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Sweet
Return
Readers share Christmas delights
One more visit to Middle Earth
Food/B-1
Arts & Entertainmnet/B-3
CLARION
Flurries 28/22 More weather on Page A-2
P E N I N S U L A
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2014 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Vol. 45, Issue 73
50 cents newsstands daily/$1.00 Sunday
Back on the table
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.
Soldotna council to take another look at driveways By KELLY SULLIVAN Peninsula Clarion
To place your vote and comment, visit our Web site at www. peninsulaclarion. com.
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The Peninsula Clarion will not publish on Thursday so that employees may spend the Christmas holiday with friends and family. The Clarion office will close at 3 p.m. today, and will reopen Friday at 8 a.m. We wish you and your family a merry Christmas.
In the news Fish and Game official headed to South Dakota PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Gov. Dennis Daugaard says a native South Dakotan who works as a hunting and fishing administrator in Alaska will be the state’s next secretary of the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks. Daugaard on Tuesday announced that Deadwood-born Kelly Hepler will replace Jeff Vonk, who will retire in January after serving as the agency’s secretary since 2007. Hepler has worked as an assistant commissioner in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game since 2010. Daugaard says he’s “thrilled” to bring Hepler back to South Dakota. Hepler has worked in the Alaska department since 1979. The governor’s office anticipates Hepler will begin by March 2015, and Parks Division Director Doug Hofer will manage the department in the interim.
Index Opinion.................. A-4 Police reports......... A-5 Nation/World.......... A-6 Sports.....................A-8 Food...................... B-1 Arts........................ B-3 Classifieds............. B-5 Comics................... B-8 Check us out online at www.peninsulaclarion.com To subscribe, call 283-3584.
will introduce the MSA in the new Congress. “He’s excited to make this a priority,” Shuckerow said. Republican Dan Sullivan defeated Begich in the 2014 midterm elections, and while he has been assigned to the Commerce Committee, he won’t have the seniority to chair a Senate subcommittee. The act, or MSA, was first passed in 1976, and most recently updated in 2006. Now it’s up for reauthorization, with amendments likely.
Soldotna’s Planning and Zoning Commission has opposed modifying city code to allow for wider than 24-foot driveways within city limits, but this time around the choice is not up to them. On Jan. 14, the city council will incorporate the commission’s recommendation into their decision of whether or not enact an ordinance that would increase the maximum driveway width to 30 feet. “(Twenty-four feet wide) is widely accepted and serves a valid purpose,” said City Planner John Czarnezki during the commission’s Dec. 17 meeting. Czarnezki said other municipalities, such as Wasilla and Palmer, prefer the 24-foot maximum in relation to pedestrian refuge, safe vehicle movement and street maintenance. The larger the driveway, the more difficult it is to clear snow and to get a vehicle behind it and push it out of the way, he said. However, in a study by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program these issues depended on other factors such as street layout, pedestrian movement and traffic volume, Czarnezki said. “It’s not always a one-sizefits-all for every community,” Czarnezki said. Reports from City Engineer Kyle Kornelis and Maintenance Manager Scott Sunberg show maintenance cost and maintenance time would increase if driveway widths were to be expanded, Czarnezki said. Commission Chair Colleen Denbrock said the commission has been examining driveway width for the past two years and she still hasn’t seen sufficient evidence in support of modifying city code.
See YOUNG, page A-10
See WIDTH, page A-10
Photo by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion
Rich Bartolowits does some shopping for himself in the days before Christmas on Tuesday at Dan’s TV and Appliance in Kenai.
