Government

The Alaska Northern Waters Task Force has given the legislature its findings and recommendations on the effects of climate change in the Arctic – and how the state fits into national and international interests in the region.

Task Force Chair Reggie Joule of Kotzebue says the goal was to identify the state’s opportunities and challenges in the Arctic.

“It’s not like Alaska has been absent. I want to make that clear. But it was a way for the legislature – using people from the administration and the public to get together and use this task force – getting some information and what are some of the things we should look at,” said Joule.

The report calls for expansion of oil and gas development in the Arctic, as well as improvements to cold-weather spill clean-up technologies. It also says the state and federal governments should address the likely increase in marine transportation through the region. More research, including studies of Arctic fisheries, is also one of the recommendations.

Dilllingham Democrat Bryce Edgmon says another goal of the Task Force was to educate the public on international Arctic issues.

“That the Russians have a goal of 2018, 2019 of transporting LNG from Russia to market in the Orient. The Chinese are building a nuclear icebreaker. A third of the world’s hydrocarbon deposits may lie in the Arctic. And in the Bering Straits choke point may be hundreds of mid-size, large-size vessels full with hazardous substances going through this very narrow point,” Edgmon said. “A lot of what we’re doing is help increase the awareness of all the stuff that’s happening around us in the world.”

State Environmental Conservation Commissioner Larry Hartig says the task force took a long-term look at these issues.

“If we recognize where we might be at ten years from now and we think hard about it, then we can start planning what we should be doing over that next ten years to take advantage of that time, so that if and when we get to development, we can do it as safely as possible,” said Hartig.

Besides handing over the report, the task force also gave the legislature a proposed resolution establishing an Arctic Policy Commission to build on its findings.

Link:

Alaska Northern Waters Task Force report

Should the City and Borough of Juneau be regulating development near eagle nests, and if so, to what extent?

The CBJ Planning Commission will take a look at those questions over the next several months and make a recommendation to the Juneau Assembly.

After failing to reach consensus on the issue the first time around, the Commission will have its work cut out for it. Casey Kelly has more.

Last week, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the assembly retain the city’s entire eagle nest ordinance. But as Chairman Mike Satre told the Assembly on Monday, how they got to that decision was quite interesting.

“I dare say there were nine different opinions on the board that night in terms of getting to a no vote or a lack of recommendation for this,” Satre said.

The proposal to do away with the ordinance was sparked by an application for a variance submitted last year by the state Department of Transportation for a road construction project 30 miles out Glacier Highway. The project is in the vicinity of several eagle nests, and involves rock blasting to realign the road.

Bald eagles were removed from the Endangered Species List in 2007, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service has relaxed federal protections for the birds. In fact, developers can now apply for a federal permit allowing them to “take” or kill an eagle by accident. Previously any death – intentional or not – was against the law. The agency also stopped providing opinions to the city regarding its eagle nest ordinance in 2008.

The city ordinance has been on the books since at least the late 1980s. It restricts development within 330 feet of an eagle nest.

City Manager Rod Swope – who has an undergraduate degree in biology – asked the Community Development Department to re-write the rule to be more in-line with federal regulations.

“We frequently get into situations where we may be dealing with fish and wildlife resources. And we have no biologists, and quite frankly we really have no credibility to be making conditions and decisions on those resources contrary to what a state or federal agency may be suggesting,” Swope said.

Community Development Director Dale Pernula revised the ordinance as Swope directed. Since 1995, Pernula says there have been 37 applications for variances from the rule. He says three of those were withdrawn, one appeared to go nowhere at the Planning Commission, and 33 – including the state DOT project – were approved, usually with conditions.

“Some of them are fairly costly. Sometimes it requires an eagle nest monitor to watch to see what kinds of activities are interfering with the nesting activities. Probably the most onerous conditions that we’ve had were with respect to blasting,” said Pernula. “We had some conditions that they could not blast at certain times of year, because it would interfere with those nesting activities.”

Conservation groups are fighting changes to the ordinance. Jeff Sauer, Vice President of the Juneau Chapter of the Audubon Society, says in many cases, the local rule is the only thing protecting eagles.

