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No snow?
Hockey
Area businesses still keeping busy
Brown Bears ready to get back on ice
Business/A-5
Sports/A-7
CLARION TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2014 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
50 cents newsstands daily/$1.00 Sunday
Militia leader seeks appeal delay
Question How long are you able to keep your New Year’s resolutions? n At least until Jan. 2; n I usually make it into February; n Through the summer; n I’ve kept a resolution until I’ve met a goal or for a whole year; n I don’t make resolutions. To place your vote and comment, visit our Web site at www. peninsulaclarion. com.
In the news
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FAIRBANKS (AP) — Two University of Alaska Fairbanks students and one from Purdue University have won an engineering competition that sought ideas for extracting heavy oil from Alaska’s North Slope. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports Max Martell and Stephen Nemethy III of UAF and Sally Ann Keyes of Purdue will split a $2,000 prize offered by the UAF eLearning and Distance Education program. Heavy oil has the consistency of peanut butter. It’s abundant on the North Slope but challenging for producers to remove. Heavy oil is commonly extracted by using heat, which creates problems in areas laden with permafrost. Martell, Nemethy and Keyes proposed using subfreezing fluid, such as liquid carbon dioxide, to keep nearby areas frozen. The contest drew more than 75 submissions from 14 universities.
Correction In a story in Sunday’s Clarion on the Funny River Fire, a Bear Creek cabin owner’s last name was listed incorrectly. Catherine Cassidy owns a cabin with her husband, Erik Huebsch. The Clarion regrets the error.
Index Opinion.................. A-4 Business................ A-5 Nation/World.......... A-6 Sports.....................A-7 Classifieds........... A-10 Comics................. A-13 Pet Tails............... A-14 Check us out online at www.peninsulaclarion.com To subscribe, call 283-3584.
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P E N I N S U L A
Vol. 45, Issue 77
UAF, Purdue students win engineering challenge
Rain
Photo by Kelly Sullivan/ Peninsula Clairon
Residence Advisors Robert Goerdt and Sean McBride, desk attendant Zach Moore and Residence Life Coordinator Leslie Byrd dump buckets of ice water on Kenai Peninsula College Associate Director of Residence Life Tammie Willis Sept. 5 at the Kenai Peninsula College Residence Hall in Soldotna. Willis was asked by Byrd to take part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
Positive growth
Residence hall community develops at KPC By KELLY SULLIVAN Peninsula Clarion
Looking back
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series looking at some of the people and events in the news in 2014. Kenai Peninsula College’s residence hall will begin its fourth semester of housing students on Monday. The college has received 52 housing contracts for the spring session. Kenai Peninsula College Associate Director of Residence Life Tammie Willis compiles monthly data on resident demographics and student programs hosted at the hall, which is the college’s most comprehensive documentation of the
on
2014
emerging community. “This information is what will ultimately justify opening a second residence hall one day,” Willis said. Short term, it provides a snapshot of the population and what can be addressed to encourage an even stronger community, Willis said. During the fall semester, the rooms were filled to 60 percent capacity, a high rate for a transitional institution, she said.
