Western

The Bethel City Council took one step toward a possible return to local option status Tuesday. With a 4-3 vote, the assembly introduced an ordinance which, if passed by council next month, would let voters would decide in October whether to allow local alcohol sales solely through a city-run liquor store.

A possible vote on local option comes as the city appeals the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s rejection of their formal protest of Bethel Native Corporation’s liquor store application. The surprise move by the ABC board pushed councilman Chuck Herman to make the proposal.

“It put our status as a community into question; it’s unclear if now we’re going to be able to protest anything at all. It’s unclear if the advisory vote is going to matter. Those are the reasons, and secondary to that we’ll be able to fund more police if necessary; we’ll have extra revenue to work with,” Herman said.

Local option includes provisions for additional local control, like limiting sales to residents of Bethel, that aren’t possible under private sales. The state liquor board will visit Bethel in October for a public hearing, following a new alcohol advisory vote expected to influence whether the council protests future liquor license. But that’s not guaranteed as four council seats are up for election.

Bethel resident Dave Trantham spoke out against the council advancing local option.

“If the people of Bethel want to go back into local option, they can start the same type of initiative that we had to get out of local option. It should be coming from us peasants, the grassroots, it should not be coming from you,” said Trantham.

Council Member Heather Pike reminded the council of what drove citizens out of local option including the limits on importation and a database tracking purchases.

“I myself, I was tired of being treated like a criminal. I felt like I was a criminal when we were under local option, like ‘Momma can I go to the store?’” said Pike.

Bethel left local option in 2009 and citizens voted again in 2010 to stay out while still rejecting local sales. That developed a liquor status that allows for unlimited importations and no local sales. It’s a middle ground that some call a compromise and others say creates a bootleggers paradise. A local option vote would change that reality. The path to the Bethels future status remains uncharted.

Vice Mayor Leif Albertson was concerned about a very complicated ballot on October 6th.

“If someone’s first choice is to stay the way we are now, I’m not sure how they should they vote on this in the election. Should they vote no, no, no, no, yes local option or no, no, no, no, no local option and then possibly end up with private sales which are less restrictive?” said Albertson.

Gearing up for October, Council Member Zach Fansler has lost faith in in the board that has the final word on liquor licenses.

“Will they allow us to keep that status? We don’t know; they are judge, jury and executioner. They’re going to come out in October and they’re going to be the arbiter of what is best for Bethel. They have overstepped their bounds; they have put us as a community at odds with one another. They should never, ever, ever, have thought that was ok,” said Fansler.

A public hearing is scheduled for August 11th. The council can decide then whether to send the local option question to voters.

The Calista board elected its first chairwoman in the corporation’s 44-year history. Margaret Pohjola was voted to the job Thursday. Pohjola has ties to Chuathbaluk, upriver from Bethel. Chair Willie Kasayulie of Akiachak had served the limit of three consecutive yearlong terms.

Calista says in a news release that Pohjola has done accounting work for Cook Inlet Tribal Council, NANA and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. She graduated from the University of Alaska Anchorage with a degree in management and has been on Calista’s board since 1987.

Paul George Guy was reelected to vice-chair. Robert L. Beans was voted secretary and Johnny Evan as treasurer.

Puhjola will lead the company’s directors as it plans to take on tens of thousands of new shareholders born after 1971. Shareholders voted earlier this month to drastically increase the ownership base. That enrollment is expected to begin in early 2017.

Alaska State Troopers say a Chevak man has admitted to killing Roxanne Smart last summer. The announcement was made Saturday through an online dispatch that they had arrested 20-year-old Samuel Atchak, of Chevak.

Megan Peters, a spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers says investigators were waiting on lab results.

“After almost a year-long investigation we got some lab results back that had to be analyzed and after we got those results we were able to go back into the community of Chevak and do some follow-up interviews. Once we were done with the interviews we were able to make an arrest in the Roxanne Smart Homicide. I’m sure it’s been a very hard time for friends and family as they’ve waited through the course of it, but with these types of investigation we need to make sure that we’re doing everything the right way,” said Peters.

The arrest took place Friday just before 1 p.m. It followed an interview by investigators on Thursday. Smart, 19, was found dead outside the Chevak Health Clinic last August, with multiple stab wounds to her chest and neck.

Smart’s family and friends had been campaigning online since the time of her death to keep her case from getting cold.

During a follow-up investigation this past Thursday Troopers with the Alaska Bureau of Investigation interviewed Atchak in Chevak. According to charging documents Atchak said he placed Smart in a “choke hold” until she lost consciousness and he sexually assaulted her. But Atchak denied killing Smart at that time.

Troopers arrested Atchak Friday on charges of first-degree sexual assault and second-degree assault. During the arrest, the charging documents say, he admitted he stabbed Smart the night he sexually assaulted her. He now also faces a charge for first-degree murder.

