Sorted by date Results 761 - 785 of 1731
A monthslong backlog in processing food stamps applications is now the responsibility of a new director. Shawnda O’Brien, who had served as director of Alaska’s Division of Public Assistance, departed with no explanation or indication of moving on to another position, according to an email sent Jan. 9 by Department of Health Commissioner Heidi Hedberg to department employees. Hedberg did not mention the food stamp problems that have received widespread media coverage in recent weeks and stated twice in her message that staff transitions within...
Health care services for Native Americans and Alaska Natives will be bolstered by a provision included in the government spending bill approved by Congress in the final hours of the 2022 session. The measure provides more certainty for a federal agency that delivers health care to more than 2.5 million people. A coalition of lawmakers from Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Alaska and elsewhere fought to include advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service in the bill, marking a first for the chronically underfunded agency as a...
A demonstration project wood-pellet mill is scheduled to be built on Gravina Island, across the Tongass Narrows from Ketchikan, in mid to late 2023 by the region’s economic development organization, the Southeast Conference. The nonprofit organization, which holds $1.8 million in grant funding from various sources for the project, is in the planning process toward constructing the mill. More than half the money is from a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant. Southeast Conference will own and operate the mill. However, it may partner with a p...
As the Alaska Legislature’s 2023 session approaches, a state Senate leader last Thursday highlighted the potential benefits of that body’s newly formed bipartisan majority coalition. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel said the nine Democrats and eight Republicans in the coalition have shared values. “This coalition formed with a goal, and that is working together to keep Alaska a producing state – not a consuming state, but a producing state,” the Anchorage Republican told the Resource Development Council for Alaska at a breakfast...
As Americans watched the U.S. House struggle to elect a leader, Alaskans may soon see a similar situation develop in the state House of Representatives. “These proceedings back east, it’s a stark reminder to a lot of us that we could be going through the same thing,” said Independent Rep. Bryce Edgmon, of Dillingham. With just a week before the Legislature convenes in Juneau, the state House has yet to organize, with both the House’s existing mostly Democratic-led coalition majority and the Republican caucus short of the required 21-vote...
Alaska’s population rose in 2022 according to new estimates released Jan. 5 by the Alaska Department of Labor, marking a second consecutive year of increases after four years of declines. The new Alaska population estimate, 736,556, is the highest since 2018, but the state continues to see more people moving out than moving in, and 2022 marked the 10th consecutive year of negative net migration, said state demographer David Howell. The state gained about 450 people despite that migration loss because the number of births was greater than the n...
Southeast Alaska saw a “stronger than expected” 6.5% increase in jobs in 2022 compared to the previous year, due to ongoing recovery from being one of the state’s hardest-hit regions during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Alaska Department of Labor. A slower 2.5% increase in jobs is forecast for 2023, with a record cruise ship season plus growth in several industries including construction and a partial rebound of seafood processing. Tourism-related industries and transportation had the highest rates of growth in Southeast Alaska as the r...
Alaska has violated state and federal law by failing to process Medicaid applications in a timely manner, according to an Anchorage-based civil rights law firm that settled a class-action lawsuit in federal court with the state three years ago. The Alaska Department of Health’s figures last week showed that there are 8,987 outstanding Medicaid recertifications and applications to be processed by the state Division of Public Assistance, which is contending with a major backlog in application processing that officials attributed to a staffing sho...
Aid to Alaska fishermen, seafood processors and marketers and communities was included in the year-end congressional appropriations package that won final passage last month. The $300 million in aid follows official disaster declarations issued by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo for Alaska salmon and crab fishery failures dating back to 2020, as well as some salmon failures in Washington state dating back to 2019. “This will be relief for commercial, recreational, subsistence harvesters, all those who were directly impacted by the f...
Ketchikan Police Chief Jeffrey Walls has been placed on paid administrative leave after being indicted for felony third-degree assault and five lesser charges related to an incident Sept. 10 at Salmon Falls Resort. “Chief Walls is currently on administrative leave while we complete our internal review,” Ketchikan City Manager Delilah Walsh wrote in a Jan. 4 email. “Deputy Chief Eric Mattson has assumed the role of acting chief.” “We will do an internal investigation,” City Manager Delilah Walsh said in a telephone interview with the Ketchik...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a memorandum last Friday prohibiting the use of social media platform TikTok on state-owned devices. In doing so, Alaska follows in the footsteps of more than a dozen other states. Several predominantly Republican-led states have banned the Chinese-owned social media platform on publicly owned computers, tablets and smartphones, citing national security concerns. Former President Donald Trump first attempted, unsuccessfully, to ban TikTok in 2020. Several states began banning the use of the app on state-owned devices...
The dogs of Mo Mountain Mutts have caused a stir before. Not by howling or barking, but by warming the hearts of canine lovers around the world. The Mo Mountain Mutts dog walking business, owned and operated by Skagway resident Mo Thompson, has produced a few viral videos over the past year. But a video of four dogs being picked up by the Puppy Bus last month has become an undeniable sensation, receiving more than 48 million views on TikTok alone, not to mention other social media platforms...
