Community

Three finalists for Juneau Police Chief will come to the capital city next week to compete in person for the job.

They hope to replace Juneau Police Chief Greg Browning, who is retiring at the end of May.

Nineteen men, including two from Juneau, applied for the job.  That list was whittled to six candidates, who were interviewed by City Manager Kim Kiefer and Human Resources Manager Mila Cosgrove.  She says the final three will be in Juneau on Wednesday and Thursday for  interviews and what’s known as Assessment Center exercises.

“We develop exercises that are designed to be reflective of  the types of situations you might expect a police chief to encounter around staff management issues, resources, policing concerns, etc.,” Cosgrove says.

She says the public is invited to view parts of the assessment center exercises and give their feedback on the candidates, which she calls a very important part of the process.

“You learn a lot going through the process about the people you’re considering and feedback is always, always very valuable to us,” Cosgrove says.

She says the three finalists have had significant executive level police management experience.

Bryce Johnson comes from Salt Lake City, Utah, where he is an Assistant Bureau Commander for Salt Lake City Police Department.

Don Studt is the police chief for the city of  Birmingham, Michigan, a Detroit suburb.

The third candidate is former Meridian, Idaho police chief Bill Musser.  He’s currently chairman of the School of Criminal Justice at the Boise campus of ITT Technical Institute.

 

A settlement proposal that could have stopped litigation against the Juneau Planning Commission was never acknowledged by the city.

Juneau Chapter of Veterans for Peace on March 12 proposed the Planning Commission hold an additional hearing on the safety and health aspects of the Juneau Mercantile and Armory facility where semi-automatic, automatic and assault-style weapons will be sold or rented for shooting practice in an underground range.

Veterans for Peace appealed the facility’s permit, and the case was heard by the Juneau Assembly on April 1st.   Chapter President Phil Smith says the settlement would have ended the appeal and been an amicable solution.

“They would get their permit and we, the public, would end up with a comprehensive explanation of  how that place is going to work,” Smith says.

City Planner Greg Chaney is defending the case for the Planning Commission.

“If we had agreed to that, we would have been admitting that there was something inappropriately done in the past or that the decision was inappropriate.  And in both cases we strongly feel that everything was done appropriately,” he says.

The settlement proposal is similar to the veterans’ demands heard by the city Assembly.   But they also call for Juneau Mercantile and Armory owners to work with the chapter and CBJ Assembly to convene a task force to address firearms-related public health and safety measures in Juneau.

Chaney says he’s not opposed to a community conversation on gun safety, but it’s outside the purview of the Planning Commission, which can only address land-use issues.

Neither Chaney nor the gun range owners and their attorney responded to the veterans’ offer.  Chaney says the settlement came too late in the process and there wasn’t much incentive at that point to try to settle the case.  Though he calls the offer “extreme,”  he says the lack of response was an  oversight.

“We should have responded and I should apologize for that,” Chaney says.

In the settlement offer and at the April 1^st hearing, Veterans for Peace argued that too little is known about the security features at the new armory, including background checks, firearms training, instructor qualifications and other safety issues.  The Planning Commission record barely addresses these issues, or any comments from local public safety officials, including Juneau police.

Chaney says they were carefully looked at, but city staff deliberately left the information out of the record because it detracts from the land-use issues the Planning Commission is responsible for deciding.

The Juneau Assembly will announce its decision in the case at the end of April.  It could remand the case back to the Planning Commission for rehearing, as requested by Veterans for Peace; let the Commission’s permit stand, or require some change in that permit.

Nine days after the Juneau Empire rolled out a new look and an online pay wall, publisher Mark Bryan  resigned.

Bryan left the job yesterday (Tuesday).  An Empire receptionist at 3:45 p.m. said Bryan “no longer works here.” An uncredited story posted at 5:23 p.m. on the Empire’s website said he had resigned “effective immediately, to pursue other opportunities.”

