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- [00:00]
Casey Blood
Support for Alaska Public Media on Demand.
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Casey Grove
Comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two US territories.
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Brian Gannon
The politicians representing us on Capitol Hill are more interested in appealing to D.C. partisans.
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Casey Grove
After months of speculation, Mary Peltola announces she's running for US Senate from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Monday, January 12th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, Anchorage's mayor is sidelining her sales tax proposal to focus on school funding.
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Jarrett Bryant
The crisis facing our schools is too urgent to wait.
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Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly.
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Liz Ruskin
The PFD application is open. Just a small amount of your PFD will help share local news and stories about Alaskans with Alaskans across this great state. When you choose Alaska Public Media through.
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Casey Grove
Pick Click Give Democrat Mary Peltola announced this morning that she's running for US Senate, taking on Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan. As Alaska Public Media Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin reports, interest in whether Peltola would run has been high for months.
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Liz Ruskin
Peltola served one partial and one full term in the US House, then narrowly lost her seat in 2024. Her initial campaign videos portrayed her salmon centered family life on the Kuskokwim River. She talks about the high cost of housing and groceries. She doesn't mention Sullivan by name.
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Brian Gannon
The politicians representing us on Capitol Hill are more interested in appealing to D.C. partisans than to the Alaskans who elected them.
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Liz Ruskin
Nationally, Democrats believe that with Peltola on the ballot, Alaska presents one of their best hopes of flipping a Senate seat. Political analyst and statistician Nate Silver said last week that Democrats still have an uphill battle to win back the Senate majority, but that Faltola's candidacy moves their chances in Alaska from long shot to plausible. Sullivan has already raised $6 million this election cycle. He has President Trump's endorsement and maintains a strong alignment with Trump. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and other groups supporting Sullivan issued a string of press releases previewing the campaign issues they plan to use against Peltola. They link her to Joe Biden and other national figures on the left, as well as transgender rights and policies that restrict drill land in Alaska. Some Republican messages hit at her effectiveness in Congress and her high rate of missed House votes. Peltola tried to head off that last point in her launch video, saying D.C. people were shocked that she went home in July to put up fish for her family. But she says Alaskans understand. For US Senator Lisa Murkowski, Peltola's candidacy presents a dilemma. They're Both moderates and Murkowski endorsed Peltola in the past, despite their party differences. The senator declined to pick a side when a reporter asked before Christmas. But Thursday, Murkowski said she'd made a decision. We've had a pretty solid, pretty solid team here in the Senate for the past 12 years. So we want to, we want to figure out how we're going to keep keeping the majority, and Dan delivers that. So you would endorse Dan? You know, Yes, I guess I'm saying that I am endorsing my Republican partner and colleague. Both sides are expected to pour tens of millions of dollars into the race. Sullivan's last race was one of the most expensive elections in state history, with spending by both campaigns plus outside groups totaling more than $50 million. Sullivan was outspent but beat independent candidate Al Gross by a wide margin. Reporting from Washington, I'm Liz Ruskin.
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Casey Grove
The United States Supreme Court has once again declined to take up challenges to a federal law that protects subsistence hunting and fishing in Alaska. The court rejected the state of Alaska's petition to review a federal lawsuit against the state over salmon management on the Kuskokwim river in southwest Alaska. The state had argued the federal government was misinterpreting a law Congress passed to protect a rural priority for subsistence. Last year, after the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with federal fishery managers, the state asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. But in a court docket today, the Supreme Court denied the state's petition. The Alaska Federation of Natives hailed the decision. Its president, Ben Milotte, says decades of hard won protections under the landmark Katie John lawsuits were also on the line.
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Tom Enlow
I feel relieved that we don't have.
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Casey Grove
To spend our limited resources and efforts.
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Tom Enlow
Fighting for what we know is right.
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Jarrett Bryant
Hopefully our final time protecting what Katie John fought for.
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Casey Grove
John was an Ahtna Athabaskan elder who fought for the right to fish on rivers that flow through federal lands. It's the third time the Supreme Court has declined to disturb the Katie John litigation. The federal government's Kuskokwim lawsuit, which the court has left to stand, now affirms similar protections. Martin Andrew, who chairs the Kuskokwim River Inter Tribal Fish Commission, says he's encouraged that the courts have upheld their rights as well as those of other rural Alaskans.
