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Reward in St. Clair's
arrest up to Crime Line Board of Directors
Three thousand dollars in reward money from Juneau Crime Line is at stake in
the arrests of the couple accused of the stabbing and robbery of a taxi cab
driver last month.
Arron St. Clair, Junior, 20, and his 18 year old wife, Violet St. Clair,
were arrested late Wednesday night.
Crime Line initially put up a $1,000 reward and later received an anonymous
donation of $2,000.
Police Sergeant Troy Wilson says they will provide the Crime Line Board with
information on the leads that came in. The board will then go through that
information and make a decision on whether a reward will be made and the
amount.
The suspects appeared in Juneau District Court yesterday. Bail for Arron St.
Clair was set at $500,000 and $100,000 for Violet St. Clair. A preliminary
hearing was scheduled February 13th.
They are charged with attempted murder in the second degree, robbery in the
first degree, both Class A felonies, and theft in the third degree, a Class
A misdemeanor.
Police are declining to say what evidence linked the pair to the crime and
exactly how and where they were arrested.
Cab Driver Eric Drake was robbed and stabbed on the night of January 7th
when he took the pair to the Super 8 Motel.
Shortfall of nearly $2 Million facing
Juneau School District budget writers
The Juneau School District is making provisions for next fiscal year's
anticipated 1.8 million dollar budget shortfall.
That does not include some potential increases in staff salaries and
insurance. The district is currently in contract negotiations with all three
bargaining units.
Superintendent Peggy Cowen says Juneau is not unique in the state in facing
a school district budget deficit.
Cowen says the reason the school district and other districts around the
state are facing major budget deficits, is revenues from the state are flat
and non-discretionary expenditures have increased. Those include teacher and
support staff retirement and all categories of insurance.
Cowen says the district's budget is still preliminary, pending possible
remedies from the Legislature. But she says, for now, they are preparing a
budget to submit to the Assembly by the end of March based on the current
estimates.
The district's fiscal year 2005 budget, as it stands now, cuts 26 teachers
saving 1.3 million dollars in personnel costs.
Elementary school classes would go from an average of about 25 students to
29 or more. Middle school classes would go from about 31 students to over
34. High school classes would go up from almost 32 to over 34 students per
class.
The district's transportation budget would also take a major hit being
reduced by $286,000 with at least five bus routes eliminated.
The School Board and Assembly conducted a joint work session Thursday evening on
the budget and the new high school in the Valley.
Debate persists on Juneau high school
funding question
Dueling websites will debate the pros and cons of the proposed new Valley
high school.
The Juneau School District and the school's opponents will post answers and
responses to questions posed by citizens in the coming weeks
Nagging doubts about the second high school at Dimond Park have spurred a
petition drive to put an initiative on the ballot to stop the work on the
school from moving forward.
Critics cite declining enrollments, uncertain state funding and the costs of
splitting programs between the two schools. But School Board members and
district officials say the city needs the second school to meet future
needs.
District officials say both schools would most likely be at 80 percent
capacity if the new high school were to open in August 2006.
Right now, there are about 1,600 high school students in Juneau.
Superintendent Peggy Cowan says the district will receive additional state
money when the new school opens. That amounts to $800,000 from the state's
foundation formula.
She says the district would also save money by moving existing programs that
are paying rent, into the new facility.
Former city manager Dave Palmer is leading the petition effort. He thinks
school district budget writers should consider that the money for the new
high school would be better spent by keeping the programs and teachers it
already has.
Superintendent Cowan says the district and School Board are optimistic that
the legislature will provide more funding for state education. She notes
that Governor Murkowski and lawmakers appear to be working on a fiscal plan.
The Juneau School District will post answers to key questions at www.juneau.org
and the petition sponsors will post their responses at www.juneaustudentsfirst.com
Fire department responds to
Juneau Douglas High School
Capital City Fire Rescue responded to a fire alarm at the high school Friday
morning.
No fire was found, according to what can be ascertained from the information
currently available.
Its not known if there was a system malfunction or a malicious act.
The high school has been victimized by a series of small fires found in
stairwells since the first part of December.
Most recently, two were set last week.
A dozen priests accused of molesting
children in Alaska over last 50 years
At least 12 Catholic priests assigned to Alaska have been accused of sexual
misconduct involving children over the past five decades.
That's the tally from a national survey and an independent study in
Anchorage.
At least 13 victims were counted between Juneau and Fairbanks dioceses in
the national survey, which examined cases between 1950 and 2002. More than
300 priests served in Alaska during that time period.
The confidential study was commissioned by the U-S Conference of Catholic
Bishops to determine the scope of abuse nationwide. It was conducted by New
York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
The findings from all 195 U-S dioceses will be formally released later this
month, but many dioceses already are releasing their numbers.
The Archdiocese of Anchorage has refused to release any survey information.
But an independent study commissioned by Archbishop Roger Schwietz last year
found that five priests have been accused of sexually abusing minors since
the archdiocese was established in 1966.
The review, which did not include a count of victims, also found two
other priests who were accused of abusing children before they were assigned
to Alaska
Governor to defy court
order on Tustemena Lake fishery program
Governor Murkowski is railing against a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
ruling that he indicates the state will not honor.
The court has ruled that fishery enhancement in Tustemena Lake on the Kenai
Peninsula is not allowed since most of it is considered wilderness and thus
violates the Wilderness Act.
The Department of Fish and Game has contracted with a private hatchery on
the enhancement project since 1974.
