Tourism

An Anchorage renter of recreational vehicles has again been sued by the state over deceptive business practices — three years after the firm was penalized for similar issues.

Alaska Motor Home, along with registered owners Peter and Cole Harkovitch, are named in a state complaint filed Thursday. The company, which faced state action in 2019, has abruptly closed its doors this week.

“The lawsuit alleges that the defendants engaged in deceptive practices such as charging $2,500 damage deposits before consumers had picked up their RV, charging consumers taxes they did not owe, and forging a consumer’s signature on receipts to win a credit card chargeback dispute,” officials said in a statement from the Alaska Department of Law.

Assistant Attorney General John Haley, who filed the suit, said Friday that Cole Harkovitch reportedly transferred his shares in Alaska Motor Home to Peter about two weeks ago. He said the state believes hundreds of customers have been affected by the company’s actions, which he called “unprecedented.”

“I think this is fairly unique, because it’s happening at the beginning of the tourist season,” he said.

The company, which has allegedly taken thousands of dollars for summer RV rentals and has 40 RVs on hand, told the state this week that it planned to shut down Friday, without providing refunds to customers.

Attorney General Treg Taylor said the company’s customers  have been left in a “terrible situation.”

“Alaskan trips people have dreamed about for years are getting thrown into chaos,” Taylor said in the statement.

Multiple email and phone messages to Alaska Motor Home seeking comment were not returned Friday. The company’s website was offline, and its Facebook page has not had any new posts this year.

On Friday morning, numerous RVs were parked outside Alaska Motor Home’s office in an industrial park off C Street near Raspberry Road. Nobody was present outside, and the office door was locked.

In the state’s 29-page complaint, prosecutors said that Peter Harkovitch “has a history of using Alaska Motor Home’s assets as his personal assets,” directly using company funds for his own expenses. They also noted that he is jailed in Florida on criminal charges including aggravated battery, battery on a law enforcement officer and threatening a public servant linked to a domestic-violence case.

“The expenses associated with this litigation provide extra motivation for Alaska Motor Home’s owners to siphon money from the company, rather than to refund consumers or pay the company’s other debts,” prosecutors said.

In 2019, a Department of Law statement said Alaska Motor Home had imposed steep terms on renters including “a $300/hour charge for late returns, a $1,000 fine for putting fish in the RV refrigerator, and a $1,000 fine for leaving an RV excessively dirty.” None of them were disclosed until renters had already paid a deposit.

Under an injunction placed against Alaska Motor Home in that case, it is barred from arbitrarily canceling customers’ reservations. It must also keep exact records of any costs charged as a tax, as well as provide customers charged for damaging an RV a photograph of the damage and a history of repairs along with their itemized costs.

According to Thursday’s complaint, a Utah paralegal who rented a 26-foot RV in August 2023 was instead given a 32-foot RV against her wishes.

“When (the customer) told the Alaska Motor Home agent that she had booked a (26-foot) RV, and that a (32-foot) RV was too long, the Alaska Motor Home agent threatened to cancel her reservation,” prosecutors wrote. “The contract (she) had signed did not provide that Alaska Motor Home could substitute a different RV from the one listed on the contract.”

After the customer’s husband accidentally pumped gasoline into the RV’s water tank, prosecutors said, she informed the company and provided her Visa card. Staff did not immediately bill the card, but she soon saw $7,500 in unauthorized charges on it. After she froze the card and the American Express with which she had reserved the RV, she saw Harkovitch attempt to charge $7,240 on the American Express.

Soon afterward, the woman received a statement from Alaska Motor Home claiming she had paid $11,750 – which also noted the $7,500 she had already paid and claimed she owed an additional $4,240.

“These two statements are contradictory,” prosecutors wrote. “In addition, $7,500 plus $4,240 does not equal $11,750.”

The woman said she thought the RV was insured against damage, based on statements in Alaska Motor Home’s advertising.

“The contract (she) signed stated, ‘Insurance coverage includes collision, comprehensive, and liability,’” prosecutors wrote. “This contract language is in all of Alaska Motor Home’s RV rental contracts. However, this language is deceptive because Alaska Motor Home’s RV rentals do not come with insurance that insures the renter or driver.”

