Transportation

Lawmakers and observers are expressing concern over a series of executive orders Gov. Mike Dunleavy unveiled this month. Dunleavy issued 12 orders, largely eliminating or reorganizing a wide range of boards and commissions.

Before this month, Alaska’s governors had issued 123 executive orders since statehood. That number jumped 10% with a series of actions unveiled by the Dunleavy administration as lawmakers gathered in Juneau.

“We have never, in my experience, had 12 executive orders to deal with all at once,” Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said at a recent news conference.

The Legislature has 60 days from the start of the session to consider them. Lawmakers can call a joint session, and with a majority vote, prevent them from becoming law.

That means the clock expires in mid-March. Stevens has referred all 12 to various Senate committees and legal aides for a closer look.

“We want to deal with these very quickly,” Stevens said. “We don’t want to see these become law without having a chance to thoroughly vet them and discuss them.”

The Alaska Constitution allows the governor to reorganize the executive branch to provide for “efficient administration.”

Through his communications staff, Dunleavy declined an interview for this story. But in a prepared statement, spokesperson Jessica Bowers said the purpose of the orders was to “make state government as efficient and effective as possible.”

Most of the orders would eliminate or restructure various state boards.

One would restructure the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board, which advises state leaders on management of the ferry system. The order would allow the governor to appoint all nine members. Stevens, a longtime booster of the ferry system, says the legislative appointments – currently, there are four split between the leaders of the House and Senate – allow for a wider variety of input from coastal communities.

“It’s an important authority that the Legislature has and, personally, I would be very hesitant to give that up,” Stevens said.

The ferry board doesn’t have much legal power – its job is to plan and provide advice that the state may or may not follow.

That’s the case for several other advisory boards that Dunleavy has proposed eliminating: the Alaska Council on EMS, the Criminal Justice Information Advisory Board and the Recreation Rivers Advisory Board, to name a few.

But some of the boards that would be eliminated do more than give the state advice.

Take the Wood-Tikchik State Park Management Council, a seven-member group responsible for creating and updating plans for nearly 1.6 million acres of land at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. Those plans are then submitted to the state for approval and implementation.

“That has worked excellent since the park’s been created,” said Robin Samuelsen, who spent 15 years on the management council, including a stint as chairman.

The council is made up of representatives from the towns, villages and tribes surrounding the park and includes representatives from the Governor’s administration.

One of Dunleavy’s executive orders eliminates that board entirely and rolls its functions into the Department of Natural Resources. In the order, Dunleavy says that eliminating the board would “provide a single point of responsibility for the development of Wood-Tikchik State Park’s management plan, resulting in increased performance and accountability.”

Samuelsen said he’s concerned Dunleavy’s plan to eliminate the board could be a first step towards opening the park to resource development.

“I do know that there’s a number of mining companies that are north, just north of the Wood-Tikchik State Park,” he said. “This governor is in love with the mining companies.”

Bowers, the spokesperson for the governor, said the order was not issued at the request of any individual or entity.

The executive order would not change the existing management plan. It would allow the Department of Natural Resources to modify the plan, subject to a review by experts and the public, Bowers said. However, it would not change an existing law that prohibits mining within the park’s boundaries.

A similar order would eliminate the advisory council for the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in Upper Lynn Canal.

A number of boards that would be eliminated have regulatory power: for instance, the Board of Massage Therapists, which regulates the massage industry, would be eliminated, with its responsibilities turned over to the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. It’s a similar story for the Board of Barbers and Hairdressers and the Board of Certified Direct-Entry Midwives.

Another of the orders creates a new board for the Alaska Energy Authority, which currently shares a board with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. Another gives the Fish and Game commissioner the authority to prohibit “the live capture, possession, transport or release of native or exotic game or their eggs.”

At this point, some lawmakers have more questions than answers. Here’s Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage.

“Fundamentally as legislators, we have to jealously guard our ability to make law. That’s what we do,” Josephson said in an interview. “That’s why there’s sensitivity about these. It may be, in the end, that these are fine.”

