Community

Gov. Sean Parnell and First Lady Sandy Parnell invited the community into their home Tuesday for the annual Governor’s open house.

[quote]“Oh it’s just our chance to open our house to Alaskans and to greet everyone in the holiday spirit. It’s just a wonderful time for the community,” Parnell said. [/quote]

 

People sometimes try to engage the governor in political discourse after shaking his hand.

“You know, usually some will try, but there’s so many people trying to get through that most of them just wish us ‘Merry Christmas,’ or ‘Happy Holidays,’ and they head straight for the cookies on the table,” Parnell said.

24,000 cookies and 200 pounds of fudge and chocolate candies covered the dining room table. Guests grabbed a plate of cookies and moved to the living room to listen to live Christmas music.

The leftover cookies go to the fire department, police department and homeless shelters around town.

Sara Neal and her daughters have gone to the open house for four years.

“Oh it’s fun to see the mansion, to shake the governor’s hand, and of course, eat cookies,” Neal said.

The theme this year was “Polar Express,” and a toy railway sits next to a windowsill. A conductor punches a hole in children’s train tickets, which they trade for a bell once they leave the mansion. Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School students created gingerbread houses that lined the back wall of the dining room.

This is the centennial anniversary for the Governor’s home. The community has been invited to visit every year since 1912, with the exception of two during World War II. The Governor’s House Foundation was selling commemorative tree ornaments at the event to fund renovations.

The Parnell family was traveling while Capital City Republican Women volunteers put up most of the decorations.  The Parnells themselves will decorate a family room upstairs for their own Christmas celebration.

“I have to say, our tree upstairs is not decorated yet. But it’ll get there,” Sandy Parnell said.

The governor’s family will celebrate Christmas in Juneau this year.

 

The Juneau School Board has selected Lisa Worl to finish out the term of Kim Poole, who recently resigned.

The board Tuesday night voted for Worl, who was among six candidates for the seat, including two who had run in the fall municipal election.

All six were interviewed by the board on Monday.  At Tuesday’s meeting, members cast two secret ballots – the first for their top three choices, then a runoff ballot.

Worl competed against Myrna Gardner, Janice Hotch, Jennifer LaRoe, Michelle Johnston and Will Muldoon.  Johnston and Muldoon were among five candidates who ran for the board in the October election.

Worl has been on the Auke Bay Elementary and Floyd Dryden Middle School site councils, a substitute teacher and classroom volunteer.  She also served two years on the school board’s Budget Advisory Committee.

She will be sworn in at the first meeting in January, as the new budget committee begins its work.  Worl says the work of the expanded committee – which includes members from each school site council – is crucial to the budget process.

“It’s really important to get that input throughout because the decisions are going to be very difficult,” Worl says.  “We’ve had to cut so much – nearly $4 million last year and it’s getting very,  very challenging and it will be a painful process.  Nobody wants their programs cut and they’re all very important.”

 Worl says it is likely she would run for the school board seat next fall, when her short term is up.

Last year more than 90 Juneau students left high school before graduation.  Statewide figures place the number at more than 2,800 students who quit school.

Monday, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., KTOO and 360 North will host a community conversation aimed at coming up with solutions for the problem.

KTOO this fall partnered with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Center for Media Engagement to raise awareness about Alaska’s very high dropout rate.

The American Graduate series is a nationwide public broadcasting effort to investigate the dropout issue, highlight solutions and raise graduation rates.

For Juneau School District Assistant Superintendent Laury Scandling, dropping out is a complicated issue beyond the school institution.

“It’s not an event, it’s a process and it begins often times before a child even enters school if they live in poverty,” Scandling says.  “So I see it as a social justice issue.”

Scandling has been a consultant for the American Graduate project throughout the fall and is helping organize Monday’s event, called “Getting to Graduation.”

The broadcast will be the culmination of KTOO’s American Graduate radio news series and Zach Gordon Youth Center’s “Drop In Day,” which re-enrolled two students in school and gave them the opportunity to intern at KXLL radio.

Monday’s “Getting to Graduation” will be broadcast on 360 North, KTOO radio, and streamed at www.360north.org.

The program will be composed of three discussion circles, the first with students and parents, the second with school and community members, and the third group will consist of elected officials.

KTOO Radio Station Manager Cheryl Snyder says the idea is to get multiple viewpoints on the subject and inspire solution-oriented conversations.

“Hopefully, if our program has been successful, we will have come up with some very tangible things that people can do,” Snyder says

Scandling hopes every program participant and audience member will want to get involved in the issue.

