Juneau

Wednesday night’s garage fire on Fritz Cove Road was likely set intentionally, the Juneau Police Department said.

No one was reported injured after the fire. Officials estimate the damage at about $35,000.

Capital City Fire/Rescue Assistant Chief Chad Cameron says the two-car detached garage was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived. It was quickly put out.

Police are seeking information about anyone or any vehicles seen near 3000 Fritz Cove Road at the time of the fire, which was reported at 6:07 p.m. Wednesday.

You can report tips to JPD at 586-0600 or at juneaucrimeline.com. You may be eligible for a reward.

Juneau resident Jeff Campbell bought two truckloads of Christmas lights and decorations at a garage sale more than 20 years ago. Ever since then, he’s been decorating his house in a big way, making his downtown neighborhood a more festive and bright place. People joke that you can see his house from space.

On a drizzly Monday night, 8-year-old Ferguson Wheeler counts the number of Santa Clauses at Jeff Campbell’s house in a neighborhood near the Federal Building known as The Flats.

“I add Santas every year,” Campbell said. “That’s always new. The kids come and count the Santas.”

“How many Santas?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you. The kids got to count them.”

Besides Santas, the busy holiday display includes reindeer, candy canes, nativity scenes, nutcrackers, drummer boys, Disney and Winnie the Pooh characters, and thousands of lights. There’s not much room to walk around the yard. Campbell has even wired some outdoor speakers to play Christmas music.

He creates his own decorations as well.

“Snoopy on his house, because of the new Peanuts movie. Whatever the newest kid movie out – the Christmas movie – I try to do a character from that,” Campbell said.

More than 600 lights on a plywood board in the shape of Snoopy radiate heat and good cheer.

Campbell has been covering his house and yard with lights and decorations since the early 90s and each year the display grows.

“Ninety-eight percent of it is from garage sales, unless I get something on a blow-out sale at a store,” Campbell said.

He starts setting up for Christmas right after he takes the Halloween lights and decorations down. He tends to put things in the same spot every year for simplicity’s sake.

“Some of these guys are marked where they go, so I don’t have to think about it and it gets out a lot faster,” Campbell explained.

He points to a written message on the back of a Santa: Under the ash tree.

“So I know where he goes.”

Campbell debuted the lights Dec. 4 by flipping eight switches. The lights turn on daily after work, and off around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. He’ll turn them off for good in early January.

His electricity bill has been doing better since LED lights became part of his collection.

“It used to triple from what we normally had. Now, it’s doing better. It’s a little over double,” Campbell said.

The cost of holiday joy, though, is priceless. Campbell’s house is known around town.

Cars constantly slowdown and children walk into his yard to pose for photos — something Campbell has no problem with.

“A neighbor, one time, did hijack a Santa and he took pictures around town with him — up on the tram and the glacier and had pictures of them sent to us,” Campbell said.

Campbell occasionally receives donated decorations, as well. There’s Goofy next to some bushes on the edge of the property, but he needs a better spot.

“He was put here. Someone left him. Either I’ll move him out further or I’ll find a place in the yard for him. I got one already so I have to keep them separated. I don’t want fighting,” Campbell said, laughing.

If you haven’t yet stopped by Jeff Campbell’s house on West 11th Street in The Flats, make sure you do, and don’t forget to count the Santas.

Five local Native dance groups organized a fundraiser Monday night, raising about $32,000 for Juneau’s shelter and soup kitchen. About 400 people attended and contributed money to the Glory Hole through donations, silent auction, fry bread sales, dancing, raffle and a $9,500 matching donation by the Rasmuson Foundation.

Nancy Barnes is head of the Yees Ku.oo dance group. She helped organize the fundraiser with Kolene James, who was inspired by a Juneau Empire story on the Glory Hole’s financial deficit. Barnes was blown away by how much the event raised in two hours.

“I don’t think anybody thought we were going to make that much money. Somebody said, ‘What’s your goal?’ And I was saying, ‘If we raised $5,000 just to help them have a wonderful Christmas that will be great,'” Barnes said.

The other dance groups at the fundraiser were Ldakát Naax Satí Yátx’í (All Nations Children), Eagle/Raven Dancers, Yaaw Tei Yi and Woosh.ji.een.

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska donated planning space and the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall for the event. President Richard Peterson said the Central Council was happy to help.

“Our culture is about holding each other up and the Glory Hole is an entity that’s always holding our people up, so it’s time when they’re hurting to give back and help them out,” Peterson said.

Glory Hole Executive Director Mariya Lovishchuk said the funds raised Monday night, plus other donations, will close the $58,000 deficit the shelter was in when the story ran in the newspaper earlier this month.

Lovishchuk said the deficit was largely due to a burst pipe that flooded and closed down the shelter last December. The inside of the building had to be rebuilt. The shelter has also been focusing more on getting the Housing First project built than on fundraising.

Lovishchuk said she can’t say thank you enough to the dance groups, community organizations and people who contributed to Monday’s fundraiser.

“This is beyond gratitude. This was a really amazing thing and it really ensures that we’re going to be able to meet our mission of providing everyone in need of food, shelter and compassion. It also means that we’ll keep on working on the Juneau Housing First project and making it a reality,” Lovishchuk said.

She said it’s an honor to be supported by the Alaska Native community and to start the New Year on a positive note.

We’ve told you about a recent stabbing death at a West Juneau home where a suspect was identified and charged. But another stabbing death remains unsolved. It’s been more than a year since Juneau resident Christopher Kenney died from a knife wound. The 50-year-old was found in his home two days after Thanksgiving last year and police still aren’t sure if it was a murder or suicide.

