Syndicated

Juneau has received nearly 50 inches of snow since Nov. 1st. While normal snowfall is 12 inches, last year we got less than two inches for the month.

It’s no wonder city officials have been hearing a lot of complaints about snow removal in the past few days. The topic opened Monday night’s CBJ Assembly meeting.

“I’m telling people on the street if they fall and hurt themselves on them sidewalks, sue the city,” Patrick Owen told the Assembly. He lives in downtown Juneau and has been watching the old, young and in-between unable to navigate the sidewalks.

“Keep that snow off so people can walk on them sidewalks. That’s what them sidewalks are for,” he said.

Dennis Harris lives downtown, but drives taxi throughout the city and borough.

“If you want to ask someone the opinion of how (CBJ) Public Works takes care of our streets, just ask a taxi driver,” he said.

Harris lives on 12th Street in the area known as “The Flats.” He’s watched children walking in the street on their way to Harborview Elementary School, because the sidewalks are plugged with snow.

“Snow removal is not rocket science and it’s not pushing snow around,” he said. “It’s snow removal.”

Owen and Harris echoed many of the emails and phone calls Assembly members have been getting since the snow storms started.

Public Works Director Kirk Duncan also has been hearing about and seeing the problems. He told the Assembly he was really concerned about The Flats, between 9th and 12th streets. “The snow in there is just horrendous,” he said.

Duncan outlined the strategy for clearing Juneau streets:

“We go after all the majors first and then the neighborhoods. We continually hit the main arterials and get to the neighborhoods as we can get to them,” he said. 

Property owners are responsible for clearing the snow off sidewalks in front of their businesses and residences.

Both Duncan and City Manager Rod Swope say city street clearing crews are doing the best they can with the resources they have.  Swope says the borough is responsible for plowing 110 miles of road, so it’s not going to be perfect.

“The state will plow, we’ll come in and shovel it off and then the state will come back and plow it again.”  He said the same thing happens in residential areas.  

“People will get out and shovel; city will come back through and plow and there’s another amount of snow on the sidewalk. Folks, there’s just no other way of dealing with it in a community like this,” he said. 

Several Assembly members said sidewalks should be a priority. Karen Crane described what she saw on Sunday as she was driving past the downtown Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

“There was no clear sidewalk there. There was an older person trying to walk down that sidewalk and slipped and fell into Egan,” she recounted.  “I understand the comments about the sidewalks, but especially where they’re a borough responsibility, like in front of Centennial Hall and along the highway, those sidewalks need to be a priority.”

Assembly member Randy Wanamaker has been hearing a lot from parents whose kids have had to walk in the street on their way to school.  He asked whether it’s the responsibility of the school district or the city to clear the walks near school buildings.  

“Parents wonder why the city hasn’t been taking care of the sidewalks where children are walking on their way to school at Riverbend, or on their way to Harborview. Whose responsibility is it to clear those streets?”

Kirk Duncan couldn’t answer the question.  He took over the CBJ Public Works Department last summer, after six years as manager of Eaglecrest Ski Area, where snow is a precious commodity. He admits he’s still learning the winter part of his new job.

“I’m not giving you a really good answer because, quite frankly, I don’t know.”  Duncan promised to have more answers for the Assembly at the Public Works and Facilities Committee meeting on Dec. 12th.

In the meantime, the snow has turned to rain and more is in the forecast. Now it’s semi-frozen slush that’s clogging up the sidewalks and thoroughfares;  drains are plugged and water is standing in the streets.   And it’s only November.

Is the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act a path to assimilation or a means of cultural survival?

That’s the question posed by Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl. She spoke Monday (this week) as part of a Juneau lecture series focusing on ANCSA, which has its 40th anniversary next month. (Watch a video of her speech.)

Worl, an anthropologist, is also vice-chair of the Sealaska regional corporation’s board.

“Congress enacted ANCSA to promote assimilation. But ironically, it also enacted into law a traditional value of sharing through a form of what I call corporate socialism,” she says.

She says that involves more than dividends.

Regional corporations share 70 percent of their logging and mining earnings. Many also offer special payments or extra shares to elders.

Worl says giving shareholders’ descendents stock and voting rights is a modern version of a traditional value. Arctic Slope, Doyon, NANA and Sealaska Corporation shareholders have approved such measures.

“In voting to give stock to Natives born after ’71, the individual shareholder is asked to choose between group rights of Native societies or individual rights of western societies,” she says.

Worl says ANCSA is not a finished work. While it is almost 40 years old, it has undergone a number of changes and she expects to see more.

Worl went through the history of efforts to resolve property and other disputes that led up to ANCSA. She says land transfers are one of the legislation’s most important elements.

“Congress really wanted to have clear title to Alaska because it was necessary for economic development. Native people, on the other hand, wanted ownership of their land, and they rejected BIA control of their lands,” she says.

Click here to watch videos of lectures from the five-part Native American Heritage Month series.

KTOO’s 360 North will commemorate the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in a seven-part television series ANCSA@40.

The half-hour programs begin Dec. 6 and will run weekly through Jan. 17. Nellie Moore hosts interviews with people who played a major role in the creation of ANCSA. Topics are Women Behind the Act, Politics and the Pipeline, and The Corporate Future.

Eaglecrest has more snow than any other ski area in North America.

The city-owned ski area opened on Friday to one-hundred inches of snow at the top of the mountain and about 45 at the base, the most snow in recent history for November in Juneau.

According to a database of ski conditions at 97 open ski resorts in the U.S. and Canada, the amount of snow is well above any other area, many of which are operating with manmade snow – Juneau’s is the real thing. www.skicentral.com

Ski Patrol Director Brian Davies called Eaglecrest ski conditions like mid-winter. There’s more snow right now than the area got during that last ski season.