Bryan joined the newspaper in 2009 after five years as publisher of the Newport News-Times in Newport, Oregon. Bryan had previous experience in Alaska newspapers, having worked in circulation at the Anchorage Daily News and the defunct Anchorage Times.

The Empire is owned by Morris Communications, based in Augusta, Georgia.  Morris owns several other media outlets in Alaska, including the Peninsula Clarion and Homer News. Former Clarion Publisher Ronnie J. Hughes has been appointed interim publisher of the Empire, according to the online article announcing Bryan’s departure. Hughes served briefly in the same capacity at the Empire in 2009, prior to Bryan being hired.

When Bryan came to Juneau, he replaced former publisher Jeff Wilson, who came out of his Georgia retirement to head up the Juneau Empire in between publishers.

It’s not clear why Bryan is leaving the Empire.

Online changes

Calling it a membership, the newspaper began charging for Internet access on March 24.  Bryan headed up the change.

The announcement that digital content would no longer be free came last fall at a Juneau Empire 100^th birthday celebration. At the time Bryan said free access to news on the web was not sustainable.

Morris Communications also owns the Capital City Weekly, published in Juneau. General Manager Dale Smith was asked to leave the post last week, after less than five months.

Smith took the job in November, moving to Juneau from Kansas City, Missouri. In December he was arrested on an outstanding warrant from Jackson County, Missouri for not paying child support.

In a somber and sometimes emotional press conference Monday in Anchorage, Public Safety Commissioner Joe Masters said that Helo 1′s pilot, Mel Nading, 55, Trooper Tage Toll, 40, of the Talkeetna post, and a body believed to be that of snowmachiner Carl Ober were aboard the downed craft.  Masters said the rescue call came in late Saturday night, and at about 10 pm, the helicopter crew radioed that they had located the missing snowmachiner.

“At approximately 2200 hours, radio communication with Helo 1 indicated that they had located the injured snowmachiner, tentatively identified as Talkeetna resident Carl Ober. It was requested that a ground ambulance be waiting at the Sunshine Tesoro in Talkeetna to meet up with Helo 1 to transport Mr. Ober to a hospital for treatment. Helo 1 did not make it to the rondezvous.”

After the helicopter failed to show up, additional Troopers were dispatched by snowmachine and the Air National Guard was called in. Guard searchers located the wreckage of the helicopter about 9:30 a.m. Easter Sunday.

“Two para rescue jumpers were lowered down to the scene, the two AWT troopers were on scene shortly thereafter. An assessment of the scene was conducted, and it was determined that there were no survivors from the crash of Helo 1. Due to the condition of Helo 1 and the on scene investigation, the recovery of remains occurred later in the day. Positive identification of the remains is still ongoing. On this point, we will not speculate as to why Helo 1 crashed. The NTSB will conduct an investigation into the cause and circumstances.”

Masters said that the surviving members of the families of the deceased are now the Troopers’ s top concern, although he would not reveal the survivor’s names at this time. He said the crash represented a great tragedy for the troopers and the search and rescue community as well.

Trooper Director Colonel Keith Mallard said that pilot Nading was hired in 2000 and had flown over 3000 hours and saved hundreds of lives during his time with the Troopers in Alaska. He said that Nading had over 12 thousand hours in the air prior to coming to work for the State Troopers

“In 2012, Mel Nading made over 900 contacts. So, it’s reasonable to think that he flew over 900 missions.”

The crash marks the fourteenth and fifteenth Trooper deaths in the line of duty since 1974. Helo 1 was the only helicopter of its type in the state. A second Helo has been requested by the Troopers, but that depends on a legislative appropriation. The cost of Helo 1 is over 3 million dollars.

See Original Post

Victims Names Released in Helo 1 Crash

Construction of a gun store and indoor shooting range remains on hold as the Juneau Assembly determines whether the Planning Commission properly issued a conditional use permit for the facility.

Juneau Veterans for Peace Monday argued the Planning Commission did not consider public health and safety, or the CBJ comprehensive plan, before  approving the Juneau Mercantile and Armory permit.

