EAGLE RIVER — Students at Ravenwood Elementary are fighting America’s obesity epidemic one activity at a time.

The Eagle River elementary school was recently honored by the State of Alaska for winning the 2012 Healthy Futures Challenge, a state-sponsored program designed to get kids moving.

“It’s super important to be active, and we know that at Ravenwood,” said school principal Audrey Chapman during a Feb. 4 assembly in the school’s gym.

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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A glance at some of the options Alaska legislators had for their office accounts in 2012 and which lawmakers selected those options, according to the Legislative Affairs Agency. Legislators with accountable plans were allowed to cash-out early or take non-accountable draws through the year.

—OPT-OUT: Seven legislators opted out of an increase in allowance last year. They were: Reps. Mike Doogan, Les Gara, Shelley Hughes, Lance Pruitt and Bill Stoltze, and Sens. Charlie Huggins and Tom Wagoner.

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JUNEAU — The practice of Alaska lawmakers being paid whatever remains in their office accounts is under review by a legislative committee, while two bills have been introduced that would dictate that any leftover money be returned to the state’s general fund.

Previously, lawmakers had the option of letting the Legislative Affairs Agency administer the funds under an accountable plan, do it themselves in a non-accountable option or use a mixture.

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JUNEAU — A revised version of a bill that would define “medically necessary” abortions was introduced in the Alaska Senate on Friday, removing a reference to having cases of rape or incest “promptly reported” to authorities.

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Numerous interviews and physical evidence led state troopers to arrest the 14-year-old Kake boy they believe is responsible for the death of 13-year-old Mackenzie Howard. That’s according to the Deputy Commander of the Major Crimes Section for the Alaska Bureau of Investigation. Matt Lichtenstein spoke with him Saturday night and filed this report:
For mobile audio, click here.

Lt. Rex Leath is the Alaska Bureau of Investigation’s supervisor on the case. He said they arrested the teenage suspect around eleven Saturday morning after ten days of collecting evidence and interviews:

“We conducted quite a few interviews in the community and also at the scene of the crime, found some key pieces of evidence that had different kinds of biological evidence on them and also when we communicated with the community, and identified who we thought could be one of our suspects, we went and contacted that suspect and did end up serving some search warrants at the suspect’s residence and acquired more pieces of evidence.”

Investigators provided that evidence to the State Crime Laboratory. Leath said the lab’s work and additional information from interviews ultimately led troopers to take the boy into custody.

The arrest comes ten days after a community member found 13-year-old Mackenzie Howard’s body in an entryway to Kake Memorial Presbyterian Church late at night on February 5th.

Leath said the suspect was compliant and troopers were able to interview him. Leath would not say whether the boy admitted to the crime but the bureau is confident he acted alone, “I can tell you that based on the information we collected as well as the interview, we have what we believe is confirmation that we have the right suspect.”

He said the bureau did not believe anyone else was involved.

Authorities have not made public the actual cause of Mackenzie Howard’s death, but they have treated the case as a homicide from the beginning. The state medical examiner later confirmed it was homicide after an autopsy. State troopers from Juneau and Ketchikan as well as investigators and crime scene technicians from Anchorage and other communities went to Kake to work on the case.

Because the suspect is a minor, Leath said he could not release his name or the specific charges that are pending against him:

“All I can really say is we have a homicide and we have one person we believe is responsible for that in our custody now. And so in the adult world we would assume if someone did that, whether it was accidentally or intentionally, there would be corresponding crimes we would list there. With a juvenile, while the same elements are there with a crime, it’s a little different because a juvenile goes before a judge and is considered for delinquency, not necessarily the crime that an adult would have been charged with. So, it’s a little different. Same seriousness, same consideration as far as the state goes, but we can’t really put a label on it per se.”

Leath said it would be up to the Division of Juvenile Justice to decide whether the charges against the suspect are made public. The boy was being transported to a Juvenile Justice holding facility and was expected to go before a judge in Ketchikan over the weekend.

The Petersburg boys took fourth place at the Elks Invitational Basketball Tournament in Valdez over the weekend after a loss at the buzzer against the Hutchison Hawks 55 to 53 Saturday night.

It was an exciting start for the Vikings earlier in the week. They defeated the four-time defending Elks tournament Champion Barrow whalers 44 to 41 in overtime Thursday afternoon. They lost to Valdez 62 to 57 Friday.