The snow came this month in three major storms. Mountain operations manager Jeff Brown said the groomers started working it immediately to make a solid base. Opening day came eight days earlier than the target date of December 3rd, with dry powder on top of that base.

At 80, Al Shaw seldom misses a day of skiing when Eaglecrest is open.

“The coverage is like February. It just doesn’t get much better,” he said. “You know there’s a few places to fill in and obviously more snow will show up. If you miss this between now and the first of the year, you’re basically missing a whole season.”

Shaw was among those enjoying this weekend’s early three-day opening. Judging by Friday’s crowd, Juneau was ready for winter. Though the numbers are still being crunched, general manager Matt Lillard estimates 1,500 skiers and snowboarders turned out. Eaglecrest sold about 250 day tickets on Friday, which is very high for an area that gets most of its business from season pass holders. Lillard says the area has sold about 2,000 season passes so far.

Long-time Eaglecrest skiers Bob Marshall and his wife Deborah Craig take an annual ski trip to Utah. They agreed it seemed like mid-winter on their hometown mountain.

“I don’t think you can do better!” Marshall said. “At Utah they have 25 inches right now.”

Craig said skiing this weekend was “as good as it gets in February and March. It’s just amazing out there.”

Eaglecrest will be closed Monday through Friday and open on Saturday for its regular season.

The state is reexamining its cost estimate for the first Alaska Class Ferry. And it’s likely to come in higher than the total allocated to construction.

Earlier this year, the Legislature set aside $60 million for its next generation of ships. That brought funding to a total of $120 million.

Many thought it would be enough to design and build the first vessel.

“Unfortunately, numbers tend to stick and $120 million is the number that stuck. So everybody believes that’s full funding for the vessel,” says Captain Mike Neussl, who runs the Alaska Marine Highway System.

He says the estimate is several years old and may be low.

“That may or may not be the case because we’re not on contract with anybody for a vessel at that price,” he says.

The ferry system has asked Elliot Bay Design Group, its architectural engineering firm, to revise the numbers. Ketchikan’s Alaska Ship and Drydock will likely build the ship.

Neussl says a lot of factors affect the cost.

“The price of steel, the cost of labor and the design of the ship. There’s a lot of factors that play into that, and whether it’s higher or lower, I couldn’t really tell you,” he says.

He’s unsure when the new information will become available.

Officials have decided not to take federal funds for the Alaska Class Ferry. That would add environmental requirements and block an in-state contract preference.

State government is the other source of construction money.

“I think one of the issues we need to keep an eye on is replacement of the marine ferries,” says Sitka lawmaker Bert Stedman, who assembles the Senate’s capital budget as co-chairman of that chamber’s Finance Committee.

“I have been hearing we may have to put forward a little bit more money for the first one. That has me a little bit concerned,” he says.

“But clearly we need to have a discussion on when we want to start funding the second one. Because we need to build two or three of these ships and retire our older vessels because of the operational costs.”

The first Alaska-Class Ferry will sail Lynn Canal, linking Juneau, Haines and Skagway. A second is slated to travel between Ketchikan and Prince Rupert. A third would double up on the Lynn Canal route.

The ships will be about 350 feet long and carry up to 500 passengers and about 70 vehicles. They will have crew quarters but no staterooms and will not sail overnight.

The Alaska Marine Highway System plans to change a policy that keeps many horse-owners from taking their animals on ferries.

Currently, anyone transporting a horse or other large animal must make a $1,000 deposit. It’s most often returned after the trip ends. But if excrement leaks out of the animal’s trailer, clean-up costs are deducted from the deposit.

Horse-owners protested the policy, saying it was so expensive it kept young equestrians from showing and competing in other towns.

Ferry chief Mike Neussl says he’s working on a different system.

“We’re looking at not actually holding money, which is what we do right now. So we’re looking at the possibility of holding the credit card information and having customers be liable for that but not actually taking their money unless there’s a spill that necessitates a cleanup that generates an expense,” he says.

He says he hopes the new policy will be ready for the next Marine Transportation Advisory Board meeting, which is December 15th.

The advisory board heard from horse-owners and youth-group leaders at a September meeting in Skagway. Members were told that Juneau 4-H Club equestrians could not attend the state fair in Haines because of the cost.

Board members and others asked ferry managers to search for an alternate fee system.

“I’ve actually gotten a letter of interest from the Juneau legislative delegation that requested we look into that and try to resolve that issue. And that’s certainly what we’re doing,” he says.

Neussl says ferry staff can no longer hose excrement off the car deck and into the ocean. Recent federal environmental rules require more expensive clean-ups.

A former assistant bank manager has been sentenced in federal court to 33 months in prison for stealing money from a Juneau bank, the Mendenhall branch of Keybank.

Antonietta “Ann” Robinson, 44, of the Philippines, was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess in Anchorage. The court also ordered her to pay restitution for the total amount stolen and serve five years of supervised release.

Assistant U. S. Attorney Aunnie Steward, who prosecuted the case, said Robinson stole $300,000 by falsifying bank paperwork over a period of four years. According to filings made by prosecutors, they also say that Robinson bullied, cajoled, and manipulated her fellow Filipino employees into not verifying vault balances and to cut tape from the bank’s security cameras. She used the $300,000 for a new house in the Phillipines and designer brand goods.

Ultimately, Robinson was fired in 2006 for fraudulently opening up customer accounts to get credit for new accounts opened. The following day she withdrew $150,000 from her personal account and fled to the Phillipines.

The new incoming assistant branch manager did an audit, discovered the thefts, and fired the head teller under Robinson for not properly verifying vault balances.

Robinson was extradited in June of this year and pled guilty to the charges.