Atchak was arraigned Saturday. He’s being held at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Correctional Center in Bethel without bail. His arrest comes eleven months after Smart was found dead in Chevak on August 27^th, 2014.

Jessica Ayuluk, who is a resident of Chevak and an administrator for the Facebook page Justice For Roxanne Smart, said through an online message Saturday she was glad to hear about the arrest.

“I’m happy and relieved that the person who did this to her is finally caught and put away. I’m more happy that her family can get closure, now,” said Ayuluk.

 

Nome’s role in the future of Arctic shipping was the main topic of discussion at the most recent meeting of the Nome Port Commission. With the summer shipping season in full swing, harbormaster Lucas Stotts said the port had a busy July, emphasizing that, “both docks are completely jam-packed full until August 2.”

And vessel traffic is only expected to rise. A report published by the US Army Corps of Engineers in March of this year tentatively selected Nome as the site of a proposed deep-draft port, the first Arctic port of its kind in the country. The project is estimated to cost nearly $211 million in total, with the city on the hook for a possible $113 million.

City officials say much depends on the Port’s capacity to attract funding partners who have a vested interest in Arctic development. But securing those potential partners is easier said than done. With ongoing plans to drill in the Chukchi Sea, petroleum giant Shell Oil would have been an attractive partner for Nome, though the company took its business elsewhere this summer.

“It struck me right in the face that Shell Oil is doing logistics out of Kotzebue and not Nome,” said Commissioner Charlie Lean.

Lean was disappointed that Shell passed over Nome in its planning for this year’s drilling season. He cited Nome’s transportation infrastructure and longer shipping season as major selling points for the port and urged the city to market itself more aggressively in the future.

Port project manager Joy Baker said, despite this year’s disappointment, the door with Shell isn’t shut completely. “We’re still on their radar,” Baker stressed, “but they’re going to run their small crew changes out of Kotzebue… taking advantage of the closer airport to their working location.”

Meanwhile, the Port of Nome is focusing its energy on expanding local services, with construction of the Middle Dock already underway. The project will add another 200-foot dock, allowing the port to accommodate two to three additional mid-sized vessels.

Baker updated the commission at the recent meeting, explaining that, “things are going real well, real smooth, mother nature’s been very cooperative.” She said progress overall is rapid, adding the look of the dock “changes every day, considerably.”

Baker also introduced plans for a possible boatlift at the mouth of the Snake River. Because Nome does not currently have the capacity to remove larger vessels from the water, they’re forced to travel south to ice-free harbors such as Juneau or Seattle for the winter. Baker debuted two concept drawings for a possible lift, with initial bids ranging from $4.3 to $4.5 million. While she emphasized that the concept is still abstract, she said it’s never too early to think about Nome’s future.

“I think it’s another piece of infrastructure that is on the horizon for Nome,” suggested Baker, “I just don’t know when that magical time is to build it.”

When it comes to future planning, outgoing commissioner Iura Leahu commended Baker for keeping her “eye to the future.” In his final comments, Leahu thanked his fellow commissioners for their continuing work and expressed his hope of seeing those efforts pay off down the road. “I think that there is a future here for the city of Nome,” Leahu insisted, “and I think we might be able see a port here that is going to make a difference in this region.”

Much of this hope rests on the US Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to move forward with a deep-draft Arctic port in Nome. After reviewing all inter-agency and public comments on the “tentatively selected” plan, a final decision is anticipated by December 2015.

A veteran election official resigned abruptly on Friday at Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott’s request. The Walker-Mallott administration was Gail Fenumiai’s third as head of the state Division of Elections.

“There’s nothing personal in the request,” says Claire Richardson, special assistant to Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. She says they accepted Fenumiai’s resignation on Friday.

“The lieutenant governor would like to move in some new directions with the Division of Elections and it was felt that it was time for different leadership,” Richardson says.

Fenumiai has been director of elections since 2008, and has 10 years of earlier experience in the division. She didn’t return calls for comment.

She’s being replaced by Nome City Manager Josephine Bahnke, who’ll start in October. In the meantime, election supervisor Lauri Wilson is acting director.

Richardson says Mallott hasn’t worked closely with Fenumiai since he and Gov. Bill Walker took office, but they’ve had meetings about the Tyokuk v. Treadwell case, which is in settlement negotiations. A federal judge ruled last year the state doesn’t do enough to serve voters who speak Native languages.

Richardson says there was no particular issue that led to Fenumiai’s resignation request. Rather, she characterized it as the prerogative of the administration to bring in new people.

“I think it’s just that the lieutenant governor would like to move forward and reach his goal of having the best elections division in the country,” Richardson says.

That means being customer service-oriented and “the ability for Alaskans to register and vote,” according to Richardson.

“We’re excited to have her move to Juneau and to really take a look at elections from a different perspective,” Richardson says.