A months-long backlog of food stamp applications has denied aid to thousands of Alaskans. And although the state plans to add additional employees during the next few weeks to process the applications, the director of the statewide program said Dec. 27 it likely will be months more before all the issues are resolved. At least 8,000 households applying for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits since September have faced delays of 90 to 120 days in processing, far exceeding the 30-day statutory requirement, due to an employee...
WASHINGTON — The $1.7 trillion federal spending package includes hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriations for projects specific to Alaska and enacts legislation that will directly affect the state. “There is literally no part of our state that this legislation doesn’t benefit,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee that helped negotiate the legislation. Congress passed the bill on its last day of work Dec. 23, funding the government through September 2023. President Joe Biden signed the...
An Anchorage Superior Court Judge has ruled that Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman’s membership in the Oath Keepers does not violate the Alaska Constitution’s disloyalty clause because of First Amendment protections for free speech. The decision, which may be appealed, means Eastman may continue serving in the Alaska Legislature. Eastman was re-elected in November. In a 49-page order issued Dec. 23, Judge Jack McKenna said the Oath Keepers — labeled an antigovernment militia by the federal government — “are an organization that has, thro...
Alaska teens have largely ditched cigarettes over the past two decades, but they have substituted that unhealthy habit with another: vaping. About 25% of surveyed high schoolers reported using electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days, according to the Alaska Tobacco Facts Update, released last month by the Alaska Department of Health. The national rate of teen e-cigarette use, also known as vaping, is even higher, at 33%, the report said. Among Alaska youth, cigarette smoking has declined drastically since the 1990s, from 37% in 1995 to 16%...
Ketchikan’s police chief pleaded not guilty last Friday to charges that he assaulted an intoxicated man while he was off-duty at a resort restaurant, including allegedly shoving the man head-first into a wall and putting him in a chokehold. A grand jury returned an indictment Thursday against Ketchikan Police Chief Jeffrey Harrison Walls for felony third-degree assault. He is also charged with three counts of fourth-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment, which are misdemeanors. During an arraignment Friday, defense attorney J...
Snowplow and bus drivers are exceptionally critical occupations this time of year — but they’re in short supply statewide. A new Juneau-based program may change that. The $1.7 trillion federal spending bill recently passed by Congress includes $750,000 for University of Alaska Southeast to establish and operate a commercial driver’s license (CDL) education training program at the UAS Juneau campus. According to UAS Chancellor Karen Carey, the new program will help fill the many positions for CDL-certified drivers currently vacant across Southea...
A late change in the Senate to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed by Congress last month deleted funding to purchase a privately owned icebreaker that the U.S. Coast Guard said could be homeported in Juneau. A $150 million authorization for the Coast Guard to purchase the vessel was removed from the bill that had to pass by Dec. 23 to avoid a government shutdown. The bill passed the House that final day, after winning Senate approval earlier in the week. The removal of the funding was disappointing, both of Alaska’s senators s...
Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says Gov. Dunleavy’s proposed $3,800 Permanent Fund dividend in 2023 would mean “starting the year underwater.” “It’s not a prudent way to administer the state’s financial resources.” Stedman said, reacting to his first review of Dunleavy’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. “Revenues would not meet recurring expenditures. We’d be talking about going into the hole by about $300 million.” Stedman was reelected Nov. 8 to a sixth term in the Senate representing s...
A House-Senate committee of the Alaska Legislature has approved spending $6.6 million to renovate a downtown Juneau office building into 33 apartments for legislators and staff. During a Dec. 19 vote on the proposal, lawmakers said the state-owned building will help alleviate a chronic shortage of housing in the capital city during the legislative session. “One of the biggest challenges we have is housing,” said Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman. “I think this is the right move,” he said. The cost of construction is also being subsidized by a Juneau-base...
WASHINGTON — Dead and dying seabirds collected on the coasts of the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas over the past six years reveal how the Arctic’s fast-changing climate is threatening the ecosystems and people who live there, according to a report released Dec. 13 by U.S. scientists. Local communities have reported numerous emaciated bodies of seabirds — including shearwaters, auklets and murres — that usually eat plankton, krill or fish, but appear to have had difficulty finding sufficient food. The hundreds of distressed and dea...
Alaska’s state-owned development bank is continuing its efforts to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. Directors of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority voted unanimously last month to spend $6.2 million on a second year of legal fees, lease payments and pre-development work related to drilling in the coastal plain. A director speaking in favor of the proposal said he believes the land was promised to the state at statehood, and “we should have access to this land and be abl...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy introduced a first-draft $7.3 billion state budget last week, meeting a legally required deadline but acknowledging that the spending plan is likely to change significantly as the administration negotiates with lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session. “This budget that we’re submitting, as always, is a talking point with the Legislature,” Dunleavy said. “It also reflects values, what our revenue picture looks like, and where we’re headed.” The biggest single expense in the entire proposed state budget is $2.5 billio...
A major U.S. Department of Justice investigation has concluded that children in Alaska with mental health issues are “forced to endure unnecessary and unduly long” institutionalization in locked psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment facilities because no alternatives exist. The state of Alaska is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide services that would allow kids to stay in their homes and communities, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division found in a report released last Friday. Alask...