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P E N I N S U L A
Monday, January 7, 2019 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Vol. 49, Issue 83
In the news Tour of Anchorage adds fat-tire bike race after ski race ANCHORAGE — One of Alaska’s largest winter sporting events will have a new component in 2019. The Anchorage Daily News reports the Tour of Anchorage, a cross-country ski race across Alaska’s largest city, will add fat-tire bike racing. Skiers on March 3 will take off in the morning. Bikers will race the same course in the afternoon. They can choose between races of 25 or 31 miles. Both will start at Service High and finish at Kincaid Park. The Tour of Anchorage began in 1988. It peaked in 2007 with about 2,000 skiers but drew about 800 racers last year.
Alaska Airlines flights back in the air after power outage SEATTLE — Alaska Airlines flights are back in the air after a nationwide ground stop that was apparently caused by a power outage. The airline says all its flights were grounded between about 4:20 a.m. and 5:15 a.m. Sunday after a power outage in the Seattle area, where its operations are based. Airline spokeswoman Oriana Branon says the power went out around 3:30 a.m. and came back on about an hour and a half later. She says 27 flights were delayed and five were canceled.
Bethel records second-warmest year over last century BETHEL — Last year marked the second-warmest year in nearly a century of record keeping for a western Alaska city. Alaska climate scientist Rick Thoman tells KYUK-AM that 2018 was the fifth year in a row that the average temperature in Bethel has been above freezing. He says Bethel has never had a “five-year period with the average temperature above freezing in the past century until now.” The effects of warmer temperatures in the YukonKuskokwim Delta region are starting to be noticed as the Kuskokwim River is taking longer to freeze and tundra is beginning to erode faster. Thoman says that while temperatures might fluctuate from month to month, the trend of warmer winters is not going away for the region. — Associated Press
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Tustumena 200 prep ramping up By JOEY KLECKA Peninsula Clarion
In less than three weeks, a raucous group of race dogs will pull into the finishing area at Freddie’s Roadhouse near Ninilchik, musher in tow, as champions of the Tustumena 200 sled dog race. The race is a qualifier for the prestigious Iditarod sled dog race, but before teams can start dreaming about the burled arch in Nome, they have some preparations to make. The Tustumena 200 is looking good to go three weeks out after enough snow has blanketed the Caribou Hills area to put on such an event, according to race director Tami Murray. Even though a few days of warm, wet weather plagued the peninsula over the New Year’s holiday, the recent cold snap arrived just in time to save a wilting snow pack before plans had to be changed. Murray is giving the trails high marks with three weeks to go. “They’re coming along very well,” she said. “Our groomers are out right now checking the trails from Kasi-
Monica Zappa, in her telltale neon garb, takes off with her team from the starting line of this year's Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018, at Freddie's Roadhouse in Ninilchik, Alaska. (Homer News file photo)
lof to Homer.” Murray was pleased to announce that for the first time in three years, the race course will include a northern swing up to Kasilof, giving the event a third checkpoint that had been missing for the previous
two runnings. Murray said she hopes it will add a bit of variety and intrigue for racers and their furry companions. “Dogs just don’t like that,” Murray said. “They get bored.” In its 32nd year of running,
the Tustumena 200 stands as the top mushing event each winter on the peninsula. The beginnings of the race supposedly started with a beer run by a few locals trying to find a place to party, accord-
See T200, page A3
Guard offers helicopter pilot training By BRIAN MAZUREK Peninsula Clarion
The Alaska Army National Guard has rolled out a new recruitment program for aspiring helicopter pilots. The program, dubbed “Street to Seat,” gives high school graduates the chance to undergo helicopter pilot training as part of their regular enlistment process. Participants go directly to flight school after finishing their basic training and officer candidacy school, with the whole process taking about 18 months. The program requires an eight-year commitment to the armed services compared to the standard four-year commitment associated with enlistment. With the recent addition of
A tank outside the Kenai Readiness Center for the Alaska Army National Guard sits with a covering of snow on Friday. (Photo by Brian Mazurek/Peninsula Clarion)
two new helicopter frames, of the UH-60 Black Hawk, the Alaska National Guard of- the H-47 Chinook, and the fers training for the operation UH-72 Lakota model heli-
copters. Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Russell, who is the head of recruiting and retention for the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak and Unalaska, said the time between flying the training helicopters and flying the models used in active service is relatively short. “Basically it’s like learning how to drive, and then being put in a sports car,” Russell said. Each helicopter is manned by a pilot and copilot, with the Lakota and Chinook models requiring several additional crew members. The Alaska National Guard currently has six pilot slots open and nine slots for crew chiefs and medics. The helicopters are used See GUARD, page A2
