Community

The doors of one of the oldest family-owned stores in Sitka closed last month. Brenner’s Fine Clothing & Gifts has been a staple on Lincoln Street for the past 65 years, and after nearly 50 years of management, owner Bonnie Brenner decided to retire.

KCAW sat down with Bonnie and her assistant manager, Stephanie Brenner, during the store’s last few weeks, to talk about what’s ahead, both as business partners and as a mother-daughter duo.

Walking into Brenner’s awakens all the senses. A little bell rings when you open the door. Painted rain boots and cozy sweaters adorn the wall. The front tables display soap satchels and fine scented pillar candles. Brenner’s is the place you go when you want a little something special for your friend, or for yourself.

“This is a destination store,” said owner and manager Bonnie Brenner. “I know a lot of people that, if they come to Sitka, they’re coming to Brenner’s.”

Brenner’s Fine Clothing & Gifts officially closed its doors to shoppers on March 30th. The store relocated to Sitka from Nome in 1949, where it was known as “Vi’s Apparel.” Bonnie Brenner began working there after school, and loved the store so much, she negotiated the sale with the owners – Duke and Vi Mitrovich – in 1962 or 1963, at the tender age of 19.

“[Duke and Vi] were getting ready to retire and I just said, ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I wanted to buy it,” said Bonnie Brenner. “I didn’t have any money! And my mom worked for a doctor. She’d never done retail.”

But the family bought it and renamed it Brenner’s, moving the store three times into gradually larger spaces. For Bonnie, the teenager entrepreneur, the appeal was not only the clothes, but the opportunity to hand pick items at markets outside of Sitka.

“I found out that when I went to college that you could go to market and travel. And that’s the part that I liked,” said Bonnie Brenner. “I found out that I could leave this island and hop on a plane. Otherwise, I would have never left.”

Stephanie Brenner, Bonnie’s daughter, started working at the store when she was just ten, dusting racks, cutting tissues, and fashioning bows on an old fashioned machine. She remembers watching her mother and grandmother work

“They just were always women that worked,” said Stephanie Brenner. “It always seemed kind of glamorous to me because I can remember when my mom and grandma would travel to New York City and I thought, ‘Oh, they’re going to New York City!’ They’d always bring back something really – not extravagant – but something unusual you wouldn’t have in Sitka, Alaska.”

With time, Stephanie became assistant manager and got bit by the same travel bug. Pretty soon, Bonnie and Stephanie were making yearly trips to markets and gift shows around the country – to Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles and many times to Seattle. The pair have come back with plenty of stories. Some they couldn’t tell on the radio, and others…

SB: We met Richard Simmons and that was absolutely hysterical. He was hilarious.
KCAW: Wait, how does one even meet Richard Simmons?
SB: He was at the Atlanta Gift Mart. I even think my mom had her picture taken with him.

Stephanie said that these little trips, which they sometimes called “research and development,” were a valuable way to keep the merchandise fresh. As the decades passed, the racks at Brenner’s would follow the ebb and flow of women’s fashion. Stephanie reminisced on the era of tuxedo blouses and some trends that have made a comeback.

One current trend Stephanie Brenner remembered from the past was, “Racks and racks of floral leggings and they would sell, as well as stirrup pants. You know, fashion evolves, but it’s sometimes reminiscent of maybe the 70s or the 80s.”

Though fashions have recycled, Bonnie said that the meteoric rise of online shopping has changed the buying habits of customers.

“People need to know with the internet buying that the tax dollars leaves Sitka,” said Bonnie Brenner.

The Brenner women spoke of other economic changes that have affected the challenged the store, including the cost of utilities and the decreased number of cruise ships. Bonnie has been shrinking her inventory for the past two years, in preparation to retire and this year, the timing was good.

“I’ve done this for 50 years,” said Bonnie Brenner. “I will miss being downtown with my customers. I’m just overwhelmed with the comments I have received on how much they have loved our store. I have put my whole heart into it. It’s also a time – I’m excited. There’s going to be new changes in the store and it’s still going to be a wonderful store.”

Particularly exciting is Brenner’s Fine Clothing & Gifts in Hoonah, which Stephanie and her husband will operate this May through September. Stephanie said if she’s learned anything from her mom over the years, it’s to not be afraid of change.

“One thing that my mom has always said is that you’re never too old to stop learning,” said Stephanie. “I think that makes you better business people by being open to new ideas and trying new things. But I learned that from my mom.”

Among those new beginnings? The chance for Bonnie to return to her first love…

SB: And my mom is going to live the high life. (Laughs)
BB: Travel!

And the first destination? Somewhere in Europe or the fall leaves in New England.