A dispute over the RV’s repair bills escalated until Harkovitch called the woman’s law firm in Utah, and she emailed him asking him not to call her at her office.

“Peter Harkovitch responded to the email stating, ‘Sorry, as a lawyer, your boss needs to be aware of the slime that works for her. Have a great day,’” prosecutors wrote.

Harkovitch also allegedly wrote the woman’s employer, who also asked him not to contact her at work.

On Sept. 2, 2023, Harkovitch sent the woman an invoice for $20,455, listed as $4,240 for “Water System Damage” – plus $235 a day for loss of the RV’s future use.

“The invoice charged for 69 days loss of use, a period running through Nov. 5, 2023,” prosecutors wrote. “However, (Nov. 5) was still more than two months away.”

The next month, the woman’s disputes of the initial $7,500 in charges were denied because Alaska Motor Home provided August documents bearing her signature through the online service Docusign. The state says those signatures were forged, after Docusign told investigators the woman had not signed any documents through the service that month.

Two other people also reported issues renting an RV from Alaska Motor Home during the 2023 season, according to the complaint. One couldn’t contact the company about a reservation, and the other had his reservation canceled but only received a partial refund of his costs.

The Anchorage Daily News reported in 2021 that a judge levied a $110,000 penalty against Alaska Motor Home over the 2019 allegations. As of Thursday, according to the state’s new complaint, Alaska Motor Home had paid about half of that penalty.

After the state relayed word of the outstanding penalties to Florida authorities, in an effort to collect the funds during that case, an attorney for Alaska Motor Home told state officials on Monday that the company would be closing down its operations Friday.

Still, according to prosecutors, the company was still taking reservations by late Monday afternoon. An investigator was able to book an RV rental for August on Alaska Motor Home’s website, providing a credit card number for a $500 deposit.

“If Alaska Motor Home is closing operations, there is no legitimate reason for the company to accept reservations or take credit card information for an August 2024 rental,” prosecutors wrote.

Haley declined to say whether Thursday’s lawsuit is the only state action that will be taken against the company.

The state is seeking an injunction to stop Alaska Motor Home from continuing to engage in deceptive practices, as well as penalties for its violations of state law. Prosecutors also seek to have renters’ costs reimbursed, but Haley said Friday that they can’t guarantee they will recover funds from the company.

Haley said Alaska Motor Home has begun sending cancellation notices to customers, who he said will have to book new RVs and accommodations at likely higher costs or cancel trips entirely.

Haley also urged anyone owed money by Alaska Motor Home to fill out a consumer complaint form on the Department of Law website.

“All I can say is we’re going to do our best, and we can’t help people if we don’t know who they are,” he said.

Alaska Public Media’s Matthew Faubion contributed information to this story.

Eaglecrest Ski Area’s board is hiring a new general manager. The job posting went live on Friday. 

But, at a meeting the night before, local skiers and residents asked the board to reinstate the previous general manager, Dave Scanlan, whom the board asked to resign last month. 

Barney Bogart said he was disappointed in the board. 

“Dave should never have been fired. Give us a reason. Don’t just leave us in the lurch. We’re not stupid idiots,” he said. “We need an explanation. And if you can’t give us one, reinstate him right now.”

Bogart was one of 50 people who came to the meeting at the downtown library. There were so many people that some attendees were asked to step outside the room to comply with fire code. At least another 50 attended online.

Many testified in support of the previous general manager and wanted to know why the board abruptly asked him to leave his role after seven years.

Another resident and former Eaglecrest board member, Dave Hanna, said the board is going to have a hard time finding a replacement for Scanlan. 

“This board apparently failed to engage Dave in his review, and they failed to get his perspective and his advice on dealing with whatever procedural or personnel issues that were perceived to exist,” he said. 

Hanna is also part of a group that is gathering signatures for a petition to demand answers from the board. As of Monday, it had 485 signatures. 

Scanlan’s resignation came after he met with the board late last month to evaluate his performance. The decision to ask him to resign came after the board met in executive session.

Board chair Mike Satre said the details of Scanlan’s performance review and the reasons behind the decision can’t be shared with the public.  

“It is simply not appropriate to disclose items discussed during the review process,” he said. “I doubt that there’s anyone in this meeting who would want the details of their reviews made public.”

