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CLARION
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P E N I N S U L A
MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014 Soldotna-Kenai, Alaska
Vol. 44, Issue 154
50 cents newsstands daily/$1.00 Sunday
Union opposes legislative action on minimum wage
Question Do you feel the veterans memorial in Leif Hansen Memorial Park in Kenai is appropriate as is? n Yes; or n No. To place your vote and comment, visit our Web site at www. peninsulaclarion. com. Results and selected comments will be posted each Tuesday in the Clarion, and a new question will be asked. Suggested questions may be submitted online or e-mailed to news@peninsulaclarion.com.
In the news Monday is deadline to sign up for PFD
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JUNEAU — Time is running short if you haven’t signed up for your share of Alaska’s oil wealth. Monday is the deadline to file for the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. KINY reports online is the best way to sign up since Monday is also a state holiday, Seward’s Day. The dividend amount is based on the five-year average of the fund’s statutory net income. In 2009, a recession year, the fund posted a $2.5 billion net loss in statutory net income. That helped drive the dividend down in recent years. But it will not affect the 2014 dividend. Dividends fell from over $2,000 for each recipient in 2008 to less than $900 in 2012; last year’s payment was $900. The money comes from investment profits from the state’s oil-wealth savings account.
Photo by Dan Balmer/Peninsula Clarion
Above: General contractor Jason Hanson of Hanson Construction cuts a board during interior renovation of the new Chez Moi Boutique opening in the Shops Around the Corner building on the Sterling Highway in Soldotna. The City of Soldotna awarded a $7,500 reimbursement grant to the replace the exterior facade as part of their Storefront Improvement Project. Although Hanson was not involved in that grant, he was contracted to install new cedar siding to Mykel’s Restaurant and Soldotna Inn, a $5,000 grant from the city. Below: Mykel’s Restaurant and Soldotna Inn owner Alice Kerkvliet received a $5,000 grant from the City of Soldotna as part of the Storefront Improvement Program. Contractor Justin Hanson renovated the exterior of the building with concrete pre-finish cedar siding and trim to match the cedar handrail he built in 2011. Hanson completed the project last October.
Sharing plans Kenai interested in Soldotna’s beautification project By DAN BALMER Peninsula Clarion
In an effort to beautify the City of Kenai, the city planner is borrowing a concept from its neighboring city of Soldotna with the potential implementation of the storefront improvement project. The project, now in its third year in Soldotna, is a reimbursable grant fund, in which the city partners with local
business owners to share the cost of up to $7,500 worth of improvements made to a business’s exterior with the intention of revitalizing the downtown commercial core, said Soldotna City Planner John Czarnezki. Stephanie Queen, the director of economic development and planning for Soldotna, created the program, which came out of the city’s comprehensive plan adopted in 2011.
— The Associated Press
Inside ‘We’ve needed to clean up this neighborhood for so long, but we’ve always been ignored. For too many years these gangs have been ruling this place.’ ... See page A-7
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Prosecutors lay out case in Coast Guard homicides By DAN JOLING Associated Press
ANCHORAGE — Federal prosecutors will try to prove that a respected Coast Guard civilian technician on Kodiak Island meticulously planned an alibi, sneaked onto a Communications Station and gunned down two co-workers with whom he had feuded. Just 20 minutes after the April 12, 2012, shootings, according to the government theory of the case, James Michael Wells made it home and called the work phone of a man he had just shot, leaving a message saying he would be late for work because of a flat tire. Jury selection begins Monday in trial of Wells, 63, who is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of murder of an officer or employee of the United States, and possession of a firearm in a crime of violence. He is charged with killing Richard Belisle, 51, a former Coast Guard chief petty offi-
cer, and his immediate supervisor, Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins, 41, an electronics technician from Vergennes, Vt. Wells is represented by federal defender Rich Curtner of Anchorage and defense attorney Peter Offenbecher of Seattle. Prosecutors have no eyewitnesses, no confession, no murder weapon and no physical evidence linking Wells to the homicides, they said in a trial brief. “The government has built its case against Mr. Wells from a series of inferences,” they wrote. The case could hinge on Wells’ explanation for 34 minutes when security cameras placed him within 1.5 miles of the Communications Station. Kodiak is a community of 6,300 on Kodiak Island, some 250 miles south of Anchorage. It’s home to the largest Coast Guard Air Station in the Pacific. The double homicide took See CASE, page A-10
Czarnezki, who took over as Soldotna city planner five months ago, said the program meets several long-term goals of “Envision Soldotna 2030,” related to beautification of the key areas along the Kenai Riv-
er and Sterling and Kenai Spur Highway. “The program is designed with the intention of increasing property values and improving the vitality of the commercial See STORE, page A-10
JUNEAU (AP) — The head of the state’s largest labor union said his organization would oppose any move by lawmakers to raise the minimum wage ahead of a vote by Alaskans, fearing legislators will gut the law like they did 12 years ago. Under Alaska law, if lawmakers pass a bill that is “substantially similar” to an upcoming ballot question, the measure is removed from the ballot. “Any attempt to introduce and pass a substantially similar bill not only undermines the process, but deprives Alaska voters the opportunity liberties we all value so much,” Alaska AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami told lawmakers Saturday during a joint hearing of the House and Senate judiciary committees. The minimum wage is $7.75 an hour in Alaska. The proposal would raise it to $8.75 on Jan. 1, 2015, and to $9.75 a year later. Afterward, the wage would be adjusted annually for inflation. If the resulting minimum wage is less than a dollar over the federal standard, which is $7.25 an hour, it would then be set a $1 higher. Organizers of the measure have turned in more than 36,000 qualified signatures to get it on this summer’s primary ballot, and they worry about a copycat situation of what happened in 2002. That year, a measure to raise the minimum wage was headed to voters until lawmakers passed a bill increasing the rate. Then, a year later, legislators went back into the law and essentially gutted it. See WAGE, page A-2
Drone’s-eye view Ventures sees Alaska from difference perspective By MATT WOOLBRIGHT Morris News Service-Alaska Juneau Empire
JUNEAU — Juneau residents Christopher Carson and Lion El Aton want to show off the beauty of Southeast Alaska, and they’re doing it in a way that’s never been done before. That’s because the technology driving their company is nearly as new as the company itself. “If the final product is not going to be different than what’s been done already, then we don’t see the point in doing it,” El Aton said. Their most recent video — a captivating aerial tour through the world-renowned Mendenhall Glacier ice caves — is part of a project called “Bigger than Life,” and there will be more like it. “It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Carson said of the project. “We’re showing the nature, beauty and grandiose of all that Alaska has to offer.” The five-minute short film was shot entirely using a GoC
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Pro HERO3+ Black Edition camera attached to a remotecontrolled drone. Yes, a drone. “Whatever we do, we try to break down barriers of what can be done,” Carson said. The approximately $4,000 drone is a DSLR Pros DJI Phantom Cannes P2 Kit capable of carrying up to seven pounds. The device is also outfitted to transmit the live
feed of the GoPro from miles away so its pilot can fly it from a computer without actually seeing it. The duo founded Firefight Films two years ago after talking about their mutual interests: exploring and capturing the world around them with videos and photos. “We both edit, and we both film,” El Aton explained. “We See DRONE, page A-10
AP Photo/Juneau Empire, Michael Penn
Chris Carson, left, and Lion El Aton of Firefight Films demonstrate their DJI Phantom drone quadcopter at Mendenhall Lake in Juneau, Alaska, on March 20. They have been using the unit to film the glacier and an ice cave this winter.