Juneau

Not all employees in Alaska speak English proficiently, but the State Department of Labor and Workforce Development wants to make sure that all of them understand their rights. The department recently released several translations of its employee “frequently asked questions” pamphlet in different languages, including Yup’ik, Korean, Spanish and Tagalog. According to the 2010 census, 2.6 percent of Juneau’s population speaks Tagalog at home; for Spanish it’s 2.4 percent.

Kodiak also has a significant Filipino population. In 2010, Asians were the largest racial minority in the Kodiak Borough at almost 20 percent of the population, with Filipinos making up around 17 percent.

The statewide supervising investigator for the Wage and Hour Administration, Joe Dunham, says the 23 questions in the pamphlet are an overview of basic wage and hour laws for overtime and minimum-wage eligible employees.

“What is minimum wage? What about overtime? Who gets overtime? Who does not get overtime? Can I be paid salary? What about my final paycheck?” says Dunham. “Can they make deductions from my wages without my permission? So, it’s just simple everyday wage and hour questions that most of us come into contact with those questions at any particular job.”

While wage theft and labor abuse can occur, Dunham says some workers’ ignorance about United States labor laws could also be a matter of cultural difference.

“What turns out to be common in their culture turns out to be a violation in ours and very often, neither the employer nor the employee even knows about it,” says Dunham. “These questions are just something where employer-employee can look at this and say ‘Wow, I never knew that, maybe I should call up the Department of Labor and sit down and talk about it.’”

In the case that an employee feels they are being taken advantage of, they can report the issue to DOL investigators.

Three men were caught on tape who are suspected of breaking into the construction site at the state Capitol building, scaling the scaffolding and stealing flags off the roof.

Capitol building security circulated security videos and video stills of the three men on Monday. In an email to legislative staffers, the Capitol’s Chief of Security Steve Daigle said the heist went down around 1 a.m. Friday.

The Legislative Affairs Agency typically keeps a security guard on site around the clock.

Daigle said he was forbidden from speaking to media. His boss, Legislative Affairs Agency Executive Director Pam Varni, could not be reached for comment.

If you have information about this crime you can call Steve Daigle, Chief of Security, at 465-6227 or JPD at 586-0600 (Case No.: 150731-004).

Juneau voters will not be asked to approve new debt to fund school facilities maintenance in the Oct. 6 municipal election.

Instead, the Assembly Finance Committee last week unanimously recommended partially funding the school district request with $800,000 in leftover sales tax revenue.

The district anticipates spending about $300,000 to hire experts to write a comprehensive facilities plan. The balance will be used on deferred maintenance, says Superintendent Mark Miller.

“Clearly, safety of both our students and the environment, are very high on that list,” Miler says.

The particular projects haven’t been chosen, Miller says, but they’re likely to come from a list of about $2.6 million in priority projects school officials presented in June.

At the time, the school district asked the Assembly for $1.3 million in municipal bonds, subject to voter approval. The $800,000 isn’t what school officials were seeking but it will suffice, he says.

“It’s good for the school district. We can certainly use it to make sure that don’t have any catastrophic failures and that we kind of keep things up and running as best we can,” Miller says.

Though all members sit on the Finance Committee, they must meet as the full Assembly to finalize the transfer.

With “Never Alone,” Cook Inlet Tribal Council and game developers combined indigenous storytelling with video gaming in a way that appealed to mass markets.

Its success has led to the follow up “Never Alone: Foxtales,” released on July 28. Juneau writer Ishmael Hope relied on his uncles, Alaska Native elders from Kotzebue, to write the game’s narrative.

Willie Goodwin Jr. narrates the videogame Foxtales. In Iñupiaq, he tells the story of two friends who emerge from their sod homes after a long winter.

“At springtime,” Goodwin says, “everything comes alive.”

Goodwin is an elder from Kotzebue. He’s also the uncle of Ishmael Hope, the game’s writer.

Hope says the two friends, Nuna and Fox, start chasing a little mouse.

“And then suddenly, in the middle of their chase, they’re stranded out in the ocean. They find themselves in an old umiak, a boat. They’re just out, and then they have to navigate their way all the way through,” Hope says.

In Nuna and Fox’s journey, “They get a little too exuberant, like young people will,” Hope says. “They’ll make little mistakes, but then they have to learn a lesson about how to respect all things, the values of being Inuit, Iñupiaq. It’s something that they had to learn.”

Foxtales is based on a story told by Hope’s late grandfather, Willie Panik Goodwin. It’s a story about fighting a giant mouse. Goodwin told the story “The Two Coastal Brothers” during an archaeological trip with a team of scholars, including Wanni Anderson who transcribed it in a short story collection, “Dall Sheep Dinner Guest.”

Hope used a lot of his grandfather’s direct words when writing the game’s script. He also collaborated extensively with his uncles who live in Kotzebue, where Foxtales begins.

The game, like its predecessor “Never Alone,” is narrated in Iñupiaq with English subtitles.

“Even if people are absorbed in the game, there’s something really special about the elder’s voice, them speaking in the language. So even if you’re not following everything, you’re getting a sense of that world and that spirit,” Hope says.

Hope says it’s that spirit that gives identity. Hope is Iñupiaq and Tlingit. He says his uncles Elmer Goodwin, Willie Goodwin Jr. and John Goodwin taught him a lot about Iñupiaq culture. Hope says working with them was key to making Foxtales.

“They know how to hunt, they know how to fish, they know how to be in the land. They have so many stories of survival, of reading the landscape, observing the landscape, sensing the spirits and the life of everything around us. They have that knowledge and they were able to impart that a little bit with us,” Hope says.

Foxtales is a celebration of Iñupiaq culture, something Hope thinks young people playing the game need.

“It’s one instance where they get a positive image of themselves reflected back on them. And when you’re in pop culture and you have almost no images or it’s all horrible stereotype, it’s really nice to kind of break through just a little bit,” Hope says.

Videogames have been seen as separating the young generation from the old, but Hope wants Foxtales to do the opposite.

“For young people everywhere, it allows them to create the bridge to their mom and their dad and their uncles, their aunties and their grandparents who may tell them, ‘Oh you know I know a story just like that, so let’s sit down and let me tell it to you,'” Hope says.

Hope doesn’t know if Nuna and Fox will go on any more adventures, but he says with the title Foxtales, there’s a possibility for more.

A malfunctioning heat lamp in a bathroom fan was determined to be the cause of a fire at the Super 8 hotel on Trout Street early Saturday morning.

Firefighters arrived just before 3 a.m. Saturday to find smoke coming from the gable. They extinguished a smoldering fire in the attic.

There is about $25,000 in damage estimated to the bathroom and the structure’s roof trusses above room 313.

Capital City Fire/Rescue Assistant Chief Ed Quinto said an employee discovered the fire and activated the fire alarm to alert hotel guests.

One firefighter was assessed for a possible medical issue and released at the scene. An evacuated resident was injured tripping while leaving and was transported from the scene.

The fire remains under investigation.

Twin Lakes is closed to swimming after sample test water returned results indicating “high fecal bacteria.” The City and Borough of Juneau sent out a notice Saturday recommending that no one, including pets, swim in the lakes. The city issued the same notice about two weeks ago.

Twin Lakes is a popular recreation spot for families and pet owners. Feces not picked up by pet owners can leech into the lake; rain only hastens contamination. Last month was Juneau’s wettest July on record.

The next sampling will take place Monday morning and will include testing of water entering the lakes in an attempt to find the source of the bacteria.