Southeast

The survivor of a 2010 Coast Guard helicopter crash has his first day in court this week.

Lt. Lance Leone is expected to appear Wednesday before a military judge in Juneau. The Coast Guard has brought charges against Leone for the loss of a Coast Guard helicopter in July 2010, and the deaths of two of its crewmembers.

The chopper and its crew were based in Sitka, where community members who support Leone have taken up a collection for his legal defense.

KCAW’s Ed Ronco reports.

Leone is facing three charges from the Coast Guard: One says he failed to navigate away from charted hazards. Another charges him with the destruction of the chopper. Those are both misdemeanors. The third charge consists of two felony charges: It says Leone negligently caused the deaths of Petty Officer First Class Adam Hoke and Petty Officer Second Class Brett Banks. Leone is not facing charges in connection with the death of the helicopter’s commander, Lt. Sean Krueger.

Wednesday’s proceeding is called an Article 32 hearing. It’s similar to a grand jury proceeding in civilian court, with a few differences.

“Unlike a civilian grand jury, the Article 32 is an adversary hearing. The accused can be there – well, not only can be there, but can be there and represented by counsel,” says Lt. Col. John Pharr, who’s retired from the Army’s Judge Advocate General corps, and now is an attorney in private practice in Anchorage.

Pharr says in addition to Leone’s ability to be present, the hearing will include a full airing of the evidence against Leone.

“It’s a tactical decision, like any other, whether the accused would actually testify,” says Pharr. “But the military system has all the protections of the civilian system. In fact, it resembles it in more ways than it differs from it.”

Instead of a panel of grand jurors, Leone’s case will be heard before an investigating officer, in this case Capt. Andrew Norris, a Coast Guard Judge Advocate, stationed at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.

“Once the evidence has been presented, he will then write his recommendation and provide that to Admiral Ostebo, and Admiral Ostebo will then determine the next course of action to take,” says Chief Petty Officer Kip Wadlow, a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in Alaska.

Wadlow is referring to Rear Admiral Thomas Ostebo, commander of the Coast Guard district that encompasses all of Alaska. Ostebo can decide to drop charges, handle the matter internally, or send the case on to a court martial, which would put Leone on trial.

While this is happening, friends in Sitka have established a legal defense fund for Leone, through the law office Pearson & Hanson. Mike Finn is one of those friends. The charges were filed on September 30th, and he says the time since then has been frustrating.

It’s hard to get answers right now,” Finn says. “There’s not a lot of people who want to talk about or that can talk about it. There’s a lot of people that want to help that can’t. So it’s just one of those things that I feel a personal interest in wanting to get the word out, and get the proper word out, and tell people some of the things going on with this case that aren’t being aired.”

Finn says he has many concerns, including a feeling that Leone is being singled out for punishment by a command that’s concerned about its safety image. And he says the charges against Leone have changed his view of the Coast Guard as an institution. His 11-year-old son has shown interest in joining, but Finn says he won’t support the decision if Leone is convicted.

That’s a different reaction than the one held by Leone’s father, George.

“I still love them. I love their mission. It is upsetting to know what’s happening at present,” says George Leone. “But I believe he will be rescued and vindicated because my son didn’t do anything wrong.”

George Leone says his son was questioned in the aftermath of the accident, and that the investigation appeared to be over. He says Lance Leone was about to get the green light to fly again.

“He got a call from Washington that his training’s been canceled,” the elder Leone says.

The charges were filed not long after. George Leone says he’s been awed by the support the community of Sitka showed in the aftermath of the crash, and the support from the Coast Guard. That support including a hospital visit from Admiral Robert Papp, the Coast Guard commandant. Papp is the highest ranking officer in the Coast Guard, and when the charges were filed, George Leone called him at home. He says he didn’t get to talk to Papp, but spoke to his wife.

“So what did I want to tell Papp when I called him? I just wanted to say ‘Thank you, thank you, for all the love and support, but I want to understand what’s going on and please stop. How can they do a tremendous investigation, they spent thousands of man hours, put together a report, and they said ‘Lance didn’t do anything wrong. They hit some wires out there,’ or whatever. And now to come up with this, when he got the green light to go flying, they’re slapping the face of all the people that did this investigative report. They said there’s nothing wrong with it. Where’s this coming from?”

George Leone might not have received an answer to that question – “Where is this coming from?” – but after Wednesday’s hearing he and his son, Lt. Lance Leone, might have a clearer idea of where it’s going.

A Ketchikan House candidate faces a sizable penalty for campaigning without registering.

An Alaska Public Offices Commission attorney recommends fining David Scott $2,357. That’s because he sent out emails announcing his election plans without filing the proper paperwork with the state.

Scott is a former chief of staff for the incumbent in the seat, Representative Kyle Johansen. The Republican, now chief of staff for Nome Democratic Senator Donny Olson, announced his candidacy on Alaska Day.

He sent emails to the media, plus another Ketchikan Republican,

who forwarded it to party members. At the time, he said he planned to work the upcoming legislative session, which meant he would not file until after the legislature adjourns. That’s because legislative staff have to quit before running for office.

In a report to the commission, APOC attorney Martha Tansik recommends he be charged a $700 fine, plus$1,657 in staff costs. That adds up to $2,357 in civil penalties.

Calls for comment were referred to APOC Executive Director Paul Dauphinais, who said staff concluded Scott violated state statute.

“For Mister Scott, it appears that he had an expenditure in announcing his campaign and did so before he filed either a letter of intent of candidate registration or put his name in nomination,” Dauphinais said.

