APOC staff say former Anchorage Assembly member Dan Coffey failed to register as a lobbyist for the Municipality of Anchorage and then made illegal campaign contributions to legislative candidates outside his own district. The commission held a hearing Wednesday to discuss the consent agreement. Commission member Joan Mize explains what he did wrong.

“Mr. Coffey basically held himself out to be a lobbyist and did not register as a lobbyist. And the public has the right to know who’s influencing legislation and Mr. Coffey lobbied for the Municipality of Anchorage, for the Port of Anchorage Project and received actual funds for that project which he was lobbying for.”

Under the agreement, Coffey admits he violated the law and the staff recommends a reduction of the maximum possible fine from $36,500 to nearly $12,000. Coffey says he thought he didn’t have to be registered if he limited his hours of lobbying activities. Coffey’s job was to try to get the Legislature to pay for the cost over-runs at the Port of Anchorage. Coffey has 30 days to pay the fines or to appeal. Coffey and Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan were contacted for this story but did not return calls by deadline.

• Dan Coffey Consent Agreement (PDF)

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The State of Alaska’s sexual assault case against former-Bristol Bay Native Corporation Board Member Sergie Chukwak has been dismissed.

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The Alaska Public Offices Commission has approved a consent agreement worked out by its staff and former Anchorage Assembly member Dan Coffey.  APOC staff say he failed to register as a lobbyist for the Municipality of Anchorage and then made illegal campaign contributions to legislative candidates outside his own district.  Under the agreement, Coffey admits he violated the law and the staff recommends a reduction of the maximum possible fine from 36 and a half thousand dollars nearly 12-thousand. Coffey says he thought he didn’t have to be registered if he limited his hours of lobbying activities.  Coffey’s job was to try to get the Legislature to pay for the cost over-runs at the Port of Anchorage.

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The beach on the southeast side of Montague Island stretches for nearly 80 miles of pristine wilderness. At least it looks pristine from a few thousand feet up. As our helicopter descends towards the shore, big chunks of white polystyrene foam, similar to Styrofoam, come into view.

Photo by Annie Feidt, APRN – Anchorage

“See how you can see all the white Styrofoam floats on this point out here? Big globs of Styrofoam? That’s all tsunami debris… And there’s more Styrofoam out here. There’s no question,” Chris Pallister, president of the nonprofit Gulf of Alaska Keeper, said.

The group has been cleaning up marine debris that washes onto Alaska’s shores for 11 years. And when the tsunami debris began arriving last spring, their job got a whole lot harder. Pallister has visited Montague Island nearly a dozen times since then.  And by the time we land and step onto the pebble beach, he’s shaking his head in disgust.

“You’re basically standing in a land fill out here,” Pallister said.

Pallister points to an area scattered with foam bits smaller than packing peanuts:

“See what’s happening here? with all the crushed up Styrofoam? This is what we’re worried about, this Styrofoam is just going to get all ground up and you can see there would just be billions and trillions of little bits of Styrofoam scattered all over everything. And extrapolate that all up and down this coastline. It’s kind of an impossible job,” he said.

Photo by Annie Feidt, APRN – Anchorage

The trash is not just an eyesore. Pallister says voles, birds and even bears are eating the foam. He’s also worried about chemicals. Among the debris he finds containers that held kerosene, gas and other petroleum products. Even the little containers worry him. Sifting through the trash he picks up a small blue bottle and unscrews the cap to inspect its contents:

“I have no idea what this was. It looks like dish soap, maybe laundry detergent, but it’s empty, which is maybe not a good sign.  There’s thousands of bottles like this up and down the coast, from small household chemical items to drum’s full of chemicals. Big industrial size drums,” Pallister said.

Marine debris is not a new problem in Alaska. But the Japanese tsunami magnified the problem. Pallister says the tsunami debris doesn’t have the visceral impact of the Exxon Valdez spill, with oiled animals and blackened coastlines. But he thinks in the long run, it could be a bigger environmental disaster:

“In a lot of ways its a lot worse than the oil spill. Both in the geographic scope of it and the chemicals that are coming with it. And who knows what the impacts are going to be?,” Pallister said.

