State Government

The Haines Borough Assembly has an emergency meeting scheduled for Friday morning on the latest redistricting map.

The latest incarnation, revised for Southeast, would put Haines and Skagway in the same House district as the Mendenhall Valley.

Haines Assembly members are expected to decide whether the Borough should jump into the lawsuit objecting to the redistricting plan.

The Haines Assembly has already gone on record objecting to being in a Juneau district. They would prefer to remain in a Southeast rural House district with a sufficient population of Native voters to satisfy the federal voting rights act.

Governor Sean Parnell has named former Juneau resident Dianne Blumer Alaska’s new Labor Commissioner.

She replaces Click Bishop, who resigned in March and recently signaled his intention to run for state Senate representing Fairbanks.

Blumer had been a special assistant to the governor, advising him on matters affecting the departments of commerce, administration and revenue. According to the governor’s office, she has more than 20 years in state service, serving in positions such as director of the Division of Personnel and Labor Relations and deputy director of the Child Support Services Division.

In a statement, Parnell called her “profoundly competent.”

Blumer was born in Ketchikan and was a lifelong resident of Southeast Alaska before moving to Anchorage in 2007. Parnell’s office says she is a former member of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and ran two small businesses in the Capital City, as well as a hotel in Sitka.

Bishop earlier this month filed a letter of intent with the Alaska Public Offices Commission to run for state Senate, though he’s yet to file with the Division of Elections.

His letter did not specify which district he’d be running in. Fairbanks districts have been in flux under the various plans of the Alaska Redistricting Board. The state Supreme Court is expected to decide soon if the board’s latest plan can be used for this year’s elections.

A bad cable termination is to blame for a power outage on West 8th Street in Juneau this morning (Thursday) that affected the Alaska Department of Labor and Fish and Game buildings.

Alaska Electric Light and Power Spokeswoman Deb Ferriera says repair crews had to turn off power in the area to fix the faulty part. She says they’re not sure what caused it to go bad.

“It wasn’t an animal, it wasn’t the weather. Sometimes terminations just fail. It could have been the end of its life,” says Ferriera. “But we were able to identify what it was, so we could replace it.”

Ferriera says power was out from about 9:00 to just after 11 a.m.

About 500 employees from the Labor and Fish and Game departments were given the morning off.

The state’s operating and capital budgets for next year have been set, as Governor Parnell yesterday (Monday) vetoed very little from the $12-billion dollar spending plans approved by the legislature last month. Parnell said the plans were sound. Dave Donaldson reports.

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In presenting his work to the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, the governor praised lawmakers for agreeing early to stay within spending limits as he had requested. He also pointed to the state’s various savings accounts, saying Alaska is in a very solid cash position.

“Our Permanent Fund ended March with a value of $41.5-billion – the highest month-end closing value in its history. Our state rainy day fund, those budget reserves, have more than $15-billion in them,” Parnell said. “Remember those budget reserves, those rainy day funds, they represent fully one-third of all fifty states’ rainy day funds put together. That is financial strength.”

The largest item of the $66.6-million the governor cut from spending was what he called an “imprudent” appropriation of $50-million to the Judicial Retirement Trust Fund. He said the required payments are already in the bill and paying down the unfunded liability for just one of the state’s retirement systems was not necessary.

Legislators were generally satisfied with what the governor did – and how little he rejected. Anchorage Democrat Hollis French said it showed an excellent working relationship between the governor and the House and Senate. And Anchorage Republican Lesil McGuire said it was important to recognize the two-way communication between legislators and the governor.

Most criticism of the vetoes was a reduction the governor made to increases the legislature approved for Pre-Kindergarten programs. McGuire said those changes reflect a concern about the state’s getting more involved in local education. She says it was not a major dispute – this year’s appropriation was just too high.

“Many of us in the legislature do feel that putting dollars in that area is going to save you money on down the line when it comes to your corrections department, when it comes to your economic development opportunities – things that educating kids at a very young ago seems to pay off for a society,” McGuire said.

But Anchorage Democrat Les Gara was more critical in his reaction. He says the state needs to do better job educating young children.