Meanwhile, The Lady Vikings finished with a win to take sixth place in the tourney. In their final game Saturday morning, the Petersburg girls beat Cordova 38 to 24.

On Friday, the Lady Vikings narrowly lost a nail-biter against Glennallen. The Lady Panthers came from behind to beat Petersburg 38 to 35. Petersburg lost to the top-ranked Anchorage Christian School Lady Lions in their first game 70 to 39 on Thursday.

Petersburg hosts Wrangell next weekend for homecoming.

Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood members and others braved the rain and wind Saturday afternoon to celebrate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day with a small parade down Main Street in Petersburg. Peratrovich was born in the community. She and her husband Roy lobbied the Territorial Legislature for the successful passage of the Anti-Discrimination Act in 1945.

Peratrovich served as a grand president of the ANS as did fellow civil rights leader, Amy Halligstad, who also lived in Petersburg.

As they marched down Main Street, the participants got applause from parade-watchers as they sang “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which is the anthem for the ANB and ANS.

Matt Lichtenstein has this audio postcard:
For mobile-friendly audio, click here.

Petersburg’s Ross Nannauck III (left) and Raymond Dugaqua of Kake just before Saturday’s Elizabeth Peratrovich Day parade in Petersburg.

Alaska State Troopers have taken a 14-year-old boy into custody as a suspect in the homicide death of 13-year-old Mackenzie Howard, whose body was found in the small Southeast Alaska village of Kake earlier this month.

Troopers are not identifying the boy, also from Kake, because he is a minor. He was transported to a Juvenile Justice holding facility in Ketchikan on Saturday (2-16-13), according to a dispatch posted on the state Troopers’ website.

The arrest comes eleven days after Howard’s body was found in an entryway to Kake Memorial Presbyterian Church late in the evening of February 5th. A large memorial service for community elder Clarence Jackson with out-of-town guests was held at the church earlier that day.

Almost immediately Troopers and officials from the Alaska Bureau of Investigation began treating the death as a homicide, which was later confirmed by an autopsy performed by the state Medical Examiner’s office.

According to the Trooper dispatch, interviews and evidence review, combined with information provided by the State of Alaska Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, helped identify the suspect.

Alaska State Troopers say they have taken a 14-year-old boy into custody as a suspect in the homicide death of 13-year-old Mackenzie Howard, whose body was found in the small Southeast Alaska village of Kake earlier this month.

Troopers are not identifying the boy, also from Kake, because he is a minor. He was transported to a Juvenile Justice holding facility in Ketchikan on Saturday, according to a dispatch posted on the state Troopers’ website. Troopers say they also cannot release the charges pending against the boy.

The arrest comes eleven days after Howard’s body was found in an entryway to Kake Memorial Presbyterian Church late in the evening of February 5th. A large memorial service for community elder Clarence Jackson with out-of-town guests was held at the church earlier that day.

Almost immediately Troopers and officials from the Alaska Bureau of Investigation began treating Howard’s death as a homicide, which was later confirmed by an autopsy performed by the state Medical Examiner’s office.

According to the Trooper dispatch, interviews and evidence review, combined with information provided by the State of Alaska Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, helped identify the suspect.

A 51-year-old Sitka man will spend two years in prison — for drunk driving.

Steven M. Kristovich was sentenced in Sitka Superior Court on Tuesday (2-12-13) to 4 years in prison, with 2 suspended, for felony driving under the influence.

According to court records, Kristovich was stopped by Sitka police officers on September 19, 2010, for failing to stop at the intersection of Jeff Davis St. and Sawmill Creek Road.

Kristovich failed a series of sobriety tests, and admitted to officers that he had been drinking that night.

The conviction was Kristovich’s third DUI in the last ten years. His two prior convictions were in April 2007 and August 2004. Under Alaska law, a third DUI conviction is a felony, and defendants are subject to mandatory minimum sentencing of four months in jail.

Assistant district attorney Jean Seaton says Kristovich’s longer sentence — 2 years — was aggravated by the fact that he had a prior felony conviction, and was on probation at the time of his arrest in September of 2010.

In addition to prison time, Kristovich must also forfeit his car — a 1995 Subaru — to the state, and pay a fine of $10,000. His drivers’ license will be permanently revoked.
District attorney Seaton says felony drunk driving convictions are common in the state. Sitka had a total of 8 last year. In Kenai, where she worked previously, there were typically many more.

