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CLARION
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P E N I N S U L A
MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2015 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Vol. 45, Issue 99
Question Which team do you think will win the Super Bowl? n The Seattle Seahawks n The New England Patriots 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 Alaska state looks at energy use report
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FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Gov. Bill Walker says he’s working on a plan to reduce energy prices in interior Alaska. Walker told the Golden Valley Electric Association Saturday says he wants his proposal to be in effect by next winter. Fairbanks Daily NewsMiner reports Walker says it’s too early to divulge details, but hinted that it could include Cook Inlet gas shipped by railroad, which has emerged as an alternative to trucking liquefied gas from the North Slope. Walker says interior energy costs remains a priority for his administration and notes that oil costs will rise again. Walker Chief of Staff Jim Whitaker says the plan wouldn’t require the same level of risk to the electric utility as trucking gas to the interior. —Associated Press
Inside ‘Given the stakes, it’s absolutely critical that these elections be conducted peacefully — that they are credible, transparent and accountable.’ ... See page A-5
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Troopers ALICE training reaches students look into possible stun gun abuse By RASHAH McCHESNEY Peninsula Clarion
When it comes to dealing with a campus shooting incident, students in Soldotna have all been taught the same things — drop to the floor, be quiet and wait. But as police and school administrators have learned, this tactic can result in more deaths as intruders walk into schools and find kids prone on the floor and vulnerable to attack. Soldotna High School students learned to fight back during a training session with Soldotna Police Officer Tobin Brennan. “If they’re coming into your classroom, if you’re in the commons and they come into the commons and you need to get out, I don’t want you to curl up into a little ball and hide under a table and wait for something bad to happen,” Brennan told several hundred students in the school’s auditorium. “I want you to throw stuff at him, I don’t care what — cell phones, pencils, books chairs, computers, anything you can find that’s not tied down that you can throw at them.” Since August 2014, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District has been working with police departments to implement a new kind of intruder response training known as ALICE, an acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. For many in the audience, it was the first time someone had told them it was alright to fight back. Junior Drew Gibbs said
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska State Troopers are investigating allegations that a village public safety officer in Kake used a stun gun or Taser on two boys. Terrie Ward, mother of the 11-year-old boy, said they asked the officer in December to use the weapon on them because they were curious about what it feels like. Ward said she and her husband were out of town at the time, while their children were staying at their grandparent’s house. “They were talking about being tased, and my son did ask to be tased, and he tasered him on his arm or wrist,” she said. However, Ward said she isn’t sure if the weapon was a stun gun, which produces an electrical shock when placed against skin, or a Taser, which shoots barbs that attach to skin to deliver a disabling shock. The Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska is the tribal government that employs village public safety officers in Kake. It is also investigating the incident. Village public safety officers aren’t police or troopers, but citizens who are trained to be first responders to emergencies such as fires and search-and-rescues and to handle other basic law enforcement tasks. Alaska began using the program in the 1970s because it can take days for auPhoto by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion thorities to respond to emergenStudents at Soldotna High School watch a demonstration of a shooter coming after stucies in rural communities that dents, during an ALICE — Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate — training on can’t afford full-time officers. See TRAIN, page A-8 Wednesday in Soldotna, Alaska. The public safety officers have been allowed to carry Tasers since at least 2007. The officers may use them “in accordance with their training and the specifics of the situation,” said troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters. Former Gov. Sean ParBy BEN BOETTGER nell signed a bill last year that Peninsula Clarion will allow village public safety officers to carry a firearm. From the 52 children who came to the Soldotna Sports Centers The allegations demonstrate on Saturday to participate in this year’s Winter Games Monopoly the sometimes strained relatournament, Briley Morton emerged as the champion. In the final tionship between the village game of the two-round tournament, Morton defeated seven oppublic safety officers in small ponents. rural villages and its residents, Referee Joshuah Rutten said that he was surprised to see MorJuneau Empire reported Sunton win in spite of not owning Boardwalk or Parkplace. day. “The person who had Boardwalk had a house on it, and I was Kake is about 100 miles surprised that they came in second,” Rutten said. “But Briley just south of Juneau. It has about had better money management, from what it looked like.” 600 year-round residents, Rutten attributed Morton’s win to sound decision-making. mostly Alaska Natives. There “Her money-flow — making sure not to overspend or underare two village public safety ofspend her money — really helped her out,” Rutten said. ficers in Kake, where its police Each of the finalists received a board game of their choosing. department closed in 2009. Morton’s grand prize consisted of a tournament Monopoly board, Ben Boettger/Peninsula Clarion Information from: Juneau popcorn, candy, and $50 of real money. Leah English considers a move at the Winter Games Monop(Alaska) Empire, http://www. oly tournament on Saturday at the Soldotna Regional Sports juneauempire.com Reach Ben Boettger at ben.boettger@peninsulaclarion.com Complex in Soldotna, Alaska.
Monopoly champ uses dollars and sense
Obama seeking wilderness designation for refuge By BECKY BOHRER and JIM KUHNHENN Associated Press
JUNEAU, Alaska — President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government. “They’ve decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage,”
said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and chair of the Senate energy committee. The designation would set aside an additional 12.2 million acres as wilderness, including the coastal plain near Alaska’s northeast corner, giving it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. More than 7 million acres of the refuge currently are managed as wilderness. The refuge’s coastal plain has long been at the center of the struggle between conservationists and advocates of greater energy exploration in the U.S. Political leaders in
Alaska have supported allowing for exploration and production within the coastal plain. They have opposed attempts to further restrict development on federal lands, which comprise about two-thirds of the state, including within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. A resolution passed the state Legislature with bipartisan support last year urging Congress to allow for exploration and development on the coastal plain. A federal lawsuit brought by the state over the Interior Department’s refusal to consider a proposed exploration plan for the refuge’s coastal plain is C
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pending. The state in 2013 proposed an exploration plan that it said was aimed at determining the true oil and gas potential in the refuge. The Republican congressional delegation, along with Alaska’s new governor, Bill Walker, sent out a joint news release Sunday morning calling the action “an unprecedented assault on Alaska.” Walker changed his GOP affiliation to undeclared in running for office last year. Walker told reporters in Anchorage that while he is not leaning toward litigation, the state is reviewing its options. He said this is one more exam-
ple of a restriction that the federal government wants to put on Alaska. He wants to reach out to other governors in hopes of banding together to fight the proposal, Walker said. The federal government is taking Alaska’s economy away from it piece by piece, he said. In a White House video released Sunday, Obama said he is seeking the designation “so that we can make sure that this amazing wonder is preserved for future generations.” The Interior Department issued a comprehensive plan Sunday that for the first time See WILD, page A-8