News for Tuesday, Dec. 18
90 days not enough, lawmakers say. A Peninsula Clarion survey of some of the Kenai Peninsula’s lawmakers says 90 days won’t be sufficient for the state Legislature to get its work done. When the session begins next month, legislators will be facing decisions on education funding, the public employees retirement fund, a proposed gas line and the state budget — and the 90-day limit approved by voters won’t allow the type of public participation they want, the lawmakers say.
One legislator, in fact, is already seeing the need for extra time. “There will be at least one special session,” Rep. Kurt Olson, R-Soldotna, told the newspaper. “An AGIA proposal from the governor is likely to hit around mid-session. Realistically, we're not going to get out in 90 days. I'd love to, but I don't see it happening.”
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Ted Stevens holds spot on ethics scandal list. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has come out with its top 10 ethics scandals of 2007 — and “Ted Stevens still sitting on Senate Appropriations” is listed No. 2. CREW urged that the Alaska senator step down from the influential committee after the FBI searched his Girdwood home last summer.
Click here to see the entire CREW report.
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Exxon Valdez lawyers prep clients on payouts. A Kodiak Daily Mirror story says that lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the suit against Exxon stemming from the 1989 oil spill in Prince William Sound have been preparing clients for dealing with payouts from the oil giant.
The lawsuit is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, with Exxon arguing the $2.5 billion judgment against it is excessive. More than 30,000 claimants are part of the suit. The Daily Mirror story says the lawyers were in Kodiak and in Anchorage in recent days meeting with some of the claimants.
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First in artists. A Chilkat Valley News story points to the results of a new study that puts Haines No. 1 “among isolated rural communities” for the proportion per capita of its population that is employed in the arts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture study says more than 4 percent of the Haines community is so employed.
The story quotes weaver and glass artist Sharon Svenson, who was raised in Haines, as unsurprised by the findings. “There are a lot of creative people here. Artists seem to live in beautiful places.”
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Trouble for cruise industry. A new interpretation of some provisions of the Jones Act could spell trouble for the local cruise industry in Southeast, a Juneau Empire story says. The changes, which would require cruise ships to stop longer in Canada and thus cut the number of passengers in Juneau, could mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of shopping and tour customers, the story says.
“The loss of jobs, business revenues and taxes would be crippling for our economy,” the story quotes from an “urgent notice” to chamber members from Cathie Roemmich, chief executive officer of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce.
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Elves busy with letters. A story from The Canadian Press reports that the U.S. Postal Service will handle a million letters to Santa Claus this year, with North Pole here in Alaska getting more than 120,000. In all, postal workers worldwide will handle more than 6 million letters to Santa Claus.
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More than a bit chilly. A Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story notes that winter was a bit late getting to Alaska’s largest Interior city, but it “finally got here.” The temperature plunged to 26 below zero overnight Sunday, according to the story.
“As far as first 20-below days of the winter go, it ranks as the fourth latest since 1904, according to the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. The high temperature Sunday was 6 below, making it the first day this winter that the high was at or below zero. That ranks as the third-latest date in the past 103 winters that the high temperature was zero or lower.”
Dermot Cole’s column elsewhere in the News-Miner today says the temperature is expected to dip to 35 below tonight and to 40 below Wednesday. Cole writes: “We’ve been spoiled by the warm weather this fall, with conditions as mild as those inside the snow-free semicircle in front of the SpringHill Suites pool exhaust fan.”
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Who’s this Pete Cot? CNN’s Anderson Cooper took a run at the Alaska corruption story a few days ago, and from the looks of the transcript, his program, “Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees,” barely waved at the whole scene as it went by. The transcript (scroll down almost to the bottom to get to the Alaska part) insists on referring to convicted former lawmaker Pete Kott as “Pete Cot,” doesn’t identify people apparently being shown on videotape or talking onscreen, and refers to an “investigation” involving Alaska Rep. Don Young’s relationship with Veco Corp. without any elaboration.
The story does excel in its generalizations. Examples from the reporter on the scene in Alaska: “Something is rotten in the state of Alaska” and “The scandal has brought ridicule to Alaska.”
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LifeGuard victim drowned. A KTUU Channel 2 story quotes the National Transportation Safety Board as concluding that the flight nurse aboard the LifeGuard flight from Cordova that disappeared Dec. 3 died from drowning.
John Stumpff, 47, was one of four people aboard the helicopter. His body has been the only one recovered so far. The KTUU story says “it’s unknown whether he was unconscious when he went into the water.”
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“Oldest building in Alaska” gets funding boost. A Ketchikan Daily News story reports that the Barnaov Museum, which is in the Erskine House in Kodiak, has won a grant of $273,750 from Save America’s Treasures for restoration work. The money will be matched with funding from the city and the Kodiak Historical Society.
The Erskine House was built “between 1805 and 1808 as a warehouse for sea otter furs and is considered the oldest building in Alaska and one of only four structures of Russian design still standing in the U.S.,” according to the story.
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“Gifts for the gallant.” A Wasilla group is getting together hundreds of Christmas gifts for dispatch to troops deployed from Fort Richardson, according to a Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman story. The group, which hopes to send off 1,000 gift boxes, calls itself “Boxes for Heroes” and aims “to make our soldiers happy and give them some comforts of home,” one participant said.
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More Alaska headlines:
> Alaskan remembered at missionary graduation (KTUU Channel 2)
> Local fisherman penalized for overloading boat with pot gear (Kodiak Daily Mirror)
> Online theft forces university to rethink security (APRN)
> States short on $2.7 trillion owed retirees, Pew says (Bloomberg)
> NovaGold says drilling results at Donlin Creek show expansion potential (The Canadian Press)
ADN editors find the news from all over Alaska every morning so you don't have to. Updated weekdays by 9 a.m. AST. (Some links may require registration)