Freda Aron around the time of her 90th birthday, broadcasting another installment of the weekly “Frankie and Freda Show” on Raven Radio.

When we learned last week that Freda Aron was in hospice care, and then in Friday’s Sentinel that she had died, the sorrow was short-lived. As regular listeners of “The Frankie and Freda Show” will recall, Freda was comfortable with her mortality, and — while fully engaged with this life — was more than just a little giddy about what awaited her in the next. She had two names on her dance card in heaven: her husband Richard Aron and Frank Sinatra. Only Freda knows who got the first dance!

Besides hosting a weekly show, Freda recorded regular commentaries for KCAW. Her last, from the autumn of 2011, is here.

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Although her topic changed regularly, from the war in Iraq to corporate personhood, her theme was consistent: This nation and its leaders are only as good as the outcomes they produce; all the chest-thumping in the world can not help a single-mother living in poverty, or immunize a child.

But her outrage at injustice and criticism of politics were tempered by an all-out joy in just about everything else. She doled it out liberally, like candy at a parade. Joy made her fearless, and makes her absence easier to bear.

Sitka Mayor Mim McConnell runs into state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (D-Sitka) in the main stairwell at the Alaska Capitol on Thursday morning. In the background is Marlene Campbell, the city’s government relations director. (KCAW photo by Ed Ronco)

JUNEAU – The Blue Lake dam expansion in Sitka is one of the biggest public works projects in that city’s history. And it went over-budget — to the tune of nearly $40 million dollars — the day construction bids were opened last summer.

In any other session, Sitka might have looked to a powerful local senator, and a state surplus to make up the difference. But Sen. Bert Stedman lost the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, and the governor decided that this is the year to cut the state’s spending on public works projects by more than a third.

Observers are not optimistic that big-ticket items will be funded. Still, Sitka officials walked the hallways in Juneau this week, figuring they might as well try.

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Just after 9 a.m., Sitka Assembly member Phyllis Hackett walks up to the Alaska Capitol.

“I feel like I’m heading to a funeral,” she joked. “All in black, that is.”

That’s a statement about her business suit, not a prediction for the task ahead.

“Oh, my gosh, no. Are you kidding me?” Hackett said. “I’m way too optimistic for that.”

Hackett is with Mayor Mim McConnell, municipal Administrator Jim Dinley and government relations Director Marlene Campbell.

They’re on their way to see Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell. He’s the first of many meetings that day, and they’re among 100 local officials from across the state are doing the exact same thing on this rainy Thursday, at the end of the Alaska Municipal League’s winter conference. During the meetings, each tries to convince a lawmaker why their own community’s needs should take priority.

Haines Mayor Stephanie Scott is among them. She described a meeting with Treadwell on Wednesday.

“And I said to him, ‘Lieutenant Governor, I live on the only toll road in Alaska, and it’s called the Inside Passage. And we need a vessel to drive on that road,” Scott said.

Her priority on this trip is the Alaska Class Ferry. Plans for a 350-foot vessel were unexpectedly changed by Gov. Sean Parnell, who opted instead for two smaller vessels. But these visits are about a bigger picture, too.

“The representatives and senators need to know that they’re not operating in a vacuum,” said Scott, who also is a board member for the Municipal League. “Their constituencies are out there, thinking and learning and questioning and suggesting, so that it really is a process — a democratic process.”

Sitka’s priority on this trip is to get funding for the Blue Lake dam. The city is raising the height of the dam by 83 feet. Bids for construction came in way above engineers estimates — nearly double the cost, in fact. That’s left the city scrambling for money.

Hackett is sitting in a chair outside the office of state Rep. Cathy Muñoz, a Juneau Republican.

“Cathy Muñoz is the only representative from Southeast on the finance committee,” Hackett said. “So it’s really good to hear one of her staffers say she wants to meet with everybody from Southeast.”

Hackett said the day was “a little intimidating” at the beginning, but that she’s getting comfortable meeting with state lawmakers. This is Hackett’s first trip to lobby on behalf of the city.

“You hear all these things about how you’re supposed to talk to people, and what you’re supposed to say, and what you’re not supposed to say,” she said. “I’m pretty homegrown for that.”

Still, she says the meetings have gone well, and that legislators have been receptive to at least hearing about Blue Lake.

“It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be getting assistance this year, because times are tough at the state,” she said. “But at least there hasn’t been anybody closing the door in our face, or yawning while we’re talking.”