Scanlan has said openly that he did not want to resign. At Thursday’s meeting, the board asked the city to move forward with the hiring process for a new manager, despite public opposition. 

According to the city’s Human Resources and Risk Management Director, Dallas Hargrave, the position went live on the city’s website on Friday and will remain up for the next 30 days. The posting lists the starting salary as $100,000 dollars a year. Scanlan was making $114,000 at the time of his resignation.

The owner of a prominent downtown Ketchikan property has agreed not to raise inauthentic totem poles carved by a convicted murderer next to his new shops. After meeting with leaders of the region’s Indigenous communities, Joseph Machini also agreed not to use the name “potlatch” for his marketplace.

The 420 Water St. property, which sits directly across from the docks where cruise ship tourists disembark, has been the subject of protest for more than a month. Residents voiced concern over the initial hillside excavation, but the leading concern was with the two large, totem-like poles that had been lying on the property until recently.

Vice-Mayor Janalee Gage raised the issue at a Ketchikan City Council meeting on May 2, calling the poles an affront to the Native community because they were carved by a non-Native man in Minnesota.

The controversy was further fueled by reports that the carver had been charged with murdering his wife with another pole that they were working on together, as part of their shared carving business. In interviews with the Ketchikan Daily News, Machini confirmed he bought the poles from the Minnesota carver in question, and that the murder happened some time after his purchase.

But on Monday, Native leaders announced that they had met with Machini, who apologized and promised not to use the contested poles on the property. Norm Skan, president of the Ketchikan Indian Community, said this was the outcome they were hoping for.

“And he really, he felt bad about it. And he understood it,” Skan said. “And he agreed to reach out to the people that he met yesterday, and to start following our protocols on what would be acceptable or not.”

Skan said he appreciated Machini’s willingness to meet with them, and that they accepted his apology.

“I really respected him for coming into what could have been an extremely hostile environment and just sitting there and listening,” Skan said.

Skan said he and other leaders intend to hold Machini to his word, and that they’ll continue seeking out ways to prevent this from happening in the future.

KRBD was not able to reach Joseph Machini for this story.

Last week, an Alaska Coach Tours bus backed into a totem pole at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. 

The pole, one of the oldest in downtown Juneau, has a small dent now. City engineers have made sure that it’s still stable. But for the son of the man who carved the pole 57 years ago, the accident was a reminder of what the piece means to him — and to his father’s legacy. 

The next day, Brian Wallace stood on the sidewalk near the museum. He pointed at skid marks where the bus jumped the curb while turning around on the narrow, two-way street. 

“Well, I was assuming the worst,” he said. 

His father, Amos Wallace, carved the pole when Brian was a kid. 

The pole, also known as a kootéeyaa, has stood outside the museum for over 50 years. Wallace said he remembers helping his dad with it, pulling large patches of bark off the felled tree. 

Amos died twenty years ago. 

Wallace said he rushed to the museum the moment he had a break from work after hearing about the accident. He’s glad the damage was minimal, but he said the pole is irreplaceable.

“The dent is not that big, but, well, if you dent a little Volkswagen Bug, no big deal,” he said. “You can get it fixed. This is one of a kind. If something terrible happens to it, it’s gone. A part of my dad’s legacy would be gone.” 

This wasn’t the first time Wallace has seen someone damage the pole. 

“Twenty years ago, I was driving by and I saw a couple of clowns who had climbed up on this — they were getting their family photo taken. I slammed the brakes right there and got on my truck and came and got them off,” he said

He pointed to another dent on the pole.  

“And that was knocked off by one of the boys that was on top of it,” Wallace said.

Last summer, Sealaska Heritage Institute got reports that cruise tourists were climbing on some of the new poles along the Seawalk. They put up signs about the importance and sacredness of kootéeyaa to Southeast Alaska Native people. 

For Wallace, this pole matters on a deeply personal level, too. 

 “This thing is real near and dear to me. I remember dad carving it when I was six years old in 1967,” he said. “And it’s a great sense of pride for me every time I come by and have a look at that. Yeah, my dad did that.”

 City Museum Director Beth Weigel said Alaska Coach Tours representatives came to the museum and told her the driver was trying to get to the Alaska State Museum and got confused, then tried to turn around when they realized the error.

