the citizens’ initiative is to encourage people to give up plastic bags in favor of reusable ones.

“It’s something that is just a habit, and we can just as soon get into a habit of taking our own reusable bags,” says Belcher. “They do that in many other parts of the world. They’re actually banned, because of their impact on the ocean they’re banned in 25 percent of the world, and they’re taxed in many other parts of the world. And generally the taxation lowers the use of plastic bags by about 90 percent in the first three months.”

As the mayor pointed out the initiative sponsors will have a tough time convincing many in Juneau to support the tax. Mendenhall Valley resident Geri Swanson thinks the proposal is unfair and won’t have the intended effect.

“Personally, I own several reusable bags and I always forget to bring them with me when I go shopping,” Swanson says. “I recycle those small shopping bags in my garbage in my bathrooms and some I even take to the recycle center. So, I think 15-cents is just a silly idea for the city.”

Joining the “plastic bag tax” on the October municipal election ballot will be a proposition to extend the CBJ’s temporary 3 percent sales tax another five years. Assembly members voted unanimously to put the issue to a vote in October.

The 3 percent tax is due to expire July 1, 2012. The current 5 percent CBJ sales tax has three components – the temporary 3 percent tax, a temporary 1 percent tax, and a permanent 1 percent tax. Among the city functions covered by the 3 percent tax are police, fire, street maintenance, parks and recreation, libraries, and some capital project expenses.

The Juneau Assembly on Monday narrowly voted to approve a controversial request to rezone a property in the Mendenhall Valley from D-10 Residential to Light Commercial. But Assemblyman Peter Freer asked for reconsideration, so the issue will be back before the assembly at its next regular meeting.

The vote to rezone was 5 to 4, with Freer in the minority. He says he’s concerned that the zone change goes against the city’s Comprehensive Plan, which calls for the property to be zoned medium density residential, and thinks the assembly could benefit from a more thorough discussion of the differences between the MDR and Light Commercial zones.

“As the zoning progresses upward if you will from D-10 through D-15, D-18 and Light Commercial the intensity of uses that can occur on the property also increases. And some uses may not require a review before the Planning Commission, but may be simply approved as building permits – for example, offices of up to 10-thousand square feet,” Freer says.

Assembly member Mary Becker made an attempt to amend the ordinance so the property would be rezoned D-18 – still medium density residential, but with more allowable uses than D-10. But her amendment was voted down.

The 2.68 acre property in question is on Atlin Drive where it intersects with Mendenhall Loop Road. Developer Richard Harris bought it in 2010 from the US Forest Service. The northeast corner is bordered by Duck Creek Pond, making 40 percent of the property unusable due to required setbacks. Harris hasn’t said what he intends to build on the parcel, but says he’ll have more opportunity to do something nice for the neighborhood with a Light Commercial zone.

“There is no plan at all. At this point we know that we can build 20 apartments. But we don’t want to spend money to design 20 apartments if there’s something bigger and better that can be done here,” said Harris. “And not necessarily bigger, but mostly better. It’s going to be the face of the community. I personally would not be proud to build 20 apartments right there. I think it’s a waste.”

Homeowners on Atlin and nearby Teslin Street are against the rezone. They say Harris ought to submit a plan before receiving a Light Commercial designation. The city’s Planning Commission also recommended against the change at the urging of the CBJ Community Development Department.

Reconsideration of the assembly’s vote will occur at its next regular meeting, scheduled for August 22nd.

Juneau’s Capital Office no longer sells office supplies.

“We’re just moving our business in a different direction,” says owner Ted Quinn.

He says the 65-year-old company will concentrate on interior design and furniture for professional offices statewide.

The office supply on Commercial Boulevard near Costco has been quietly phased out. Capital Office opened in 1946, but in recent years the supply side had grown smaller and smaller.

Quinn says it’s tough to see it go.

“It was originally Capital Office Art and Engineering. Then we opened a store, Bits and Pieces, in the Nugget Mall, for doing frames and a lot of art supplies, paints, you name it,” Quinn says. “So we’ve seen things evolve over time; markets have changed. It’s kind of sad to see it go, but it just wasn’t cutting the mustard.”

He says supplies are cumbersome and a lot of work for not a lot of revenue. There are lots of outlets now for pens, paper, toner, mailroom, and other supplies, including big box stores and the Internet.

The company owns an interior design business in Anchorage and an office furniture store in Fairbanks. Last year Quinn opened a new retail showroom in downtown Juneau that includes lighting, high-density filing, and asset management for larger companies that don’t want to warehouse product. He says it’s just a better niche these days.

The company is also the statewide dealer for Steelcase and American Seating office furniture.

A 60-year-old woman suffered a broken leg last Thursday when the tour boat she was on got too close to a calving glacier in Tracy Arm.

A video of the incident posted on the website LiveLeak.com on Sunday shows a large chunk of the glacier break off, sending waves and ice flying toward the vessel.

Passengers’ shouts of “Danger! Danger! Danger!” soon turn to concern as a group of people crowd around the woman lying in obvious pain on the deck of the boat.

The Coast Guard says the woman was aboard the 65-foot Captain Cook, operated by Adventure Bound Alaska. She apparently lost her balance and fell when the wave hit the boat. The vessel contacted Coast Guard Sector Juneau as soon as the accident occurred, but determined it would be faster and easier to return to town without waiting for a Coast Guard vessel to deploy. An ambulance met the woman upon her return to shore.

The Coast Guard is investigating the incident. A spokesperson for Adventure Bound Alaska was unavailable to comment.

Federal scientists say they have tentatively identified the mysterious orange goo that showed up recently in a lagoon near Kivalina. It appears to be a concentration of microscopic eggs.

Jeep Rice, research biologist at the Ted Stevens Marine Institute in Auke Bay, says their lab staff first tried to figure if it was plant, animal, or mineral. Several chemists were called in after the samepls arrived Saturday because of concerns that the substance may be some form of chemical pollution. But Rice says the chemists weren’t needed once they spotted the basic egg structure under a high powered microscope.

“They’re down in the micron range,” says Rice. “A herring egg would be a thousand microns. So (these eggs are) down in the one to ten microns, maybe larger. They’re very, very small.”

Since the eggs are so small and their internal features are very hard to distinquish, it’s unclear what laid the eggs. Rice suspects some sort of invertebrate, perhaps a crustacean like a copepod. But Rice says it’s hard to tell for sure.

The orange color of the goo seems to come from a lipid oil droplet in the center of each egg.

The eggs that were collected for sampling either dried up or died despite being refrigerated for transport.

Area residents were concerned earlier this month when the never-before-seen substance showed up. Rice says it’s possible the eggs just happened to concentrate in that lagoon because of wind or tidal action.

Even though the goo was determined to be natural, Rice would advise against eating or consuming the eggs. There’s a remote possibility they could be toxic in some form.