So far, the state has kicked in nearly $50 million for Blue Lake — about half the initial cost of the project. Half of the city’s current request would be about $20 million.

“The chances of getting $20 million in this year’s capital budget is near zero,” said state Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka.

He’s sitting in a rocking chair at the end of a conference table in his office. And he says there are a few factors working against Blue Lake: The capital budget, which funds one-time projects, is going to be smaller this year. Legislators also aren’t very likely to advocate for a big-ticket project that could take money out of their own districts. But even within a district, the competition for money is fierce. Stedman taps on a nearby notebook with all of the capital budget requests for his Senate District.

“It’s what, a 2-and-a-half inch binder? That’s got to be a good two inches of paper,” he says. “Each sheet is a separate project. I haven’t totaled them up, but there are 23 communities in our Senate district. We’re one of 20 Senate districts.”

Still Stedman says it’s not a pointless trip for the Sitkans, or other local officials who hope to help their communities. Even if Blue Lake doesn’t get much money this year, energy is a huge concern across the entire state, and Stedman says it’s good for legislators to know the whole picture. And if he were in the shoes of Hackett and McConnell and the others from Sitka?

“I’d spend my time on the third floor with the governor’s office,” Stedman said. “And I’d spend some time with AEA, the Alaska Energy Authority.”

Anyway, he says Blue Lake is a short term obstacle in the way of Sitka’s long-term solution – a hydro project at Takatz Lake.

But still, what about those long odds? Why spend time meeting with legislators about something that seems unlikely to happen?

“Never make assumptions,” said Sitka Mayor Mim McConnell. “Don’t assume, always hope. We went in there with the hope that maybe, somehow, we’ll be able to get some funding.”

McConnell says they told legislators that if nothing happens, and the city has to bond out for the entire project, electrical rates could rise by as much as 60 percent. They told legislators that two new businesses make their products using propane because there’s just not enough electricity, and that a third — a proposed fish waste processing plant — called off plans to build in Sitka because it wouldn’t have had enough electricity.

“Obviously nobody made any promises,” she said. “But we got a lot of sympathy. And it was sincere sympathy.”

And some legislators told them that if they felt stonewalled by anyone, to give them a call for help.

“It wasn’t just an empty comment,” McConnell said. “There was actually something behind it, I think.”

The legislative session is about a third of the way through, which means it’s too early for anyone to know exactly whether the budgets will contain even a portion of the $43 million the city requested.

McConnell says she’s willing to make another visit if it will help, but that for now, it’s time to watch and wait.

Allowing school districts to adopt a four-day school week would hand off local control over education and give districts another tool to address families’ needs in rural areas, proponents of House Bill 21 told the House Education Committee Friday morning.

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Petersburg residents no longer have to boil their municipal tap water. The latest test results came back negative for total coliform and E. coli bacteria Friday afternoon. The Alaska Department of Conservation subsequently lifted the boil water notice that had been issued the day before.

“It has been lifted and it is very much a relief,” said Borough Public Works Director Karl Hagerman Friday afternoon. On Thursday, Hagerman had his staff take four new samples of water after a routine water test showed the presence of E.coli, which can cause serious illness. Petersburg Medical Center’s lab found that all four of the new samples were free of the bacteria Friday.

Hagerman said it was hard to know what caused the positive results in the first place:

“We probably won’t ever really know the ultimate cause of the sample that showed positive for the bacteria but it must have had something to do with the sampling technique or the sample bottle or something with the lab. It’s really hard to say. We’re happy that the system’s proven to be not contaminated and we’re just happy to move forward at this point.”

Shortly after the boil water notice was put in place, both of Petersburg’s grocery stores were sold out of regular bottled water. The DEC lifted the notice around 3pm Friday.

You can see the full announcement rescinding the boil water notice here.

SEAPA board member Bob Sivertsen and SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson.

Energy is an ongoing topic across the nation, including Alaska. In Southeast, a regional power agency is looking for new sources of electricity, and will consider proposals for any kind of power generation concept.

Southeast Alaska Power Agency officials gave some details about their call for power at a recent Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce lunch.

Southeast Alaska needs more power. Even those communities with multiple hydroelectric dams rely more and more on expensive backup diesel generators as the demand for power increases each year.

Part of the problem is reliability. Hydro power is plentiful when it rains – and it rains a lot in Southeast – but when there’s a dry spell like last October, lake levels drop. When those levels hit a certain point, operators have to power down the hydro generators, and start burning diesel.