“One of the ways they estimate future prison beds is the reading level of kids in third grade,” said Gara. “We rank 46th in the nation in third grade reading level. It’s because we have one of the worst pre-K systems in the whole country. Alaska is a pre-K backwater.”

The governor did indicate a readiness to discuss ways to expand learning opportunities, but at a press availability following the speech, he made it very clear that state intervention in parental responsibility does not automatically fall to the schools.

The governor also signed a bill authorizing the public to decide on whether to issue $453-million in general obligation bonds to pay for transportation projects around the state. He also approved a bill making final an overall increase in school funding – but changing the way the money is distributed to local school districts.

A new redistricting plan pits Juneau Rep. Cathy Munoz against Haines Rep. Bill Thomas, and separates downtown Juneau and Petersburg.

The Alaska Redistricting Board Monday adopted significant changes to Southeast’s political boundaries. Munoz’s current Mendenhall Valley district expands to Haines, Skagway, Gustavus and Funter Bay.

The board also redrew the Capital City’s other House district – represented by Beth Kerttula — to include downtown, Douglas Island, the airport and Fritz Cove Road. The redistricting board originally paired downtown Juneau with Petersburg.

The fishing town has argued that it doesn’t have enough in common with Juneau, which is more dependent on government and tourism.

Thomas says he can now make that argument.

“I don’t think we have much in common with Juneau, other than we’re all people, so I guess that’s one way to look at it. But if you look at just Haines, we’re again primarily a fishing town so I think that’s the same dilemma they have in Petersburg,” Thomas says.

Thomas currently represents what’s known as the Ice Worm district, comprised of Native villages and fishing communities all the way to Cordova.

Munoz and Thomas – both Republicans — have already filed to run for re-election — in districts that look far different than the latest proposal. They have until June first to decide if they will run against each other in the August Republican primary.

Munoz believes the redistricting board’s latest plan will be challenged by Alaska Native groups.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty in the plan because of the issue surrounding the Voting Rights Act and the elimination with this plan of the Native voting rights district. I’m not sure what, if anything, will change from this Option A that was adopted today and what might eventually come out of the Department of Justice ruling on this plan, but I do anticipate there will be challenge from Native organizations in our region,” Munoz says.

Hoonah and Angoon – previously in Thomas’ district — are now with Sitka, Petersburg and Wrangell as well as several small towns on Prince of Wales Island, and a number of other tiny communities, including Tenakee Springs, Elfin Cove and Pelican.

Under the latest plan, the southern Southeast district is Ketchikan, Saxman, Metlakatla, Craig, Klawock and Hydaburg.

The Redistricting Board redrew the Southeast boundaries to comply with an Alaska Supreme Court order that the map be based on state constitutional requirements. The new plan comes before the court on Tuesday for consideration.

Even if it’s approved by the state Supreme Court, it still must pass scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department. The board’s attorney, Mike White, says that process could take 60 days.

Southeast Alaska lost population in the last census and the number of House districts in the region are shrinking from five to four.

The state’s lawsuit against builders of the fast ferries’ engines is underway again.

The case was unexpectedly moved out of state Superior Court to federal bankruptcy court back in March. Defendants MTU Friedrichshafen and MTU Detroit Diesel, the German builders of the engines and the American company that maintained them, called for the case to be moved. But it was the builders of the ferries, Derecktor Shipyard of Connecticut, that actually filed for bankruptcy protection in January.

Attorneys for the state and the ferry system allege that the engines for the Fairweather and Chenega are defective. They were worried that MTU’s motion was simply a delaying tactic by the engine builders to put the case on indefinite hold. But during a hearing last week, state Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg said the case had been remanded back to him.

Derecktor is not currently part of the lawsuit. But state attorney Dana Burke says that could change in July if a New York bankruptcy court issues a ruling on whether some lawsuits can proceed against the company.

Attorneys also discussed MTU Detroit Diesel’s corporate name change to Tognum America. Both sides said they didn’t think that it would have any significant impact on the case.

A trial had been planned for September. It’s now scheduled to start in early April of 2013 and last at least three weeks.