Photo by Annie Feidt, APRN – Anchorage

Officially, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recorded just five tsunami debris items in Alaska. But the agency will only confirm an object if it has a unique identifier that can be traced back to Japan. The state of Alaska does not use the same strict standard. Last summer the state paid for an aerial survey to inspect 2,500 miles of Alaska’s coastline. Elaine Busse Floyd is acting director of the division of environmental health. She says the survey identified tsunami debris all along the flight path from southern Southeast, up to Prince William Sound and out the Alaska Peninsula:

“There was tsunami debris literally on every beach that was photographed. They took over 8,000 pictures and it was more widespread and in greater quantities than we even expected,” she said.

But so far there has been minimal funding for cleaning up the debris. Governor Sean Parnell didn’t included any tsunami debris funding in his budget. NOAA is figuring out how to distribute a $5 million gift from Japan for cleaning up the debris. And Alaska’s Congressional delegation is working to get federal funds. But tsunami debris clean up money was stripped from a bill for Hurricane Sandy relief that passed this week.

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Back on the beach, as the waves crash in, Chris Pallister says the debris could have serious impacts on fisheries and subsistence resources.

“I don’t know if it’s being taken seriously enough. I don’t think a lot of people who are going to be impacted by it know how bad it is right now. And until that gets out, maybe not much is going to happen,” he said.

Pallister guesses it will take tens, or even hundreds of millions of dollars to remove the tsunami debris in Alaska. On this day though, he has to leave all the trash on Montague Island behind. We take off in the helicopter and head north along the beach. Pallister looks out the window at all the debris below and says, “it just goes on and on and on.”

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In the legislature, a bill that would increase funding for schools has been introduced.

A team of nine Democrats want to peg what’s called the “Base Student Allocation” to inflation. That allocation gives school $5,680 for every student they have enrolled, and it’s remained at the same level for the past three years.

The funding bill would increase that amount to nearly $6,000 to account for inflation over the past two years, and it would permanently tie the allocation to the consumer price index going forward.

Rep. Harriet Drummond served on the Anchorage School Board before being elected to the legislature, and she describes the bill as a way of responding to recent staffing cuts in the district.

“The school districts have been cutting for years,” says Drummond. “They’ve long since cut any fat if there ever was any. They’re now cutting certified staff.”

House Majority Leader Lance Pruitt doesn’t know how the bill will fly with his caucus. The Anchorage Republican is concerned the bill could give future legislators less flexibility with the budget in times when less revenue is coming in, and he says that changes to the education funding formula would probably have more success if the Democratic Minority took a bipartisan approach.

“The bill that’s out there is more of a political statement than truly addressing the issue,” says Pruitt. “If there was really a desire to see this move forward and not just be an opportunity to talk to you guys, then you would probably see some Majority members’ names on there.”

Pruitt says that it’s too early to tell whether there will be any increases to education funding, but thinks the governor’s plan to keep the base student allocation at the same level is a good starting point.

A similar bill to tie the base student allocation to inflation was introduced in the last legislature, but stalled in committee.

• House Bill 95

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The public got its first chance to comment on Gov. Sean Parnell’s proposal to cut taxes on oil companies on Tuesday, and most of the testimony broke along familiar lines.

Representatives from mining, timber, and trucking groups showed up at the Capitol in person, and they spoke before the Senate’s pipeline throughput committee first. They offered support for the governor’s bill, saying that it would discourage oil companies from leaving Alaska for states with lower tax rates.

Aves Thompson represents the Alaska Trucking Association.

”We’re not the tax experts. We don’t know how to do. But we do know that something is wrong. There is something out of balance that needs to be fixed. And it is our firm belief that it needs to be fixed now,” Thompson said.

Once the committee started taking testimony over the phone from legislative information offices across the state, opinion diversified. About half of those callers criticized the governor’s plan to do away with a windfall profits tax and overhaul the way credits are awarded.

One of those comments came from a voice that was very involved in last year’s oil tax debate. For two-and-a-half minutes, former legislator Joe Paskvan testified that oil companies could take advantage of the tax cut to ramp up production without reinvesting in new infrastructure and exploration – something he described as “super harvest mode.” He also suggested that the argument that the current tax structure is behind the drop in oil production is a red herring.

”The throughput decline started in 1989 and has nothing to do with tax policy,” Paskvan said.

Paskvan was one the senators who opposed Parnell’s previous attempts to lower taxes on oil companies, and he lost his seat in November.

The TAPS Throughput Committee is scheduled to hear more public testimony on Thursday.

