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Quote of the week: Parish out to get political appointees

Suzanne Downing
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“I’ve actually got a bill in now to try to to promote greater efficiency in government by limiting the number of people appointed just on the basis of their political connections to the upper levels. The fact is that when someone is a political appointee, it’s their job to deliver on the unrealistic promises they made to get appointed.”

– Rep. Justin Parish of Juneau, on KINY radio, explaining how he has a bill in to grow a more “efficient” permanent public workforce and shrink the union-exempt workforce appointed by the governor … before explaining to the radio host that he actually doesn’t have a bill “in” but has a staff member working on one.

And it’s an appointed staff member with political connections, presumably.

Updated: Anchorage police roll out new crime suppression plan

Suzanne Downing
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Updated: Anchorage police roll out new crime suppression plan

Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll announced a new crime suppression initiative today during a press conference at 11:30 am.

The new initiative will involve some restructuring of the police force with an emphasis on a unit that will work on violent crime suppression and more night patrol shifts as part of the package.

Before taking over as chief in June, Doll served as the head of the Crime Suppression Division.

Mayor Ethan Berkowitz campaigned for mayor by emphasizing public safety, but crime has spiked under his administration.

Reports of car thefts and home break-ins are now routine and crime in Anchorage has hit a critical point, residents say. One middle-aged Anchorage woman testifying last week at an Assembly work session remarked that she never goes out unarmed anymore because Anchorage isn’t the same city it was when she moved here.

During an April press conference, when he was being named chief, Doll said, “With another academy graduating in June, the department’s really poised to start doing great things. We’re looking forward to that: implementing innovative police strategies and really reaching out to the community, things like foot patrols and officers on bicycles.”

UPDATE:

At midday, the Anchorage Police Department issued details of its crime suppression strategy, which will be fully implemented in mid-October:

  1. The VICE team will move from the Detective Division, to the Crime Suppression Division. This moves CAP and VICE under one chain of command for drug investigations. Simplifying this structure means the units will work more closely together and be more effective.
  2. An APD detective assigned as liaison with the Alaska Information Analysis Center (AKIAC) will move to the Crime Suppression Division as a dedicated Task Force Officer. This detective will be housed with the APD crime analysis unit to add a layer of intelligence to data being explored. This intelligence sharing with our law enforcement partners will help APD determine trends, hot spots, and better connect suspects to crime. A detective will also be added to both the Homicide Unit and Robbery/Assault unit to assist with violent crime investigations.
  3. Finally, an Investigative Support Unit (ISU) is being created to assist detectives and patrol. This unit will consist of eight officers and a sergeant who are not tied to calls for service. This enables them to assist detectives serve search warrants, run surveillance, find witnesses, conduct long term investigations, provide targeted high intensity patrol enforcement, or react to major incidents.

“As we finally feel the impact of increased staffing, we assessed how to strategically deploy our resources to have the most impact on crime and take violent offenders off the street,” said Chieff Doll. “Our goal is to more proactively address crime, rather than simply react to it.”

Study: Media ignores Menendez trial but covered Ted Stevens nonstop

Suzanne Downing
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Study: Media ignores Menendez trial but covered Ted Stevens nonstop

The Media Research Center, an organization that exposes liberal media bias, says CNN has not reported the corruption trial of Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez, N.J., with the same fervor it covered the trial of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska in 2008.

Sen. Stevens was the focus of nearly daily coverage by CNN, which at times updated its reports several times each day.

In the first three weeks of the Stevens trial, (Sept. 20 to Oct. 11, 2008), CNN aired 36 stories about Stevens.

The Menendez trial was updated just seven times during his trial, (Sept. 5-26, 2017) – a six-to-one disparity, the center reports.

Were other big stories competing for attention during either of these trials? The center says both trials had breaking news competing for time in equal measure.

Were the charges similar? The center says the charges against Menendez are more severe. Stevens was accused of failing to report a gift in the form of renovations to his Girdwood home, but there was no accusation of quid-pro-quo bribery.

Menendez is accused of receiving multiple gifts over a decade and responding with political favors in a sordid lifestyle involving private jets, lush resorts in the Caribbean, and luxury hotels in Paris. Menendez helped get visas for the girlfriends of his close friend and co-defendant, Salomon Melgen, who is one of his major donors, and who was involved in massive Medicare fraud.

Stevens was convicted just eight days before the 2008 general election, which cost him his bid for a seventh term. He lost narrowly to Mark Begich, who in turn lost to current Sen. Dan Sullivan in 2014.

 Stevens’ conviction was later thrown out when it became known that prosecutors had rigged the outcome by withholding information that contradicted their case. Many have maintained that the case against Stevens was politically motivated from within the Justice Department. He died in a plane crash in Alaska on Aug. 9, 2010.

At the end of his senatorial career, Stevens was the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, (later surpassed in tenure by Orrin Hatch-Utah) and was instrumental in Alaska’s path to Statehood.

[Read: Menendez has set a new low for blatant corruption]

Quote of the week: Kawasaki on prayer, gun control

Suzanne Downing
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“I hope we can all pray and mourn for the victims and families of Las Vegas for just a moment before this becomes a political platform. We need smart laws surrounding gun ownership.”

– Rep. Scott Kawasaki of Fairbanks, having his nano-moment of prayer on Facebook before turning the Las Vegas mass shooting into a political platform for gun control, on Oct. 2, 2017. Kawasaki is now running for Senate for the seat held by Sen. President Pete Kelly.

 

Ninth Circuit decides against Sturgeon on hovercraft use

Suzanne Downing
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Ninth Circuit decides against Sturgeon on hovercraft use

The Katie John case may cost Alaskans their right to navigate rivers and other waterways across the state. Many outdoor enthusiasts predicted it would.

In a case that has gone on for 10 years, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has once again upheld the National Park Service in its decision to ban hovercrafts from the Nation River in the Yukon-Charley National Preserve.

The Ninth Circuit is using the Katie John decision, which former Gov. Sean Parnell sought to clarify through the courts, but which Gov. Bill Walker refused to pursue once he took office in the fall of 2014.

The Parnell Administration said it was a question of authority over navigable waters in the state. Alaska was given the same rights as other states at Statehood, including the right to control state-owned navigable waters next to and within federal land.

The Yukon-Charley Preserve was established by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and is federal land.

Alaskan John Sturgeon used a hovercraft to get to moose hunting grounds, when he was stopped by Park Service rangers. Sturgeon argued that the Nations River is navigable, therefore is under State jurisdiction.

The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed with part of Sturgeon’s argument, but remanded part of it back to the Ninth Circuit for further review.

The judges of the Ninth appear to be using another portion of law — the Reserve Water Rights Doctrine — to make all navigable waters in the ANILCA land case subject to federal jurisdiction.

And they are using the Katie John decision to back them up:

According to the Ninth Circuit judges:

“The panel held that under the Katie John precedent – Alaska v. Babbitt, 72 F.3d 698 (9th Cir. 1995) (Katie John I), John v. United States, 247 F.3d 1032 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (Katie John II), and John v. United States, 720 F.3d 1214 (9th Cir. 2013) (Katie John III) – the United States had an implied reservation of water rights, rendering the river public lands. On remand from the United States Supreme Court, the panel again concluded that the federal government properly regulated hovercraft use on the Nation River in the Yukon- Charley preserve.

“Judge Nguyen also separately concurred, joined by Judge D.W. Nelson. Judge Nguyen acknowledged that the panel was bound by case law to analyze this case under the reserved water doctrine, but she would conclude that this case is better analyzed under the Commerce Clause as it is about the right to regulate navigation on navigable waters within an Alaska national preserve.

Under this doctrine, when the federal government “withdraws its land from the public domain and reserves it for a federal purpose,” the government impliedly “reserves appurtenant water then unappropriated to the extent needed to accomplish the purpose of the reservation.” Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 138 (1976). The United States thus “acquires a reserved right in unappropriated water which vests on the date of the reservation and is superior to the rights of future appropriators.