The day before Christmas Area merchants ready for last-minute shoppers By IAN FOLEY Peninsula Clarion
With a day left before Christmas, businesses and shoppers alike are geared up for the final shopping opportunities. While some expect everything to be calm, others anticipate hectic store environments. Don Bennett, store manager of Fred Meyer in Soldotna, said that he predicts Christmas Eve will be busier than normal. “Everybody is going to be out,” he said. “It will be a pretty exciting time.” Bennett said he has noticed holiday
shoppers have a tendency to wait until the last minute. “I think we’re all procrastinators in some way or another,” Bennett said. “We’ve got other things going on. Priorities change. We need to keep going until we get it done. We’re all busy.” Bennett said that even he hasn’t finished his shopping. “I’ve got things I need to get done, too,” he said. “I’m stressing out trying to get the last things, especially for my wife’s stocking.” Eric Dahlman, store manager at Sportsman’s Warehouse, also says Christmas Eve is typically pretty busy, and this year
will likely be no exception. “We do expect a good final push on the last day,” he said. While Dahlman expects the store to be busy, he said that the lack of snow this year has caused some decline in sales for items like boots, parkas and ice fishing gear. “We just need more snow,” he said. Dahlman said that he thinks the warm weather and clear roads this winter have also allowed people to travel to Anchorage more easily in order to do holiday shopping. Even as some businesses predict a See SALES, page A-10
Young to take lead on fisheries By DJ SUMMERS Morris News Service-Alaska/ Alaska Journal of Commerce
Alaska’s fishing interests will still be well represented in Washington, D.C., despite a recent shuffling of the legislative deck after former Sen. Mark Begich lost his re-election bid and his chairmanship of a key Senate subcommittee. Though Begich is gone, longtime Alaska U.S. Rep. Don Young will take the lead for the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in the 114th
Congress and continue on the House Natural Resources Committee. Begich was chair of the Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, and as one of his final acts introduced a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, or MSA, the law governing federal fisheries. The House Committee on Natural Resources will be restructured in the 114th Congress; all ocean-related issues will be heard in the Water
and Power Subcommittee and redubbed the Water, Power, and Oceans Subcommittee, whose membership will be finalized in January. House members can chair only on subcommittee, and Young will retain his chairmanship of Indian and Alaska Native Affairs. All pending legislation expires at the end of the current Congress, however, and any MSA bill will have to be reintroduced in the new Congress. Although not the chair of the committee, spokesman Matthew Shuckerow said Young
Fairbanks borough forms Walker signs marijuana working group LNG agreement
FAIRBANKS (AP) — A working group will be created in the Fairbanks North Star Borough to guide development of local rules governing commercial marijuana enterprises. Borough Mayor Luke Hopkins is hoping to get regulations developed as early as February, the Fairbanks Daily NewsMiner reported. The group is expected to begin meeting in early January. “I certainly don’t want to sit in my office and say it ought to be this,” Hopkins said. “This is a community effort.” The move follows the passage in November of Ballot
Measure 2, which allows the possession, use and non-sale transfer of marijuana in Alaska, beginning Feb. 24. Marijuana sales aren’t likely to begin until at least May 2016. The measure gives the state many months to develop and implement its own regulations. Communities can opt out of allowing sales, but such bans likely would be politically unpopular, with the measure approved by a wide margin of voters. In the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the working group’s goal is to “develop zoning standards, production
and sales requirements, and determine what other use issues need to be considered for adoption by the assembly and, to the extent needed, city councils.” Hopkins said some real estate organizations in the borough are receiving inquiries about available retail spaces from outside the state. According to Hopkins, possible issues to consider include buffer zones for certain areas, such as schools, halfway houses, day care centers and hospitals. Another issue to consider would be private clubs, where See GROUP, page A-10 C
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ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska Gov. Bill Walker has signed an agreement with a Japanese energy company formally declaring a commitment to form a partnership in developing Alaska’s liquefied natural gas market. Walker called the action taken Tuesday with Resources Energy Inc. an important first step for the state’s energy future. Under the previous administration, the state and Japanese agencies agreed to keep the lines of communication open over a proposed mega-LNG project.
Resources Energy CEO Shun Shimizu, who also signed the “cooperation agreement” Tuesday, says the company will first focus on a smaller scale LNG project in Cook Inlet and later would like to work on the larger North Slope gas development. Officials say Japanese prefectures have been considering LNG to replace nuclear energy following the massive 2011 earthquake that shut down the Fukushima nuclear power plant.