House Majority Leader Dan Saddler, an Anchorage Republican, says legislators plan to look closely at the orders.

“Having been at boards and commissions for a while, I know that there are some boards that may benefit from some more efficient operations, but we’ll consider each on its own merits and make decisions, and that’ll just come out through the process of committee meetings,” Saddler said at a news conference.

Hearings on the orders are expected to begin in the coming weeks.

WASHINGTON — Concerns about quality control at Boeing are mounting, as new revelations from an alleged whistleblower suggest mistakes at the company’s factory led to a fuselage panel blowing off an Alaska Airlines jet in midair earlier this month.

No one was seriously injured when the panel known as a door plug blew off at 16,000 feet. But the dramatic incident has renewed questions about Boeing’s manufacturing processes, and whether the company is prioritizing speed and profit over safety.

Now a self-described Boeing employee claims to have details about how the door plug on that Boeing 737 Max 9 was improperly installed. Those new details, which were first reported by the Seattle Times, were published in a post on an aviation website last week.

“The reason the door blew off is stated in black and white in Boeing’s own records,” wrote the whistleblower, who appears to have access to the company’s manufacturing records. “It is also very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business.”

According to the whistleblower’s account, four bolts that are supposed to hold the door plug in place “were not installed when Boeing delivered the plane, our own records reflect this.”

Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board have already raised the possibility that the bolts were not installed. The NTSB is still investigating the incident. If the whistleblower’s description is accurate, investigators may be able to confirm it by looking at Boeing’s records.

Boeing declined to comment on the whistleblower allegations, citing the ongoing investigation.

Those allegations came to light just as Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was visiting Capitol Hill Wednesday, where he is seeking to reassure lawmakers and the public.

“We believe in our airplanes,” Calhoun told reporters. “We have confidence in the safety of our airplanes. And that’s what all of this is about. We fully understand the gravity.”

NPR has not verified the identity of the whistleblower.

But this person’s explanation of problems in the manufacturing process that led to the door plug blowout seem credible to Ed Pierson, a former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Wash.

“It definitely seemed accurate to me,” said Pierson, who now directs the non-profit Foundation for Aviation Safety. “And it doesn’t surprise me, because this is the kind of stuff that we had seen, I had seen in the past.”

“This is symptomatic of what happens when you rush production,” Pierson said. “People are put under this kind of pressure, and they’re forced to take shortcuts. And that’s where these mistakes are made.”

The Alaska Airlines incident is another major setback for Boeing, which was still working to rebuild public trust after the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max 8 jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

After the latest Alaska Airlines incident, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes with similar door panel configurations.

Alaska and United Airlines have canceled thousands of flights as they wait for final inspection instructions from regulators. The CEOs of both airlines criticized Boeing in separate interviews on Tuesday.

“I’m more than frustrated and disappointed,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci told NBC News. “I am angry.”

“It’s clear to me that we received an airplane from Boeing with a faulty door,” he said.

That is exactly what the Boeing whistleblower alleges. Their post describes in detail how the door plug was removed for repairs and then replaced at the Boeing factory. The four bolts that hold the door plug in place should have been reattached, the whistleblower writes.

But they were not, the whistleblower says, because of communication problems between employees who work for Boeing and those who work for Spirit AeroSystems, the company that built the fuselage and door panel.

The whistleblower describes the safety inspection process at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton as “a rambling, shambling, disaster waiting to happen.”

Boeing’s 737 factory teams in Renton are scheduled to hold what the company is calling a “Quality Stand Down” on Thursday, allowing production to pause for a day so employees can take part in special training sessions.

But it’s clear the company will have to do more than that to rebuild its reputation.

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, met with Calhoun on Wednesday.

“I made it clear that quality engineering and a commitment to safety always have to be the top priority,” Cantwell said in a statement.

Cantwell says she plans to hold hearings to investigate the root causes of the door plug blowout.