“We’re really grateful to the community for alerting us immediately to what they witnessed, and that we’re grateful to the tour company for being so responsive and helpful in resolving any issues that have resulted from the accident,” she said.

A representative from Alaska Coach Tours said in an email that the driver reported the accident to management.

After a record-breaking boom in cruise ship tourism following the COVID-19 pandemic, city leaders in Juneau have been publicly considering if — and how — they can limit that growth in the coming years. 

Now they’ve negotiated an agreement with cruise lines that they believe does just that. Starting in 2026, Juneau will have a cap on the number of daily passengers that come off cruise ships: 16,000 people on most days and 12,000 people on Saturdays. Currently, Juneau can see up to 21,000 visitors on its busiest days. 

Juneau’s Visitor Industry Director Alix Pierce said the agreement was finalized Friday. She called it groundbreaking.

“This has been a hard-fought agreement for the city, and it is a huge win for the city,” she said. “It is exactly what I wanted out of this, and I’m extremely happy that we’re here.”

Earlier this month, the Juneau Assembly approved the limits. 

Last year, a record-breaking 1.6 million passengers visited Juneau, with about the same expected this year and next. Pierce said the new agreement should keep the annual passenger count at that same level. 

She said that will be key in curbing future growth while also protecting local businesses that rely on the industry.

“This was an effort to kind of thread the needle and balance the competing voices that we hear in our roles as public officials trying to work through this,” Pierce said. 

But some residents in Juneau, like Karla Hart, said they are less than impressed. Hart is a longtime advocate who often criticizes the growth of tourism in Juneau and the effects it has on the people who live here year-round. 

“The pretense that it’s doing anything to address the real issues of the community is just absurd. It’s not even worth the paper it’s written, so it’s totally worthless,” she said. 

Hart said the agreement — and other agreements the city has done in the past to mitigate the impacts of the industry —  are all for show. 

“They’re not doing anything that really protects the community as a whole,” she said.

Because of that, she and other residents have been looking for ways to limit tourism without necessarily getting the consent of cruise lines. 

Hart and four other residents are trying to get a question on the local ballot this October asking whether Juneau should ban all large cruise ships on Saturdays. So far, she said they’ve collected enough signatures to get it on the ballot, but the city clerk is still verifying them. 

“I think that’s our best immediate vehicle to get word to the industry and to the city leaders, that the community wants some relief from this industry,” she said. 

If the “ship-free Saturdays” ballot initiative gets passed by voters, that could go into effect as soon as next year.

But Pierce has long said negotiations are better than trying to enforce regulations. That’s because other communities have tried to do that and wound up in court. 

And the cruise industry has sued Juneau in the past. A lawsuit over how the city spends the money it earns from passenger fees was settled in 2019, with both parties agreeing to work together to settle disputes outside of court.

“It’s not that the city is beholden to the cruise industry or anything like that. And I do hear that narrative sometimes,” Pierce said. “It’s more, it’s always a lot easier to solve a problem with somebody you have a positive relationship with, than somebody who you’re in a big, legal fight with all the time.”

Pierce said there could be a lot of unknown implications to passing a ballot initiative like this one — both legally and logistically. And she also doesn’t know how it might affect the new agreement. 

“There was a ballot measure that limited cruise ships that passed in Bar Harbor, Maine, and there are lawsuits on top of lawsuits on top of injunctions on top of different trading legal barbs, and the city spent a lot of money on legal fees,” she said. “So I think there would be a lot of legal activity after a ballot initiative passed.”

The new agreement means once the limits go into effect in 2026, they will remain in place in perpetuity. But the city and cruise lines also agreed to meet annually, and changes can be made during those discussions. 

Alaska’s newest port, until a few months ago, was full of piles of milled timber in knee-deep mud.

On its opening day earlier this month, local kids and adults in traditional hats and robes danced on the concrete dock below a banner that read “Welcome to Port Klawock.”

After the first dance on May 6, a local teacher named Eva Roan addressed the crowd of visitors who had just walked off of a sleek, white cruise ship. They’re the first cruise ship tourists to set foot in the community on Prince of Wales Island, roughly 60 miles west of Ketchikan.

