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CLARION
Sunny 32/15 More weather on Page A-2
P E N I N S U L A
Vol. 45, Issue 74
Friday-Saturday, DECEMBER 26-27 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
50 cents newsstands daily/$1.00 Sunday
ADFG staffer lies on resume, lands top job
Question How should municipal governments address regulation of commercial marijuana facilities? n Government bodies should enact ordinances. n Proposed regulations should be put to a vote of the people. n Local governments should wait for the state to set regulations.
Hepler uses ‘working title,’ tapped to head South Dakota’s Fish, Game & Parks
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.
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In the news Thieves target ANC nonprofit ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Anchorage nonprofit that helps people with disabilities has been contending with thefts and vandalism during the Christmas season. The ARC of Anchorage said its donation bins have been raided and delivery truck fuel tanks have been drained. It’s been happening at least twice a week, most recently on Christmas Eve. Thefts and damage have run into the thousands of dollars. It appeared bolt cutters were used to gain access to a fenced area. Equipment was also stolen. Anchorage police are investigating, said Ian Casey, the organization’s operations manager. “They’re taking away directly from the programs from the ARC of Anchorage,” he said. “They’re taking away from people who experience developmental disabilities.” Anne Burch, who has received job training from the ARC and now works the phones asking for donations, called the thefts selfish. She said it deprives families who can’t afford to buy new things, such as clothes and household items. The organization is asking people to put items in the donation bins during business hours, when they’re checked regularly. “It’s frustrating,” Casey said, holding a busted lock in front of a bin that was broken into Wednesday.
Index Opinion.................. A-4 Nation.................... A-6 World..................... A-7 Sports.....................B-1 Classifieds............ C-3 Comics.................. C-7 Check us out online at www.peninsulaclarion.com To subscribe, call 283-3584.
By Rashah McChesney Peninsula Clarion
Ben Boettger/Peninsula Clarion
Enjoying a Christmas meal
(Left) Howard Hill, Kit Hill, and Bette Thomas talk at the Kenai Senior Center’s Christmas lunch on Thursday in Kenai.
Flooding repair plans slowly progress By DAN BALMER Peninsula Clarion
Looking back
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories from 2014 that Clarion reporters will be revisiting for the next week. Check back for updates on wildfires, Kenai’s bluff erosion project and the Soldotna library’s first year in a new building. Next month will mark a year since the Kalifornsky flooding was declared a federal disaster and many impacted residents are still feeling the effects of high ground water. After months of waiting, Karluk Acres farm owners Julie Wendt and Paul Vass recently received reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to repair their house foundation, barn and property from the 2013 flood. The family of three has had to use water sparingly because their septic system barely works, Wendt said. “When the flood happened we had to slaughter half our livestock because we couldn’t keep them dry,” Wendt said. “Once breakup was over this
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Clarion file photo
In this Oct. 2013 file photo, Paul Vass and Julie Wendt drive down Bore Tide Drive during a tour of the Kalifornsky area subdivision in which they live and raise livestock on a small farm. The couple suffered and estimated $30,000 in damage to their livestock and home during the month’s long groundwaterflooding event.
spring everything settled down and we started making repairs but then had to wait and see if the flood would return again in the fall.” A few houses away, Dustin Clark said he was unable to get a grant to prove the damage done to his deck was the result of flooding that heaved his deck on Sonotube piers four inches and cracked 20 floor tiles and Sheetrock.
Clark said the flooding was difficult for his neighbors, some of whom still have to use honey buckets because of damaged septic systems. He said Wendt’s ducks and geese were swimming in her yard. While the Kenai Peninsula didn’t see the same level of rain this fall as the year before, some Kalifornsky residents still have water in their crawlspaces and their septic systems are un-
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der water, Wendt said. In response to the flooding, the borough installed culverts and cleaned out ditches on Karluk Avenue, Patrick Drive, Eastway Road, Eider Drive and pumped water to flow out the Chine outlet. At the peak of the flooding, water flowed down Karluk Avenue and pooled on a corner lot, which became known as the Karluk basin. The borough drilled under Kalifornsky Beach Road to pump water down to the beach. Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Mike Navarre said all the work done in these areas would help in the event of another flood. “It’s important to keep in mind the genesis of the 2013 flood,” he said. “We had several years of heavy snowfall and over average rainfall that particular summer. In late October it was still raining then we had that monsoon that came through See FLOOD, page A-10
Soldotna man arrested for child porn, online enticement of 14-year-old girl By BEN BOETTGER Peninsula Clarion
State troopers arrested a Soldotna man after he was accused of exchanging explicit text and photo messages with a 14-yearold girl. He told officers that he believed her to be 15 or 16 according to court documents. Brian Jones, 30, was arrested Tuesday at Soldotna’s Peninsula Center Mall on two charges of enticing a minor online, three charges of child pornography possession, two charges of distributing indecent
material to a minor, and two charges of unlawful exploitation of a minor. In June, the Alaska State Troopers office in Soldotna received a report that Jones was exchanging sexually explicit messages with a girl approximately 14 years old using Facebook’s messenger service, according to court documents. Troopers were alerted to the exchange by the victim’s sister, who provided the officers with prints of photographs sent between Jones and the victim, as well as screen captures of sexu-
al messages exchanged around the first of April. On June 11, investigators Kyle Carson and Jack LeBlanc attained a search warrant for Jones’ residence. While conducting the search the following day, the two also interviewed Jones, who admitted to having sexual conversations with the victim, and on two occasions exchanging sexually explicit images. Subsequently, items taken from Jones’ residence were searched by the State Troopers Technical Crimes Unit in Anchorage, C
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which discovered nude images of the victim on Jones’ cell phone and pornographic images of other female children on Jones’ laptop. Jones is currently awaiting arraignment in Wildwood pretrial facility. If convicted, he faces up to five years of imprisonment for each of his four Class C felonies, and a prison term of not more than 10 years for each of his class B felonies. Reach Ben Boettger at ben. boettger@peninsulaclarion. com
An employee in the commissioner’s office of Alaska Department of Fish and Game landed a position as the head of South Dakota’s Fish, Game and Parks department using a title on his resume that he has repeatedly insisted he never held in Alaska. According to a resume that longtime Fish and Game employee Kelly Hepler sent to South Dakota’s governor, he currently holds the position of Assistant Commissioner with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game — a title that he denied holding when it drew him into an investigation by the Alaska Public Offices Commission, or APOC. South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s office on Tuesday announced that Hepler would take over his state’s Secretary of the Department of Game, Fish and Parks in March. The discrepancy between the title Hepler represented to the public, and the title which he technically held with Fish and Game came under scrutiny in November when he faced a slew of complaints and a hearing before APOC. Four Kenai Peninsula residents filed seven complaints against Hepler alleging that his position with Fish and Game made him subject reporting requirement to disclose gifts that he received from the Soldotna-based lobbying organization the Kenai River Sportfishing Association. The Kenai River Sportfishing Association has regularly waived the fee for Hepler, and most other public officials, to participate in its annual Kenai River Classic — an invitational fishing event that cost 2014 participants $4,000 a ticket. Former Fish and Game Commissioner Cora Campbell and Department of Natural Resources Deputy Commissioner Ed Fogels amended their APOC filings to reflect the gifts from the sportfishing association after similar complaints were filed against them in August. The complaints against Hepler were originally rejected by APOC, however the ruling was appealed and the commissioner held a hearing to discuss his title and whether it should investigate the complaints further. During the hearing, Hepler’s defense was that he was technically a “special projects coordinator” and therefore not subject to APOC reporting requirements. APOC staff verified his assertion and the commission See HEPLER, page A-10