C
M
Y
K
Play on
Finals
Performers prepare for ‘Leading Ladies’
Kings beat Rangers in Game 1
Arts/B-1
Sports/A-10
CLARION
Sunshine 63/42 More weather on Page A-2
P E N I N S U L A
THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 2014 Soldotna-Kenai, Alaska
Vol. 44, Issue 211
50 cents newsstands daily/$1.00 Sunday
King Cove sues feds to open road in refuge
Question Should an open burning ban on the Kenai Peninsula be extended until the Funny River Horse Trail wildfire is completely extinguished? n Yes; or n No.
By DAN JOLING Associated Press
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 Man dies in refrigeration leak on fishing boat C
M
Y
K
KODIAK — Police in Kodiak say an Everett, Washington, man has died following a refrigeration leak aboard a fishing boat. The Kodiak Daily Mirror reports the man who died was 30-year-old Cody Cecil. Police and emergency rescuers on Wednesday responded to St. Herman’s Harbor in response to a report of a refrigeration leak aboard the Alpine Cove. Cecil and 56-year-old Francis Rutten of Snohomish, Washington, were rushed to Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center. Three others were also evacuated from the boat. Police say Cecil was pronounced dead and Rutten is being treated for exposure to Freon, a gas used as a refrigerant. The Kodiak harbormaster ordered the evacuation of nearby vessels. Kodiak police and the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Detachment are investigating. — The Associated Press
Inside ‘The conflict is the same, the terror is the same, the killing is the same.’ ... See page A-8
Photo by Dan Balmer/Peninsula Clarion
Members of the American Legion Post baseball team rake and weed the warning track dirt at the Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai Wednesday. The Penninsula Oilers season opener is Sunday.
Volunteers come to bat for Oilers baseball By DAN BALMER Peninsula Clarion
With the Peninsula Oilers season opener three days away, volunteers have come to lend a hand after the local baseball organization was thrown a curveball. High winds lifted the roof and walls off of the press box Saturday at Coral Seymour Memorial Park and left a large pile of tin and wood debris in front of the concession stand. While the grandstand remains, a building inspector will have to check off the stability of the structure,
which will need additional bracing of the backstop before the section can be opened to fans, said Oilers Board of Directors Vice President Ken Cole. The total cost to clean up and repair for the damage is expected to cost $5,000 to $10,000, an expense not in the budget, Cole said. Oilers General Manager James Clark said with the team arriving Thursday, normally he would just be working on daily upkeep and making sure the field is ready to go. With a roofless grandstand and in need of stabilization it has become
a huge project just days before the season begins. “It is a lot of added stress that sets me back,” he said. “If it wasn’t for all the help and generosity from the community, I would be out here 18-hours a day up until Saturday night trying to get everything done.” Clark said one gentleman came by the field Wednesday and donated $1,000. The roof collapse was deflating because the budget had been cut so much. In See OILERS, page A-6
ANCHORAGE — An Alaska village sued the U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday after it rejected a road through a national wildlife refuge that could improve access to emergency flights at a nearby all-weather airport. The city of King Cove, tribal governments and individuals filed the lawsuit against Secretary Sally Jewell for the agency’s denial of a gravel road to nearby Cold Bay through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, an internationally recognized habitat for migratory birds. “This is about protecting the lives of human beings,” Della Trumble, a representative of the Agdaagux Tribe said in an announcement of the lawsuit. The state of Alaska in April gave the required 180 days’ notice that it also would sue. Interior Department spokeswoman Emily Beyer said by email that the agency could not comment on litigation. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Anchorage claims the Interior Department’s rejection is a violation of federal law and arbitrary because no other reasonable transportation alternatives exist. King Cove and Cold Bay are at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, which juts southwest from mainland Alaska toward the start of the Aleutian Chain. The road is proposed for an See ROAD, page A-6
Assembly tweaks, passes borough budget By KAYLEE OSOWSKI Peninsula Clarion
The fiscal year 2015 annual budget balancing act finished the season with a unanimous passing vote. But before its passage, the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly discussed the document at length and made a few amendments at its Tuesday night meeting. Funding debates focused on three areas: education, non-
departmental organizations and the assembly budget. In the draft budget, Borough Mayor Mike Navarre proposed the borough contribute $43.5 million to schools. The KPB School District requested an additional $1.5 million. The mayor-proposed amendments at the Tuesday meeting called for an increase of $500,000 to the school district. Navarre said the borough can increase school funding later in the year, but it cannot decrease
funding allocated in the budget. In the fall, the borough plans to review the local contribution. Assembly member Brent Johnson thought the mayorproposed amount was fair. “This $500,000 that the mayor has asked us to give is a compromise position,” Johnson said. … “I want to reward the school district people who are looking after the business of the school and appropriate this money for them.” Assembly member Charlie
Pierce said he wanted to keep the $500,000 in the borough’s account and let the district show that it needs the funds. “There’s no emergency here,” he said. The assembly narrowly passed the increase with five yes votes and four no votes. Funding for schools is the borough’s highest expense using about 66 percent of the general fund. Pierce proposed halving the budgets for four non-departmentals — the Kenai Penin-
sula Economic Development District, Central Area Rural Transit System, Small Business Development Center and Kenai Peninsula Tourism Marketing Council. Pierce said he thinks residents of the Kenai Peninsula are split on whether or not their tax dollars should support nonprofits. “I think it’s a 50-50 issue, so tonight what I’d like to do is speak to the voice of both parSee BUDGET, page A-6
Child migrants driven to US by violence, poverty By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN and ALICIA A. CALDWELL Associated Press
Index Opinion.................. A-4 Business.................A-5 Nation/World.......... A-7 Sports...................A-10 Tightlines..............A-12 Arts.........................B-1 Classifieds............. B-3 Comics................... B-6 Check us out online at www.peninsulaclarion.com To subscribe, call 283-3584. AP Photo/Chris Sherman
Brian Duran, 14, of Comayagua, Honduras collects his line-dried laundry at the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, June 3. Duran traveled alone to the U.S.-Mexico border and hopes to soon become one of the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children to enter the United States since Oct. 1, 2013.
REYNOSA, Mexico — Before 14-year-old Brian Duran set out from central Honduras in mid-April, he heard that child migrants who turned themselves in to the U.S. Border Patrol were being cared for and not deported. He knew that a couple of friends who left before he did had given themselves up after crossing and been reunited with family in the U.S. Sitting inside the walled compound of a migrant shelter in this Mexican border city across the Rio Grande from Texas, Brian wonders if that is still the case as he seeks a way to make his own crossing. C
M
Y
K
“I don’t know what the environment is like now, if they (Border Patrol) are supporting or if they are returning the minors,” he said Tuesday. He said he has an uncle in the U.S., but doesn’t know where because he lost his number while journeying north. Brian isn’t alone in trying to get into the U.S. In the past eight months, 47,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended along the border in the U.S. Southwest. More than 11,000 of those were Mexican children, who are generally quickly sent back across the border. But nearly 35,000 were from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. By contrast, just 6,560 child migrants were put in U.S.
shelters during all of 2011. President Barack Obama called the surge a crisis Monday, saying the influx has overwhelmed the network of U.S. shelters for young migrants. He appointed the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, to lead the government’s response. The Obama administration has asked Congress for $1.4 billion in extra funding to help house, feed and transport child migrants and has turned to the Defense Department to temporarily house some of them. Detained youngsters are transferred within 72 hours to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to be See BORDER, page A-6