Juneau

First responders rescued a man from the water after he fell from the dock near Marine Park on Tuesday night.

Bystander Cate Ross and a friend were sitting on the deck outside The Hangar on the Wharf when she heard a splash.

“So we ran out from the Hangar and looked down in the water and yelled down to see if we could hear anybody and somebody kind of grunted back at us and we shined lights down and we saw somebody hanging on to one of the pilings,” Ross said.

Ross called 911 and talked to the man as they waited for help to arrive. Ross said she had walked by him on the way to the Hangar and it seemed like he was sleeping.

Noah Jenkins was captain on duty with Capital City Fire/Rescue when the emergency call came in around 7:30 p.m.

“We arrived on scene, got directed by bystanders where the patient was, went down the ramp to the lightering dock and found the patient. The bystander was up above and pointed to us where the patient was. I was able to swim over there with a rope attached and my driver, Brady Fink, then pulled us both back once I got to him,” Jenkins said.

He said the rescue took minutes. Another CCFR staffer says the rescued man was hypothermic and responsive.

Jenkins was shivering Tuesday night after the rescue.

“It’s pretty chilly. The dry suit has a zipper to be able to relieve yourself and that zipper was open I failed to notice, so it wasn’t a very dry dry suit,” Jenkins said.

The rescued man was transported to Bartlett Regional Hospital. His name was not released Tuesday night. Jenkins said he expects him to recover.

First responders searched the shoreline for a possible second person, but didn’t find anyone.

Jason Hart and Jeff Redmond lost their bids for Juneau School Board to incumbent Andi Story, and newcomers Josh Keaton and Emil Mackey in Tuesday’s election.

Story, leading the school board race with 2,730 votes in unofficial results, will begin her 13th year on the board. She was at Election Central on Tuesday night watching the results come in with her husband and campaign manager.

“I want to say thank you and gunalchéesh to everyone out there because it takes a community. We have a lot of issues, a wide variety of needs with our children and we are a town that really stands by our schools,” Story said.

As the board works on issues like curriculum, the Summit STEM School and the teachers’ contract, Story said it also needs to work on trust.

“We have to build trust between not only families because we’re given their most precious person in school, but also that the staff feels that everyone is working towards the same direction,” Story said.

On Tuesday night, Keaton had almost 2,200 votes. He was at home putting his two kids to bed.

As a new school board member, Keaton said he wants to make the public feel more comfortable testifying. Keaton has gone before the board many times as a parent and was often met with silence.

“I want to change that wall of silence. I want to ask them questions and for more clarification and make them feel that their testimony is wanted and needed for us to make those decisions,” Keaton said.

Keaton also plans to focus on class sizes.

“As we move into the budget process, I’m definitely going to be focusing on trying to keep those k-2 class sizes as small as we can,” Keaton said.

Mackey got 2,006 votes in preliminary totals. He was at home following election results with a small group of friends. Mackey said he’s happy to be elected, but knows he has a big job in front of him.

“Because of both the known and the unknown – we know cuts are coming, we just don’t know big they’re going to be – I feel kind of like a bull rider. I’m on the back of the bull but who’s in charge – me or the bull? And we’re going to find out,” Mackey said.

Mackey’s said his number one job is learning the role of a board member, but he also wants to take a fresh look at middle school travel.

“We probably need to revisit this because regardless of the decision, I don’t think that, politically, it’s been accepted by a lot of people in the community and we have to put that to bed, because until we put it to bed, it’s just going to sit there and fester,” Mackey said.

The new school board meets for a regular meeting Oct. 20.

Juneau has a new mayor.

Fisheries consultant Greg Fisk beat incumbent Mayor Merrill Sanford 2-1 in Tuesday’s municipal elections.

“I’m a little overwhelmed. I really thought it was going to be closer, a lot closer,” Fisk said after the results were in. “I think it’s really a reflection of the fact — not so much a reflection on me as, you know, the fact that Merrill, he could have run a lot harder and made it a lot closer.”

Fisk added that Sanford had been gracious throughout the campaign.

The new mayor was the only change to the Juneau Assembly to come out of the elections. Assemblymen Loren Jones and Jerry Nankervis will both retain their seats for second terms. 

Fisk’s main campaign priority has been economic development. He said making Juneau one of the country’s greatest small cities is still among his goals.

“I’d like the same kind of buzz about us as places like Burlington, Vermont, and Portland, Maine and Bellingham get. I think that would strengthen us as a capital city, too.” he said. 

Under Juneau’s form of city government, the mayor doesn’t have direct authority over city workers. The mayor sets the assembly’s agenda, but has the same voting power as the other eight assembly members.

Fisk is expected to be sworn in at the next assembly meeting Oct. 20. One imminent task before the assembly is picking a new city manager. The current one, Kim Kiefer, is retiring at the end of the year.

Sanford frequently voted in the minority on the assembly, often arguing for more fiscal restraint and better long-term planning. He declined to comment on his way out of assembly chambers Tuesday night.

