Sports

Sportsman’s Warehouse is moving to Juneau, like other large outdoor outfitters that recently made their way north.

“We got Cabela’s comin’ in and Bass Pro Shops in Anchorage. I don’t know what you guys do for fishing gear down here, but we’re set,” Marcus Hartley of Northern Economics told the annual World Trade Center Alaska economic forum in Juneau last January. He predicted the retail sector would bring a number of new jobs to Alaska this year.

Cabela’s opened in Anchorage in April and Bass Pro Shops is next. Sportsman’s Warehouse will open in Juneau’s Nugget Mall sometime in the spring of 2015.

Nugget Mall is owned by Loveless/Tollefson Properties of Redmond, Wash. General Manager Ted Tollefson says Sportsman’s plans a 25,000 square foot store next to Office Max. It will have a separate outside entrance as well as access into the mall.

Sportsman’s Warehouse is based in Midvale, Utah, and has 74 stores nationwide. The Juneau store will be the company’s fifth in Alaska.

Nugget Mall manager Bud Jaeger calls Sportsman’s Warehouse the new anchor tenant. The store will take the entire width of the mall and go from the old Nugget Alaskan Outfitter space to the current Payless ShoeSource.

Four current merchants will be forced to move: Big Dipper Ice Cream, Specs in the City, GNC and Rodfather’s Broiler Restaurant. Rodfather’s plans to move to Mendenhall Mall.

Jaegar says there’s plenty of room within Nugget Mall for the businesses displaced by Sportsman’s, and still space for new stores.

He says the conversation with Sportsman’s Warehouse actually began a couple of years ago, when Nugget Alaskan Outfitter was still in prime space at Nugget Mall.

NAO owner Ron Flint would have had to move his store within the mall to make way for the bigger outfitter. So when his lease came up, “that was part of the handwriting on the wall for me,” he says.

NAO moved from Nugget Mall to Mendenhall Mall late last year.

Now that a deal with the national store is in the works, Flint says he’s especially glad he made the move across the valley instead of down the hall. While Sportsman’s Warehouse will sell some similar merchandise as NAO and Foggy Mountain Shop downtown, “it’s a lot more bullets and blades. I think that’s what they say in the industry.  A lot more camo and hunting and fishing tackle and that kind of thing,” Flint says.

Sportsman’s will compete more directly with Western Auto Marine, Rayco Sales, and the hunting/fishing departments of Juneau’s big box stores.

“Hopefully, they’ll just cut down the number of Cabela’s mail orders out of Juneau,” Flint says.

Tollefson says he has had preliminary discussions with Walgreens about leasing space in Nugget Mall, but has nothing to report.

A Delta Airlines vice president has pledged $10,000 to the city and borough of Juneau to help keep the Augustus Brown Swimming Pool open.

Mike Medeiros came to the Juneau Assembly Monday night to thank the city for the hospitality Delta has received as the company gets ready to provide service between Juneau and Seattle next month.

Let us know what we can do to help the community,” Medeiros said. “And I think as a first start, I’d like to just help by saying we’ll do something on the pool.  I’d like to offer a $10,000 donation to help keep the pool open, if that helps.”

The packed city hall chambers erupted in cheers.

“And I’m sure we’ll take you up on the $10,000,” quipped Mayor Merrill Sanford, as the assembly settled in for a long evening of public testimony on the budget, most of it meant to save the pool.

The city is facing a $12 million shortfall over the next two years, having already approved using about $3 million in fund balance to pay for negotiated wage and benefit increases for city workers.

Sales and property tax revenues are expected to be less than projected. The assembly is considering a combination of increased property taxes and fees as well as budget reductions to close the gap.

City Manager Kim Kiefer has proposed temporarily closing the downtown swimming pool, which could save the city about $775,000 over the next two years, and would be an opportunity to assess pool renovation costs.

Kiefer and assembly members have received hundreds of comments on the idea, most against. No one at Monday’s meeting spoke in favor of closing the pool.

Empowered boards

Glacier Swim Club president Steve Brockmann started off the testimony, presenting the assembly with a petition of more than 800 signatures of pool users who want to keep Augustus Brown pool open.

