Sorted by date Results 324 - 348 of 1762
Leading Alaska legislators said there is little appetite for spending from savings to pay a super-sized Permanent Fund dividend this year, likely killing a proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy. In December, the governor proposed spending almost $2.3 billion on a dividend of roughly $3,500 per recipient this fall under an unused formula in state law. That would result in a $1 billion deficit in the state budget and require spending from the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve, but as a draft spending plan takes shape in the House, top members of b...
Russian fish flooding global markets and other economic forces beyond the state’s border have created dire conditions for Alaska’s seafood industry. Now key state legislators are seeking to establish a task force to come up with responses to the low prices, lost market share, lost jobs and lost income being suffered by fishers, fishing companies and fishing communities. The measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, was introduced on March 1 and is sponsored by the Senate Finance Committee. “Alaska’s seafood industry is in a tailspin from fa...
A new analysis of nearly 25,000 fish scales offers more evidence that the millions of pink salmon churned out by Alaska fish hatcheries could be harming wild sockeye salmon populations when they meet in the ocean, according to the scientists who authored the study. The new peer-reviewed paper, published last month in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, produced for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, analyzed growth rates that could be deduced from the fish scales, similar to yearly growth rings on a tree. The paper was...
Alaska law enforcement officers now must obtain a warrant before using aircraft to scope the area around a person’s home with binoculars or cameras with zoom lenses, the state’s highest court ruled in a decision released March 8. The Alaska Supreme Court ruling comes in a case that dates to 2012, when Alaska State Troopers received a tip from an informant that John William McKelvey III was growing marijuana on his property in a sparsely populated area north of Fairbanks. According to the ruling, McKelvey’s property was heavily wooded, with...
A $9.7 million bailout package to ensure that the Juneau School District can cover a nearly $8 million deficit this year and help toward resolving a projected deficit of nearly $10 million next year was approved March 4 by the Juneau borough assembly. The package, consisting of a loan and taking over some “non-instructional costs” from the school district, won final approval after several weeks of consideration by city and school leaders. The Juneau assembly voted to provide the district with an interest-free loan of up to $4.1 million dol...
Money in a state account that grew out of efforts to aid victims of violent crimes has been going predominantly to the Department of Corrections instead, to cover inmate health care. Meanwhile, the state’s victim services programs are scrambling for money as a major federal funding source diminishes. An Anchorage legislator wants to correct what she sees as an imbalance. Of the $25 million in the state’s Restorative Justice Account, nearly $20 million went to the Department of Corrections. Only about $500,000 went to nonprofits that serve crime...
A pair of citizen-backed initiatives will likely appear on the general election ballot in November, including one seeking to repeal Alaska’s voting system, state election officials said Feb. 27. After a monthlong review, the state Division of Elections made the initial assessment that separate groups had gathered enough signatures to place the two questions on the ballot. Voters will be asked if they want to overturn Alaska’s ranked-choice voting and open-primary system; and whether they support increasing the minimum wage and amending sta...
The waters off the Aleutian Islands registered the warmest winter temperatures last year in over a century, part of a decade-long period of warming, according to a report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The record-high temperatures in the western and central Aleutians moderated later in 2023 but warmer-than-normal conditions persisted for the rest of the year throughout the waters around the 1,100-mile chain extending from southwestern Alaska, according to the 2023 NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Status report for the...
A state Senate committee has advanced a measure that would block an executive order giving the governor total appointment authority over the entire Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board. State statute currently provides that House and Senate leaders appoint four members of the nine-member advisory panel. The executive order removing legislative power to appoint members to the board is one of a dozen issued by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in mid-January. The orders, dealing with various state boards, will take effect unless the House and Senate meet in...
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase about 50 million pounds of Alaska seafood to use in national food and nutrition-assistance programs, state officials said on Feb. 20. The seafood purchase is to benefit needy children and adults and school lunches, said the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which announced the department’s plans. The purchases are authorized through a federal law which allows the Agriculture Department to buy surplus food products, and through the department’s Commodity Credit Corp., a government entity cre...
Flight attendants with Alaska Airlines have voted to authorize a strike for the first time in more than 30 years. News of the vote emerged as more than 60 flight attendants protested for better pay outside the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on Feb. 13. The vote does not mean a strike will occur. But the decision raises the stakes in an effort by the attendants to negotiate what they say is their first new contract in a decade. They say Alaska Airlines has awarded large pay increases to pilots but does not provide a livable wage to...
Facing a multimillion-dollar budget hole, the Juneau school board has approved a plan to consolidate the district’s two high schools into one, close its two middle schools, close an elementary school and rearrange where sixth, seventh and eighth graders go to class. The board approved the plan in a contentious all-night meeting that ended at about 12:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 23. The decision followed hours of testimony from a crowd that board members called one of the largest in recent memory, with attendees overflowing the high school library i...
CASPAR BEACH, Calif. - A welding hammer strapped to her wrist, Joy Hollenback slipped on blue fins and swam into the churning, chilly Pacific surf one fall morning to do her part to save Northern California's vanishing kelp forests. Hollenback dove into the murky depths toward the seafloor. There, she spotted her target: voracious, kelp-devouring purple urchins. Within seconds she smashed 20 to smithereens. "If you're angry, it's a cathartic way to get it all out," Hollenback joked. "It's...