To combat that growing problem, various Southeast communities are working on new hydro projects. The City of Ketchikan is moving forward with a new hydroelectric dam at Whitman Lake, and Sitka is starting work to raise its Blue Lake dam. Metlakatla is looking at a new hydro project, too, along with a possible intertie to Ketchikan, which would allow any extra power Metlakatla doesn’t need to flow into the small Southeast Alaska grid.

Right now, hydro and diesel are pretty much the only power sources for Southeast, and hydro will always be the largest piece of a regional power puzzle. But Southeast Alaska Power Agency is interested in options. In late January, the agency released a request for offers from pretty much anyone with a good idea.

SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson said, “Just to kind of throw a couple of things out, you still have wind out there. It could be a really efficient diesel plant. It could be biomass. It’s not just restricted to hydro.”

Acteson said part of the interest in optional power sources is timing.

“Hydro development takes a long time, and it’s very capital intensive,” he said. “Let’s look at Sitka right now. They’re looking at their new project there, and they anticipate that rates are going to go up almost 50 percent. So what we’re looking at is, we can bring in some smaller projects first that are less capital intenstive to fill the void, or the gap, as we forecast forward, and hopefully bring in a larger project down the road as well.”

One potential large project already is in the works. Charles Denny of Saxman invited Acteson to attend the next Saxman City Council meeting to talk about the $46 million Mahoney Lake hydroelectric project. Mahoney is a public-private partnership between Saxman, Cape Fox Corporation and Alaska Power and Telephone. As envisioned, it would result in a 9.6 megawatt lake tap.

SEAPA’s call for power forecasts a very conservative growth in electric needs for the region – only a half-percent per year. That estimate drew some criticism, but Acteson said the number can be adjusted.

An audience member asked about filling the power needs for potential new mines in the area. SEAPA board member Bob Sivertsen, who also is a Ketchikan City Council member, said the mines can’t be included in the estimate until they’re a reality. But, he said, it won’t be difficult to meet those needs. A power-sales structure already has proven effective elsewhere.

“I don’t think we have to look much further north than Juneau,” Sivertsen said. “Juneau (Alaska Light and Power), they have Greens Creek, and they run with an interruptible power sales agreement with them. So they have diesel capacity to run their facility when there’s a lack of hydro.”

A project that SEAPA most likely will work on first is increasing storage capacity at the existing Swan Lake dam.

“We think it’s the low-hanging fruit right now in the area, to raise the dam by six feet and put some … gates in, which the end result is a reservoir increase of about 15 feet,” Acteson said. “That increases the reservoir capacity by about 25 percent.”

Ketchikan has first dibs on all electricity generated at Swan Lake, just like Petersburg and Wrangell get Tyee Lake power first. If there is extra from either dam, it becomes available for the other communities.

SEAPA is run by a board made up of representatives from those three cities. The power agency owns the two dams and an intertie that connects them.

To see SEAPA’s request for proposals, go to www.seapahydro.org/

Sitka drum group, Haa Toow’u Litseen, performs at Crescent Harbor Thursday (2/14/2013) afternoon. Sitkans Against Family Violence, or SAFV, organized the event as part of V-Day, a worldwide call-to-action to end violence against women and girls. To learn more about the event, visit the story, Drumming and Dance for V-Day, on kcaw.org.

A former Petersburg resident has been sentenced to five years in prison for importing and dealing heroin and cocaine in the community. Local police say the multi-year, multi-agency investigation began with an undercover agent as well as help from a local resident who was fed up with the drug activity in their neighborhood. Matt Lichtenstein reports:
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In a February 1st sentencing memorandum, the Assistant US Attorney for Alaska wrote that Victor Hugo Araujo was a member of a drug conspiracy to import cocaine and heroin to Petersburg from the lower-48 using the US postal service express mail. According to the memorandum, the 51-year-old traveled to southern California to obtain the drugs and mailed them to Petersburg where co-conspirators or Araujo himself distributed them to others.

Petersburg Police Seargent Heidi Agner says Araujo first came to her attention during an undercover drug investigation in the summer of 2010:

“When we had an undercover agent working here, that person was able to besides giving us this information also led the arrest of four people, all who were charged and convicted, and served time for felony convictions for drug related crimes. That person gave us the first inkling that Mr. Araujo was involved in dealing drugs in Petersburg, specifically heroin”

Agner says local residents also provided numerous reports about Araujo:

“One of the reports was that he was actually not only bringing the heroine and selling it, he was making it ready for people in syringes. We were told that high school students along with young adults were using that service he provided.”

