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Sunday, October 20, 2019 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Vol. 50, Issue 15
IN THE NEWS
Robbery suspects remain at large ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska troopers have released an alert seeking help in finding multiple men suspected of robbing a gas station at gunpoint. The Anchorage Daily News reports that Alaska State Troopers sent an alert Saturday after four young men stole about $100 from a Wasilla gas station. Authorities say the men held up two store employees with a handgun. There were no reports of injury. Authorities say the men are believed to be in their mid-teens to early 20s. Authorities say they fled the scene in a white Chevrolet or GMC truck heading north. Troopers ask that anyone with information about this case or the identities of the men reach out to authorities.
$1 newsstands daily/$1.50 Sunday
1 dies after plane skids off runway By Becky Bohrer Associated Press
One person died after a commuter airplane went off the end of a runway while landing at an airport in the remote Aleutian Islands fishing community of Unalaska, authorities said Friday. Alaska State Troopers identified the victim as David Allan Oltman, 38, of Wenatchee, Washington. The plane, operated by Peninsula Airways, or PenAir, left Anchorage around 3:15 p.m. Thursday with 42 people on board, including 39 passengers and three crew members, a statement from the company said. One passenger was a child under age 2, said Clint Johnson, chief of the Alaska region for the National Transportation Safety Board. The flight landed around 5:40 p.m. and went off the end of the runway. PenAir is owned by Ravn Air Group and said it is cooperating with federal investigators.
“On behalf of PenAir, Ravn Air Group and all our employees throughout the company, we would like to extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to the family and loved ones of our passenger who passed away,” Dave Pflieger, president of RavnAir Group, said in a statement. Johnson said a team of nine NTSB investigators was expected in Anchorage late Friday. Some members would remain in Anchorage while others were expected to travel to Unalaska early Saturday, he said. Additionally, an agency investigator from Alaska was expected to be on scene as the flight data and cockpit voice recorders were removed from the plane, he said. The city, in a statement, said responders arrived at the scene within five minutes of the crash. It said 11 people were taken a local clinic with injuries ranging from minor to critical. Law enforcement has secured the scene pending the arrival of NTSB investigators, the city said.
JIM PAULIN / ASSOCIATED PRESS
A commuter airplane crashed Thursday near the airport in Unalaska. Freelance photographer Jim Paulin says the crash at the Unalaska airport occurred Thursday after 5 p.m. Paulin says the Peninsula Airways flight from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor landed about 500 feet beyond the airport near the water.
Keep focus on climate Residents urge for climate action plan inclusion in borough comprehensive plan
Some in GOP reaching ‘final straw’
Peninsula Clarion
impact the borough and strategies the borough can implement to combat and adapt to warming climate impacts. The assembly has already received public comment in support of the climate action plan’s inclusion, including two public comments at the Oct. 8 assembly meeting and 10 letters sent to the borough asking to “protect our future.” The letters encourage a climate action plan that includes
The seventh and final event in the Drawdown: Book to Action Climate Series culminated in a project focusing on community composting. The series, hosted by Cook Inletkeeper and KenaiChange, has now hosted seven meetings over the last six months. Each meeting has used the book “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming” as a jumping off point for community members to discuss and brainstorm local solutions to climate change. At their last meeting on Oct. 15, the group went over their top ideas for local solutions, including a solarize the central peninsula initiative, community composting, embracing carpooling technology, planting trees in public spaces, capturing methane gas from local landfills, an energy audit of borough buildings and other projects that seek to lower greenhouse gas emissions at the local level. “It sounds like a big task, but it’s really about making climate change — which seems unsolvable and daunting — into something we can actually take action to make our communities healthier and more vibrant and sustainable,” Kaitlin Vadla, Kenai regional director for Cook Inletkeeper said at the meeting. Each of the group’s meetings
See FOCUS, Page A3
See SERIES, Page A3
Associated Press
See STRAW, Page A3
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Series on climate ends with compost By Victoria Petersen
By Lisa Mascaro, Andrew Taylor and Mary Clare Jalonick
WASHINGTON — The shifting White House explanation for President Donald Trump’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine drew alarm Friday from Republicans as the impeachment inquiry brought a new test of their alliance. Trump, in remarks at the White House, stood by his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, whose earlier comments undermined the administration’s defense in the impeachment probe.
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The Swan Lake Fire burns on Aug. 26 on the Kenai Peninsula.
By Victoria Petersen Peninsula Clarion
The 2019 Kenai Peninsula Borough Comprehensive Plan final draft has been released and residents are calling on the assembly to maintain the plan’s recommendation for a climate action plan that includes local climate adaptation and mitigation measures. The comprehensive plan is for the systematic and organized development of the borough and is updated
PHOTO COURTESY ALASKA WILDLAND FIRE INFORMATION
to reflect changing conditions, trends, laws, regulations and policies, according to the ordinance asking the assembly to approve the 2019 comprehensive plan. The last Kenai Peninsula Borough Comprehensive Plan was updated in 2005. The social, economic and environmental conditions of the Kenai Peninsula Borough have changed over the past 14 years, the ordinance said. The comprehensive plan includes details on how climate change may
Man missing after spiritual quest to Hatcher Pass By Michelle Theriault Boots Anchorage Daily News
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In August 2018, a solitary man walked 14 miles into a lonely valley on the western side of Hatcher Pass. He carried almost nothing: A backpack, 5 pounds of oatmeal. No rifle or bear spray. Vladimir Kostenko planned to stay at a tiny dry cabin for months. He was seeking no less than the meaning of life. For most of his 42 years, Kostenko had been on a spiritual quest to understand his place in the universe.
An immigrant from Russia living in a small town in Washington state, he had pursued an almost monk-life existence, fasting regularly, meditating for hours and reading widely on religion. “He’s just not like anybody I’ve ever met,” said his sister, Alla Kostenko. Vladimir had traveled the world looking for his purpose on Earth. The bearded, soft-spoken mechanic had lived in a Russian hippie commune and spent time following a charismatic evangelical preacher in Ukraine. But the cabin deep in the Purches Creek valley would prove to be his deepest, riskiest journey yet.
Vladimir was born in the town of Zelenokumsk, in the North Caucasus region of southern Russia. He grew up in a large, conservative Baptist family at a time when Christians were persecuted for their beliefs under the Soviet system, Alla said. Among the 13 siblings in the Kostenko family, Vladimir “was always the quiet one,” said Alla, who lives on a coffee farm in Hawaii. “He wouldn’t initiate anything. We’d be the ones to say, ‘Let’s go here, let’s play this game.’ He would follow and be quiet.” In 1999, the Kostenko family moved to the United States through a
program that allowed Christians fleeing religious persecution in Russia to immigrate. They settled in the small town of Walla Walla, Washington, a college and wine country town of about 30,000 people in the rural southeast corner of the state. Moving to the United States “was a dream for us,” Alla said. “We were all just amazed.” But some family members had an easier time adapting to American life than others. Alla, one of the youngest, was 15. She went quickly learned See QUEST, Page A2