Feds to fund Juneau’s drug enforcement efforts By ALEX MCCARTHY Juneau Empire
On Thursday, the Juneau Police Department intercepted a shipment of drugs coming off a plane at the airport. It wasn’t a big bust; it was an ounce of cocaine, an ounce of meth and a half-ounce of heroin. James Remington Elisof, 35, was arraigned Friday for three counts of making or delivering drugs, according to electronic court records. But the effort still served as an example of the department’s approach to drug enforcement. JPD Lt. Jeremy Weske, who heads up JPD’s drug unit, said the department has focused its efforts on what are called interdictions — intercepting packages as they come into town. Instead of making smaller busts in town, they’re focusing on entry points to Juneau, he said. “Those interdictions are now our bread and butter, whether that’s postal or on the airlines or through the ferry,”
Juneau Police Department Police Chief Ed Mercer, right, and Lt. Jeremy Weske speak at the Juneau Police Station about the department receiving new funding for drug enforcement on Friday. Alaska has been designated as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). (Michael Penn/Juneau Empire)
Weske said. “That’s really where we’re focused.” In the coming months and years, Weske and his coworkers are going to get more resources to make those busts more frequently. In April 2018, the Office of National Drug Control Policy named Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks as a collective High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area (HIDTA). As a result, federal government money will soon be flowing into the state to help these areas. JPD Police Chief Ed Mercer said $2.5 million is coming in this fiscal year (which started for the federal government at the end of October), and that the statewide HIDTA board will make deci-
sions about how to allocate that money. The HIDTA board includes Mercer as well as other law enforcement representatives from Anchorage, Fairbanks, Kenai, Bethel, the Alaska State Troopers and the Attorney General’s Office, among others. Forming this board was the first step, Mercer said, because the board will make decisions about how to allocate the funding. One of the aims of HIDTA is to get law enforcement agencies to communicate more with each other, Mercer said. Agencies in Alaska were already working together, Mercer said. “In the state of Alaska, we’re a small law enforcement family,” Mercer said. “We were already doing that. HIDTA is just only going to make it better as far as having the ability to share information, having the ability to train together, having the ability to fund drug operations throughout the state.” Mercer said they’re hoping to get a couple hundred
See DRUG, page A3
Alaska marijuana revenue falls in November after increases ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska revenue officials say the state saw a drop in the amount of marijuana taxes owed after months of increases. Anchorage television station KTVA reports marijuana cultivators owed the state just over $1.4 million in November, the latest month for which figures are available. That compares to $1.8 million October. Kelly Mazzei of the Alaska Department of Revenue says the department is not sure why the figure dropped. She says in general, the tax income line is trending upward. The state began collecting tax revenue from marijuana cultivators in October 2017 and has collected more than $20 million. The department reported November tax liability because some cultivators are on payment plans and not all revenue has come in.
Shutdown talks continue without breakthrough By CATHERINE LUCEY and LISA MASCARO Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump stood by his demands for funding for a border wall Sunday as another round of shutdown talks failed to break an impasse, while newly empowered House Democrats planned to step up the pressure on Trump and Republican lawmakers by passing legislation this week to reopen parts of the government. Trump, who spent part of the day at Camp David for staff meetings, showed no signs of budging on his demand of more than $5 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. White House officials affirmed that request in a letter to Capitol Hill after a meeting with senior congressional aides led by Vice President Mike Pence at the White House complex yielded little progress. The letter from Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought also formalized Trump’s declaration that the wall would be built from steel, rather than concrete, asking for funding for a “steel barrier on the Southwest border.” The White House said the letter, as well as details provided during the meeting, sought to answer Democrats’ questions about the funding request. Democrats, though, said the administration failed in both the meeting and the letter to provide a full budget of how it would spend the billions requested on the wall, money the president wants from Congress. The letter includes a request for $800 million for “urgent humanitarian needs,” a reflection of the growing anxiety over migrants traveling to the border — which the White House said Democrats raised in the meetings. And it repeats some existing funding requests for detention beds and security officers, which have already See TALKS, page A5