“The American flying public and Boeing line workers deserve a culture of leadership at Boeing that puts safety ahead of profits,” she said.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Update: Jan. 22, 6:45 p.m.

Juneau schools are closed Tuesday. Students will have a remote learning day. City facilities will also close.

Thane Road will close at 8 p.m. due to avalanche risk. Officials will reevaluate road conditions Tuesday morning.

Original story

Less than a week after Juneau got buried under nearly 30 inches of snow, a second storm is triggering school closures, clogging roads and running plow drivers ragged. 

As the snow kept piling up in Juneau on Monday — 16 inches since Saturday night — Denise Koch, the city’s director of Engineering and Public Works, said keeping up is an all-hands-on-deck situation.

“CBJ streets crews are out doing everything they can. Our water utility is out doing everything they can to do things like try and keep fire hydrants clear,” she said. 

The Juneau School District shifted to remote learning on Monday and Tuesday and City and Borough of Juneau offices were closed due to the snow. 

Koch said the city is fully staffed with plow drivers and contracted help, and drivers have been working night and day. She said two city loaders are out of commission, but that’s been the only equipment hiccup so far. 

Independent plow drivers have also been working long hours to clear private driveways and roads. Brian Clasmeyer said he’s been plowing his routes in the Valley twice a day. 

With constant snow and fluctuating temperatures, he said it’s hard to keep up.

“When it’s been snowing for several hours and then the temperature changes, and now it’s 30 degrees and it’s starting to get wet. Then it’s really difficult to remove,” he said. “And then if it freezes the next night, especially if you have a berm, it’s almost impossible – you can break your plow.”

Debbie Driscoll with Alaska Electric Light and Power or AEL&P, said there had been no reported power outages as of Monday afternoon. 

“We’re — knock on wood — not really seeing anything right now. It’s cold, so trees tend to stay in place when the ground is frozen,” she said. 

Driscoll said that warming weather in the coming days could bring some outages.

Capital City Fire/Rescue Assistant Chief Sam Russell said the department had not had any reports of roof cave-ins as of Monday morning. Koch said how much weight a roof can handle depends on factors like pitch, age and location.

“People ask us questions about, you know, whether or not they should shovel their roofs. And it’s not, unfortunately, it’s not one-size-fits-all sort of answer,” she said. 

The city does offer guidance on its website to help residents assess the potential for roofs to collapse.

Meanwhile, Juneau Harbormaster Matt Creswell said there have been no reports of boats sinking yet — but he strongly encouraged boat owners to go shovel their boats if they can get to the harbors safely. 

“At this rate, the snow is going to keep coming, and it’s getting heavier and heavier,” he said. “And we’re starting to get really concerned.”

Last week at Aurora Harbor, three boats sank under the weight of the snow. Three more were saved just in time.

Capital Transit will run winter route detours until midnight. There is no service up Cordova Street to Cedar Park on Douglas Island, or on Franklin and Fourth streets downtown. 

Anna Canny contributed reporting to this article.

This story has been updated. 

The Federal Aviation Administration is recommending that airlines visually inspect the door plugs of more Boeing planes after a similar panel blew off a jet in midair earlier this month.

The safety alert issued late Sunday recommends that airlines operating Boeing’s 737-900ER jets inspect the door plugs “as soon as possible” to make sure they’re properly secured after some airlines reported unspecified issues with the bolts.

The 737-900ER is not part of Boeing’s newer Max series, but it has the same optional door plug design as the Boeing 737 Max 9, according to the FAA.

More than 170 of the newer jets have been grounded since Jan. 5, when a door plug blew off a 737 Max 9 plane operated by Alaska Airlines. That plane had only been flying for a few months, according to investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Boeing 737-900ER model has over 11 million hours of operation and about four million flight cycles, according to the FAA.

Boeing delivered roughly 500 of the 737-900ER planes between 2007 and 2019. None have experienced significant problems with their door plugs, according to the FAA.