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Service High School senior Johnny Meszaros meets with Graduation Coach Carly Tibbets. Photo by Daysha Eaton, KSKA – Anchorage

The Anchorage School District Superintendent has recommended a budget which eliminates more than 200 jobs. Counseling services could be hit especially hard. KSKA’s Daysha Eaton visited Service High School in Anchorage where staff and students are worried about the impact of the cuts.

Johnny Meszaros loves baseball.

“My passion for baseball is very, very strong. I’m working out at lunchtime. I’m weight training I probably put in as much as a full-time job playing baseball,” Meszaros said.

The Cougars pitcher is set to graduate from Service High School this spring and has a full ride to play college baseball at Central Arizona University. But things weren’t always on track for him. In 10th grade he was dabbling in drugs and lost focus.

Service High School Graduation Coach Carly Tibbets holds a motivational chart her students use to track their credit completion. Photo by Daysha Eaton, KSKA – Anchorage.

“I wasn’t passing any classes and I was getting in trouble. I was getting suspended. And then I got in trouble for good, I got expelled,” Meszaros said.

He was expelled but allowed to come back after a semester.

The 17-year-old lost valuable time is making up more than a semester’s worth of credits in order to graduate.

For Christian Alvarado, it was moving that pushed him off track. His parents are from Guatemala. He relocated to Anchorage from Oklahoma when he was in first grade. He hasn’t stopped jumping around since.

“Since I moved to Anchorage, I’ve probably moved a dozen times. Having to move because of either just wanting a different place or better opportunity or just cause I have to because maybe you know, something went wrong with the lease,” Alvarado said.

Sometimes Alvarado says he ended up living across town and because his single mom worked full-time, she usually wasn’t around to help him get to and from school.

“There’s times when I would really want to go to school and like you know I would wake up and honestly, I wouldn’t have a ride,” Alvarado said.

As a result, he fell behind. Eventually, he moved in with a classmate’s family near Service. The 18-year-old works part-time to contribute to the rent. If he makes it, he’ll be the first in his family to graduate from high school. He says he wants to major in Business at UAA, then open his own construction company. But he has a lot of catching up to do first – he has to make up most of his sophomore and junior year by May to graduate.

Both Alvarado and Meszaros get help from the help from Carly Tibbetts.

“You know, love, sex, drugs, alcohol, suicide. I have those conversations on a daily basis with my kids,” Tibbetts said.

Motivational posters decorate the wall in Graduation Coach Carly Tibbets’ office in Service High School. Photo by Daysha Eaton, KSKA – Anchorage

Tibbetts, who has a Master’s degree in social work, says she can relate to the students because she also struggled with school. Besides day-to-day counseling, she also manages a ‘credit recovery’ program to help kids who fall behind. About 1,800 students attend Service High School. Tibbetts says the 75 or so students she works with face serious challenges.

“We have kids that are homeless. We have kids that bounce from parent to parent. We have kids that are into drugs. I become their cheerleader but I’m also the person who calls them when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Tibbetts said.

Anchorage School District Superintendent, Jim Browder, has recommended a budget that eliminates more than 200 jobs, including Tibbetts’.  He says the cuts are needed to address a $25 million budget shortfall caused by flat funding from the legislature that is not keeping up with inflation and cost of living increases for employees. Jodette Knock teaches math at Service. Her job is not in jeopardy, but she thinks one of the district’s primary goals is.

“If we cut these counselors, our graduation rates that we want to go up are gonna go down. Kids get frustrated, they have nowhere to turn and they’ll be done,” Knock said.

The district’s comprehensive plan calls for a graduation rate of 90 percent by 2020. The rate has been stuck in the 60 to 75 percent range for nearly a decade. Knock also worries that fewer counselors will put more pressure on teachers.

“I have 34 kids in a classroom. How much more do you want me to do? I’ve got six languages spoken. And if I’m the lone support person, it’s gonna be really hard for these kids. And I’m pretty sure it’s not to cut the counseling support staff,” Knock said.

Browder’s budget recommends eliminating 28 full-time positions in counseling services out of 132, reducing the number to 104 district-wide. That includes doing away with all eight graduation coaches and all eight High School Career Resource Advisors. Superintendent Browder says compared to other school districts, Anchorage has more counselors. And many of the programs that employ them were initially paid for by grants, which have run out. What Browder says he envisions is fewer counselors per school who are generalists — sort of super counselors that can handle anything.

