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Assembly work
session deals with funding of new high school
The Assembly Committee of the Whole took up funding of the new high school
at Dimond Park during a work session last evening.
Committee Chair Ken Koelsch says the panel made no recommendation on the
$62 Million schematic design endorsed by the school district. The
committee
forwarded the school district proposal for consideration by the Assembly
next Monday
The schematic design approved by voters is about $46 point 9 Million. If
the school board plan is ultimately approved, a new election on the
additional bonding costs would be necessary.
The panel did approve on a 9 to zero vote a recommendation that an
ordinance be introduced authorizing $837,000 in future design costs for
the school.
Dispatchers help man deliver baby
A baby was born at a Lemon Creek area home this morning with the help of
police and fire department dispatchers .
Sergeant Dave Campbell says the call came in at 4:43. The man at the
Sunset Street address said his wife was about to deliver a baby.
Two dispatchers, trained in emergency medical dispatch, provided him
verbal directions on the proper procedure for childbirth.
Capital City Fire Rescue personnel arrived a short time later and found
the baby boy and both parents doing well.
Captain Beth Weldon says the family was taken to the hospital for
evaluation.
The parents are identified as Jaydee and Scott Grimmett. The baby weighed
eight pounds and eleven ounces. Grimmett is a Coast Guard petty officer
who was activated from the reserves following the 9-1-1 terrorists
attacks.
Two arrested in cocaine bust
A Juneau couple has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of
conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Fifty-three-year-old Michael Stein and 50-year-old Karey Ellen Armstrong
were indicted yesterday on one count of conspiracy to possess and
distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine in the Juneau area.
The indictment says the alleged conspiracy took place during the first two
weeks of this month. Stein was also indicted for illegally mailing a
handgun from Las Vegas to himself in Juneau.
Peak wind gust pegged at 68 mph
The National Weather Service warning for high winds continues today.
Metrologist Pete Rahe in the Juneau Forecast Official says the peak wind
of the entire event occurred at about 10 this morning. It was clocked at
68 miles per hour at the Rock Dump. A gust to 64 was recorded at the Rock
Dump yesterday.
Gusts to 59 miles per hour were recorded at the Tram and Rock Dump
overnight and to 47 miles per hour atop the Federal Building. A gust to 64
was recorded at the Rock Dump yesterday.
The winds are expected to back off tomorrow. Gusts to only 35 miles per
hour are in the forecast. Snow is in the forecast for Friday and Saturday.
A high wind warning remains in effect for Northern Lynn Canal today with
gusts to 60. A wind advisory with gusts to 40 is in effect for Gustavus.
Wind blows shipping containers from Rock
Dump to Douglas
The strong winds were blowing big things across Gastineau channel
yesterday
A came into the Coast Guard's Juneau Command Center just before three in
the afternoon that at least one shipping container blew off the beach near
the Rock Dump and ended up on a Douglas beach.
Observations from our studios revealed there were four containers on the
beach along Douglas Island.
They're owned by Northland Services. A company official said one was blown
from the beach early yesterday morning and the other three came off a
barge they were loading later in the day.
He said the containers were empty. They were secured and he said they
would stay there until the winds die down.
Anchorage homicide victim identified
Anchorage police have released the name of a woman found dead in her home.
She is 60-year-old Lorene Boehly.
Police say they were called to Boehly's home yesterday afternoon by one of
Boehly co-workers after she failed to show up for work.
Police found Boehly dead inside the East Anchorage home. Also in the home
was 55-year-old William Willett, who was drifting in and out of
consciousness. Investigators say Willett, who also lived at the home, was
taken to the hospital for treatment of a drug overdose.
Police say Boehly appears to have suffered from a trauma. The
investigation is continuing and no arrests have been made.
Boehly is the third homicide victim in the city so far this year.
Man killed in ATV accident
Alaska State Troopers are investigating the death of a man in the
southwest Alaska village of Koliganek. Troopers say the
body of 20-year-old Gerasim Wysocki was found in a ditch near his
four-wheeler at about nine a-m yesterday. They think he may have been
thrown from the vehicle and died of his injuries.
Captain testifying at Galaxy hearing
An explosion set the 180-foot Galaxy on fire last October, scattering the
crew in the stormy Bering Sea.
Today, the captain of the ship, David Shoemaker, is telling his story to a
Coast Guard hearing in Seattle. The Coast Guard is looking for the cause
of the explosion that took the lives of three crewmen and one rescuer.