Whether a federally reserved water right is implicit in a federal reservation of public land depends on whether the government intended to reserve unappropriated water. Id. at 139. “Intent is inferred if the previously unappropriated waters are necessary to accomplish the purposes for which the reservation was created.” 

In 2014, retired biologist Ron Somerville of Juneau warned of this outcome in a letter to the Juneau Empire:

Although Katie John’s intentions were to protect her family’s traditional subsistence uses, the resulting federal litigation morass has resulted in making Alaska a second tier State. The federal government is systematically taking away our fish and wildlife management authorities, access to and ownership of land and resources, any hopes of a transportation infrastructure and a unified state.

If you want to see the federal government eventually managing all of our fish and wildlife resources again, including our commercial fisheries, I suggest you vote for Begich and the unity ticket of Bill Walker and Mallott. If you want to see the state lose some or most of its submerged lands and associated resources, I would also suggest you vote for Begich and Walker/ Mallott. If you want to see a reservation system created in Alaska similar to those in the Lower 48 states and you want to see only a Native priority for taking fish and wildlife, look to Begich, Walker and Mallott for relief.

Somerville’s prediction appears to have come to pass.

BACKGROUND

In March, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with Sturgeon when he delivered the Supreme Court’s opinion, which said in part:

For almost 40 years, John Sturgeon has hunted moose along the Nation River in Alaska. Because parts of the river are shallow and difficult to navigate, Sturgeon travels by hovercraft, an amphibious vehicle capable of gliding over land and water. To reach his preferred hunting grounds, Sturgeon must pilot his hovercraft over a stretch of the Nation River that flows through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, a 1.7 million acre federal preservation area managed by the National Park Service. 16 U. S. C. §410hh(10).

Alaska law permits the use of hovercraft. National Park Service regulations do not. See 36 CFR §2.17(e) (2015). After Park Service rangers informed Sturgeon that he was prohibited from using his hovercraft within the boundaries of the preserve, Sturgeon filed suit, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. He argues that the Nation River is owned by the State, and that the Alaska National Interest 

Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) prohibits the Park Service from enforcing its regulations on state-owned land in Alaska. The Park Service disagrees, contending that it has authority to regulate waters flowing through federally managed preservation areas. The District Court and the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Park Service. We granted certiorari.

The Supreme Court decision and elegant explanation of the case is here.

The latest Ninth Circuit opinion is likely to be returned to the U.S. Supreme Court once again. Efforts to reach John Sturgeon were not successful. This story will be updated.

Voters will decide on pot, sales tax, Uber, and off-road vehicles

Suzanne Downing
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Elections in Alaska’s municipalities and boroughs are on Tuesday — except for Anchorage, of course, which votes in April.

In addition to lots of candidates vying for local mayor, assembly, council, and school board seats, there are interesting local propositions to consider. Some of them are:

BETHEL: Considering an increase on the alcohol tax from 12 to 15 percent. Some of that additional money will be used for social services.

FAIRBANKS CITY: Prop A would ban commercial pot establishments. Prop B would increase property taxes and allow the city to collect more than $1.7 million to make up for state revenue sharing which has dropped.

FAIRBANKS BOROUGH: Prop 1 would ban commercial pot establishments.

JUNEAU: Prop 1 extends the temporary additional 1 cent sales tax for repair and improve existing City and Borough of Juneau facilities. Prop 2 gives the CBJ more flexibility in awarding bids, to give a preference to local contractors.

KENAI BOROUGH: Prop 1 would ban the operation of commercial marijuana establishments outside borough cities. Prop 3 would increase the maximum amount of a sale subject to the sales tax to $1,000, except for residential rentals.

KETCHIKAN CITY:  Prop 1 is to ban ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft from within city limits.

KETCHIKAN BOROUGH: Prop 1 is to tax marijuana an additional 5 percent in the borough.

PETERSBURG: Propositions to increase the sales tax exemption cap from $1,200 to $1,500, to permit off-road vehicles to be driven on roads on the island (with exceptions), and to ban fluoride in the borough’s water system.

TALKEETNA: Proposition B-1 is a three percent sales tax for the Talkeetna Sewer and Water Service Area.