According to Agner, Araujo’s activities were not limited to a particular part of town. However, she says one citizen in particular was so completely fed up with what he and his family were seeing in their neighborhood that he let police work out of his home:

“He allowed me to come into his residence and observe what was going on around in his neighborhood. I ended up taking photographs of this Mr. Araujo going into this area and (making) short visits less than five minutes, bringing in a bag, less than five minutes and then leaving.”

At that point, Agner says police had a lot of information, but not enough evidence to file charges. So, she shared her suspicions with the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force that works out of the Seattle-Tacoma airport.

“I believed he was probably going out of Petersburg with money, going to various places in the united states and probably out of country and then importing heroin and meth back into Petersburg.”

In January of 2011, when local officers observed Araujo leaving from the airport in Petersburg, Agner alerted the drug task force in Seattle.

“And on one-four of 2011 they made contact with Mr. Araujo. That contact led to the seizure of four ounces of heroin and two ounces of cocaine. Then Mr. Araujo ahd said he would work with the task force. He actually instead kind of took us on a wild goose-chase.”

In fact, according to the US Attorny’s office, between January 4th and March 13 of 2011, Araujo mailed a total of four packages that were seized by US Postal Inspectors and/or Petersburg Police. They contained more than 136 grams of Heroin and nearly 60 grams of cocaine.

By January 2012, Agner says Araujo had moved out of Petersburg. She believes that was the direct result of increased involvement from other state and federal agencies in local drug investigations.

“The Drug Enforcement Administration, State Troopers, SEACAD, the Post Office had come into town and we had done various search warrants and knock-and-talks, getting everybody in the drug milieu pretty excited.”

SEACAD stands for Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs. It’s a regional task force of local and state law enforcement.

In August of last year, a federal grand jury in Alaska indicted Araujo on one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine. He was arrested in California and eventually pleaded guilty to the charge under an agreement with the US Attorney’s office.

Agner says the citizen who had let her use his home for surveillance is no longer in town, but she credits him with getting the ball rolling on this case.

“They had said to me when they were allowing me in their hose, ‘Well, is anything going to come of this?’ and I said, ‘You have to understand, this can take years.’ And, you know to be able to say to them, wherever they are now, that what they did yes, three years ago, made a difference. You know, I know there’s still drugs coming into town because there are still people using it and we can’t stop that, unfortunately. But, this was a person of major consequence to Petersburg. I think, again, at least you’ll tell people, ‘Hey. We will be diligent. We will keep looking. Your neighbors are watching. They don’t want this in their town and we’ll keep fighting the good fight.”

In the government’s sentencing memorandum, Assistant US Attorney Jack Schmidt emphasized the effects of drug trafficking in a small town. While he said the amount of drugs for which the defendant was convicted was small, the effect on such a small community made the offense a more serious one. Schmidt wrote that the community was “sick and tired of being afraid of what drugs might be supplied to their children.”

According to Schmidt, Araujo has admitted to being a “serious drug addict whose choices have led him from youthful offender to a life of vehicle thefts, burglaries and his present involvement in a drug conspiracy.” Schmidt wrote that this appears to be Araujo’s first conviction for distributing narcotics.

On February 8th, a federal Judge in Ketchikan accepted Araujo’s plea agreement and sentenced him to serve five years in prison, which is the government’s mandatory minimum sentence in such a case.

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The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour comes to Sitka tonight (7 PM Fri 2-15-13, Sitka Performing Arts Center, advance tickets $15/$10 at Old Harbor Books, or at the door). Organizers discuss some of the dozen films in the tour, including one made by a pair of Australians who skiied across Antarctica. This year’s festival benefits Southeast Alaska Independent Living’s outdoor recreation program.

Skip Hallingstad submitted this commentary last year honoring his grandmother, Amy Hallingstad’s efforts in the civil rights movement. KFSK is re-airing it in honor of Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, which is February 16th:

There is an Elizabeth Peratrovich Day Parade scheduled for 4pm Saturday in Petersburg with line up in front of Trading Union. A potluck will follow at 5:30 pm in the ANB/ANS Hall.
Amy Hallingstad, photo provided courtesy of Skip Hallingstad