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P E N I N S U L A
Monday, August 27, 2018 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Vol. 48, Issue 282
In the news Officer rehired after admitting to punching homeless woman NOME (AP) — An Alaska police officer who punched a homeless woman while on duty has been rehired. Former Nome Police Community Services Officer Carl Putman was rehired this month as a police dispatcher after losing his job in February and pleading guilty to fourth-degree assault, the Anchorage Daily News reported . Putman told a colleague he hit 46-year-old Florence Habros with a “balled fist” after she passed out Feb. 18, according to prosecutors. Putman agreed to plead guilty and received a suspended imposition of sentence. He will not serve jail time if he meets the conditions of his release. Habros said the former officer ought to get jail time, not a new job. “They should have fired him for real,” she said. Putman had been working as a community services officer in Nome for five years when he picked up Habros in February and attempted to drive her to an emergency shelter. Habros, who was intoxicated, blacked out on the way. “(Putman) became frustrated and punched her in the head,” prosecutors wrote in charges filed April 25. The Nome Police Department declined to comment on Putman, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The city hired Putman back as a 911 dispatcher on a temporary basis to fill an immediate need, city officials said.
Inside ‘… Trump has to decide whether he’s going to worry chiefly about fighting off an impeachment push and winning again in 2020, or forestalling the threat of getting indicted sometime in 2021 should he lose his re-election. ’ ... See Opinion, A4
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Grub on the go: Food trucks help local chefs make restaurants a reality By VICTORIA PETERSEN Peninsula Clarion
The peninsula food scene Joe Spady grew up with is much different than the food scene in the area now. The 30-year-old, who opened Joe’s Meatball Shoppe in Soldotna earlier this summer, said he’s seeing more local food, different kinds of food and an increase in the number of food trucks in his hometown. “The food scene is growing amazingly,” Spady said. “It was a different food scene than I grew up in, which was just the same four identical restaurants.” Spady recalls area restaurants selling ubiquitous fare, like burgers, fries, tacos and pizza, but not much else. It didn’t seem people were craving much else, Spady said. “It’s neat to see the shift in people really wanting more,” Spady said. “It’s not that we simply didn’t have it, it’s that people weren’t asking for it.” These days, peninsula palates are hungry for something new. Wanna Kane lives in Nikiski. Last June, she opened up her food truck, Tuk Tuk Express where she sells Thaistyle street food. There are only a handful of restaurants in Nikiski, and Tuk Tuk Express offers something less typical than what’s found in the area. Kane was able to find a spot to park near her home, where she is open Monday through Friday, and has partnered with local brewery, Kassik’s, to provide sustenance for beer-drinkers on Friday nights. Kane said even in the short time she’s been in business, she’s seen her business grow and the community welcome her. “When I first opened it was
Joe Spady stands in front of his food truck, Joe’s Meatball Shoppe, on Sunday in Soldotna. Spady rents his truck through Kenai Soil and Water Conservation District, which offers the converted trailer for people interested in a test kitchen and small business development, with a focus on Alaska grown products. (Photo by Victoria Petersen/Peninsula Clarion)
slow, but very steady,” Kane said. “People are used to us being here now. It is just a different variety for Nikiski. People seem to like the quick, pick-upand-go (style) of a food truck. We don’t see many food trucks out in Nikiski. Most are in Kenai and Soldotna, but I’ve seen growth, even in the short time I have been in business.”
When trying to come up with the concept of his food truck, Spady brainstormed food not readily available in the area. “We don’t have a meatball shop,” Spady said. “In New York, there’s a pretty popular shop called ‘The Meatball Shop.’ I loved that place when I lived in New York. So I was thinking, what if I do that and
kind of just transition all my sandwiches into meatball form… it’s fun to be a specific niche, while still doing what I’m passionate about.” Once he created his menu and brand, Spady was ready for business. For many, the cost of a food truck is often what holds aspiring cooks back from their mobile eatery dreams.
The Kenai Soil and Water Conservation District offers an affordable way for new business ventures to feel the industry out through the rental of a small trailer equipped with a kitchen: the ideal starter food truck. “I was originally going to get a booth and rent a kitchen, but the opportunity to have it See TRUCK, page A2
Fairbanks seismologist hooked on quakes since childhood By SAM FRIEDMAN Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
FAIRBANKS (AP) — Earthquakes have a way of coming at night. That’s not a geological truth, just something Matt Gardine has noticed during his shifts as an on-call seismologist at the Alaska Earthquake Center. With eight-hour workdays and 24 hours a day on-call, there’s just a good probability the on-call seismologist will get an earthquake alert at an inconvenient time. For example, at 1:30 a.m. Jan. 24, 2016, Gardine was awake putting his daughter to bed and had just been getting back into bed to get a few hours of sleep himself when he felt the earth shake, a seismic alarm clock that told him it was time to get to work.