Silver Basin, a home decor and cooking store, will move into the Brenner’s location in Sitka sometime next month.

The City of Juneau has taken over temporary management of the Eagle Valley Center after Southeast Alaska Guidance Association, or SAGA, stopped overseeing it. The outdoor education and lodge facility is located out the road in Juneau’s Amalga Meadows Park.

It’s unclear what will happen to the Eagle Valley Center in the future, but for this season, the city says it won’t be running any programs.

SAGA has been managing the city-owned Eagle Valley Center since 1992. The latest use agreement goes through 2016, but Parks and Recreation Director Kirk Duncan says the city may be terminating that much sooner.

“We’ve just found out that SAGA has not been maintaining its insurance which puts it in violation of its contract and we can terminate for cause, and so we’re moving forward with that,” Duncan says.

Amid financial troubles last year, SAGA lost its Eagle Valley Center manager but kept a caretaker and did minimal maintenance. The caretaker left the Eagle Valley Center several months ago and didn’t notify the city, Duncan says. The city moved in its own this month.

Duncan says he’s not sure if Parks and Recreation will take on long-term management.

“The city is hard pressed to take on any new obligations without adequate funding. Eagle Valley Center doesn’t come with any funding so we would be looking at – can we do something out there that we can break even on? And would we go get grant funding to help us provide low cost services to the residents of the community? And none of that comes quickly,” Duncan says.

SAGA still has property at the Eagle Valley Center, like kayaks, vans and ropes course gear. Duncan says that’s between the organization and its bank; the city is not getting involved.

“The poles and the cables are still in the ground and in the air, but all the harnesses and everything else are tied up with the First Bank-SAGA situation,” Duncan says. “So if somebody came to me and said, ‘We want to manage the ropes course. We will provide the equipment. We will market it. We want to operate it. We have adequate insurance. We have people that are trained.’ I’d be all over it. But the city will not be operating any programs out of the Eagle Valley Center this summer.”

Duncan says he’s open to the idea of the city partnering with an organization for management, like Discovery Southeast or the Eagle River United Methodist Camp, if there was interest, or partnering with a conglomerate of agencies. He knows it’s a good asset to the community and wants to keep it available.

At the end of last year, community members came together to brainstorm ways to keep the Eagle Valley Center going, but no leading organization emerged.

Discovery Southeast Executive Director Shawn Eisele says the Eagle Valley Center is a great outdoor education resource, particularly for middle and high school students, one that he wants to see stick around. At the moment, though, it’s not something Discovery Southeast can take on.

“There’s just a lot of stuff going on there and it’s hard to find an organization that’s in a position where they can run summer camps, they can run kayaking expeditions, they can run ropes courses. My hunch is that it’s going to take a lot of different groups coming together and each playing a role, which ultimately, I think, is a lot stronger for the community,” Eisele says.

Darren Snyder hopes the Eagle Valley Center remains a community resource. As a Cooperative Extension agent for the University of Alaska Fairbanks, he also hopes it’ll be the site of locally grown food on a commercial level.

“There is a rich history of that valley being used for food production. There was a farm at one point and it’s excellent flat land for that purpose potentially. I think that that should be part of the conversation on how that valley gets used,” Snyder says.

Parks and Recreation Director Kirk Duncan says he’d like to hear ideas for the Eagle Valley Center. He also says groups that are interested in using the retreat facility this summer should contact his department.

“I don’t want to say, ‘No, we’re not using it.’ There’s a lot of unanswered questions. I’d like to use it, but I want to make sure that we do it in a responsible way,” Duncan says.

SAGA board chair Matt Smith declined to comment for this story.

Full disclosure: Kirk Duncan is on KTOO’s Board of Directors, and Darren Snyder is a KTOO employee spouse.

The Juneau Assembly on Monday weakened the authority of a proposed aquatics board. It’s the empowered pool board that Juneau voters gave the Assembly permission to make in October through a ballot initiative. The board being proposed now wouldn’t be able to hire and fire its own CEO.

Assembly member Loren Jones proposed an amendment to keep the Parks and Recreation director as head of the pools. Jones said the empowered board would still be responsible for budgeting and operations.

“It sets up a dual responsibility for the director of parks and rec in the way that he will be answerable to the empowered board for the pools when the issues are the pools,” Jones said.

For the rest of the time, Parks and Recreation Director Kirk Duncan would still answer to the city manager. Duncan started the job in January after heading the city’s public works department. Prior to that, he was the manager of the city-owned Eaglecrest Ski Area, which is run by an empowered board.

Assembly member Karen Crane says the amendment is a good compromise. She doesn’t see much conflict in having Duncan working for both the city manager and the aquatics board.