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Tom Enlow
We had a real good victory in the court, and our fish commission is very pleased with this historic victory in favor of the people of the Kiskokwim River.
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Casey Grove
The Safari Club International sided with the state in the lawsuit. Regina Lennox, SCI's senior legal counsel, said the sport hunting and fishing group is disappointed with the court's decision.
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Tom Enlow
SCI had filed an amicus brief, as did the association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the attorney generals of 20 states. Our concern, of course, was just ensuring that the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which is really not strong when it comes to the state and federal balance when it comes to managing fish and wildlife resources, lennox says.
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Casey Grove
Now that the Supreme Court has set aside the case, she hopes it will lead to more cooperation between state and federal wildlife managers. Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent Lang said in a statement that the state will respect the high court's decision to not address the legal issues regarding fish and game management authorities over navigable waters belonging to the state of Alaska. Vincent Lang also said the state will continue to work with the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to ensure the rights Alaska was given under statehood and federal law are safeguarded. Anchorage city leaders are proposing a one time property tax increase to raise millions of dollars for the Anchorage School District, which faces an $83 million budget shortfall. As Alaska Public Media's Wesley early reports, Anchorage's mayor says she wants to pause her own proposal for a sales tax to get the funding for the school district.
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Wesley Early
At a press conference Monday morning, anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said she's requesting the Anchorage assembly set aside all other revenue proposals, even her own 3% sales tax measure, and instead focus on a $12 million tax levy for schools.
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Jarrett Bryant
Over the last several months, we have been having a vital conversation around the municipality's long term fiscal health and the need to diversify our revenue. But the crisis facing our schools is too urgent to wait for years.
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Wesley Early
ASD Superintendent Jarrett Bryant says inflation has made budgeting difficult for the district. Add in declining enrollment and a large exodus of teachers and the district is facing a fiscal crisis. The state legislature approved an increase to per student funding last year, even overriding a veto from governor Mike Dunleavy to keep the funding increase intact. But even after the increase, Bryant says the district still has an $83 million.
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Jarrett Bryant
Budget deficit, while the $700 increase it did not fully restore what schools have lost As a result. Even though we're in the process of making significant reductions outside of the classroom deeper than we've cut in many, many years, ASD is still facing difficult choices for the 2627 budget.
- [08:54]
Wesley Early
State law puts a cap on how much a city can tax for education, and Anchorage typically taxes to that limit. However, the per student funding increase at the state level allows Anchorage officials to increase the amount the city taxes for education, according to Bryant. He says the money from the tax levy go entirely to addressing high class sizes.
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Jarrett Bryant
If voters approve this levy, I will commit to directing these dollars to teaching positions and essential student services. Manageable class sizes are at the top of the list of what our parents desire for their children.
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Wesley Early
If approved by the assembly, the tax levy would go to voters on the April ballot. The proposal comes at the expense of another priority for la France, a 3% sales tax, which she initially wanted the assembly to put on the spring ballot. Her administration has said the city faces a fiscal cliff and funding from the sales tax would have go toward childcare, housing, public safety capital projects and property tax relief. LaFrance says the tax levy is a more immediate solution to support another struggling city service education.
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Jarrett Bryant
We believe it is too much to have two revenue measures on the ballot. A sales tax proposal won't generate revenue for one and a half to two years or so, whereas the levy will be immediate.
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Wesley Early
Though LaFrance is setting aside her sales tax proposal for now, she says the city still faces a tough financial future.
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Jarrett Bryant
We are still approaching the fiscal cliff and the municipality faces budget gaps in the next few years. We will be presenting scenarios for potential service cuts.
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Wesley Early
Bryant says the tax levy won't fully address the district's budget shortfall, but he's hopeful it will hold the district over while state leaders work on a long term budget solution.
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Jarrett Bryant
We do anticipate that there'll be a change in state leadership as we look ahead towards the governor's race and we are yearning for a long range fiscal vision and fiscal plan for the state and specifically for education.
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Wesley Early
Anchorage assembly members plan to introduce the tax levy proposal during their meeting Tuesday night. In order to put the tax on the April ballot, eight members would need to approve it by January 27th. Anchorage's municipal election is scheduled for April 7th. Reporting in Anchorage, I'm Wesley Early.
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Casey Grove
Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, why Pollock processors in Alaska are relying less and less on foreign labor.
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Tom Enlow
You don't know for sure if you're going to get supplemental visa, if it's going to get approved in time.
