Maryland
Runfest
4 dead after warehouse shooting
Tsalteshi to host 8 races on Saturday
Nation/A5
Sports/B1
CLARION
Late showers 57/45 More weather on Page A2
P E N I N S U L A
Friday-Saturday, September 21-22, 2018 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Vol. 48, Issue 304
$1 newsstands daily/$1.50 Sunday
Kenai OKs dog park
In the news Under right terms, Kavanaugh accuser may testify after all WASHINGTON (AP) — Christine Blasey Ford may testify against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after all, her attorney said Thursday, breathing new life into the prospect of a dramatic Senate showdown next week over Ford’s accusation that he assaulted her when both were in high school. The preference would be for Ford to testify next Thursday, and she doesn’t want Kavanaugh in the same room, her attorney told Judiciary Committee staff in a 30-minute call that also touched on security concerns and others issues, according to a Senate aide who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. Ford is willing to tell her story to the Judiciary Committee, whose senators will vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation — but only if agreement can be reached on “terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” the attorney said in an email earlier Thursday. In the call, she said Ford needs time to secure her family, prepare her testimony and travel to Washington. No decisions were reached, the aide said. The discussion revived the possibility that the panel would hold an electrifying campaign-season hearing at which both Ford and President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee could give their versions of what did or didn’t happen at a party in the 1980s. Kavanaugh, now a judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has repeatedly denied her allegation. The accusation has jarred the 53-year-old conservative jurist’s prospects for winning confirmation, which until Ford’s emergence last week had seemed all but certain. It has also bloomed into a broader clash over whether women alleging abuse are taken seriously by men and how both political parties address such claims with the advent of the #MeToo movement — a theme that could echo in this November’s elections for control of Congress.
Inside ‘Sesame Street has always stood for inclusion and acceptance’ ... See page A5
Index Opinion .................. A4 Nation .................... A5 World ..................... A6 Religion...................A7 Sports .....................B1 Classifieds ............. B5 Comics................... B8 Check us out online at www.peninsulaclarion.com To subscribe, call 283-3584.
City Council approves construction at Daubenspeck Family Park By VICTORIA PETERSEN Peninsula Clarion
Students weigh vegetables for customers at the Soldotna Montessori Charter School Farmers Market on Thursday in Soldotna. (Photo by Victoria Petersen/Peninsula Clarion)
Students share harvest
Soldotna Montessori Charter School hosts farmers market the garden for future students. It costs about $400 to get the garden ready. This year’s proceeds will go towards a new hose and sprinkler. Bags of potatoes, bunches of carrots, arms-full of kale and At the market, every student had a job. Fourth-grader Amaturnips the size of basketballs were harvested by students from lia Freeman greeted people and gave tours of the garden before the Soldotna Montessori Charter School garden. leading them to the produce. Other students picked produce, For the second year in a row, the elementary school hosted washed off vegetables, weighed products and took payment. a farmers market. All of the proceeds go back into maintaining See HARVEST, page A8 By VICTORIA PETERSEN Peninsula Clarion
At Wednesday’s Kenai City Council meeting, the council voted unanimously to approve the construction and presence of a dog park at Daubenspeck Family Park in Kenai. The effort to create a dog park in Kenai was spearheaded by a volunteer committee led by Jodi Stuart, who spoke in support of the resolution at Wednesday’s meeting “We’ve taken a look numerous times at Daubenspeck Park and looked at numerous other locations,” Stuart said. “We would very much be in support of Daubenspeck, as a dog owner and as someone that visits See DOG, page A8
Navarre to campaign for Walker Commerce boss takes leave of absence to work on governor’s re-election bid By JAMES BROOKS Juneau Empire
Mike Navarre, head of the state department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, has temporarily left his job in order to campaign for incumbent Gov. Bill Walker. In an email to department employees this week, Navarre wrote, “I intend to focus a significant amount of my personal time and energy in the coming weeks on the upcoming election. As such, I have decided to take a leave of absence until early November so I can focus on advocating for the candidates and issues that are of
great concern to me.” “I think it’s fairly unusual for commissioners to do this,” Navarre said by phone on Thursday morning, but he felt it was important to do. “It’s one of those things where I really wanted to help the governor with the campaign, and it’s one of those decisions where I can do it in my spare time, but I want to do more,” he said. State law prohibits government employees from spending state time or resources on partisan political campaigns. Navarre’s leave of absence started Wednesday and is effective through Election Day,
Nov. 5. In the meantime, deputy commissioner Fred Parady will be the department’s lead official, the letter states. In a public notice dated Wednesday, Navarre named interim replacements to the many boards and commissions that count the commissioner among their members. “It meant my calendar just blew up,” Parady said by phone. While he might now be busy, “in terms of the department, it’s steady as she goes,” Parady said. This is the third time in four Mike Navarre, commissioner of the Alaska Department of years that Parady has served as Commerce, is seen in a November 2017 portrait from the State See LEAVE, page A8 of Alaska. (Courtesy photo)
Grand jury indicts Alaska Walker says man tied to girl’s death he opposes Kavanaugh nod
By RACHEL D’ORO Associated Press
ANCHORAGE — An Alaska man physically took the cellphone away from a 10-year-old girl who was later found dead, and he lied to authorities when he said he found her phone on the ground, according to a federal grand jury indictment filed Thursday. The indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage charges Peter Wilson of Kotzebue with making false statements as FBI and other law enforcement searched for Ashely Johnson-Barr. She went missing Sept. 6 in Kotzebue, 26 miles (42 kilometers) north of the
Arctic Circle, and she was found dead Sept. 14 in an area of tundra that could only be accessed by a four-wheeler or on foot. No one else has been charged in connection with the girl’s death, which authorities say appears to be a homicide. The investigation continues. The statement that Wilson, 41, took the phone directly from the girl was the only new information in the indictment from an FBI affidavit filed earlier in the week. Authorities had said earlier Wilson also lied about knowing the girl, using a four-wheeler on the day she disappeared and that her phone screen lights up and her name appears on it when the
phone rings. These allegations are repeated in the indictment. Wilson, who will be arraigned Friday, is represented by F. Richard Curtner with the Federal Public Defender’s Agency. Curtner did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Ashely Johnson-Barr had her cellphone with her when she was last seen playing with friends at Rainbow Park. Authorities say the phone was found later that day in the pocket of a jacket belonging to Wilson, a woman named in the affidavit only by the initials of JJ told authorities. The woman said Wilson often stayed at her home. See INDICT, page A8
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska Gov. Bill Walker opposes the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, and says a thorough review of allegations against him needs to take place before a confirmation vote. Walker is concerned a lifetime appointment for Kavanaugh would threaten key protections for health care, labor and tribal self-determination, which he considers critical for Alaska. Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron
Mallott said Thursday that violence against women is epidemic in Alaska. They say they don’t “condone placing someone into one of nation’s highest positions of power while so many key questions remain unanswered.” Walker spoke about Kavanaugh to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, on Tuesday. His spokesman didn’t elaborate on what was said. Murkowski, a moderate, hasn’t indicated how she might vote.