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A constitutional convention along with candid discussions of difficult federal and state issues that have surfaced in recent months are scheduled during the three-day 90th annual Tribal Assembly by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska starting Wednesday. More than 120 delegates from 21 communities in Alaska, Washington and California are scheduled to gather at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall where they will also consider resolutions and elect some tribal positions. It will be the first constitutional convention by Tli...
A month after the Dunleavy administration put the Juneau Access Road back on the political map, the Alaska State Senate has clawed back $37 million in funds set aside in years past for the project as lawmakers try to scrap together enough funds to pass a balanced budget by next month. The Juneau Access funds are being redirected to the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities as part of the annual capital budget unanimously passed Tuesday by the Senate. Nearly all of the $2.9 billion budget consists of federal funds for...
This is a developing story. The Trump turmoil in the federal workforce continued at full tilt Tuesday as the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced all fired probationary Forest Service workers will be reinstated with back pay at least temporarily. Meanwhile the Department of Education made another round of mass firings that essentially cut its workforce by half. Those two moves were just part of the day's chaos that Trump administration officials are embracing as a necessary shakeup and detra...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy says “it’s like Christmas every day now” since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Some other state Republican leaders spent Tuesday talking of a winter blunderland. “It’s Christmas every day if all you expect is coal in your stocking, “ Senate President Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, said in response to Dunleavy’s assessment. “It’s a tough, tough time for all of us.” Dunleavy’s holiday-season cheer is based largely on the prospect of uninhibited oil drilling and similar industrial activity that might or might not h...
Joey Chang says he was getting ready to depart the Hubbard state ferry after it docked in Kake on Saturday when suddenly the ship was no longer at the dock. "We are getting ready to get into the vehicle and we saw the opening of the ramp, and suddenly the whole ferry was moving away from the dock, and everybody got shocked and pretty much everyone froze up," he said. "The north wind was blowing so hard it pushed the ferry away from the dock." "And then I was looking at the rope, because the...
Emergency federal government assessments are being sought for a spill of more than 105,000 gallons of tailings slurry at the Kensington Mine that occurred Jan. 31, although officials with mine owner Coeur Alaska say no damage to nearby salmon habitats occurred and there are “no long-term effects from this spill.” The spill occurred at a welded joint in a pipeline that likely started as a “pinhole” and increased in size due to pressure from the slurry flow, resulting in a leak that lasted 23 hours, according to a report of the incident published...
A village public safety officer in Kake has been fired following his arrest in late August after he reportedly assaulted a woman and possessed a weapon while intoxicated off-duty. Austin Brady, 28, was arrested on charges of felony second- and third-degree assault, misdemeanor fourth-degree criminal mischief, and fourth-degree misconduct involving a weapon, according to the state court system. Brady is out on a $2,500 bail posted Tuesday. Brady was terminated from his position by his employer, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida...
A legal challenge by the state to the Biden administration’s reinstatement of the roadless rule, banning logging and road building on more than nine million acres in the Tongass National Forest, was filed Friday, Sept. 8, in federal court. The complaint continues more than two decades of battles over the roadless rule protections initially enacted in 2001 under a policy initiated by then-President Bill Clinton. In recent years then-President Donald Trump nullified the policy and opened the forest area to development, with the administration o...
The Columbia state ferry has cancelled its sailings for at least a week due to a mechanical issue, affecting stops at ports between Haines and Bellingham, Washington, according to a service notice by the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS). The primary interruption to service is a seven-day period starting Wednesday, with a sailing from Ketchikan to Bellingham and back through Southeast Alaska cancelled, the AMHS notice issued Monday notes. The decision is due to a "mechanical issue with the ves...
When Jan Kanitz of Juneau and Antonia Lenard of Eagle River testified before a legislative committee last Saturday about personal responsibility and the Permanent Fund dividend, they spoke from completely different perspectives. For Kanitz, it was about acknowledging that current state spending on schools, health care and the ferry system is woefully inadequate, with too much emphasis on paying out large dividends. “I think a fixed, limited PFD as a symbolic thing helps people have buy-in to the state … I support that, but it should not ban...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s reelection campaign is responding to a pending news story about improperly using official staff for campaign purposes by challenging the reporter’s credibility because of his marriage to a Juneau Assembly member who supports one of the governor’s opponents. Sean Maguire, who recently joined the Anchorage Daily News after working at KTUU since 2017, has since last November been married to Juneau assembly member Carole Triem, who is actively campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Les Gara. Maguire’s story reporte...