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Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us.
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Liz Ruskin
I'm Shelby Herbert, a reporter with the Alaska Desk. That's a joint reporting effort from Alaska Public Media and kuac, where I work in Fairbanks, and other public radio stations in Anchorage, Haines and the Illusions. It allows us to connect to the issues happening in communities all across the state. You can hear our stories during the Morning News, Alaska News Nightly or online@alaskapublic.org the Alaska Desk is only possible with the support of grants and listeners like you. Thank you.
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Casey Grove
Six people were injured Saturday night in a head on collision involving a transit van and SUV on the park's highway near Nenana. Alaska State Troopers say four adults and two minors sustained injuries in the collision that occurred around 6pm near milepost 301. Some of the victims had to be extricated to get them out of the wrecked vehicles, according to a trooper dispatch. All were transported to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital with injuries that ranged in severity from minor to serious. One of the adult victims was later transferred to a hospital in Seattle for treatment, according to troopers. The park's highway was closed for about two and a half hours to enable EMS personnel to treat the victims and for other responders to remove wreckage from the roadway. Troopers say inclement weather and blowing snow were contributing factors to the wreck. A medical office in Fairbanks is closing its doors as the owner faces charges of felony child sex abuse. KUAC's Patrick Gilchrist reports 56 year old.
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Casey Blood
Casey Blood is charged with two counts of first degree sexual abuse of a minor, as well as two counts in the second degree. Charging documents say Blood repeatedly abused two child victims between 2016 and 2023. Of the four counts, two are dated in 2018 and two in 2023, according to his LinkedIn page. Blood is a nurse practitioner at Alcan Medical Group. The charging documents do not link the alleged sex crimes to Blood's work or patients. Alcan's website says they specialize in family medicine, men's and women's health and extended care, among other things. Alaska Department of Commerce records list Blood as the sole owner of the operation. A letter addressed to patients says Alcan will permanently close at the end of January due to unforeseen circumstances. It does not mention the criminal charges. The sudden closure leaves patients in need of new providers, and the notice recommends several in the area for people to establish care with. Those include Troy Medical, Alpine Medical and Gold Star Longevity and Wellness. Myra Kelly, the primary care medical director at Alaska Behavioral Health, says they also have openings in Fairbanks.
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Brian Gannon
I'm sure a lot of patients are going to be seeking new primary care.
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Tom Enlow
Providers, so we want to extend the offer to the community that we are.
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Brian Gannon
Happy and willing to serve their needs.
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Casey Blood
Alcan's letter says they are no longer seeing people in the clinic but will be able to provide medication refills for up to 90 days. It also says their phone service will remain active through the rest of the month and that voicemails will be regularly checked. Multiple attempts to reach the front desk Wednesday and Thursday were unsuccessful.
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Tom Enlow
This person's mailbox is full. You cannot leave a message. Die.
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Casey Blood
Blood was arraigned Monday in Fairbanks Superior Court, and his bail is set at $750,000, according to court documents. The online court database Court View did not list an attorney representing Blood as of Thursday afternoon. His next appearance in court is scheduled for January 15th in Fairbanks. I'm Patrick Gilchrist.
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Casey Grove
The Alaska seafood industry has historically relied on workers from beyond the state's borders and for processors in the pollock industry, the nation's largest fishery. That has included a foreign workforce to help fill employment gaps in the past. But as KUCB's Maggie Nelson reports, recent changes in the seafood industry and federal immigration policies have some processors looking closer to home to fill those jobs.
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Brian Gannon
It's safe to say that in Alaska, the fish far outnumber the people. Last year, fishermen harvested over a million metric tons of pollock in the state. That's a lot of fish, and it's just one sector of Alaska's seafood industry. Brian Gannon is the vice president of Global Partnerships for Labor Mex, a company that helps match foreign workers with businesses across the U.S. he says when it comes to handling and packaging all that fish, especially cod and pollock, Alaska really has no local workforce.
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Tom Enlow
For 100 years, people have been coming from somewhere else to process fish in Alaska.
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Brian Gannon
Processing fish involves long hours and often tough, repetitive and pungent work. There's an entire area of plants often referred to as the slime line, after all, so it can be tough to fill those jobs. Gannon, who started his career at a processing plant in Chignic in 1990, says despite the lackluster appeal of processing work, Alaska has done a good job attracting seasonal workers from afar.