However, at a candidate forum last month, Sanford did reflect on his time in office.  

“I’m very proud of the fact that we haven’t raised property tax in over 10 years. … The assembly has not raised those property taxes, millage rates, in 10 years,” he said.

Tuesday’s unofficial election results are expected to be reviewed and certified Oct. 13.

Juneau resident Robert Sauerteig was rescued from Mount Roberts Tuesday afternoon.

Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said the 53-year-old went hiking with his dog Monday and later found themselves stuck.

“He just got himself into a tight spot after trying to take what he thought was a shortcut,” Peters said. “He spent the night on the mountain and then after the sun came up, realized he was in a tighter spot than he initially thought.”

Peters said Sauerteig called for help Tuesday morning. Local search and rescue agencies reached him by helicopter.

Shona Osterhout, director of education at Perseverance Theatre, has 20 eighth graders at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School enraptured.

Students playing Othello and Desdemona are in front of the rest of the class. The seeds of doubt have been planted in Othello’s head. Desdemona is trying to convince him she hasn’t been unfaithful.

“He doesn’t believe her,” Osterhout says, “because he’s had the proof, air quote ‘proof,’ and he goes to her and he strangles her.”

Most of the students react in shock. One student says, “I knew it.”

Othello, played by student Beni Lata, wraps his hands around his wife, Desdemona, played by another student. Desdemona is dying.

“You can take your hands off her,” Osterhout directs. “And enter Emilia. She’s heard a lot of commotion.”

Playing Emilia, eighth grader Chloe McAdams goes over to the dying Desdemona, “What has happened here?”

“Suicide. I’ve killed myself,” says Izzy Luna, playing Desdemona.

“And then she dies,” Osterhout announces to the class.

In shock at her own character’s death, Luna says, “Oh my gosh.” The rest of the class laughs.

Thanks to a national program called Any Given Child, every Juneau eighth grader got to see Perseverance Theatre’s “Othello” before it ended Sunday. To help prepare students, the theater’s education director went into the classrooms and had the students act it out.

Dana Tran, 13, said it was fun watching her classmates act out Othello, “and it was shocking ‘cause I didn’t think that he would kill his wife.”

Student Lindzy Nguyen said Osterhout’s teaching style got her to pay attention: “From her shouting — not in a bad way — the shouting and her expression, it made me listen.”

That was Osterhout’s goal — to make Shakespeare’s play accessible to the middle schoolers.

“Shakespeare just writes about human truths. He writes about racism. He writes about jealousy. He writes about love. He writes these amazing relationships. That to me just goes through every age group,” Osterhout said.

Osterhout visited every eighth grade class at Floyd Dryden Middle School and most at Dzantik’i Heeni. Perseverance also planned post-play discussions of Othello at Montessori Borealis and Juneau Community Charter School.

Osterhout said getting the students to move around and act the parts instills the plot, and that makes it easier to watch the play.

“When they see what’s going on and they hear what’s going on and the words are a little different and hard to understand, they’ll know exactly because they’ve done it themselves or they’ve watched their friends do it, which is always way more important. I can sit there and talk to them for hours and hours, but if their friends do it, we’re in like Flynn,” Osterhout said.

A character like Iago, she said, is easy to get into.

“Iago is an archetypal villain. He’s the villain’s villain. When he’s onstage, kids in classrooms over at Floyd Dryden were booing him every time he went to do something. For me, that’s perfect. That’s what Shakespeare would’ve wanted anyway. He wanted audiences to feel what’s happening,” Osterhout said.

Eighth grade teacher Amy Lloyd said she enjoyed watching the students gasp and cheer during the class.

“They were all engaged. Everybody was paying attention. Nobody was squirming around. I didn’t have one bathroom pass. That’s a good sign,” Lloyd said.

The goal of Any Given Child is to provide an equitable arts experience for all students. With the program’s launch in Juneau, every eighth grader, regardless of what teacher they have or what socioeconomic level they come from, saw Othello for free. A student ticket would’ve cost $8.

“Theater isn’t as accessible to everybody unless you get that push,” Lloyd said. “I’m hoping this really makes them feel like, ‘If I went again on my own, I’d feel more comfortable. It would be somewhere I’ve been before and I understand how it works.’”

In total, more than 500 Juneau eighth graders saw Othello at Perseverance Theatre. It’s good preparation for the spring, when they’ll be reading Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

City officials have identified a site near the Mendenhall Mall for a potential valley transit center.

City Engineering Director Rorie Watt said the site, which is privately owned, could accommodate a park-and-ride for about a dozen cars at first, and later 30 if a pond is filled.

“When we talk about the downtown parking issues, you know, even taking 30 cars off the streets downtown is a fairly big deal. Thirty cars in a structured parking garage is a big number,” he told the Juneau Assembly last week.

The center could provide restrooms, covered passenger waiting areas and improved lighting. The mall owners estimate the land is worth $775,000.

While other grant sources are drying up, Watt said funding opportunities for transit are still “pretty good.” He said he’d look to the Federal Transit Administration for capital grants.