When Christopher Kenney died, his brother Rob Kenney and a few friends made a video slideshow of his life. It’s filled with old family photos of when they’re kids, their home in Pelican and newspaper cutouts of Kenney’s high school wrestling days. There are pictures of giant halibut and king salmon towering over the brothers as kids. Their dad was a commercial fisherman and the brothers spent a lot of their childhood on a boat.

“He was such a hard worker. He worked so hard. Even when we were little kids, he was a really hard worker,” Rob Kenney said of his brother as he started to cry.

In the pictures of Kenney as an adult, he’s always with one or more of his kids. He had three – a daughter in her 20s and two school-age children. Rob Kenney said his older brother devoted himself to raising his two young kids.

“Sometimes I forget he’s gone and want to call him and ask him, ‘Hey, can you go help mom? She just called me and I can’t go over there,’ and then it’s like, ‘Oh shoot,’ you know? That makes it hard,” Rob Kenney said.

Kenney was born May 18, 1964, in Juneau and raised in Pelican and Washington state. After high school, he worked on commercial fishing boats. He was a wood and ivory carver and won ribbons for his art at Alaska state fairs.

Lt. David Campbell said Juneau police are investigating Kenney’s death as a homicide, but they don’t know enough to call it a murder, which requires intent.

Around 5:30 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2014, Juneau police received a 911 call that a man had been injured with a knife in a Gruening Park apartment. As an emergency crew took Kenney to Bartlett Regional Hospital, officers were dispatched to check out reports of explosions around town. When Kenney was pronounced dead at the hospital, police returned to the apartment. They had left it unattended for about 30 minutes.

Kenney’s 911 call came from a 26-year-old woman, who Rob Kenney said was his brother’s live-in girlfriend. Three children were also in the apartment: Kenney’s two younger kids and the girlfriend’s toddler. Campbell said the knife they believe was used in the stabbing was found in the apartment and police have it.

More than a year later, police are still trying to piece together what happened.

“What we know is he had been stabbed, but what exactly led up to the stabbing or why he was stabbed or who he was stabbed by or whether he stabbed himself are still yet to be determined,” Campbell said.

The state medical examiner’s report said the cause of death was a “stab wound,” but it leaves the manner of death as “undetermined.” The medical examiner bases cause and manner of death on scientific information from the autopsy, as well as on evidence collected by law enforcement.

The report did say Kenney had no known previous suicide attempts or suicidal ideation. Only about 1 percent of all suicides per year in Alaska are by a knife or other sharp object, according to the Alaska Violent Death Reporting System.

Kenney’s brother Rob Kenney writes off the suicide theory.

“He was such a positive person, there was no way he was going to stab himself. There was just no way that he thought that way on account of his kids for the biggest reason,” he said.

Besides the Kenney homicide, Campbell said JPD’s four detectives are working on three other homicide cases – a shooting in October, a double shooting in November and a stabbing earlier this month. Arrests have been made in two of these cases.

No charges have been made on the Kenney case, and Campbell said police might never get to that point. He said the department continues to chase leads concerning one “person of interest.” He anticipates things coming to a head within two months.

“There’s certain things that the detective is hoping to do, very specific things they’re hoping to do and if it turns out that those things wrap up relatively soon, then it’ll probably either get charges or move into the cold case depending on which way those last couple of things break. The lion’s share of the work has been done but some of the really key questions are still floating out there that we’re hoping that the last little bit of follow-up will reveal to us,” Campbell said.

Campbell noted local police have three cold case homicides: Cindy Elrod in 1983, John Jack in 1988 and Daniel Brux in 2000.

Rob Kenney said he and his mom are tired of calling Juneau police and hearing that there’s no new developments. They’ve considered putting out their own reward for information to generate more interest.

“Patience is a hard thing to do when you’re reminded of it with small children that miss their dad,” Rob Kenney said.

He feels constantly unsettled not knowing how his brother died.

“I would like to gather my family and his children and at least put closure to it and spread his ashes. The ashes sit over there.”

Rob Kenney points to a small table stand near the kitchen. He doesn’t want to spread the ashes until he knows who killed his brother. He said his parents are getting older and before they’re gone, he hopes to be able to tell them that justice has been served.

Editor’s note: We’re withholding certain details of the Kenney case for now because JPD said releasing them would likely damage their investigation.

Juneau voters will elect a new mayor during a special election on March 15, the assembly decided Monday night during its regular meeting.

As deputy mayor, Mary Becker succeeded Mayor Greg Fisk when he died Nov. 30. Whoever wins the March special election will serve the rest of Fisk’s 3-year term, which ends October 2018.

Assembly member Loren Jones made the motion to have a special election for mayor. Member Kate Troll supported it and said the city can afford the estimated $35,000 cost.

“This was a leadership position. Mayor Fisk was elected with a strong show of support on all the precincts, so I think there is a desire out there for people to be able to vote on a leadership position,” Troll said. “And I also believe that it is a way of making all of us, including the community, move on through this difficult time.”

Members Jerry Nankervis and Debbie White opposed the motion. Both said in past similar situations, the assembly did not hold a special election. White added a special election would be a waste of time and money.

“I don’t even know that we’re going to get any kind of a turnout having an election in March. And the fact is, is that only about 20 percent of the voters even bothered to show up anyway. Maybe if they’re denied the opportunity this time, they’ll show up in October,” White said.

The motion passed 5-3 with Becker, Nankervis and White voting no. A new mayor could be sworn in any time after the election is certified March 22.

Becker said she doesn’t plan to run for mayor in the special election. Jones’ motion to hold the election also directed staff to prepare an ordinance that ensures Becker would return to her District 1 seat when a new mayor takes office.

In the meantime, the assembly is accepting applications through Jan. 5 to temporarily fill the District 1 seat. The assembly plans to review applications and potentially conduct interviews that same week.

Earlier in the meeting, the assembly selected member Jesse Kiehl to serve as Deputy Mayor.