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Tom Enlow
Alaska is really a poster child for foreign labor in as much as the oil industry and forestry and mineral extraction and seafood production, etc. In Alaska for 150 years, it's been built on a small amount of available local labor and a large amount of labor coming from somewhere else.
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Brian Gannon
The Alaska pollock industry directly employed over 8,000 workers in 2023, according to a report from Northern Economics. Most were workers from the US and about 12% were residents of other countries, Gannon says. About 10 years ago, the pollock industry's domestic workforce sort of ran dry, he says. The industry's pool of workers that would come to the Aleutians to work part of the year wasn't replenishing, and companies couldn't match the shortfalls and that's where.
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Tom Enlow
That H2B visa came in quite handy.
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Brian Gannon
The H2B visa program allows employers to bring foreign workers to the US to fill temporary non agricultural jobs during shortages. And for a while, those visas, while complicated to obtain, worked well. But Gannon says over the past several years, a lot has changed in the pollock industry.
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Tom Enlow
So many things have upended the apple cart, and the pollock processors are not necessarily producing as much.
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Brian Gannon
Gannon says things like the COVID 19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, changes in the nation's political dynamics, and competition from Russia and China have made it hard for pollock processors to make ends meet. The seafood industry in general has seen increases in processing costs, wages, energy prices, as well as drops in sale prices for every major species group in 2023. That's according to the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tom Enlow is the president and CEO of Unice Seafoods on Alaska's largest seafood processor. He says the company is feeling those pressures, and as a result, they're moving away from the H2B visas to save money on an unreliable system.
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Tom Enlow
The H2B program, I think, was good for Alaska at a time when we really needed them, you know, during the pandemic and a little bit pre pandemic. But really it's cost prohibitive to bring workers all the way from Eastern Europe to Alaska.
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Brian Gannon
Enloe says the processing plant moved back to a 100% domestic workforce. He says the main reason for that is cost. He says the Trump administration's approach to hiring foreign workers has also made a difficult and expensive process even more complicated.
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Tom Enlow
You don't know for sure if you're going to get a supplemental visa, if it's going to get approved in time, or if they're going to be in Alaska when you need them.
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Brian Gannon
As the season started, Enloe says Unice started participating in the H2B program in 2019. Prior to that, the company employed 100% US domestic workers. He says Unisi isn't the only regional processor filling jobs with American workers. Trident Seafoods, one of the largest seafood processors in the nation, says it employs almost an exclusively domestic workforce. Enloe says unisee won't be saving much, if any, money right away by switching back to an American workforce because he's expecting a high attrition rate.
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Tom Enlow
So you're going to need to, you know, hire more and bring up more people than you actually would need over time because you're going to lose some of those workers.
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Brian Gannon
But he says that should eventually be offset by avoiding uncertainties around international travel and immigration concerns In Unalaska. I'm Maggie Nelson.
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Casey Grove
The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska has recently launched a new foundation. Its main goal right now is to fundraise for a new education campus in Juneau. The tribe announced the formation of the Thlingit and Haida foundation last month. Jamie Gomez is the nonprofit's executive director.
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Brian Gannon
The mission is we strengthen tribal communities through resources that advance education, wellness and self determination. So it really covers almost all of the programs and a lot of the.
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Casey Grove
Work that we do at the tribe, gomez says. The nonprofit's first major goal is to help fund the tribe's proposed tribal education campus in the Mendenhall Valley. Tlingit and Haida's president announced plans to develop the campus during the 89th annual tribal assembly in 2024. The 12 acre tribal education campus, slated to be located behind Fred Meyer, would serve students from early childhood into college. The tribe says its goal is to improve education outcomes for Alaska Native students by providing culturally relevant place based lessons. In total, the campus is expected to cost $90 million. Gomez says the tribe plans to develop it in phases. She says the tribe likely won't break ground on the project for at least a few years.
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Brian Gannon
Those in Juneau and the community know like supporting our youth and future generations is really important to us and so looking at ways that we can do that in the education campus I think will be a pivotal piece in that. But there's a lot of funding to be raised there.
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Casey Grove
Other tribes in Alaska also have nonprofit arms like the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, which serves tribal members and communities from Chickuloon to Seldovia. Gomez says the Tlingit and Haida foundation plans to connect with the Juneau community in the coming months to share more information about the nonprofit and the education campus. The Homer High School theater is closed until further notice after an apparent theater rigging failure last month dropped equipment to the stage below. School officials say the space will remain closed while crews Inspect the system. KBBI's Simon Lopez reports.