“I think that communication between the two sides and the skills frankly that our parks and rec director possesses would be a real advantage in this case and so this is about the only way under which I would favor an empowered board,” Crane said.

Assembly member Jerry Nankervis says it simply won’t work.

“When one boss says I want you to do this and it directly conflicts with what the other boss says, what you do is you take that baby and you tear it in half, and it’s a no-win situation,” Nankervis said.

Jones’ amendment passed with Assembly members Nankervis, Kate Troll and Debbie White voting no. The Assembly directed city staff to add a sunset clause of 3 years and language clarifying the director’s chain of command. The amended ordinance is scheduled for public comment at the Assembly’s April 27 meeting.

Duncan says he understands the concerns about conflict. But he says he’s looking forward to the potential challenge.

“It’s not written in stone that you can’t work for two bosses and if this is a short term fix – 3 years – I’m certainly willing to give it a try. I came to Juneau to take over a government-run ski area. It was a real challenge. There aren’t very many of them around. So this challenge of working for two entities, heck, I think that sounds like kind of an interesting challenge,” Duncan says.

As the Assembly continues to work through the process of establishing the aquatics board, the city has hired an outside firm to manage the pools. USA Pool Management also runs Bethel’s new city pool.

Juneau’s last aquatics manager left the position in February and it hasn’t been filled since. Duncan says the contract is for 6 months at a cost of $14,500 a month.

Full disclosure: Kirk Duncan is on KTOO’s Board of Directors.

The Juneau Assembly heard an appeal Monday night challenging a transitional home for women who are former inmates.

Andrew Hughes and the Tall Timbers Neighborhood Association contend the conditional use permit granted to Haven House in October by the Juneau Planning Commission was improper.

Each side of the appeal had 30 minutes to present its arguments. Prior to the hearing, the Assembly had about 1,700 pages of supporting documents to review.

Representing the Tall Timbers Neighborhood Association, attorney Dan Bruce argued Haven House is a halfway house. He quoted how city code defines a halfway house:

“‘A single-family dwelling for not more than nine persons over the age of 12, together with not more than two persons providing supervision and other services to such persons, all of whom live together as a single housekeeping unit. Residents may be serving a sentence for a criminal act.’ That is Haven House. There is no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

Under city code, halfway houses are not allowed in typical residential districts, like the zoning that covers Malissa Drive in the Mendenhall Valley where Haven House is located.

Bruce said the short-term residents of Haven House would not take ownership of the neighborhood and its presence would lower property values.

“This is the wrong move. It is placing transitory individuals with criminal records in a stable and mature neighborhood and I think that’s completely inappropriate. And I think it is in effect a social experiment and the people of this neighborhood are being asked to be part of the experiment,” Bruce said.

Attorney Mary Alice McKeen represented Haven House. She said Haven House is not a halfway house and the head of Alaska’s Department of Corrections agrees.

“And the reason is that people live in Haven House by their choice. They are not sentenced to live at Haven House. The women living in Haven House could live anywhere as long as they got the permission of their probation or parole officer,” McKeen said.

Representing the planning commission, assistant city attorney Robert Palmer III said Haven House is considered transitional housing and is allowed in a residential neighborhood with a conditional use permit.

“The record clearly establishes that there’s substantial evidence that transitional housing will improve the public health and safety. The structure complies with all fire and building codes. And probably most importantly, evidence was presented that the recidivism rate without transitional housing is roughly 60 percent. With transitional housing as proposed by Haven House, recidivism rate drops down to 20 percent,” Palmer said.

The Assembly met later last night to deliberate. City attorney Amy Mead says the Assembly has 45 days to issue its decision to the parties.

Haven House is currently operating on Malissa Drive with staff, including a live-in manager, and two residents.

Marijuana activists in the capital city are planning a Southeast Alaska Cannabis Celebration this Friday at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

The event will feature eight bands, food carts and local businesses showing off their products and services. But organizers are asking attendees to leave the green stuff at home.

Giono Barrett hopes to start a marijuana farm with his brother in Juneau, but says they won’t have any plants to display at the cannabis celebration. Barrett points to a similar festival canceled recently in Anchorage after city officials told organizers they would not allow possession or use of pot at a municipal facility.

“We really want to just bring the community together and get people out of the woodwork,” Barrett says. “So the idea here is to hit that marijuana demographic, and get them out of their house and get them together and enjoying music together.”

Public consumption of marijuana is illegal, even under the state’s new recreational marijuana law. In addition, the City and Borough of Juneau currently has a moratorium on land use permits for marijuana-related businesses. Barrett opposed the moratorium at first, but now thinks it’s been good for Juneau’s marijuana community.