“The goal is that every participant, every viewer, every listener, could go away with an idea of one single thing they could do to contribute to supporting youth on their path to graduation.”

“Getting to Graduation” will be streamed to Zach Gordon Youth Center, where director Kristi West says students will be asked for feedback as the program is going on. Their reactions will be broadcast live during the last segment of program.

“So they’ll have that opportunity, those who want their voice heard, to speak up,” she says.

West hopes the event will inspire innovative ideas among the student audience.

“Hopefully it will get some ideas flowing that they might not have thought of to be able to give input to their teachers that are here, Zach Gordon staff that are here,” West says.

Dropouts risk profound economic hardship.  Statistics show they have greater risk of falling into a life of crime, experiencing serious health issues as well as greater dependence on the public health and welfare system.

According to the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Alaskans who worked in jobs that did not require a high school diploma earned an average of $29,196 in 2011; whereas people who worked in jobs that required a high school diploma, or GED, earned an average of $47,140.

 

When disaster strikes a Southeast Alaska community, emergency planners urge residents to rely on their own stockpiles before turning to the state’s new food caches. Anchorage and Fairbanks will soon host two new food caches to connect Alaska communities with easy-access food and water after a disaster. The stockpiles are one facet of Governor Sean Parnell’s plan to strengthen disaster response infrastructure statewide.

The state is not setting up a food cache in Southeast Alaska, but supplies will still be available for communities in the region. Tom Mattice is the emergency programs manager in Juneau.

[quote]“It would be nice to have additional caches in Southeast Alaska, but the fact that the governor has done this at all is something that most states have not done,” Mattice says.[/quote]

 

Mattice says the statewide emergency infrastructure puts Alaska ahead of much of the country. He says Southeast towns can take care of neighboring communities reeling from disaster.

The Southeast Alaska Metropolitan Medical Response System coordinates about a dozen disaster response teams, located in Haines, Yakutat, Juneau, Wrangell, Petersburg, Skagway, Sitka, Ketchikan and across Prince of Wales Island. Mattice says they share seven shelters and supply centers, each with cots, heating systems, as well as medical and quarantine supplies. The shelters also have generators that can power buildings. The teams meet about once a year to train.

[quote]“Next year in September we will be deploying all 11 teams with all seven shelters for a large-scale disaster drill in Gustavus.” Mattice says, “We figure if we can support a mass casualty response in a town with very little infrastructure, we can support it anywhere.”[/quote]

The Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is pushing residents to be better prepared. Mattice says short delays in food delivery are nothing new to Southeast residents.

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Emergency Kit Essentials

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• Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least seven days, for drinking and sanitation
• Food, at least a seven-day supply of non-perishable food
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Cold weather gear and blankets/sleeping bags
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
• Cell phone with chargers, inverter or solar charger
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both
• Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Indoor-safe heat source such as hand warmers, emergency candles or wood stoves

[/custom_list] [/box] [/one_half]

“We know sometimes we go to the store the week of Thanksgiving or two weeks after Thanksgiving if the weather’s bad and the shelves are bare at Fred Meyers because the barge couldn’t make it in because of the weather,” Mattice says. “So we tend to stock our shelves a little deeper and that’s really the most important part, is for everybody to take personal preparedness initiatives.”

He says individuals should have a week’s-worth of food stored, and grocery stores keep a week or two of food in stock. Mattice says it’s unlikely a storm could cut Southeast Alaska from food for that long.

After people empty out local grocery stores and their personal pantries, communities can turn to the state. The state awarded Anchorage-based Select Medical Products, Inc. with a four million dollar, five-year contract to create food caches in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Jeremy Zidek is the public information officer for the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Zidek says together, Fairbanks and Anchorage will have enough food to feed 42,500 people for seven days.

“But it may be used on a much smaller scale, say a rural community is hit and their grocery store is destroyed, and many of their homes are destroyed, and people are without homes, without food,” Zidek says.

Zidek says commercial or military partners would distribute the food to rural communities. The food is divided onto pallets, each able to feed eighty people for a week. Zidek says ten percent of pallets have age-or lifestyle-specific foods, such as baby food or salmon.

If there are brief delays in transporting state resources, Mattice says the onus is on individuals to make sure their homes are ready for an emergency, and to pressure local businesses to provide employees with emergency supplies.

“And in the end, responder readiness starts at home. Personal preparedness leads to responder preparedness leads to business preparedness leads to community preparedness, and we all need to do our part,” Mattice says.

Under the new contract, Select Medical Products will move one-third of the food to the storage facilities by the end of the year. The contractor will deliver the rest of the food over the next three years.