Question: “Does the commission have a rule or the state have a rule that says sending an email is an expenditure?”

Dauphinais: “Yes, the commission has set a precedent where sending an email is considered an expenditure, even if it is de minimis (a legal term for minimal).”

The full commission will decide whether to levy the entire recommended fine.

Scott also could not be reached via phone and email. But in an earlier interview with KRBD, he said he did his best to follow the rules.

“I had no intent to try to skirt any ethical barriers or campaign laws, which is why I was in contact with the ethics committee before hand, before I did the press release. So I used my own private time. I did it after 5 o’clock. That’s why I used my own private computer. And I released the press release on a state holiday,” Scott said.

His written response to APOC’s complaint notes that he sent another email, rescinding his candidacy announcement, after agency staff told him he was in violation of campaign laws.

He also said he realizes he should have contacted APOC before sending out the first announcement.

The APOC report also questions whether Scott has actually ended his campaign. It cites a KRBD report where he indicates he still intends to run for the House.

Incumbent Johansen is seeking election to a reconfigured Ketchikan-based House district. Wrangell Representative Peggy Wilson and Ketchikan Visitors Bureau Director Patty Mackey have also filed for the Republican primary.

Ketchikan City Council Member Matt Olsen will run as a Democrat.

A capital city artist has just released a book of his Sarah Palin political cartoons.

Tony Newman’s work is as much about Juneau and Alaska as it is about the former governor and vice presidential candidate.

We sat down with the award-winning cartoonist, whose work is published in the Juneau Empire, to learn more about his political art.

Newman flips through his new book and stops at an editorial cartoon from the fall of 2009. It’s inspired by Palin’s appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where she said Levi Johnston, the estranged father of her grandson, would be welcome at her family’s Thanksgiving dinner.

“It was at the same time that he was mulling over posing in Playgirl magazine. So I have him sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner with the Palin family, and he’s not wearing any clothes. And she’s thinking to herself, ‘Oprah, this is why I wasn’t sure having Levi over was a good idea’,” he says.

That’s just one of the many scenes set in Newman’s book, called “When Sarah Palin Came to Town.” (Click on cartoons for a larger image.)

It’s history as well as comedy, beginning with her 2002 try for lieutenant governor. That was the year Frank Murkowski topped the GOP slate, and the book also chronicles his administration.

“When Sarah Palin came in, I didn’t think there could be any more color than Murkowski provided. But obviously, as events turned out, it was a pretty exciting and dramatic time for Alaska,” he says.

Most of Newman’s cartoons first appeared on the editorial page of the Juneau Empire newspaper. Others were created just for this book, to fill gaps in the story.

He had no trouble coming up with the images.

“As far as being a subject to draw, she’s fun. She’s got big, big dark eyes and that mountain of hair that she likes to pile up on top of her head, surrounded by the thin-frame glasses,” he says.

Newman starts out portraying Palin as an outsider challenging the political establishment. That changes as she becomes more controversial.

“It seemed to me that as she got a little older, and a little harsher, and a little bit more well-defined in her views, I think that my lines that I used to draw her became a little sharper and a little more angular, a little more pointed,” he says.

Newman signs his political cartoons as “Toe,” his childhood nickname. And it was during his early years that he developed an interest in cartooning.

He loved to draw. And one day, when he was 4 or 5, he came across the cartoons published in the New Yorker.

He didn’t understand the magazine’s sophisticated and sometimes surprising approach to humor. So he took them to his mother.

“I watched her face as she read them to me, to try to look at her reaction to see if these were funny. They were clearly supposed to be funny, a dog talking to its master or something. And I remember asking her, ‘Is that funny?’ And she said ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘Why aren’t you laughing then?’ And she said, ‘It’s not that kind of funny’,” Newman says.

He continued drawing as an adult, while pursuing other work, and eventually decided to freelance some cartoons. He penned images for three Juneau weekly newspapers before moving to the daily Empire.

“All of us are familiar with Tony’s work over the years and feel that he has a real good solid take on things,” says Nancy DeCherney of Juneau’s Arts and Humanities Council.

One of its artists’ panels awarded Newman a small grant to help him further his work. DeCherney reads from the panel’s award recommendation:

“In spite of our own Sarah Palin fatigue, and against our better judgment, we are pleased. If it can be a community event, laughter and healing will be wonderful to work through this,” she says.

Newman was at first reluctant to publish his work as a book. But he realized his Palin cartoons gave him a strong story arc, with a beginning, middle, and something of an end. He tried shopping it to agents, but ended up publishing it himself.

He knows a lot of people have written about, commented on, or parodied Palin. But he says he brings a different perspective.

“In wanted to make a book that I wanted to read based on reflections that I knew were real and the reactions that I knew were real based on being an Alaska citizen and based on being a Juneau resident,” he says.

Newman says he’s a moderate nonpartisan and didn’t set out to laud or bash Palin any more than the other politicians he draws. But he says he’s heard from people who think he’s too harsh – or too easy.

“That kind of pleases me. I didn’t set out to make a book here that was a screed one way or the other. I’m hopeful that whether you’re a Palin fan or critic you’ll find something to identify with here,” he says.

Newman is distributing his book in Alaska and through his website, sarahpalincartoons.com.

Listen to Tony Newman read from his book:

Click here to see other political cartoonists take on Sarah Palin.

More Toe cartoons from the Murkowski administration:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All cartoon images copyright 2011 by Tony “Toe” Newman.

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.

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.