Twenty-three people were rescued and survived. The Galaxy sank after
drifting for a day near Saint Paul Island.
The Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation hearing began with six days
in December. The report should be finished by April 20th.
Marine Highway observes anniversary
The Alaska Marine Highway is 40 years old today. Captain George Capacci,
the marine highway's general manager, says the newly constructed Malaspina
docked in Ketchikan in 1963.
The original three vessel fleet in the first year of operation has since
grown to the current nine vessel fleet.
Next year, the marine highway is looking forward to the addition of the
first high speed passenger and vehicle ferry to be built in the United
States. That's the M/V Fairweather. Also under construction is a new ferry
to provide service to Metlakatla.
Spring enrollment up at UAS
The Auke Lake Campus of the University of Alaska Southeast is continuing
its pattern of steady growth.
The local campus had the largest growth of any of the three campuses in
the region last Fall. There was an eleven percent growth over the previous
fall, according to school official Kevin Myers.
He says the trend is continuing for the Spring semester. Preliminary
numbers tell them that the campus is at least six percent up from last
fall. Myers adds that depending on how the numbers shake out, it could
turn out to be as high as ten percent over last Spring.
Myers says they're optimistic enrollment will continue to grow in the
future.
Child porn charges filed against Ketchikan resident
A Ketchikan man has been indicted on charges of possessing child
pornography and fraudulent use of a credit card.
The federal indictment handed down yesterday alleges that 29-year-old
Nicolai Jeroen Caymen used a stolen credit card number to buy a laptop
computer last August. The indictment also alleges that Caymen possessed
images of child pornography on a personal computer last September.
The case was investigated by the U-S Customs Service and the Ketchikan
Police Department and is being prosecuted by the Criminal Division of the
U-S attorney's Office.
If he is found guilty, Caymen could face a maximum penalty of ten years in
prison and a 250-thousand dollar fine for the child pornography charge and
15-years in prison and a 250-thousand dollar fine for fraudulent use of a
credit card.
Murkowski pipeline amendment panned
Environmental activists are crying foul over a pipeline renewal amendment
offered by U-S Senator Lisa Murkowski.
Environmentalists say the measure would block any legal challenge to the
recent right-of-way renewal for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
Chuck Kleeschulte of Murkowski's office says the measure simply states
that the environmental review completed last year was adequate. But
Kleeschulte acknowledged that that could thwart a legal challenge.
The Interior Department renewed the 30-year lease for the pipeline earlier
this month, after an environmental assessment.
Senator Murkowski filed a notice late Tuesday that she and Senator Ted
Stevens planned to offer the amendment in a budget bill.
Bob Randall, a staff attorney for Trustees for Alaska, says
environmentalists had been considering a legal challenge to the federal
right-of-way renewal.
Port labor deal okayed
The labor dispute that shut down
West Coast ports last fall is finally over.
Dock workers overwhelmingly approved a new six-year contract in voting
yesterday.
Nearly 90 percent of the union members who voted on the deal approved it.
Union officials say that's the biggest margin of victory for any
longshoreman's contract.
It took federal intervention to get cargo moving again after the shutdown
of 29 major Pacific ports.
The deal is expected to bring labor peace to those ports, while allowing
them to do some badly-needed modernization.
New fuel storage tank planned for
Anchorage port
Williams Alaska Petroleum wants to build a new fuel storage tank at the
Port of Anchorage. The 120-thousand-barrel tank would hold naptha, a
chemical used in petrochemical and gasoline refining. The naptha would be
for export to Japan or shipment to West Coast refineries.
Trio indicted in counterfeit check case
Three Anchorage men have been indicted on charges of bank fraud,
conspiracy and witness tampering. The indictments handed down yesterday by
a federal grand jury allege that the men collected nearly 57-thousand
dollars from counterfeit checks between October and December.
Taking a bite out of crime not an option
in this case
A lost property entry in today's Juneau Police blotter deals with a full
set of upper dentures. The man informed police Wednesday that he lost them
approximately on December 28th somewhere in the downtown area
Lady Bears
lose to Chugiak
The Crimson Bears women basketball squad lost a tough one on the road in
Anchorage last night.
The final score was Chugiak 51, Juneau 49. Coach Leslie Knight says it was
a close game to the very end. She called it a defensive battle.
The Bears start play in the East Tournament in Anchorage this evening.
They take on Colony at six o'clock.
Alaska Juneau Communications - KINY Radio News) |