The 250-member swim club shares the downtown pool and Dimond Park Aquatic Center with the general public and school groups.

“We would really like to see an empowered board to run both pools, with a clear mission, a charter, to increase cost recovery and increase efficiencies at these pools,” Brockmann said.

The city’s Aquatic Facilities Advisory Board is also recommending an empowered board. Aquatics board member Rosemary Hagevig, a former member of the Juneau Assembly, said now is the time to create such a board for aquatics.

“My previous experience working with CBJ, with the enterprise and the other empowered boards, is that great things have happened. I think we have some excellent models to work from and I think we’ve got nowhere to go but up here,” she said.

The city has several empowered, or enterprise boards. Created in city charter, the boards operate Eaglecrest Ski Area, the Juneau International Airport, Docks and Harbors, and Bartlett Regional Hospital.

Each board’s authority is laid out in a separate city ordinance.

“The ordinance talks about what the scope of their authority is and then they are authorized to make decisions on behalf of the city within the scope of their authority,” says city attorney Amy Mead.

Proposed revenue increases

Young and old told the assembly Monday night that they would pay increased fees to use the pools. As Wilma Kirkpatrick approached the microphone, Mayor Sanford said, “Good evening, ma’am, how are you?”

“Old,” she replied to a roomful of laughter. Kirkpatrick said Augustus Brown pool is the only public exercise facility in downtown Juneau for senior citizens.

“The city has provided ball fields, soccer fields, ice rink, Eaglecrest, track and field, which are great, but not for the elderly,” she said. “So please don’t take the one place we have in the downtown area to keep us all going.”

Increased property taxes are on the assembly’s list of options for balancing the budget.  The proposal calls for a .44 mill rate increase, with a total mill rate of 11.20. If approved, property taxes would go up 44 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value, or $44 for every $100,000 of value.

Juneau Chamber of Commerce members called raising taxes a poor budget strategy. In a recent poll, chamber members voted two to one against the proposed tax increase, according to Lorene Palmer, chair of the chamber’s Government Affairs Committee. She said about 20 percent of  chamber members responded to the poll, and made comments.

“The main themes running through these comments were that the city needs to reduce its operating costs, prioritize services, reorganize departments to gain operational efficiencies, and establish long-term budget forecasting,” Palmer said.

Chamber president-elect Lance Stevens said the city is on an “unsustainable financial path.”

But many Juneau residents at the hearing said they would be willing to pay increased taxes for such programs and services as the swimming pool.

The city budget and mill rate increase are now before the Assembly Finance Committee. The city must adopt the budget by June 15.

NOTE: Updated with additional information on enterprise boards.

The Juneau Adult Hockey Association completed its winter season over the weekend with championship games for five divisions, each game decided by one goal.

In the Tier A, Kensington edged Island Pub, 3-2. Killer Whales defeated Funter Bay, 4-3, for the Tier B title. Hawk Inlet held off Alaska Airlines, 2-1, in the Tier C championship game. White Pass handed Treadwell a 1-0 loss in the women’s division. The A-Bombs closed out the season with a 4-3 victory over Dupon in the 40+Tier.

All photos by Steve Quinn.

Does a snowboard crashing into a slushy pond sound different than a pair of skis? How does the sound differ above and under the water?

Our report is far from scientific, but this year KTOO used a hydrophone to record the sounds of last weekend’s Eaglecrest Slush Cup. Our thanks to Joseph Reeves for the loan of the special underwater microphone.

The Juneau Aquatic Facilities Advisory Board wants to hear from the public on a proposal to close the downtown Augustus Brown Swimming Pool for a year, possibly two.

City Manager Kim Kiefer says it could save the city $775,000 over the next two years and would be a good time to assess pool renovation costs.

The aquatic facilities board is a citizen advisory group to the city. Members have already said closing the pool is not the right approach to the city deficit.  They recommend the city work with a citizen group to find ways to reduce costs, increase pool revenue, and identify funding sources for deferred maintenance at the pool.