Alaska 7-Day Survival Kit

 

Update:

Dr. Jody McLeod Andrews and her husband Regis were scheduled to be on Juneau Afternoon on Friday, Dec. 7, to talk about Juneau Fest 2012. News director KTOO Rosemarie Alexander contacted them prior to the program, to alert them to the story about Juneau Fest, which had aired on Friday’s Morning Edition. They said they looked forward to clarifying information about the event and confirmed they would be at the station for Juneau Afternoon. However, they did not appear for the interview, instead, Pastor Eric Gonyon with Revival Ministries International in Tampa, Florida, called into the station. 

Original Story:

Juneau business operators say they weren’t told the whole story when asked to donate items for an event at Centennial Hall next week.

Juneau Fest 2012 promises free gifts and other prizes worth more than $25,000: electronics to sporting goods and household items, city recreational facility passes, and store gift cards. Firefighters could win a Remington rifle and police officers are eligible for a Glock handgun.

“And thank God for Walmart,” said Juneau Fest organizer Jody McLeod Andrews. “Walmart donated a $1000 grant to enable us to buy more Christmas toys.”

McLeod Andrews said they even have a car to give away.

Businesses have variously been told that it’s holiday celebration, party for kids, benefit for local charities, or an event to honor local police and firefighters. McLeod Andrews said school buses are being used to transport people to Centennial Hall from area schools. What businesses have not been told is that the prizes will be used to draw people to a six-day religious revival.

Camera store operator Art Sutch was approached to donate a camera and related gear, but he never committed. Still, Juneau Fest organizers used his business name in at least one radio interview touting the support of local businesses.

“In this day and age, you gotta watch what you’re doing,” Sutch said.   “I was thankful the neighbors Googled them. Yeah, I don’t know what to say other than just beware.”

Photographer and gallery owner Daniel Buckscott said he donated two canvases worth about $300 each. They were pictures of a polar bear and a sunrise at Auke Lake.

“And right as she was about to leave,”  Buckscott said, “she grabbed my shoulder and hand, and started praying.  The intensity of her praying was a little intense. And then she left.”

Buckscott called the solicitation for donations “very deceptive.”

Other Juneau businesses surveyed by KTOO confirmed that they were either approached under false pretenses or not told the whole story.

Western Auto and Marine Manager John Weedman said Juneau Fest organizers were persistent in soliciting donated goods.

He said their pitch to “lift up everybody’s spirits during the holiday season” seemed “sketchy from the get-go.”

Fred Meyer cards are listed on the Juneau Fest posters as one of the giveaways. But local store director Ken Antcliff said he did not donate the cards.

Store policy includes contributing to local schools, children’s activities, or charities alleviating hunger, but avoiding political or religious causes. In this case, Antcliff said he traced the tax exempt identification number to a local church.

“It’s going to be an epic event,” said Sam Dalin, pastor of Juneau’s River of Glory Church.

Dalin is paying $7,870 to rent Centennial Hall for six days, clearly identified in the facility use agreement as ‘Church Meetings.’

“Just six nights of celebrating the spirit of Christmas and keeping Christ in Christmas, singing Christmas carols, (and) Christmas songs,” Dalin said.

“That’s what I believe spirit Christmas is. That’s what I share with people. And the thing just kind of exploded,” he said.

Dalin has been promoting the event while identifying himself as chaplain for the Juneau Police Department and Capital City Fire and Rescue. Representatives for both agencies said they are not involved.

“I didn’t know it was a problem to anybody and anybody would think that I’m trying to do anything underneath the table or behind closed doors,”  Dalin said. “I have two titles. I am a chaplain and I am a pastor.”

Dalin writes on his church website that he has been friends with Rodney Howard-Browne for more than twenty years. Howard-Browne runs Revival Ministries International, an evangelistic operation based in Tampa, Florida. Juneau Fest 2012 is labeled on the website Revival.com as just another stop on Howard-Browne’s Great Awakening Tour.

Evangelists Christopher and Victoria McKaskle state in a newsletter that Junea (sic) will feature a new strategy by Pastor Rodney:

“We will draw the unsaved in using prizes and giveaways. Then, we will preach the gospel and see the power of God fall on the unsaved,” McKaskle’s write.

(The McKaskles took down the November newsletter from their website on Friday, but it can still be viewed by clicking here.)

The strategy, said Seattle Pacific University theology professor Priscilla Pope-Levison, skews the gospel message.

“So, the people don’t become Christians because they believe the message, but because they want whatever’s promised,” she said.

