Northwest

The Association of Village Council Presidents has selected its first female CEO: Vivian Johnson Korthuis. The decision comes on the third day of the regional nonprofit corporation’s annual convention, after a year fraught with challenges. Some see this convention, and the change it has brought, as the light at the end of the tunnel.

Vivian Korthuis, AVCP’s first female CEO, said at the end of Thursday’s meeting that she was overwhelmed but confident.

“I think the opportunity exists now to really take AVCP to the next step,”  Korthuis said.

When asked how she would grow AVCP, she pointed to changes in the bylaws that led to her appointment.

“Well I think the board of directors has created a path for the company, and my job is to help them do that,”  Korthuis  said.

Korthuis grew up in the Village of Emmonak and eventually attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She is the first female CEO of a major tribal organization, and also the first to be hired – not elected.

This came about when the executive board asked delegates for control over the process and, in a three-quarters vote, it was granted. Marcy Sherer, vice president of the Native Village of Napaimute approves of the change.

“CEO really should be a hired position so that the executive board has oversight control and can manage the company through the CEO. In that aspect, it’s a very positive move,” Sherer said.

Sherer agrees with her new CEO that this could be a new start for AVCP.

“I think that this is a turn in history, a turn of the page in history,” Sherer said.

But not everyone agrees.

“It’s kind of a strange feeling,” said Mike Williams Sr., who is the alternate delegate for the village of Akiak. He didn’t like the way the vote went down, though he does think Korthuis has strong credentials.

“What we lost is having that direct voice and involvement cut off from the rest of the member tribes,” Williams said.

In the months leading up to the meeting, AVCP’s legal counsel Liz Pederson circulated a letter to the tribes informing them of the proposed changes. Williams and others responded with their own letter, calling the actions illegal under the bylaws. The final voting on the issue, done in a closed meeting on Wednesday, supported AVCP’s recommendations.

The same group raised questions earlier this year about the state of AVCP’s financial health, a topic that took up most of the first day’s meeting. Questions about whether grant funds were spent in compliance with federal regulations went without explanation for some time, and during that period former AVCP president Myron Naneng abruptly resigned.

Regardless of the dissent at this point, the AVCP Executive Board appears to have received the nod from its members to proceed with the recovery plan it laid out during the first day of the meeting.

 

Two overdue travelers from Brevig Mission were located and transported to Wales yesterday after search efforts had been going on for more than a day.

Eleanor Olanna, 29, and Herbert Barr, 30, left Brevig Mission on Tuesday around 5 p.m. on an ATV bound for Wales.

Alaska State Troopers received a report of the missing persons on Wednesday at 1:18 p.m. A Department of Public Safety aircraft and at least nine ground searchers searched the trail that Olanna and Barr were presumed to be traveling.

One of the ground searchers found Olanna and Barr who had run out of fuel for their ATV before reaching Wales.

According to State Troopers, both were transported safely to Wales without injuries Thursday.

A judge on Thursday reversed the outcome of the Democratic primary for the House district that includes the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs.

Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi ordered the Division of Elections to certify that incumbent Benjamin Nageak of Barrow won the primary over Dean Westlake of Kotzebue by a two-vote margin.

The outcome of the primary could determine who organizes a House majority. While both are Democrats, Nageak caucuses with the Republican-led House majority, and Westlake said he’ll caucus with the Democrats.

The decision reverses the outcome of a recount, which had Westlake winning by eight votes.

Nageak, who is the co-chairman of the House Resources Committee, expressed relief.

“I’m pleased by the court’s result and hopeful it will be sustained during the appeal to the Supreme Court,” Nageak said. “I’m sure that’s where it’s going to go. And I hope this decision will result in improvement of training.”

The outcome hinges on the Kobuk River village of Shungnak, where local election officials wrongly allowed 50 voters to cast ballots in both the Republican primary and in the “ADL”  primary for the Alaska Independence, Democratic and Libertarian parties.

Westlake led Nageak in Shungnak, 47 votes to three, after the recount but before the decision.

Judge Guidi decided to subtract votes, based on the average number of Shungnak residents who voted in Republican primaries over the past 10 years.

Guidi subtracted 12 votes based on the idea that they would have voted Republican. He took away 11 votes from Westlake in Shungnak, as well as one from Nageak. He also decided that election officials wrongly allowed both candidates to gain one vote from Kivalina in the recount.

Westlake, who was out fishing, couldn’t be reached for comment.

His lawyer Thomas Amodio said no votes should have been subtracted.

“In our view, all of them qualified,” he said. “None should be disenfranchised. There’s no evidence that any of them would have voted in anything but the ADL primary. Especially with a very contested, close race.”