Bahnke was born and raised in Nome. She says she was contacted by the lieutenant governor’s office sometime in the past month and has been going through a vetting process. Bahnke says it’ll be hard to leave Nome. She’s been city manager for 7 years.

“I did let the governor know, I love my job, I love Nome, but I think our philosophies are aligned and so I feel very honored to be asked to be a part of this administration,” Bahnke says.

Prior to her city manager role, Bahnke was a local government specialist in the Bering Strait region for the state. She was also a program director for Kawerak Inc., according to her resume. Bahnke has a master’s degree in public administration from Portland State University and a bachelor’s in political science from Fort Hays State University in Kansas.

“For the past 15 years working with tribal, state and local government and my management experience will help greatly in my new job. I haven’t gotten really into the weeds on elections. This is going to be a steep learning curve for me, but like any challenge, I’m up for it,” Bahnke says.

Bahnke plans to travel to regional election offices at the end of August.

Bahnke contributed $500 to Bill Walker’s gubernatorial campaign. After he merged with Mallott, she gave another $200, according to campaign finance disclosures.

The Division of Elections is the only division under the lieutenant governor’s office. Mallott is in Canada this week and could not be reached for comment.

KNOM’s Matthew F. Smith contributed reporting.

Nome’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program narrowly skated under the knife at a recent school board meeting, but funding the program in the future—and even the upcoming year—is still uncertain and hotly debated.

For the past eight years, Sitnasuak Native Corporation has funded most, if not all, the costs of running the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp at Nome-Beltz, essentially salary and benefits for two Army instructors. That cost has been increasing, and is now above what the district can afford. Once again this year, the NPS Nome Public Schools requested a donation from SNC of $150,000.

If all or some of that money doesn’t come in, the JROTC program would be left unfunded. At the school board meeting Tuesday, July 14, NPS Superintendent Shawn Arnold proposed a “just in case” motion that asked the board to pay the difference if full funding didn’t come through from SNC.

The request hit a nerve for some board members, including Jennifer Reader. If funding doesn’t come through, she said the district would essentially be agreeing to pay for a $150,000 program in its entirety.

“We’ve already had this discussion, I don’t know how many times,” Reader said. “We had this discussion last year … We do not have this kind of money to fund this program. We don’t even have the kind of money to fund the difference of said program. At this point, I made the motion, but I am not going to say yes to this motion.”

While Reader said JROTC is a valuable program and the board appreciates Sitnasuak’s contributions to preserve it each year, she added that it’s simply too much money to set aside when the district’s fiscal future looks grim.

Arnold said several SNC committees have already approved a donation of $100,000, but that still leaves the district on the hook for part of the cost.

“That’s another $50,000 that we have to come up with this time, and what are we going do again next year?” Reader asked.

“This program has been on a hope and a prayer every single year,” she added, “I am floored that we have still gone this far without coming up with a different plan with ROTC considering we don’t have it in our budget today.”

Arnold agreed that the district needs to think ahead, instead of putting all their eggs in the basket of one organization’s generosity.

“We have to do a better job of ensuring the funds are in place,” Arnold said. “This is a program where the costs have crept up and it doesn’t look like the costs are going down any time soon.

Looking forward, the school district can consider additional funding sources to preserve JROTC without a great draw from the district. But with such late notice this year, Arnold advised it would be unwise to ax the program.

Board member Paula Davis agreed.

“What are we doing for our students? Are we going to cut the program and say, ‘Sorry, too bad.’ If our students don’t know they’re not going to have a program next year although they’ve been getting ready for it from ninth grade—now they’re in 11th grade,” she said. “Oh my gosh, it’s not going to happen this year?

Board member Barb Amarok said she’s in favor of funding teaching positions, and would rather see cuts made in the administration.

Ultimately, the board opted to amend the original motion and voted 4-1 to approve the remaining funding for JROTC contingent upon receipt of $100,000 from Sitnasuak. If Sitnasuak’s donation comes through that means the school could pay up to $50,000 to keep the program. If the donation does not come through, the majority of board members said they cannot consider paying for the program next year.

The approved budget has the district taking only $100,000 out of fund balance next year, but that’s a savings thanks to excess money in the transportation fund and this year’s insurance rebate. Business manager Paula Coffman says that savings can’t be expected in the future.

“I guess I’m just cautioning you … but this is not a realistic number going into the future,” Coffman said. “We actually have $350,000 to the good just based on those pieces of candy [in the form of one-time rebates] that fell our way. And even with that, we’re still ending up taking $118,000 from fund balance. Not to paint a bleak picture, because it’s a great picture right now, but that’s not going to happen every year.”

For now, the board will be waiting on the JROTC donation to finalize their decision.

Paula Coffman also announced at the close of the meeting that she will be leaving the district soon to take care of her mom.

The board’s next meeting will be Tuesday, Aug. 11.