The board is holding a meeting Tuesday to take public comments. Board chairman Bob Storer says the group also has asked the city assembly for copies of mail received on the proposed pool closure.

Glacier Swim Club is one of the largest users of the pool.  Swim club board member Max Mertz says the Juneau swimming community has grown significantly since the Dimond Park Aquatic Center opened in 2011 in the Mendenhall Valley.

“We now operate, for example, a 50-person master’s program, Glacier Swim Club does, that didn’t exist before Dimond Park,” he says. “Glacier Swim Club has approximately 250 total members. Before the opening of Dimond Park we were around 120 or 130, so we’ve just about doubled in size.”

Mertz says closing Augustus Brown pool would create scheduling problems at Dimond Park and limit access to the pool.

In a three-page letter to the assembly, Glacier Swim Club offers nine recommendations to save money, including staff reductions at both pools, covering the pools for heat loss when the facilities are closed, and increased user fees.

Mertz believes both pools as well as other city recreational facilities could operate more efficiently.

“A decision to close Augustus Brown is hasty and it doesn’t answer a more important underlying question, which is how can we do these things better? What can we do to make sure our recreational facilities are top notch and operating most effectively? We need to do A — that – before we do B, which is starting to close facilities,” Mertz says.

The Juneau Community Foundation also urges the city to come up with other ways to meet the budget deficit. In December, the foundation gave the city $20,000 for climbing walls at Augustus Brown pool. That money would have to be returned if the pool closes.

The Aquatic Facilities Advisory Board will take public comment and consider options Tuesday at 4:45 p.m. in room 224 of city hall.

“The symbolic empty sleds for Janes and Dippold will go first, followed by today’s patrollers and the alumni patrollers,” said Bob Janes’ son Bill, as skiers of all ages came from Ptarmigan and Black Bear lifts to join the crowd at the top of Easy Bowl on Eaglecrest’s east side.

Bill Janes used a bull horn to address them.

“Both were patrollers, one for over 50 years, one for just under 50 years,” he said.

Dippold died in January at the age of 78; Janes passed away in March at age 92. They started volunteering with the National Ski Patrol at the old Douglas Ski Bowl called Third cabin near Dan Moller trail. It was replaced by Eaglecrest in 1975, which is now owned by the city and borough of Juneau.  A lot of community toil has gone into the ski area, and Janes reminded the crowd of several others who had been part of building it.

“Think about all the old timers, the Pittmans, the Tom Stewarts, Sig Olson, many others that I have not thought of that have left us already,” Janes said.

Pittman’s Ridge at Eaglecrest is named for Tom Pittman, who skied at Third Cabin along with Tom Stewart and Sig Olson. Stewart was secretary of Alaska’s constitutional convention and a superior court judge; Olson, a wildlife biologist. In World War II, Stewart and Olson were members of the skiing infantry of the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army. Both died in 2008.

“And think about, too,” Janes said, “those that have left us far too early, the Bill Tugmans, the Helen Davies, Peter Barretts and Matt Brakels.  They also deserve our attention on this run.”

Bill Tugman taught skiing at Eaglecrest in the 1980s and died in a boating accident in 1987. Snowboarder and professional photographer Peter Barrett died in 2005 in a kayaking accident off North Douglas.  Skier, snowboarder and ski race coach Matt Brakel died in 1999 in an avalanche on Mt. McGinnis. Avid skier and CBJ accountant Helen Davies died of cancer in 2011.

Davies’ husband and Eaglecrest Director of Snow Safety Brian Davies started the procession with the two empty sleds, followed by current and former patrol members. More than 200 other skiers followed, including members of the Janes’ and Dippold families.

Most of the skiers were friends who had known these gentlemen for decades, some for just a few years; all were a part of the community ski area that fosters loyal users.

The slow procession seemed a fitting end to the 38th season at Eaglecrest.

Janes came to Alaska with the US. Forest Service. A celebration of his life will be held on April 20th. Dippold worked for the Forest Service and was a Southeast Region Director for the American Red Cross. A celebration of his life is May 31.