“The federal fish and wildlife permit is not mandatory. It costs 500 dollars, and for small developers and for citizens, they simply won’t apply. They won’t spend 500 dollars on a permit when they don’t have to,” Sauer said. “That leaves the borough ordinance as it in many, many small cases.”

The Assembly sent the ordinance back to the Planning Commission without any specific instructions for how it should be revised, if at all. Assemblyman Randy Wanamaker said his feeling is that the city ordinance should not be more stringent than federal rules.

“Alaska’s a vast state and the eagles are virtually everywhere, and we have federal policy, federal guidelines, and the city should be consistent with federal guidelines,” said Wanamaker.

But Assemblyman Jesse Kiehl said there’s a reason the ordinance has been on the books for so long: community values.

“CBJ is really in our land use, and planning processes, and permitting processes, looking more and more often at the community value element,” Kiehl said. “So I’m inclined to keep these ordinances on the books for now and encourage the Planning Commission and other appropriate agencies to see if we can find a way to make them more flexible if that’s a need.”

Planning Commission Chair Satre said the ordinance will initially go to the commission’s Title 49 Committee for review. Title 49 is the section of city code dealing with land use rules and regulations. Satre thinks the Planning Commission could have a recommendation for the Assembly by this summer.

More than 60 percent of signatures collected by the group behind a citizen’s initiative to revive the Alaska Coastal Management Program have been verified by an initial computer review. Casey Kelly has more.

The Alaska Sea Party submitted more than 33 thousand signatures to the state Division of Elections two weeks ago in hopes of qualifying the measure for this year’s statewide ballot. Division Director Gail Fenumiai says computer scanners verified more than 20 thousand of those as being from qualified registered voters, leaving more than 12 thousand to be verified manually.

“It’s not uncommon to have a high number of unqualified after the initial computer qualification phase,” Fenumiai says. “And what we do with those then is that we go back through and we do a manual search for that person in our voter registration system to see if they really are a true qualified voter in the State of Alaska.”

Fenumiai says a signature may not meet the computer qualification for any number of reasons.

“Say they signed the book as Jim Smith and they’re really James Smith in the voter registration system. The VR system would not match that, because it wasn’t an exact name match,” she says. “It could be somebody signed and put their driver’s license down as an identifier, but we don’t have their driver’s license in our VR system. So we’re able to get that information through other means and provide a match and say yes this person is a qualified voter.”

Fenumiai says manual qualification of signatures for the coastal management initiative started last Friday. She estimates it will take another three to four weeks to complete the process.

The news that many of the signatures did not pass the initial computer scan led to lots of unnecessary angst amongst lawmakers Tuesday. Senate President Gary Stevens said at a press conference that initiative backers “may not … have the numbers.”

But House Minority Leader Beth Kerttula, who’s been involved with the Alaska Sea Party’s efforts, says the group sees no reason to panic.

“We are confident that in those names we’ll see yet again many more qualified voters. It’s as simple as that,” says Kerttula.

Lawmakers can bypass the citizen’s initiative by approving substantially similar legislation this session. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees are scheduled to hold a joint hearing on the issue next Monday, February 6th.

Until it closed last year, the Alaska Coastal Management Program allowed the state to put conditions on certain development in federal land and waters. It interacted with and received most of its funding through the federal Coastal Zone Management Act.

The program folded after legislators and the Parnell Administration failed to reach an agreement to reauthorize it.

Rebecca Braun of the Alaska Budget Report reviews some of the bills and major issues being considered by lawmakers during the second session of the 23th Alaska Legislature.

The Juneau Assembly has appointed Kim Kiefer as the next city manager.

The longtime city employee, and current deputy manager, will replace Rod Swope, who’s retiring March 31st. Casey Kelly has more.

Kim Kiefer was all smiles after the assembly announced her selection at the end of Monday’s regular meeting.

“I am very honored. And I’m very appreciative of the Assembly to give me this opportunity,” says Kiefer. “And through this process I’ve been very humbled by the outpouring of support I’ve gotten from the community, whether it’s been in the grocery store, or walking on the street, people stopping and saying, ‘Hey, we think you’re the best.'”

Kiefer moved to the Capital City in 1971, and graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School in ‘77. After earning a degree in Parks and Recreation Management from the University of Oregon, she moved back to Juneau and started working for the city in 1984. Over the years she served as Zach Gordon Youth Center Manager, Recreation Superintendent, and Parks and Recreation Director, before moving up to Deputy City Manager in 2005. She served as Acting City Manager in 2009 while Rod Swope took a six month sabbatical.

Despite all that experience, Kiefer says there will be a learning curve as she adjusts to the top job.

“The way Rod and I split up departments right now, he sort of has part of them and I have part of them. So I need to understand the issues with those other departments and what’s coming forward,” Kiefer says. “And then it’s working with the administrative team and seeing where we want to take this organization. It’s a great organization and I’m passionate about it and we’ve got a wonderful administrative team as well as great CBJ employees.”

Right out of the gate, Kiefer will have to deal with a 7.5-million dollar projected shortfall for the two-year budget cycle beginning July 1st. She describes her role in budget decisions while deputy manager as “hands on.”

“In fact, when Rod left last time, I started the budget cut list in FY10 and worked right beside him throughout that process. And I’m doing the same thing this year,” she says.

Another pressing matter will be hiring a replacement for herself. Kiefer says if there’s one thing she learned as acting manager, it’s that the job needs two people.

“There’s a lot going on with this organization. A lot of just day to day things, as well as working to help the assembly to meet their goals and objectives. So there’s plenty to do for two people full time,” she says.

The assembly undertook an expedited search for Swope’s replacement, putting a high priority on candidates with Alaska experience. Twenty-five people applied for the job, and Kiefer and Coast Guard Captain Norman “Buddy” Custard were named finalists in mid-December.

Kiefer’s selection was not unanimous, as Assemblyman Randy Wanamaker objected to the hiring process.

“Given the economic and demographic challenges this community faces, the compressed selection process that we used and the fact that we do not have a plan to deal with this budget deficit, I am not able to support this nomination,” says Wanamaker.

He was unavailable for comment after the assembly meeting.

Kiefer says she wasn’t bothered by Wanamaker’s no vote. She says she’ll work to foster good relations with every member of the assembly.

“That’s part of the first hundred days once I take over is to work on those relationships individually and find out what they need from me and what I can provide them to help them be successful,” she says.

Kiefer’s starting salary will be 145-thousand dollars a year and she’ll serve at the pleasure of the assembly.

Mayor Bruce Botelho declined to comment about the selection. But in a press release he called Kiefer a “natural choice… with an excellent understanding of the needs of the community.”

City Manager and City Attorney are the only positions hired by the Assembly.

The Senate Education Committee Monday approved a three-year increase to the Basic Student Allocation, or BSA. That’s the amount of money to cover the cost of educating each student enrolled, and it’s the basis for calculating extra costs such as the difference in operating expenses in various communities.

Gov. Sean Parnell’s budget for next year proposes the same level of funding at $5,680 per student. Senate Bill 171 increases the BSA for each of the next three years — by $125 dollars per student in July of this year; $130 in 2013, and by $135 a student in 2014.

Kenai School Board member Sunny Hilz praised the committee’s decision to provide more than one year of funding. She said forward funding will allow schools to plan ahead.

“What it does in our school district, it changes the morale of the entire place. It lets us focus on what we know will work,” she said. “A program doesn’t work for one year and then start over again. We have to be able to plan ahead.”

SB 171 is priority legislation for the Senate. It’s next hearing will be in Senate Finance. But when it gets to the House, the outcome is unpredictable, said House Speaker Mike Chenault during Monday’s press availability. He said education needs more state money, but he’s concerned about making changes to the formula used to fund public schools.

“Sometimes it’s a lot harder to change it once we’ve put it in (law) so I think we’ve got to be careful,” he said. “Could we come up with something that’s a year or two or three years certainty for education? We’ve done it in the past, and we can certainly do it in the future. But I think we have to have those conversations as we look at the budget continuing to grow.”