Pope-Levison said proselytizing, or presenting a message with a promised material reward, is often viewed as suspicious by the general public.

“There’s a power dynamic then that’s introduced. This has really come into play in mission theory where missionaries would go into foreign fields and they would promise something,” she said.  “And the pejorative term that has arisen for this is ‘Rice Christians.’ ”

Pope-Levison is concerned that people coming to the event are not being told what it is. She also describes how the organizers have approached local businesses as “a sketchy and potentially damaging practice.”

“I think it’s wrong. I think it’s really dangerous. So much of society is skeptical of Christianity. And rightly so. Christians are considered hypocritical. I really do believe in the importance of evangelism,” said Pope-Levison, who is also an ordained Methodist minister.

“For me, it’s all about integrity and being as honest as one possibly can. I would never affirm a strategy that was not as transparent as possible,” she said.

Pope-Levison says the South African-born Rodney Howard-Browne has been associated with the “Holy Laughter” movement in which someone is seemingly over taken by the Holy Spirit.

In a YouTube video, Howard-Browne and revival participants erupt in extended laughter or dance after a man tells of being healed.

Howard-Browne had this explanation on WSTK-TV’s “It’s Supernatural” program, also available on YouTube.

“So what you are seeing and the people are seeing is an outpouring of the spirit of God into the hearts of people, causing an overflow of God’s joy, bringing refreshing, bringing restoration, healing broken hearts,” said Howard-Browne in response to a question by program host Sid Roth.

It is not known if Holy Laughter will be part of Juneau Fest 2012. During a recent interview, Sam Dalin seemed reluctant to explain everything happening at the event until he was asked about Howard-Browne’s potential appearance and pressed about misleading solicitations to local businesses for donated items.

“I can apologize if they feel they’ve been misled. If they want to take their items off the table, they’re more than welcome to,” Dalin said.

Juneau photographer and gallery owner Daniel Buckscott said he’s “definitely open to all walks of life and people’s beliefs,”  but he doesn’t want to be tied to an organization that’s not upfront about its activities or standings on issues. He said Juneau Fest organizers’ lack of transparency is frustrating, especially during the holiday giving season.

“I definitely learned to pay a little bit more attention in the future,” Buckscott said, “which is unfortunate because there’s a lot of great organizations in town that I enjoy supporting.  I’m always looking for new ways to help out the community.”

For now, Buckscott said, he’ll be asking for his pictures back.

 

 

Click here to see pictures from the Great Awakening Tour/Juneau Fest events that have been posted by Revival Ministries International.

Click here to view a copy of the Centennial Hall Convention Center Use Agreement that was obtained by a public records request. Pages that include copies of receipts issued by the CBJ and checks drawn on an account used by the River of Glory Church were omitted from our web posting because of privacy concerns.

Click here to see the November 2012 newsletter by evangelists Christopher and Victoria McKaskle that explains the new strategy for the Junea (sic) stop on the Great Awakening Tour (GAT). In the newsletter, the couple from Mango, Florida is also soliciting “love gifts” of $850 for airfare and $300 for special winter gear for each of them.

The survivor of a recent deadly boating accident near Tenakee Springs has died.

Juneau police say 26-year-old Jim A. Brown Jr. was found unconscious and not breathing at a North Douglas Highway home just before midnight.

Lt. David Campbell says an emergency call came in at 11:49 p.m. Sunday.  He says there were a number of people at the residence when Capital City Fire and Rescue and police arrived a few minutes later.

Emergency medical personnel attempted to resuscitate Brown. Campbell says Brown was pronounced dead at 12:29 a.m.

Three people told police they had found Brown.  He was reportedly found in a bathroom, where he had fallen.

Campbell says there was a small laceration to his forehead, but no other signs of trauma to the body.

Juneau police have requested the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage perform an autopsy.

“We’ll have to wait for the medical examiner’s office to determine cause of death,” Campbell says. “Alcohol was involved.”

Campbell says Brown’s death in under investigation.

Brown was the only survivor of a Nov. 23^rd accident near Tenakee Springs. State Troopers said the men were returning from a day of hunting across the inlet, when their 18-foot Lund skiff capsized. Brown was able to swim to shore, but 26-year-old Casey Newman and 23-year-old Kelly Newman drowned. Their bodies were recovered.

A celebration of life for the Newman brothers was held Saturday evening.

Brown  graduated from Juneau Douglas High School in 2004.  He played football for the Crimson Bears.

He is survived by his parents Heather and James Brown and two younger brothers, Alec and John.