Amodio argues that the competitive Democratic House race gave Republican voters more of a reason to cross over in the primary than they had in previous years, when there were more competitive Republican statewide races.

Amodio says Guidi’s decision effectively disenfranchises voters in a village that’s 95 percent Alaska Native.

“By his calculations, he’s casting those aside,” he said. “You know, he’s the judge. He gets to decide that. Now, the Alaska Supreme Court gets to decide whether he was right or wrong.”

Under Guidi’s decision, the final outcome would be 815 votes for Nageak, 813 for Westlake.

The winner will take the seat, since there are no general-election opponents.

Nageak said the small margin reinforces the importance of every voter.

“Every vote counts,” he said. “We’ve been saying that for years. And it was borne out.”

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, who oversees elections, said in a statement that officials are “disappointed that the Superior Court ruled that a poll worker error in Shungnak was sufficient to change the outcome” of the primary.

He added that they want “absolute clarity” on the issues involved and will follow whatever measures the Supreme Court deems appropriate to secure a fair election.

Division of Elections Director Josie Bahnke has said the division will use this year’s primary experience to improve how the state trains election workers.

The Supreme Court asked lawyers for Nageak, Westlake and the state to file briefs by Saturday, Oct. 8.

Oral arguments will be Wednesday, Oct. 12.

And the Court is expected to rule by Oct. 14, to give elections officials enough time to distribute ballots for the Nov. 8 election.

Four men from Point Hope have been charged with wasteful subsistence taking and wasteful taking through harassment of marine mammals.

Federal prosecutors filed the charges based on an incident that occurred last year when the four Native hunters allegedly removed the animals’ ivory tusks and left the meat to waste.

The four men charged are Adam Thomas Sage, Michael Ricky Tuzroyluk Jr., Guy Stephen Tuzroyluk, and Jacob John Peel Lane.

Stephen Cooper is an assistant U.S. attorney from Fairbanks working on this case. He explained the difference between the three counts of wasteful subsistence taking and the two counts of wasteful taking through harassment.

“The difference being that the first three counts mentioned a charge or crime of actually killing a walrus, that is, shooting them and taking the tusks and leaving the rest,” Cooper said. “And then the other two counts are wasteful taking through disturbing a herd in a manner that causes the herd to stampede and then that results in the death by trampling of some of them, individual walrus in the herd.”

All five charges were believed to have occurred on Sept.  2 and Sept. 4 of 2015 at the walrus haulout beach on Cape Lisburne, during which the four accused men were hunting with guns.

If these men are found guilty, then the penalty could include jail time and a sizable fine.

“The maximum isn’t what’s going to be necessarily imposed in any particular case, it’s what the maximum could be imposed and that maximum is the same one for all five of these counts,” Cooper said. “Each count has a maximum penalty of one-year imprisonment, a one-hundred-thousand dollar fine, and a $25 special assessment, which is a mandatory payment per count.”

Cooper has dealt with wasteful subsistence take cases before and says they happen every so often within the State court system.

A court date has not yet been given to determine when their case will go to trial.

With U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan’s help, the Water Resources Development Act has passed the U.S. Senate, inching Nome closer to the possibility of an Arctic deep draft port.

The act will bring $1.4 billion dollars to new water infrastructure over the next five years.

The funding is focused in three areas: infrastructure, subsistence harbors, and an Arctic deep draft port.

Working with the Tribal Health Consortium, the act’s focus on infrastructure places grant money in villages that do not have basic drinking water or wastewater services.

The money also will help communities whose water systems are below health standards.

The Army Corps of Engineers will conduct a feasibility study for an Arctic port. That study was put on hold after a period of instability, including an economic loss after Shell’s withdrawal from the Chukchi Sea.

Sullivan said this study will be look past economics.

“National security, search and rescue, oil contamination cleanup: all of these things need to be factored in when the Corps is looking at the importance of these issues,” Sullivan said.

Little Diomede will be given money to build a harbor.

The Water Resource Development Act also allows small regional benefits to be taken into consideration for coastal communities looking to justify the construction of smaller subsistence harbors.

From this point, the bill goes on to the House, and if passed, will be signed into effect.

Currently, more than 30 Alaskan communities do not have access to water or wastewater services.

A hunter was medevac’d to Bethel after a search and rescue near St. Mary’s on Monday, Sept. 19.

Travis Siekert, 38, was hunting an estimated 35 miles northwest of St. Mary’s when he began suffering from serious medical issues.

Alaska State Troopers received a report of the incident at about 10:03 a.m. Monday.

Siekart was found located on a raft with another individual.

He was transported by private plane to Saint Mary’s for emergency medical treatment before being medevaced to Bethel.

Local search and rescue volunteers dispatched to pick-up Siekart’s hunting partner, who was also safely returned to St. Mary’s.