Veterans for Peace has appealed the permit, which was granted in December just before a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school made gun control a national issue.

But the group’s  president Phil Smith said the appeal is not about gun rights.

“We are not at all into taking apart the Second Amendment,” Smith said.

Planning Commissioner Dan Miller is a co-owner of Juneau Mercantile and Armory, a limited liability company.  Miller recused himself during the December vote on the conditional use permit.

Smith said the Planning Commission’s record of decision leaves safety plans unanswered, including the opinion of public safety professionals.  The record shows the CBJ Community Development Department staff had only a conversation with someone from the Juneau Police Department.

“Perhaps with a policeman, perhaps with a clerk, perhaps with a dispatcher, I don’t know, maybe they called 911.  But there was no indication with whom they spoke.  The police said they had no concerns about the facility, or we’re told the police said that.  But there’s nothing in the record that has anything in writing from the authority of the Juneau Police Department,” Smith told the Assembly. “There is no indication in the record that they contacted any other law enforcement entity.  They didn’t contact anyone with particularized expertise in the handling and control of these types of weapons.”

Juneau Mercantile and Armory’s 13,000 square foot facility at Crest Street and Yandukin Drive will house retail sales on the top floor as well as rentals of firearms to be used in the underground firing range, including machine guns and other automatic weapons.

Smith, a Vietnam-era veteran, called them “weapons of war.”

The Assembly plays a quasi-judicial role in the case, but can only consider whether the Planning Commission – which looks at land use – properly considered outside impacts of the facility.  Community Development Planner Greg Chaney told Assembly members he believes the gun range will be one of the most carefully supervised shooting facilities in Juneau.

“What are the outside impacts in this case? The noise is going to be contained. The bullets are going to be contained, that’s always big one, with shooting ranges.  The main concerns end up being traffic and that sort of thing; the normal things you would look at with a building that’s fully enclosed,” Chaney said.  “So I believe after listening to the appellants that they really wanted the Planning Commission to act in a legislative capacity and to pass a conditional use permit with conditions that would have the effect of changing the law of firearm use.”

After Monday’s hearing the Assembly went into executive session with the city attorney to discuss the arguments.  Assembly member Loren Jones is the hearing officer for the appeal.  He said it will be the end of April before the decision is made public.

 

 

The Juneau Assembly Monday takes up the appeal of a permit for an indoor shooting range and gun store under construction near the Juneau International Airport.

The Assembly plays a quasi-judicial role in the case brought by Juneau Veterans for Peace against the Planning Commission’s permit for Juneau Mercantile and Armory.

The Planning Commission in December approved a conditional use permit for a 13-thousand square foot building that would sell guns as well as rent guns to be used in an underground shooting range – including automatic weapons.

The Juneau Veterans for Peace chapter appealed the permit, saying the CBJ development staff did not thoroughly review the effect of the operation on “public health or safety.”

Assembly member Loren Jones has been liaison to the parties.  He had been hopeful a settlement could be reached, but those negotiations failed. He admits he was overly optimistic.

“I think the parties just have a different view of what should have taken place.  And it’s nothing the Assembly can sort of broker.  We expressed our desire to them if they could reach a settlement, but it’s basically between those two parties,” Jones says.

At Monday evening’s meeting, Veterans for Peace and Juneau Mercantile and Armory – represented by the CBJ Community Development Department — will each have 30 minutes to make a presentation.  Both have briefed the issue and Assembly members have those documents.  Jones says the Assembly will listen and ask questions then discuss the issue in a closed door session after Monday’s regular Assembly meeting.

“The decision’s not really public until after we’ve reviewed what the (city) attorney’s written up based on our conversation. Then if we want to revise it, we can do that. Then it will come back to a full Assembly meeting. And the Assembly will make that decision public once we reach agreement amongst all of our members,” he says.

Jones expects the Assembly’s final decision on the permit would be release later this month.  Monday’s meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in Assembly chambers at city hall, followed by the regular meeting of the Assembly at 7 p.m.  The regular meeting will be carried live on KTOO Radio.