Two Alaska seafood shipping companies agreed to pay a $9.5 million penalty to the federal government for violations related to their use of a tiny rail track in Canada that the federal government said was an illegal attempt to avoid requirements of the U.S. Jones Act. Kloosterboer International Forwarding and Alaska Reefer Management accepted the settlement in January, agreeing to what amounts to the second-largest settlement involving the act, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement Feb. 23. The companies provide transportation and...
The leaders of the $77 billion Alaska Permanent Fund have voted unanimously to adopt a strategic plan that calls for borrowing up to $4 billion in order to increase the amount of money available for investments, looking to earn more on the investments than the fund would owe in interest on the debt. The Feb. 16 board of trustees’ vote, however, has limited effect: The borrowing could take place only if the Alaska Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy change state law to allow it. The Alaska Permanent Fund is the No. 1 source of general-purpose sta...
As of last week, the backlog of Alaskans waiting for the state to process their food stamp applications was down to just over 500 — a big improvement over the 14,000 unresolved applications of a year ago. The state’s Division of Public Assistance is on track to be up to date by the end of the month, said Deb Etheridge, division director. In an interview, Etheridge described how the state is balancing the need to comply with federal regulations — Alaska has been warned it’s at risk of losing federal funding for failing to comply — with getting f...
The Alaska Senate has taken the first formal steps needed to reject some or all of the 12 executive orders Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued at the start of this year’s legislative session, including the order that would take away the Legislature’s authority to name four members of the state ferry system advisory board. Lawmakers in the Senate introduced 12 resolutions of disapproval on Feb. 12, and hours later the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee approved three of them. Those three resolutions would preserve the boards that govern massage the...
Over the past three decades, 35 killer whales were entangled in fishing gear in Alaska, resulting in 25 deaths, according to a report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report from NOAA Fisheries covers documented cases from 1991 to 2022. It does not include the unusually high number of 2023 cases, in which an additional 10 killer whales were found ensnared in fishing gear — mostly bottom-trawl gear — with nine of them found dead. That raises the total caught in gear since 1991 to 45 killer whales, with 34 dead....
The head of the state corporation in charge of a long-dreamed Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline is once again Alaska’s top-paid public executive. Frank Richards, president of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., received $479,588 in compensation during 2023, according to the state’s annual executive compensation report, released in January. The state took over development of the proposed gas pipeline in 2016 when North Slope producers walked away from the venture, saying it was not economically viable. Richards was hired as pre...
The church, originally known as the Klukwan Presbyterian, has been holding regular Sunday services for nearly a century. But one thing about the church has changed: its owner. More than a year ago, a national denomination of the Presbyterian Church transferred the deed to the Klukwan tribe as part of the denomination's effort to reconcile past abuses by clergy members and teachers against Alaska Native people. The formal ceremony, which had been delayed by COVID-19 concerns, was held in...
The U.S. Census Bureau has rejected Haines’ appeal of the agency’s 2020 count, which showed the Southeast Alaska community’s population dropping by 17%, or 428 residents. “I’m deeply disappointed. I really thought that our response was compelling,” said Borough Clerk Alekka Fullerton, who worked on the appeal. “I was mad. It’s a big deal to our community.” Multiple federal funding programs are based on the census count. The Census Bureau counted 2,080 residents in Haines in 2020, down from 2,508 in 2010. The borough appealed that number in Ju...
The state is offering an additional $2.2 million in small grants this year for individuals and groups around Alaska to increase the quantity and quality of locally grown food. The grants of up to $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for organizations can go toward greenhouses and small-scale gardening projects, efforts to promote and provide subsistence foods and even livestock. The Alaska Division of Agriculture is distributing the federal money through its Micro-Grants for Food Security Program. Priority for the competitive grants will be...
Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell told lawmakers on Feb. 6 that he doesn’t know how the state can justify the relative lack of resources it has provided to rural Alaska. “Since statehood, the state has followed a false pass on how we provide law enforcement services around this state,” he said. “We certainly have disproportionate resources in rural Alaska. And it’s shameful.” As bills to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people in Alaska move through the legislative process, the state is re...
Numerous challenges are stopping the resumption of Alaska Marine Highway service to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, the ferry system’s director said at a conference of Southeast officials last week. During a Southeast Conference transportation symposium in Juneau on Feb. 8, Ketchikan Vice Mayor Glen Thompson asked for an update about service to the Canadian port, which was a regular stop for Alaska ferries for decades until 2019, with only a brief return to service in 2022. Craig Tornga, the ferry system’s marine director, listed the cha...
Supporters of education funding crowded a legislative committee room on Feb. 5, advocating for a permanent increase in the state funding formula for public schools. Though the advocates were unified in their message to a joint meeting of House and Senate education committees, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Education Commissioner Deena Bishop don’t support a permanent increase to the school funding formula. Instead, they have proposed targeted investments in certain areas, such as charter schools. Education administrators from across the state attempted...