“Anybody inside of the suite should be able to handle any issue. And I think we’re realigning in a way that will provide better service for parents, students and the school as we move forward,” Browder said.

Back at Service High School the kids who benefit from the graduation coach say they don’t know what they’d do without her. Johnny Meszaros says he would not be back in school.

“I was planning on dropping out my sophomore year. I actually got kicked out of school for drugs and stuff and she put me on the right track. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if she wasn’t here,” Meszaros said.

The School Board will be accepting public testimony on the proposed 2013-2014 budget on Monday, February 4th at the Anchorage Education Center beginning at 6:30pm.

• Proposed Budget website
• ASD Profile of Performance

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Photo from KUCB – Unalaska.

Eagle-human relations in Unalaska are usually relatively peaceful. But for a few months each springtime they can turn violent as the eagles attempt to protect their nests. Last week, the city took preemptive action to ward off future attacks.

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Ty Havermeister in the new Havermeister bottling facilty with gallons of whole milk and 2% milk now being marketed in Anchorage and in the Valley. Photo by Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage.

Matanuska Valley’s dairy industry has shrunk to two farms since the shutdown of the Matanuska Creamery in December. A new dairy enterprise may keep both of them afloat for the time being.

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Individual news stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn.

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Charges Against Former BBNC Board Member Dropped

Dave Bendinger, KDLG – Dillingham

The State of Alaska’s sexual assault case against former-Bristol Bay Native Corporation Board Member Sergie Chukwak has been dismissed.

APOC Agrees To Consent Agreement With Dan Coffey

Steve Heimelm, APRN – Anchorage

The Alaska Public Offices Commission has approved a consent agreement worked out by its staff and former Anchorage Assembly member Dan Coffey.  APOC staff say he failed to register as a lobbyist for the Municipality of Anchorage and then made illegal campaign contributions to legislative candidates outside his own district.  Under the agreement, Coffey admits he violated the law and the staff recommends a reduction of the maximum possible fine from 46 and a half thousand dollars to thirteen thousand. Coffey says he thought he didn’t have to be registered if he limited his hours of lobbying activities.  Coffey’s job was to try to get the Legislature to pay for the cost over-runs at the Port of Anchorage.

Tsunami Debris Problem Gets Worse In Alaska, With Little Clean Up Finding In Sight

Annie Feidt, APRN – Anchorage

Refrigerators, Styrofoam buoys and even ketchup bottles are piling up on Alaska’s beaches. It’s debris from the devastating Japanese tsunami in the spring of 2011. One of the hardest hit beaches is on Montague Island at the entrance to Prince William Sound. APRN’s Annie Feidt visited the beach last weekend with a marine debris expert and has this story.

ASD Students, Staff Worried About Counseling Cuts

Daysha Eaton, KSKA – Anchorage

The Anchorage School District Superintendent has recommended a budget which eliminates more than 200 jobs.  Professions that could be hit especially hard are Counselors and Advisors. KSKA’s Daysha Eaton visited Service High School in Anchorage where staff and students are worried about  the impact of the cuts.

Bill Pushes For Increased School Funding

Alexandra Gutierrez, APRN – Juneau

In the legislature, a bill that would increase funding for schools has been introduced. A team of nine Democrats want to peg what’s called the “Base Student Allocation” to inflation. That allocation gives school $5,680 for every student they have enrolled, and it’s remained at the same level for the past three years. The funding bill would increase that amount to nearly $6,000 to account for inflation over the past two years, and it would permanently tie the allocation to the consumer price index going forward.

Public Comments On Gov. Parnell’s Oil Tax Cut Proposal

Alexandra Gutierrez, APRN – Juneau

The public got its first chance to comment on the governor’s proposal to cut taxes on oil companies this week. His bill would get rid of a provision that oil companies pay more when profits are high, and it would tie credits to production instead of exploration.

Unalaska Works To Ward Off Eagle, Human Encounters

Stephanie Joyce, KUCB – Unalaska

Eagle-human relations in Unalaska are usually relatively peaceful. But for a few months each springtime they can turn violent as the eagles attempt to protect their nests. Last week, the city took preemptive action to ward off future attacks.

Havermeister Dairy Fills Niche Dairy Market

Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage

Matanuska Valley’s dairy industry has shrunk to two farms since the shutdown of the Matanuska Creamery in December. A new dairy enterprise may keep both of them afloat for the time being: