Government

The CBJ Assembly meets tonight as Committee of the Whole.

It’ll be the last meeting chaired by Deputy Mayor Merrill Sanford, who is nearing the end of his third consecutive term on the assembly. Due to term limits, Sanford will leave the panel next week when new members are sworn in.

On the agenda for tonight’s meeting is a presentation from the Alaska Department of Transportation on the new Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan. City Engineering Director Rorie Watt will also be on hand for ongoing discussion of the AJ Mine issue. Watt will give an update on the public outreach he’s doing as part of a study of the city’s water supply. The old mine, which the city and borough partially owns, is located in Last Chance Basin, Juneau’s main source of drinking water.

The Committee of the Whole meets tonight at 6 p.m. in City Hall Assembly Chambers.

Alaska’s U.S. Senators are part of a congressional effort to stop the Postal Service from closing branches in rural areas. APRN’s Libby Casey reports on the “Protecting Rural Post Offices Bill.”

City and Borough of Juneau officials are scrambling to apply for a state grant that could pay for at least half of a new library in the Mendenhall Valley.

The original deadline to apply was in January, but the Division of Community and Regional Affairs moved it up to November 4th.

Ten Alaska communities had projects funded in the first two years of the library construction grant program. City Library Director Barbara Berg says Juneau is in line to get money this year. She says a new branch in the valley won’t happen without it.

“If we can’t get the grant, then we’re not going to move ahead with anything. That’s integral to making this work,” Berg says.

The plan is to build a new 13- to 15-million dollar library on city property at Dimond Park. With the state grant picking up half the cost, Berg says the city’s contribution would be less than 7.5 million. That can include the value of the land, local fundraising, and other grants. She says the nonprofit Friends of the Juneau Public Libraries has already raised about a million dollars for the project.

“This is an opportunity to do something that has been planned for many years, and we will get something that can serve as the civic heart in the valley,” says Berg. “Improved access to meeting spaces for people, and above all better service to the people in the valley.”

The valley branch is currently located in the Mendenhall Mall, which was supposed to be a temporary site when it moved in there in 1983. Berg says the city pays about 192-thousand dollars a year in rent for the space, and special events are limited to times when the mall is open.

The branch is the busiest of Juneau’s three public libraries. Berg says it gets 53 percent of all visits system-wide and 46 percent of all checkouts.

Library officials will meet with the CBJ Assembly Public Works and Facilities Committee on Monday. They’re hoping to get assembly approval of the grant application on Monday October 17th.

Link: Juneau Public Libraries

A Juneau-based nonprofit that aims to curb the use of plastic shopping bags in the Capital City won’t be deterred by voters’ rejection this week of a citizen’s initiative to tax those bags at certain retailers.

The group’s director says the measure raised awareness of the pollution and environmental damage caused by plastic bags, and members will look for ways to keep the conversation going.

Turning the Tides Director Dixie Belcher wasn’t surprised that voters rejected the group’s plastic bag tax initiative by more than two to one.

“Plastic bags are either banned or taxed in two-thirds of the world, but that has never come from a vote,” Belcher says. “It has always come from a city council, or from a legislature, or from the country. When it goes out to a vote, it’s always voted down.”

Opposition came from people who disagreed with the structure of the tax, levied only on large stores like Fred Meyer, WalMart and Safeway with average annual gross sales of 15-million dollars or more over the last five years. Most people thought the tax would be passed on to consumers.

“There’s a lot of people that just plain don’t want a tax,” says Belcher. “And I think that they didn’t like that it would just apply to four stores – which really wasn’t our idea – that came from the business community.”

Belcher says just having the measure on the ballot raised awareness of the pollution and environmental harm caused by plastic bags, especially on oceans. Turning the Tides regularly sponsors movies and speakers on the issue, and gives away free reusable bags at events around town. Belcher hopes they can build on the momentum of the campaign.

“I think we’re going to be talking to teachers, to school teachers, with the possibility that some children could make bags in the schools that they could take home and their families would use,” she says. “We’re just going to continue to do that sort of thing and also try to reach people that we haven’t reached.”

That includes public officials and the business community.

“There are definitely people in the business community who are 100 percent behind it, and there are definitely public officials who are interested, and I think we have more now,” says Belcher.

Randy Wanamaker, who was re-elected to the assembly on Tuesday after a year-long absence, says he met a lot of people during the campaign who opposed the bag tax. But he says the same people were concerned about the city’s ever expanding landfill.

“This is something that helped people talk about solid waste in the broad, strategic sense,” Wanamaker says.

Belcher thinks some voters who opposed the tax would have supported a ban on plastic bags. While Turning the Tides probably won’t attempt another citizen’s initiative, she says it will continue to push for change on the grassroots level.

“It’s a huge problem, and I think plastic bags’ days are numbered,” she says.

An Arrow Refuse proposal to offer curbside recycling in Juneau and barge trash to the Lower 48 has come as a surprise to city officials. The city and borough has issued a request for proposals for recycling services and has been negotiating with another company on a major facility.

Alaska’s Director of State and Federal Relations in Washington, D.C. is resigning.

After more than 40 years as the lead advocate for the state, John Katz says it’s time to leave the nation’s capital.

Early in his career Katz worked for the late Senator Ted Stevens and in 1979 became the first special counsel to the governor, working on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Since then he has worked for eight Alaska governors in Washington and received several awards for his service.

In a letter to Governor Sean Parnell, the 68-year-old Katz says he wants to spend more time in Alaska and with his family.

He also says he’s become increasingly discouraged by what he sees as the “polarization and deterioration of the public policy process at the federal level.”

Katz says it is the worst he has seen in his 43 years in Washington.

In statements from Alaska’s congressional delegation, all have high praise for him.

Senator Mark Begich calls Katz the true definition of a dedicated public servant, who has fought for Alaskans on every “hot button” issue. Begich says he will miss Katz calm demeanor.

Senator Lisa Murkowski says his resignation is a “shock to the system of Alaska.”

Murkowski says she cannot disagree with his frustration with the “paralysis and partisan hostility that has taken over Washington, DC.”

Murkowski says Katz lived a “bipartisan life” as he served governors from “across the political spectrum.”

Representative Don Young says Katz “never let ideology get in the way of his mission, which was to serve the state of Alaska.”

Katz resignation is effective at the end of the year. Parnell will choose his replacement.