The FAA’s safety alert says some airlines have “noted findings with bolts during the maintenance inspections” of their 737-900ER planes but doesn’t elaborate on what the findings were. The agency says it continues to evaluate data involving the mid-cabin door plug, and may order additional actions if necessary.

Alaska Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines all said they have begun checking the door plugs on their fleets of 737-900ER planes. None of the carriers said they expect any disruption to their operations.

Regulators are still studying the data from initial inspections of 40 Max 9 jets while they work to develop final inspection instructions for the planes. The FAA says safety, not speed, will determine when the Max 9 can fly again.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Juneau residents will soon see improvements to the lighting and visibility near Mendenhall River Community School. That comes after a woman and two young children were hit by a truck on Back Loop Road last month. 

Officials with the state, city and school district met Thursday to discuss the incident. Juneau School Board Vice President Emil Mackey said that improving safety near the school is not just a district problem. 

“This is also a community problem because we have playgrounds that are used year-round, whether schools are in or out of session — it’s essentially a park,” he said.  

Greg Lockwood, with the state’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, said some short-term fixes are already underway, like reflective flagging on signs and high-performance LED lights at the school’s entrance. 

The lights should get shipped to Juneau next week. District Superintendent Frank Hauser said installing them will be a priority for the district. 

“As soon as they come in, we will get the team to get them installed as quickly as possible so they’re in place,” he said. 

Denise Koch, the city’s director of Engineering and Public Works, said another short-term measure is the city’s plan to move its Capital Transit bus stop across the street from the school’s entrance, to a spot that sees less traffic. She says that change is planned for early February. 

School Board President Deedie Sorensen, who taught at the school for over two decades, said she thinks it’s a miracle that only now has a serious accident happened there. 

“Over the years, the district has done everything they could to discourage people in that neighborhood from walking to school,” she said. “While we can offer all sorts of inducements to people, that does not necessarily change their behavior.”

Sorensen said she hopes the DOT can find ways to slow down drivers in the area.

Lockwood said the DOT is also planning a highway safety improvement project in the area. He says one of the first steps will be a pedestrian crossing study. That will help show how many people are crossing in the area, and what measures might protect them.

The Anchorage Assembly decided Tuesday night that the name of Alaska’s late congressman should be attached to the city’s port after all.

It took about an hour of awkward discussion and procedural maneuvering before the Assembly finally arrived at a straight up-or-down vote to change the name from the Port of Alaska to the Don Young Port of Alaska.

With his widow Anne Garland Young following the meeting in person, the name change passed in a 10-2 vote. Members Karen Bronga and Meg Zaletel voted no.

Mayor Dave Bronson said Young was in his office a week before he died in 2022, and had asked that the port be renamed after him.

“Quite frankly, that’s why we’re here today,” Bronson said. “Don was a friend of mind. He was a gentleman of the highest order. And I just thought it’s right that the dean of (the) House got the port named after him that he actually requested.”

Assembly Chair Chris Constant supported the name change, but discouraged making Young out as a saint.

“It’s not been fair to a honest record of Don Young’s life and story in Alaska,” Constant said. “It was great and it was terrible and it was everything — it was life! And we should not practice hagiography in undoing the stories and making false narratives about people.”

Constant, a Democrat, said he respected Young, a Republican, especially for actions toward the end of his life. Constant highlighted Young’s words in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his vote for the massive federal infrastructure bill. Constant framed both as Young rejecting his party’s position to look out for Alaska and the nation.

Don Young died in March of 2022. He was the most senior member of Congress at the time, representing Alaska in the House of Representatives continuously since 1973.

The new name is a partial rejection of a renaming panel’s recommendation. The panel wanted the place referenced in the name to change as well, so that it became “The Don Young Port of Anchorage.”

Historically, the facility was known as the Port of Anchorage until the Assembly changed it to the Port of Alaska in 2017. It was a symbolic move, in part to convey to legislators who fund infrastructure projects the port’s importance to the entire state. By weight, most goods that enter Alaska pass through the port.