“You’re in the territory of the Tlingít people,” she told the tourists, the abalone shells at the end of her dance apron clacking lightly. “Before migration, this whole island and islands around it were Tlingít Aaní. And a lot of the people in this dance group, they’re all part of the original clans from this area.”

The crowd watching and taking pictures were from a ship called the Seabourn Odyssey. Roan taught them a word in Lingít, the language of the Tlingit people.

“Gunalchéesh,” she said slowly, the word for thank you.

“Gunalchéesh,” the crowd repeated.

The ceremony was the result of 18 months of planning by tribal leaders. Don Nickerson is the mayor of Klawock and president of Klawock Heenya, the local Alaska Native corporation.

For years, he has watched the salmon and logging industries leave the area and is hoping to revive the town’s flagging economy with tourism. He said seeing their kids dance like this and be proud of their culture was something special.

“You know, we looked at the economy in our community. And then we realized, we have so much culture here. Not only on our land, but with our artisans or artifacts, and the stories that come with Klawock,” he said.

Nickerson loves Klawock. He said he’s lived here his whole life and wants the village’s kids and grandkids to be able to do the same. Klawock is modeling their new tourism economy on another Southeast Village: Hoonah.

“Guests are looking for more unique experiences, and where else to get those than in our Native rural communities?” asked Russell Dick.

Dick is the CEO of Huna Totem Corporation, the Native corporation for Hoonah and Glacier Bay.

“Twenty years ago, we were in the same situation as Klawock is today,” he said.

Dick was at the helm in the early 2000s when Huna Totem unveiled Icy Strait Point, a tourist destination near Hoonah they built from the ground up. It now brings in megaships from all over the world and accounts for more than half the economy of Hoonah.

“When you look at Icy Strait Point, you see the values of the community imprinted on Icy Strait Point, you don’t see the community of Hoonah becoming a tourism community,” Dick said. “We’ve created some separation in that fabric that exists in Hoonah. It exists at Icy Strait Point because we’ve been able to build it that way.”

Port Klawock is owned by Dick’s Huna Totem Corporation and Doyon Limited, the Native corporation for Interior Alaska. They are operating under the name Na-Dena`.

Dick was actually the person who contacted Nickerson and Mary Edenshaw, the CEO of Klawock Heenya, about building the Port of Klawock. He envisions it as the next Icy Strait Point.

“Yes this is just day one,” Dick said. “But imagine five years down the road of what we can build in a place like Klawock and Prince of Wales Island. It can be absolutely stunning and amazing.”

After the speeches, Klawock Heenya, Doyon Limited, and Huna Totem exchanged commemorative plaques with captain Krasimir Radev of the Seabourn Odyssey, a fit, smiling Bulgarian man. Then the mayor cut the big red ribbon with a pair of cartoonishly large scissors.

Aaron Isaacs, a village elder, was front and center for the ceremony. He said the Klawock he knew as a kid was different. It wasn’t an easy place to grow up.

“Everything was tough life,” Isaacs remembered. “There was a lot of things we didn’t have.”

But he felt hopeful for the future.

“I am so proud of what they’re doing — the village corporation, the Board of Directors. I’m very proud of what they’re doing. Just amazing,” Isaacs said. “When you read the history of (the) Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, it shows how the Native people just went on and became self-prominent. There’s a lot of people that are against that.”

The Seabourn Odyssey was on an 80-day journey from Sydney, Australia. With the ribbon cutting done, the passengers lined up to board tour buses. One advertised “Taste of Klawock,” a food tour along a river where visitors would eat halibut and oysters.

Not everyone had such a good day though. Stacey Skan owns a coffee shop called Real Tradish on Klawock’s main drag. She calls it an “unapologetic Indigenous space.”

She hoped the Odyssey would bring customers. Only two showed up.

“I just think there’s a real lack of collaboration between businesses, city and tribal entities,” she said while wiping down tables before closing.

Still, she was hopeful.

“Really, I thought it can always be a positive thing. I don’t really have a bad opinion. It’s just, I think our city could do more,” Skan said.

As the sun began to set, the cruise ship was gone. Na Dena’ and Klawock Heenya are hoping to slowly ramp up their operations at Port Klawock.