Community

A preliminary groundbreaking was held Monday morning for the Alaska State Museum project in Juneau. State officials, historians, and lawmakers used a golden shovel to dig up the grass sod at one of the driveway entrances to the museum.

Linda Thibodeau, director of the state Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, says they already have $32 million dollars for the $124.5 million dollar project. A formal groundbreaking is planned for some time next year when the project is fully-funded.

Formerly called SLAM – for State Library, Archives, and Museum – the expansion project would incorporate all of Juneau’s facilities in a single building.

Thibodeau says the current Alaska State Museum building no longer meets code and has many problems. She says they determined that it would be more practical to demolish and rebuild the structure, rather than renovate and add on to it. Space is running out on the eighth floor of the State Office Building for the Library and Historical Collections, while the Archives building located below the SOB is literally splitting in two.

An affordable-housing group is looking for ways to reduce the number of chronic inebriates downtown. The Juneau Homeless Coalition met Thursday to begin gathering information and planning for new programs.

Juneau Police Officer Tracy Murphy attended the meeting. His beat is downtown Juneau. He says he spends much of his time dealing with disruptive drunks.

“It’s a constant trucking for me. A stop here, a stop there, all the nooks and crannies, everybody goes where they go to drink and hang out. And now with the weather, you can see there’s a lot more loitering and trespassing inside of the businesses,” he says.

Stores and offices in the downtown core clean up after their trash, including human waste.

The library’s Mark Whitman says it’s a problem there too.

“I’m increasingly concerned because I saw this summer some extremely violent behavior in the library itself that caused injury to people. And I’m not sure what we can do. It’s not something that we’re trained to deal with,” he says.

Whitman and Murphy were among about 40 people at the Juneau Homeless Coalition’s meeting on chronic inebriates.

Substance abuse professionals, housing program managers, and representatives of government, social-service and business groups talked about the problem and possible solutions.

Juneau Economic Development Council Affordable Housing Coordinator Scott Ciambor  says comparing notes helps.

“A lot of times these agencies are dealing with the problem on their own. So what ended up happening today was a good information-sharing among those agencies that work most frequently with the homeless chronic inebriate population,” Ciambor says.

Those at the meeting said Juneau has around 30 homeless chronic inebriates, some from other Southeast communities. Many have mental health problems, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, or other complicating issues.

They said to find solutions, they need more details about the depth of the problem.

“The take-away from this meeting was, a group of those agencies that deal with the same folks day in and day out to go ahead and start investigating the question of who exactly are these folks and what exactly are their needs so they can be addressed,” Ciambor says.

That information will be used to plan for new programs or facilities.

One approach discussed would be a “wet” shelter, a supervised hotel or center where drinking is tolerated.

Another model, called Housing First, provides efficiency apartments and ties residents to assistance programs. Yet another, called 100,000 Homes, identifies the most vulnerable homeless and applies a more intensive treatment system while getting them off the streets.

Some at the meeting also discussed stricter enforcement. That includes a focus on bars and liquor stores. City attorney John Hartle says it’s illegal to sell alcohol to an intoxicated person.

“It’s kind of addressing it from the supply side. In 18 years that I’ve been at the city, though, I’ve never seen an arrest,” Hartle says.

Another idea was to turn some alcohol-related citations into misdemeanors after a certain number of offenses. That would send people to jail, rather than charge fines that will never be paid.

But that’s what some inebriates want: time with food and shelter, even if it’s in jail. Some view treatment programs the same way.

Murphy, the downtown police officer, says he’s seen some people go sober. But on the streets, it’s hard to stay that way.

“I check with them every day. And we count the days together. And it’s saddening to come back after a month to see that they’ve fallen into the same group, the same pressures. It’s there, they just can’t get away from it,” Murphy says.

Some in Juneau’s coalition will attend a statewide homeless issues conference next month in Anchorage. There, they’ll find out more about new programs, including the 100,000 Homes campaign.

A soldier received a surprise welcome when he returned to Juneau from deployment in Iraq Friday evening.

Dozens of strangers gathered to greet Specialist Karl Tubbs at the Juneau International Airport upon his wife’s request.

Erica Tubbs explained in an e-mail to a group of local parents that she and her two-year-old son James moved to Juneau several months ago and have no family in town.

She asked members of the parenting group to come to the airport to help her greet her husband and even offered to pay their parking fees.

“We don’t have family here and somebody read that in that e-mail I sent to Juneau parents and they said, ‘yes, you do,’ and that was nice.”

Erica Tubbs also contacted the Alaska National Guard to ask their help in welcoming her husband home.

Several fellow guardsmen came to show their support, including Chief Warrant Officer Four Bill Clutton.

“It’s good to welcome these guys home,” he said. “They’ve done a lot for us and given up a lot, along with their families. So it’s good to say ‘hi,’ say ‘thank you’ and ‘welcome home’.”

Specialist Tubbs has been away from his family for two years, spending one year in training and the other year deployed.

He left when James was two weeks old and has seen little of his son since then.

The Tubbs were overwhelmed by the showing of support. They say the response says a lot about the people of Juneau.

The young miner killed last week in a Kensington mine accident is described as a guy who loved his job, children and hockey. Thirty-year-old Joe Tagaban of Juneau died on Wednesday. It was the first fatality at the mine, which opened in June of last year.

Though he wasn’t a member of the organization, his parents have asked that memorial donations to to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Juneau, because Joe was a big brother to all kids he met.

His mother, Sandy, shares some memories in this story.

The tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks was remembered in Juneau on Sunday. Vehicles from Capital City Fire and Rescue, including a ladder track with a large American Flag hung from the end of an extended ladder, and local Harley Davidson owners lined one side of Riverside Drive as firefighters, police officers, and others congregated at Riverside Rotary Park. That’s the site of a flag pole memorial, in the shape of a pentagon, that’s meant to commemorate the victims of the attacks in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania.

Here are some of the sounds of Sunday’s service, conducted during the times that the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell ten years ago.

Participants of the service included Capital City and Fire Rescue Chaplin Sam Dalin, singer Siara Kelly, Brent Fischer of the Civil Air Patrol who recounted the significance of the memorial and how it was created, Officer Chris Gifford of the Juneau Police Department, firefighter Charlie Blattner, Juneau Rotarian Carl Ferlauto, and a single piper from Stroller White Pipes and Drums.

Memorial services for Joe Tagaban have been set for Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the Juneau Christian Center, across from Fred Meyer.

The 30-year-old Juneau man was killed in a mining accident on Wednesday at the Kensington Gold Mine.

A reception is set for 5 pm. at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Juneau. Joe’s parents, Mike and Sandy Tagaban, say they chose the organization because Joe was the “ultimate big brother.”