The issue of cruise ship wastewater is set to make what is perhaps its final appearance in the Legislature today.

House Bill 80, legislation aimed at changing water quality requirements for cruise ships and other large passenger vessels in Alaska waters, was held on its third reading until Feb. 19.

Last week the Alaska State Senate voted down five attempts to amend Governor Sean Parnell’s cruise ship wastewater bill. While voting in mostly lopsided opposition to all five amendments, Senators did not vote on the main body of legislation during Wednesday’s floor session.

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State geologists are mapping Alaska’s mineral potential from the land and air. They are paying specific attention to the strategic and critical minerals peppered throughout state land.

“Alaska has a tremendous number of these mineral types,” said Bob Swenson, state geologist and director of the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys for the U.S. Department of Natural Resources.

The state was home to 43 active exploration projects in 2012, Swenson said. However, 2013 is expected to see a reduction in exploration, he said.

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A bill that would allow school districts to apply for a three-year pilot program to try out a four-day school week cleared its first hurdle in the Alaska House of Representatives Monday, with the House Education Committee advancing the legislation after hearing public comment last Friday and Monday morning.

House Bill 21, which was introduced by Reps. Peggy Wilson, R-Wrangell, and Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, was moved to the House Finance Committee, its second and final committee of referral.

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Four senators voted Friday against a procedural move by Senate President Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, to waive a committee referral on a proposed constitutional amendment, and one of them was a member of the Senate majority caucus: Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau.

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Kreiss-Tomkins, in his office, on Feb. 14, 2013. (KCAW photo by Ed Ronco)

Last week, KCAW News traveled to Juneau to report a variety of stories. In one of the stories, we shadowed Sitka officials as they lobbied lawmakers for funding on behalf of the city.

The other story will be a profile of state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, to air later this week. The Sitka Democrat was elected by a narrow margin over Republican incumbent Bill Thomas in November.

Our profile, and our larger interview, will air and be posted on this site soon. But we also got him to read some of the questions we solicited from listeners via Facebook on Thursday.

Here they are, with his response to follow:

iFriendly audio

iFriendly audio

JUNEAU — Monday is a holiday but not for the Alaska Legislature. President’s Day kicks off a full week set to include industry testimony on the governor’s oil tax bill, hearing of a vote identification bill and a speech by Alaska’s senior U.S. senator.

Oil taxes

The House and Senate Resources committees plan to hear from producers and explorers as they continue hearings on Gov. Sean Parnell’s plan to overhaul Alaska’s oil tax structure.

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Republican Gov. Sean Parnell’s oil production tax reform bill may have advanced out of its first committee of reference in the Senate, but a co-chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Trans-Alaska Pipeline System Throughput said Thursday that the committee has other business to deal with this session.

The TAPS Throughput Committee was created last month, with freshmen Sens. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, and Mike Dunleavy, R-Wasilla, named as its co-chairmen.

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KETCHIKAN — The U.S. Forest Service is planning a big cedar planting project for Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island.

The 700-acre project is scheduled to take place over the summer, according to the Ketchikan Daily News.

Most of the areas are in the shaded north slopes of mountains, said timber stand improvement forester Damien Zona.

“These are areas we’ve projected where yellow cedar will be doing well in the future,” he said.

At 100 yellow cedars per acre, the Forest Service will be planting about 70,000 trees.

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KODIAK — A new facility in Kodiak is working to make abuse investigations less traumatic for children and their families.

The Kodiak Child Advocacy Center held an open house on Monday to show Kodiak what the process is like from a child’s point of view.

Before the center opened in August, suspected abuse victims were often interviewed multiple times at different locations, and some were even flown to Anchorage for exams.

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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.