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A ballot proposition on October’s Petersburg election ballot will ask residents whether they want to increase the amount of a purchase that is subject to sales tax. Currently, Petersburg collects its 6% tax on sales of goods and services up to the first $1,200 on the invoice. Above that amount is free from the tax. The proposed municipal code amendment, approved for the ballot in a unanimous vote by the borough assembly on June 17, would raise the taxable sales limit to $5,000. If approved by voters, the maximum sales tax on a purchase would in...
Ben Mallott, the son of former Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, will become the new president of the Alaska Federation of Natives on Oct. 1, the organization announced June 28. The younger Mallott, who is stepping into a role his late father previously served at AFN, will succeed Julie Kitka who is stepping down after 34 years as president. Mallott, 40, has served 11 years as an officer with the largest statewide Native organization. AFN represents about 140,000 Alaskans and more than 300 Native corporations and federally recognized tribes. He is...
Southeast commercial purse seine fishermen are preparing for a summer season with no confidence they will earn a good price for the pink and chum they catch. The Southeast seine fishery opened with a one-day pink salmon fishing opportunity on Sunday in areas near Sitka, with more widespread openings to come. The Department of Fish and Game has forecast a “traditional” fishery harvest of 19.2 million pink salmon by commercial seiners this year, not counting the fish netted in terminal harvest areas near hatchery release sites. That would be an...
As the climate warms, more Pacific salmon from Alaska are showing up in the Western Arctic waters of Canada. But residents in those Arctic Canadian communities are not catching salmon every year, which led them to ask why. Now a study by scientists from Canada and Alaska has described the ocean gateway that must open to bring salmon from the Bering Sea to those far-north sites. Conditions must line up over vast stretches of ocean for salmon to make the journey through the Bering Strait, across the Chukchi Sea and into the Canadian Beaufort Sea...
Three Northwest tribes and federal agencies are getting closer to understanding how to revive chinook and sockeye salmon runs on the upper Columbia River that were once among the most abundant in the world but were decimated by dams over the past century. Leaders from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and the Spokane Tribe of Indians met with leaders from three federal agencies and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in Portland on May 22 to discuss progress on their historic agreement from l...
SEATTLE — The U.S. granted the Makah Indian Tribe in Washington state a long-sought waiver Thursday, June 13, that helps clear the way for the tribe’s first sanctioned whale hunts in a quarter-century. The Makah, a tribe of 1,500 people on the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, is the only Native American tribe with a treaty that specifically mentions a right to hunt whales. But it has faced more than two decades of court challenges, bureaucratic hearings and scientific review as it seeks to resume hunting for gray whales. The dec...
A new agreement between Alaska’s capital city and major cruise lines seeks to cap the daily number of cruise ship passengers arriving in Juneau starting in 2026, though a prominent critic of the cruise industry said the planned limits do not do enough. The agreement, finalized late last month, seeks a daily limit of 16,000 cruise passengers Sundays through Fridays and 12,000 on Saturdays. However, officials said that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be that many people every day. Cruise passengers numbers ramped up rapidly after two pan...
In May, the Alaska Legislature narrowly rejected a conservative talk radio host’s appointment to a highly paid position regulating the state’s commercial fisheries. Now, after the failure of that pick, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has chosen a new appointee with a similar — though not identical — background for the six-figure job at the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, or CFEC. In an unannounced decision, Dunleavy selected Rick Green last month, according to a letter to Green that the governor’s office released June 12 as part of a resp...
An apology for the bombardment that destroyed Angoon in 1882 will be offered by the U.S. Navy, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said while appearing with a dance group from the Tlingit village at Celebration in Juneau on Friday. The attack burned the village, leaving few structures intact, resulting in the death of at least six children and "countless" more due to its impact during the winter, according to the Sealaska Heritage Institute. Historical narratives by Natives in Angoon and the Navy...
A 32-year-old Washington state man was arrested last week on manslaughter charges linked to the overdose deaths last year of two Skagway residents. Authorities say Jacob D. Cotton, 33, shipped fentanyl to one of the two men who died by overdose in Skagway in January 2023, according to a probable cause statement filed with the criminal charges on June 3. The other man overdosed the next day, the statement said. Skagway police arrested Cotton at the Juneau airport on June 3. According to the Skagway Police Department, Cotton provided fentanyl to...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is prodding the state of Alaska over its failure to update water pollution rules. On Thursday, June 6, the EPA issued a formal determination that the state should update pollution limits that are based in part on the amount of fish consumed by individuals. Under federal law, those limits are supposed to be reviewed every three years, but Alaska has not updated its limits since 2003. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has been working since 2013 on an updated list of water quality...
Juneau residents are expressing concerns about reducing or eliminating several programs that lose money at Bartlett Regional Hospital, including a 16-bed residential and outpatient substance abuse treatment facility that is projected to lose $800,000 next year. The hospital’s financial condition is unhealthy, officials said at a public forum June 4, while it faces growing competition from the nonprofit SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. About 25 people in-person and 35 online attended the first of two public forums scheduled by h...