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Simon Lopez
Eric Simonson walked into Homer High School's Mariner Theater on a Tuesday last month and discovered a scary scene. A number of the theater's acoustic shells had fallen from the rigging above the stage and clipped a grand piano, landing right where the middle school had been playing a concert the night before.
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Tom Enlow
We were very blessed and lucky that nobody was in there at the time.
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Simon Lopez
That'S Principal Eric Peterson.
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Tom Enlow
I can tell you that it would have done some serious damage to an individual that was standing underneath them.
- [22:43]
Simon Lopez
You know, the theater's been closed since that day, December 16th. The initial inspection revealed a pipe that holds equipment up had bent and there was minor damage to the stage. The theater hosts school performances and is used year round by several community arts groups, including Homer Nutcracker Productions and the Homer Council on the Arts. The closure forced music programs to relocate. Choir director Kyle Schneider moved the Candlelight Carols and Desserts concert to the school commons, with basketball practice happening next door. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District hired the rigging company Stagecraft to do a professional inspection scheduled for January 19th through the 22nd. There is a silver lining, peterson says. During that visit, Superintendent Clayton Holland is.
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Tom Enlow
Extending this a training opportunity for our user groups to, you know, look at what is the proper use for the rigging system.
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Simon Lopez
He says the school's priority is student productions like Schneider's choir program.
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Tom Enlow
I know he's got an awesome musical planned for the spring, and it's my goal to make sure that that's on.
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Simon Lopez
The theater stage, though, Peterson says when the theater reopens will depend on the inspection, which will also guide next steps for the space and its users. In Homer, I'm Simon Lopez.
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Casey Grove
The holidays have wrapped up for many, but for followers of Russian Orthodox tradition in Alaska, Christmas, known locally as Slavic, has just arrived. Kyuk's Evan Erikson went to see the Slavic star as it makes its way through Bethel and has this story.
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Evan Erikson
The sounds of caroling fill the cozy dining room at the Waikea Eldersholm Long Term Care Facility in Bethel. It's a week into the new year, but for Orthodox faithful of the region who follow the Julian calendar, Christmas, known as Slavic, has just begun. Some of the elders and family members gathered in the dining room join in with the Saint Sophia Russian Orthodox Church choir. They sing hymns in English and Yupik. They also sing them in church Slavonic, the religious language of Russian missionaries who first arrived in the region in the mid 19th century. In front of the choir, a parishioner holds an Orthodox cross draped with a tapestry depicting the birth of Jesus Christ. Beside him, a young man flicks an ornate red and gold painted star that spins on its axis. It represents the star of Bethlehem, the star that guided the biblical Magi to the baby Jesus. The spinning star will be working its way through a dozen homes in Bethel through Sunday, accompanied by hours of of feasting and singing. Choir member Trim Nick says it's the second year that the star has begun its journey. At the elder's home in Yupik tradition.
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Casey Grove
We honor our elders first.
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Tom Enlow
What's fitting of starting at a long term care home here in Bethel is.
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Casey Grove
That our elders are here.
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Evan Erikson
Elder Sophie Sakar moved downriver from Antioch in December to live at the home. She says she stayed up the night before to listen in by phone to a late night vigil held at the church in Antioch.
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Liz Ruskin
It makes me so happy because younger.
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Evan Erikson
Generation Sakar says she was moved when the St. Sophia choir came to sing for her and others in Bethel.
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Liz Ruskin
I didn't expect to hear that. And this is the first time I.
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Casey Grove
Ever was down here.
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Liz Ruskin
And I'm saying I'm thankful for all.
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Tom Enlow
The singers that were here.
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Evan Erikson
Sitting next to a plate with generous helpings of a guduk and other Slavic treats. She says she's also thankful for for the food in Bethel. I'm Evan Erickson.
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Casey Grove
And that's all for this edition of alaska news nightly. We had reports tonight from liz ruskin in washington, d.c. rhonda mcbride and wesley early in anchorage, tim ellis in delta junction, patrick gilchrist and fairbanks, maggie nelson in unalaska, clarice larson in juno, simon lopez in homer and evan erickson in bethel. Our audio engineer is crystal hyde, madeline rose is our producer and I'm casey grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.