Strike
d Rea er v by o
7
,740
a ple o e p ! day
Vol. 49, Issue 247
In the news
Anchorage declares emergency in response to budget cuts ANCHORAGE — The Municipality of Anchorage has announced an emergency declaration in response to state budget cuts, a report said. City officials say the declaration comes during an “unprecedented housing, public health and safety crisis,” KTUU-TV reported Wednesday. “Often times when we deal with emergencies, we deal with things we don’t see coming,” said Democratic Mayor Ethan Berkowitz. “The crisis upon us is something we can see coming our way.” The emergency declaration is only the second in the city’s history. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy last month vetoed line items equaling $444 million in cuts to the state operating budget, including an 85% reduction in support for homeless programs, from $14.1 million to $2.6 million. A special Anchorage Assembly meeting is scheduled Friday to determine if the emergency order must be extended, said assembly Chairman Felix Rivera. “This isn’t just something the city takes responsibility for, it’s something everyone in Anchorage must take responsibility for,” Rivera said. Berkowitz and Rivera were joined at the announcement by assembly homeless committee co-chairs Meg Zaletel and Kameron Perez-Verdia. Berkowitz expects 800 or more people will lose housing due to budget-related circumstances, including reduced capacity at the Brother Francis shelter, he said. “The consequence of those individuals landing on the street is different from the population currently on the street,” Berkowitz said. “There will be unprecedented demand on first responders on the street as well as things occurring in hospitals.” Assembly members intend to gather public input about the housing shortage. “This is a time to be creative and resilient,” Perez-Verdia said. “But between now and Friday, we need to hear the public’s thoughts.” See news, Page A3
Index Local . . . . . . . . . . A3 Opinion . . . . . . . . A4 Nation . . . . . . . . . A5 World . . . . . . . . . A6 Religion . . . . . . . . A7 Sports . . . . . . . . . A8 Classifieds . . . . . . A11 Comics . . . . . . . . A14 Check us out online at www.peninsulaclarion.com To subscribe, call 283-3584.
Hurt
Ferry workers picket Juneau terminal
Tangled up in Blue on the force of self-preservation
News / A2
Sports / A8
CLARION
60/51 More weather, Page A2
W of 1 inner Awa0* 201 Exc rds fo 8 e r Rep llence i o n rt * Ala ska P i n g ! res
P E N I N S U L A
Friday-Saturday, July 26-27, 2019 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Sounding off By Brian Mazurek and Victoria Petersen Peninsula Clarion
As the second special legislative session nears its end and deadlines for federal funds loom over Juneau, lawmakers continue to have their flags firmly planted on one side or the other in the debates surrounding the capital budget and the Alaska Permanent
Rain, clouds
s Clu
b
$1 newsstands daily/$1.50 Sunday
Kenai residents, lawmakers weigh in on the state budget and permanent fund as the end second special session looms
Fund dividend. Rep. Ben Carpenter, R-Nikiski, said the House Minority caucus is struggling to find a way forward. Carpenter is not in Juneau, but has been speaking from the peninsula with the House Minority. “My advice to everybody — especially in minority caucus — is to let the majority do what the majority is going to do,” Carpenter said. “They
have more than 21 votes. They can pass a capital budget and they don’t need the minority to do so.” The House of Representatives Wednesday passed an appropriations bill, HB 2001, that essentially reverses many of the line-item vetoes included in Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget and is now awaiting a vote in the Senate. That vote was made along caucus lines, 21 to 10, with several members of both
caucuses excused from Juneau. That bill did not include a decision on the amount for this year’s permanent fund dividend. Including Carpenter, 10 representatives were absent from the capitol Thursday. Rep. Gary Knopp, R-Kenai/ Soldotna, said the absence is making the legislative process more difficult. See weighing in, Page A3
education week
Unforgettable experiences
On the snowy tundra, Alaska students bridge differences ... and eat moose snout
Erin Irwin / Education Week
The East Anchorage High and Scammon Bay students gather at a home in the Native Village to learn how to comb fur from a musk ox hide using special combs and common forks. The fur can later be spun into yarn.
By Victoria Petersen Peninsula Clarion
Outside of Alaska’s few urban pockets, a constellation of tiny communities, scattered across a rugged landscape, is home to more than half of the state’s residents. Alaska is among the nation’s most rural states—99 percent of its land mass is considered so. Resource extraction, transportation, food insecurity, and climate change have strained
and complicated relationships between the state’s first inhabitants—members of 229 Alaska Native Villages—and non-Natives who, for the last three centuries, have come from all over the world to seek opportunity on one of the continent’s last frontiers. Many familiar with that history see education as a powerful means for defusing tensions among the geographic and cultural groups. That’s what programs
like Alaska’s Sister School Exchange aim to do, enlisting middle and high school students to build bridges, by offering them the chance to visit one another’s communities. Founded in 2001 by the Alaska Humanities Forum, the program was initially funded through Congress and a private foundation. Since 2007, the U.S. Department of Education Alaska See education, Page A15
This is the first in a series of articles from “Letters to Alaska,” a project exploring how cultural and geographic barriers, teacher shortages, history, the natural environment, and other factors have shaped schooling in Alaska. The project is funded by the Gregory M. Chronister Journalism Fellowship, which supports enterprising or investigative work each year in pre-K-12 education. The fellowship honors the now-retired Gregory M. Chronister, a longtime executive editor, managing editor, associate editor, and Commentary editor at Education Week.
PFD, capital budget bills proceed; veto threat looms By Peter Segall Juneau Empire
The House of Representatives is working to move a number of bills through the Legislature in an effort to pass a capital budget and bring a close to the ongoing special session. The are currently three bills working their way toward the governor’s desk which, if all of them are passed, will provide significant funding to many government programs, provide funds for federal matching dollars and allocate an Alaska Permanent Fund dividend of $1,600. House Bill 2001 designates funds for the state’s operating budget. This is the bill that reverses many, but not all, of
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s line-item vetoes from the state budget. On Wednesday on the floor of the House, Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome, said that HB 2001 reversed about 75 percent of the governor’s vetoes, and “represents a great compromise on the part of the Legislature.” In that same session the House voted to remove language allocating a permanent fund dividend from HB 2001, in an attempt Foster said, “to bifurcate” the issues of the PFD and the state budget. In that same session the House voted for another amendment, introduced by Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, that would add $5 million dollars to the Alaska Marine Highway System.
Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, introduced a bill to add $3,000 PFD language to the bill, but that amendment failed. Dunleavy and several members of the House minority caucus have made a $3,000 PFD a top priority. In the past, members of the minority caucus have voted against funding bills because they did not allocate what they say is a legally mandated $3,000 for the dividend. House Bill 2002 allocates money for the capital budget, and effectively reverses “the sweep,” the accounting law that empties many state savings accounts tied to various programs at the end of each fiscal year. These funds are normally restored
almost immediately but this year the Legislature failed to obtain the vote necessary to reverse the action. Furthermore, the Dunleavy administration this year added a number of accounts to the list of sweepable funds that were not previously included. Among these were the accounts funding the Alaska Performance Scholarship fund, which provides money for Alaskans to attend university in the state, and the Power Cost Equalization fund, which subsidizes power costs for people in rural areas. House Bill 2003 is the result of the removal of PFD language from HB 2001. The House Finance Committee See budget, Page A3