“There was no point in going back to sleep, because if I felt it then certainly others felt it,” he said. A few seconds after he felt the shake, an alert on his phone sounded to inform him that the quake had been centered in Cook Inlet, more than 250 miles to the south. The event, known as the Iniskin earthquake, was eventually found to have a magnitude of 7.1 Gardine, 35, is office operations seismologist at the Alaska Earthquake Center on the West Ridge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. He’s part of a staff of 17 people, about half of whom are seismologists. Gardine’s work marries two interests he’s had since childhood, computers and seismology. Recently, he made an earthquake animation that was popular online. It
showed how shaking from the largest-recorded earthquake on the North Slope propagated out across Alaska’s seismic sensors. Gardine has been interested in seismology since he watched a National Geographic episode about earthquakes and volcanoes that his grandfather taped when he was growing up in Denver. “I think that was the only VHS tape I ever wore out. I’d rewatch it over and over, every day after school,” he said. A pair of fourth grade research projects — one on crocodiles and one on volcanoes — helped solidify his interest in seismology. “That pretty much affirmed it for me. I don’t want to be a biologist, but earthquakes, there’s something about that. I always kind of knew after that,”
he said. Gardine went to college at Colorado School of Mines and came to Fairbanks for graduate school. While at the University of Alaska Fairbanks he met another seismology student whom he would go on to marry. Today both Matt and his wife, Lea Gardine, work at the earthquake center. Lea is the center’s outreach coordinator. Alaska experiences about 40,000 earthquakes a year, more than all of the earthquakes in Lower 48 combined and about 10 percent of all the earthquakes on the planet, Gardine said. Most are very small. The on-call seismologists get a phone alert when there’s a quake of magnitude 3.5 around Fairbanks or Anchorage or a magnitude 4 elsewhere in Alaska or a magnitude 5 in the seismologically active but sparsely
populated Aleutian islands. When awakened by a phone notification of an earthquake, the on-call seismologist reviews the information from automated sensors, which approximate the magnitude and location of the quake. Within about 15 minutes, the on-call seismologist tries to send out revised information about the size and the scale of the quake. As the minutes after an earthquake tick by, the on-call seismologist contacts people and institutions likely to be affected by the quake, such as the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, and begins to compile reports from people who felt the quake. These human reports are important because they answer questions about an earthquake that the earthquake center’s See QUAKE, page A2
Sitka police officer alleges cover-up of sexual assault By ALEX McCARTHY Juneau Empire
A Sitka police officer filed a lawsuit against the City of Sitka and the Sitka Police Department this week, making a variety of claims that include covering up a sexual assault, secretly purchasing automatic weapons and discriminating against him for supporting a co-worker who alleges sexual harassment. Ryan Silva, who began work-
ing for SPD in 2008, filed the lawsuit through the Northern Justice Project, LLC, a firm specializing in representing lowand middle-income Alaskans in lawsuits against state and federal governments. In a legal complaint filed Aug. 20, Attorney James J. Davis states that Silva is entitled to damages because SPD violated Alaska Statue 39.90.10039.90.150, known as the Alaska Whistleblower Act. This act
states that public employers cannot discriminate or punish an employee for reporting a matter of public concern. In this case, Davis alleges, Silva was punished for reporting the secret purchase of five automatic weapons and for aiding in the investigation of sexual harassment allegations against the department from Silva’s significant other, Mary Ferguson (another officer in the department). SPD Lt. Lance Ewers, accord-
ing to the complaint, convinced the department to purchase five automatic weapons in November 2017, despite there being no existing policies and procedures concerning the use of automatic weapons. Silva was worried about this purchase and thought it put the public at risk, according to the complaint, but his concerns were met by Ankerfelt telling Silva to keep the purchases a secret. Ewers, according to the com-
plaint, is a friend of Ankerfelt’s and is named multiple times as working with Ankerfelt to discriminate against Silva. Silva is still employed by the department, City and Borough of Sitka Community Affairs Director Maegan Bosak said by phone Friday. Silva is currently on administrative leave, she said. Bosak also read a statement from the city. “There’s currently an ongoSee POLICE, page A3