Murkowksi considers it an affront against basic state rights guaranteed
under the Statehood Act and the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation
Act.
Meaning, he says, he will not order that the six million fry in the lake be
disposed of as ordered by the court.
He also said that he's at a lost to explain why the previous Knowles
Administration did not press the state's interest with the Interior
Department.
It would be up to the Interior Department to appeal the case to the U. S.
Supreme Court.
That will be a topic he'll bring up during a meeting with the Interior
Secretary next week in Washington, D. C.
Police in Anchorage use
electric taser to subdue robbery suspect
Anchorage police say a 36-year-old man is under arrest after officers used
an electric taser when he threatened them.
Police say John Goodman was armed with a knife when he entered a hotel about
1-30 a-m Thursday and demanded money from a clerk.
The victim described the 320-pound robber and the car he left in and a
patrol officer spotted Goodman a few minutes later. The driver sped away,
somehow damaging a tire.
The suspect ditched the car and ran. According to police, the man swung a
large stick at approaching officers and hit a police dog with the stick.
An officer with a taser stunned the suspect in the chest and he was taken
into custody.
Police say they found money from the robbery on Goodman and the clerk
identified him as the robber.
Goodman is charged with robbery, resisting arrest, harming a police dog,
theft, assault and eluding a police officer. His bail has been set at
20-thousand dollars.
Autopsy shows fisherman highly intoxicated
An autopsy shows a fisherman who drowned in the Aleutian Islands had a blood
alcohol content of point-33 -- four times the state's legal driving limit of
point-zero-eight. Police divers recovered the body of 42-year-old Thomas
Brister near a Dutch Harbor on January 5th.
Police in Canada say avalanche beacon
didn't work in fatal slide
Canadian authorities are trying to determine why an emergency beacon failed
after a man was caught in an avalanche and died.
The beacon was found strapped to the torso of 36-year-old Michael Duffy of
San Francisco. Duffy died January 30th when he and 14 other skiers and
snowboarders were hit by a slide in southcentral British Columbia.
Searchers were hampered by the lack of a locator signal, but found Duffy's
body yesterday (Thursday) in about four feet of debris.
According to Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a female companion was buried
about as deep but was located quickly because her beacon worked.
Police say an autopsy will be conducted to determine whether Duffy
suffocated or died of injuries from the slide.
Duffy's device was turned on, had a properly charged battery and had been
checked by guides. But police say it appears there was some kind of
equipment failure because the beacon was not transmitting.
The beacon will be sent to an electronics laboratory for testing.
Survival of sea otters in southwest Alaska
threatened
The Interior Department wants to add southwest Alaska sea otters to the
government's endangered species list, saying their survival is threatened.
If the proposal is adopted, it would lead to a recovery plan requiring
conservation efforts for the northern sea otter.
The animal inhabits waters in the western Gulf of Alaska stretching toward
the Bering Sea, including the Alaska Peninsula, Aleutian Islands and Kodiak
Island.
In December, two animal welfare groups sued the department's Fish and
Wildlife Service in federal court to have sea otters added to the endangered
species list.
Commercial hunting from the mid-17-hundreds to the early 19-hundreds drove
sea otters to near-extinction in southwest Alaska. They began recovering
after commercial harvests were banned under a 1911 international treaty, but
modern aerial surveys suggest the population has fallen again.
Campaign posts for Senate
race filled by Murkowski and Knowles
U-S Senator Lisa Murkowski and former Governor Tony Knowles are filling
their campaign ranks for Alaska's upcoming U-S Senate election.
Murkowski hired Justin Stiefel as her campaign manager.
Stiefel grew up in Anchorage and has worked as Murkowski's Senate office
chief of staff in Washington, D-C.
Knowles' campaign has been managed by Leslie Ridle since the former governor
announced his candidacy in July.
Ridle grew up in Douglas and Anchorage.
She worked as a teacher before joining Knowles' staff in his first term as
governor.
To pursue village voters, both campaigns hired women with connections to
rural Alaska.
Knowles has hired Paulette Schuerch, a former member of the Kotzebue City
Council and the NANA Regional Corporation board of directors.
Murkowski hired Donne Fleagle of McGrath as her rural outreach coordinator.
Fleagle has served as vice president for Tanana Chiefs Conference, the
Fairbanks-based regional nonprofit Native corporation.
Alaska honors Reagan
Today marks the first Ronald Reagan Day in Alaska.
The 40th U-S president's 93rd birthday is also today.
The state House of Representatives passed a resolution this week recognizing
Reagan. Representative Nick Stepovich, a Republican from Fairbanks,
sponsored the resolution.
Stepovich called Reagan a great American. Former Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher has said of Reagan that he won the Cold War without firing a shot.
The former president is in the final stages of Alzheimer's disease.
The resolution does not require a vote by the state Senate.
Era Aviation adds
electronic ticketing
Era Aviation is going paperless with electronic tickets.
Era is working with Alaska Airlines to offer paperless tickets to customers
who have reservations and are connecting between both airlines.
Travelers also can book airline tickets from communities Era serves to
Alaska Airlines destinations.
Era serves Anchorage, Cordova, Homer, Valdez, Kenai, Kodiak and 17 western
Alaska villages from its base in Bethel.
Juneau and Sitka basketball
teams tangle this weekend
The men and women's basketball squads play Sitka Friday and Saturday.
The women are hosting their opponents while the men are in Sitka.
Tip off for the men's games both nights on KINY is at 8.
(Copyright ©2004
Alaska Juneau Communications - KINY Radio)
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