Willis’ theory as to why the group of students occupying the hall have bonded into a cohesive, productive body so readily, is more of a systematic approach grounded in nearly two decades of work in residence life. Simply put, she knew her plan for community building would work. During the fall quarter, the building hosted student-run programs almost every other evening, Willis said. Movie nights, genealogy presentations, a talent show, monthly potlucks and LGBT: An Alliance Group meetings are only a handful of the events that filled the common area on the hall’s first level, she said. The long-term goal is for residents to See DORM, page A-9
FAIRBANKS (AP) — The Alaska militia leader convicted of conspiracy to murder public officials is seeking a second delay for filing briefs in his appeal. The attorney for Schaeffer Cox of Fairbanks, Myra Sun, is asking for an additional 30 days to file opening briefs, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. Cox in June 2012 was convicted of nine federal counts. Besides conspiracy to kill federal law enforcement officers, he was convicted of solicitation to commit a violent crime and possession of illegal weapons. He was sentenced in January 2013 to 26 years in prison. His trial attorney said the case was an overreach by prosecutors trying to silence Cox for offensive but protected speech. Prosecutors said Cox crossed the line separating offhand comments about killing someone to formulation of plans to do so. Federal investigators said Cox created a “two-for-one murder” plot with four members of his militia group, planning to kidnap or kill two law enforcement officers if Cox were arrested or killed. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September granted Cox and his attorney a 90day extension to file opening appeal briefs. Prosecutors do not oppose Sun’s request for an additional delay, according to court records. Sun cited the volume of case material for the request. See DELAY, page A-9
Sitka gym born from college closure By SHANNON HAUGLAND Daily Sitka Sentinel
SITKA (AP) — On the list of top 10 New Year’s resolutions, “staying fit and healthy” ranked fifth in a recent nationwide study. Hames Center director Cindy Edwards said she knows that this fact alone will get people through the doors in the New Year, but that’s not the main goal of the fitness and athletics facility, now finishing its fourth year of non-profit operation under Alaska Arts Southeast and
the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. “What makes us different is we really want people to stay,” Edwards said. “We don’t want people to sign up and not show up. We want people to stay — the reason we do that is we really want people to use their memberships to make a difference in their lives. We want to make a difference in people’s lives.” This in turn will make a difference in the overall health of the community, which is one of the goals of the center, she said.
That said, the Hames Center will be open 1 to 5 p.m. on New Year’s Day. And if people need a marker as a place to start becoming a healthier person, more power to them, she said. “They might think ‘I’m going to start fresh right now,’” Edwards said. “If that’s what it takes, if that’s what you need, then take it.” The idea of a short-term commitment turning into a long-term one rings true with both Edwards and her husband, Brant Brantman. Formerly, the Hames Center
was part of Sheldon Jackson College, but the college always made its facilities, including its 25-meter pool, available to the public with day passes and memberships. After the college closed its doors in 2007, the city took over operations of the popular fitness center before ending its commitment in the fall of 2010. But the doors were closed only a few months before the SJC Board of Trustees offered the campus to Alaska Arts Southeast, the parent organization of the Sitka Fine Arts
Camp. SFAC turned to the community of local exercise and fitness advocates for help with reactivating the Hames Center, which by that time was in need of major refurbishing because of years of deferred maintenance. Edwards, who says she had never been a fan of gyms, was one of those who came forward. “I was never really a gym user,” she said. “But my beloved husband Brant got excited about helping — and he was on See GYM, page A-9
New charges in 2012 teen drinking party case By MICHAEL ARMSTRONG Morris News Service-Alaska/ Homer News
The Alaska Department of Law last week filed new charges against two brothers suspected to be involved in the assault of a teenage boy at a September 2012 Homer teenage drinking party. In documents filed Dec. 24 at the Homer Courthouse, Anthony Resetarits, 22, now faces felony charges of first-degree hindering prosecution and tam-
pering with felony evidence. He and his brother, Joseph Resetarits, 20, also were charged with one count each of seconddegree harassment, a misdemeanor. Anthony Resetarits also faces a second misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The men have not been arrested and no court arraignment has been set. Both men had previously been indicted with second-degree sexual assault, but those charges were dismissed in Au-
gust by Kenai Superior Court Judge Carl Bauman after Michael Moberly, Joseph Resetarits’ lawyer, filed a motion arguing that the state provided insufficient evidence to support an indictment and that hearsay evidence presented prejudiced the grand jury hearing. In charging documents filed in October 2012, Alaska State Troopers said that a teenage boy then 17 had been sexually assaulted with an object at a Sept. 8, 2012, party at an East End Road home. About 60 to C
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80 teenagers and young adults attended the party, many of them members of the Homer High School Mariners football team, including Joseph Resetarits. The victim had passed out drunk and had his head and eyebrows shaved. People also wrote on him with markers. Troopers learned of the assault when the boy’s mother took him to South Peninsula Hospital and nurses reported the assault. When he dismissed the original sexual assault charges for
the Resetarits brothers, Bauman made a point of saying that the boy was a victim. “I say victim because I believe there’s a victim,” Bauman said then. “It’s not an alleged victim, it’s a victim — which is not to say who is responsible for that victim, but there’s clearly a victim in the court’s view.” In his decision, Bauman also mentioned the grand jury testimony of a nurse who treated the victim. The nurse said that the boy’s injuries were consisSee CASE, page A-9