“I think it was in retrospect a really smart decision, because it gave us the opportunity to get to know each other — the cannabis community and our city,” he says.

The cannabis celebration is being organized by Revelry Events, founded by former KXLL music director and volunteer Jessie Herman-Haywood. She says you won’t have to be a marijuana user to get something out of it.

“Essentially this is just a really cool music festival,” Herman-Haywood says. “It’s a great opportunity for the cannabis community, whether you’re going to be starting a business, or maybe you want to be purchasing some, or maybe you just don’t know anything about cannabis and are really interested in the culture.”

Even though there’s not supposed to be any drugs or alcohol at the festival, Herman-Haywood says it will be a 21 and over gathering because of the material being discussed.

Local greenhouse Get Growing and clothing maker Aurora Projekt will be among the vendors at the event. Attorney Kevin Higgins also will have a booth. He’s a former public defender now in private practice, and a recreational marijuana user. He says he’s interested in watching the legalization process.

“Marijuana’s been a part of my life for over 20 years,” Higgins says. “It’s new and kind of uncharted territory. So it’s just interesting to see how it’s unfolding.”

Higgins says members of Juneau’s cannabis community have made themselves available to public officials at both the city and state level who are making decisions about how marijuana will be regulated.

“Trying to make sure that they’re not only making good decisions, but asking the right questions in arriving at those decisions,” he says. “And kind of still fighting uphill against a bunch of reefer madness.”

But in general Higgins says most politicians are doing a good job of thoughtfully approaching the issue.

Editor’s note: Jessie Herman-Heywood’s former role with KXLL has been clarified.

Juneau’s first transitional home for women recently paroled or released from prison is welcoming its first residents.

“This is the resident manager’s room here and we have a bathroom. Of course we need three bathrooms because we have up to nine women, so women and bathrooms are a must,” says Haven House Director Kara Nelson as she walks through the two-floor, six-bedroom house.

“They’re pretty standard rooms, but not too small and everything is really nice and we really want it to be homelike because it is their home,” Nelson says.

All the women get a twin bed, closet space and half a dresser. On the bottom floor, there’s a washer and dryer, and a den with computers, a TV and a big bookshelf. Upstairs, there’s a living room, dining room, kitchen “and then we have our amazing back porch where I envision amazing barbeques,” Nelson says.

Once a week, the women share a group meal – spaghetti and meatballs on this day – and Nelson says that’s when it hit her. After years of working on the project, Haven House has finally become a home.

“Just having everyone sit there, especially those women. They’re very unique and I feel like they were meant to be here. I broke in tears right before dinner,” she says.

Haven House provides women who’ve left prison a place to call home for up to 2 years. It’s a structured living situation where they have to come up with an individual action plan and get the support to follow it through.  The women are expected to find a job, pay $550 in rent and help with household chores.

“It’s a place that you get to be vulnerable for the first time and, of course, when you’re vulnerable, it’s part of your freedom. It’s a place where you get to dream again and there are people that are going to do whatever it takes to make sure what you need is going to happen. And so, all they have to do is want it and follow the rules,” Nelson says.

The residents have to meet with Nelson once week to go over their plan and they must attend some sort of women’s support, recovery or Bible group.

Haven House will be able to accept up to nine women. Right now, three women live there – a live-in manager and two residents.

Twenty-six year old Samantha Garton is one of them. She just moved in after spending a month at Lemon Creek Correctional Center for using meth.

“Being here is probably the biggest blessing that’s ever happened to me. I love being here,” Garton says.

She’s working at Silverbow Bakery. She wants to take online business courses and has hopes of being the catering manager. Her primary goal, though, is getting her 8-year-old son back in her life.

“That was my biggest struggle in life was giving my rights up because of my addiction, and I need to get better before I can have him,” Garton says. “It’s not going to happen overnight, so I’m taking it one day at a time.”

Delia Williams, 34, is working toward a similar goal. Her 12-year-old daughter lives in Haines with Williams’ mother. Williams was the first former inmate to move into Haven House on March 17. She works at the Juneau Empire and goes to support groups and recovery meetings.

For Williams, living at Haven House means accepting support from others.

“For me, it was really hard to ask for help or to accept anything from anybody just because, I don’t know, it made me feel bad. But just opening my eyes and feeling that support and lifting me up is really amazing,” Williams says.

Jennifer Brown says that’s the beauty of Haven House. Brown is the administrative assistant and also a former inmate.

“You know that you’re not alone in addiction and you know that there are people going to be supporting you and showing you how to be sober and how to work and how to live and how to get things back, just to give you the foundation that you need,” she says.

Brown says she’s happy to work for people who want help and are ready for it.