On a life-flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Sierra Ott’s newborn son Liam would not stop bleeding from a routine needle prick. Doctors in the Anchorage neonatal intensive care unit diagnosed him with a blood clotting disorder. Without medication, he is at risk of extreme joint pain and even bleeding out from what would not normally be serious injuries. Ott said that without health insurance from her husband’s military service, the pills would cost the family about $8,000 a month. At the urging of her case worker, Ott applied for Medicaid for...
The state last month sued the owners of three Ketchikan jewelry stores, alleging a broad scheme to defraud Alaskans and tourists by selling fake made-in-Alaska jewelry. The stores, which include Soni Inc. and Colors Fine Jewelers, initially continued operations despite the state’s request for a court order closing them, reported radio station KRBD in Ketchikan. As of Thursday, June 6, Soni was still open; no one answered the phone at Colors Fine Jewelers. The case is one of several consumer-protection lawsuits filed by the Alaska Department of...
People in Craig on June 4 found antisemitic pamphlets packaged with dry beans inside of clear plastic bags distributed in yards and driveways across town. Bob Claus, who lives in Craig, said he found four antisemitic flyers while he was out for a walk along Third Street and Beach Road in west Craig. Claus said the flyers were packaged inside plastic bags that contained “different versions of what looks like professionally produced flyers about different subjects … they'd been thrown in several driveways.” “One is about Jewish control of the...
A Southeast Alaska fisherman has agreed to plead guilty to a federal misdemeanor after admitting that he directed a crew member to shoot a sperm whale northwest of Sitka in March 2020. According to federal court filings, Dugan Daniels, 54, also tried to ram the whale with his fishing boat, the Pacific Bounty. The whale died, according to the court filing. In addition, Daniels agreed to plead guilty to a felony for lying about a sablefish catch in fall 2020, according to the text of the plea deal. The charges and the plea deal were filed by...
A full-fledged embargo of Russia-sourced seafood took effect in the United States on May 22, with importers prohibited from buying Russian products, even if they were processed in another country. The next day, a delegation of Alaska businessmen and local government officials, all with ties to the fishing industry, met with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and other federal officials in an attempt to expand that boycott internationally. “Russia is the No. 1 problem when it comes to our fishing industry,” said Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, who...
Though legislators passed dozens of bills during the two-year legislative session that ended May 15, they left behind multiple big issues for future consideration. Lawmakers were not able to finalize any part of a plan intended to bring the state’s revenue in line with expenses over the long term. In 2022, a bicameral, bipartisan working group recommended changes to the Permanent Fund dividend formula, an effective state spending cap, new taxes and constitutional changes to guarantee the dividend and limit spending from the Permanent Fund. W...
For the second time in two years, the Alaska Legislature has passed a bill requiring a phase-out of firefighting foams with contaminants called “forever chemicals.” The chemicals, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that are commonly known as PFAS, have become notorious for their persistence and widespread presence in the environment. Known for their resistance to flames and degradation, PFAS chemicals — which number in the thousands — have been used since the 1950s in a wide variety of products, from consumer goods like clothing and cookware t...
Alaska lawmakers have overwhelmingly voted to support a federal proposal that would investigate and document the forced assimilation of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children in government-funded boarding schools. The legislative resolution acknowledges the trauma Indian boarding schools inflicted on Indigenous communities in Alaska and across the country, said the bill’s sponsor, Bethel Rep. CJ McCormick. There were more than 100 government-funded, church-run Alaska Native boarding schools in Alaska from the late 1800s t...
Alaska bar patrons will see new signs warning about the link between alcohol and cancer, and women at elevated risk for breast cancer will no longer have to pay extra money for more detailed examinations that go beyond routine mammograms, if bills passed by the Legislature are signed by the governor. Both measures were proposed initially in stand-alone legislation but wound up combined with related bills that passed late in the session and now await the governor’s decision. The proposal for signs warning about the alcohol-cancer link was o...
Lawmakers have sent to the governor legislation that would increase insurance coverage for birth control. A large bipartisan majority of the Senate approved the measure on May 9. Alaskans may access up to 12 months of contraceptives at a time and without a co-pay from pharmacies in the state if Gov. Mike Dunleavy signs the bill into law. The House approved Senate amendments to the bill on May 10. House Bill 17 requires health insurance companies to cover contraceptives without a co-payment and to retroactively cover existing prescriptions when...
State lawmakers have added protections to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people in Alaska, a move celebrated by activists who have devoted years to a campaign for equity. Senate Bill 151 passed with a combined 57-1 vote earlier this month. Under the new law, the state must employ two full-time, dedicated investigators to pursue cold cases and must include cultural training in police officer training. It also establishes a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Review Commission and requires that state public safety...
The Alaska Legislature passed a couple of bills aimed at improving health care services. The measures are now headed to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for his consideration. House Bill 228 would set up a state task force to recommend regulations for use of psychedelic medicines that the federal government is expected to approve soon. The first of those medicines expected to be approved, called MDMA, is considered useful for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is anticipated within months. Anchorage Sen...
The Alaska Legislature has approved the state budget with a Permanent Fund dividend and bonus of about $1,655 per recipient. The exact figure this fall will depend on the number of approved applicants. The Legislature finished work and adjourned May 15. As has been the case the past several years, the amount of the annual payment was debated at length. Last year, senators wrote the budget so that if oil prices exceeded what the state needed to pay its bills, some of that extra revenue would be reserved for an “energy relief” payment att...