DEMOCRATS GETTING THEIR FINGERS INTO LOCAL ELECTIONS

As reported over the weekend, we’re seeing the 24-hour reports at APOC and the Democrats are pouring money into local races that are typically “nonpartisan.”

ADN’s Nat Herz breaks it down even further and shows that the Democrats have a go-big ground game that involves hiring field personnel in targeted communities.

Shocking: Anchorage dump has trove of personal data for the taking

Suzanne Downing
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Shocking: Anchorage dump has trove of personal data for the taking

Forget Equifax and its massive breach of America’s personal information.

In Anchorage, one only needs to drive to the dump to access the names, driver’s license numbers, home addresses and phone numbers of those who came before you to check out the free paint stash. You can also view the signatures associated with this information.

Anchorage Assembly member Amy Demboski was shocked to see a document sent to her that was a photo of visitor logs at the municipal landfill near Eagle River. Must Read Alaska has pixellated the critical information in the photo:

“The Muni is not protecting private information,” Demboski said. “I was sent a picture by a resident who has seen private info multiple times and was able to take a picture because Muni staff left him alone with the info.”

Demboski said she advised the Solid Waste Services director and City Manager Mike Abbott about the breach, but was unsatisfied with the response, so after several days she sent the information along to Must Read Alaska.

“Public officials have a duty to protect the public and that means your personal info too. If the administration chooses not to take that duty seriously, it is my job as an elected official to try to remedy the situation. Warning the public is a necessary step,” – Amy Demboski

The Muni may be in violation of state law:

Sec. 45.48.010 – .090 – Breach of Security Involving Personal Information.

This section of state law contains provisions that require the notification to consumers when their information is breached. That information is listed as an individual’s name and one or more of several other pieces of information, including a social security number, driver’s license number, account number, password, or other access codes.

Violators, including agencies, are subject to a $500 penalty for each consumer who has not been provided notice of the breach of their information. In addition, people can recover actual economic harm, according to the law.

A summary of Alaska laws protecting consumers’ identity is at the Consumer Protection Unit of the Department of Law website.

Other sites that may be helpful to those who are concerned their identities may have been compromised:

 

Permanent Fund dividend week is here; prepare for crime wave

Suzanne Downing
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Permanent Fund dividend week is here; prepare for crime wave

On Oct. 5, Alaskans will start receiving their Alaska Permanent Fund dividends — either deposited into their bank accounts or mailed to them.

The $1,100 being dispersed to qualifying Alaskans is something criminals are preparing for as well.

After all, more than $672 million is about to enter the Alaska economy. People will be shopping, packages will be arriving, and thieves will be on the hunt.

Most Alaskans have already experienced a dramatic increase in crime in their communities, so now is the time to be extra vigilant.

Property crimes in Alaska rose nearly 19 percent last year, according to the FBI. It was the biggest increase in the nation, which has overall seen property crime drop 2 percent.

[Read: Crime town hall brings out frustration, anger]

A reader shared these tips:

“Spend some time thinking about how to be extra safe. Don’t go from store to store and load up your vehicle. Don’t shop alone. If you are going to shop online, avoid doorstep deliveries. It may take a bit more effort, but better to be safe and keep your PFD windfall than succumb to victimhood. Think about it. Do something about it.”

About 640,000 Alaskans will receive a dividend this month. Must Read Alaska wants our 135,000 monthly visitors and their families and friends to be safe.

So spread the word: Please share this post on Facebook and remind your Alaska friends to take extra precautions in coming weeks.

Alaska Democrats try knock out Ted Leonard

Suzanne Downing
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The Alaska Democratic Party, already involved in other local “nonpartisan” races, have spent more than $800 to support the candidacy of Pat Hogan for Mat-Su Borough Assembly.

Hogan is an unaffiliated candidate. The Democrats financed a mailer supporting her, saying she was approved by “our local Democrats.”

Ted Leonard, the conservative in the race, is the other candidate seeking to fill the seat being vacated by conservative Steve Colligan.

Leonard is the former executive director of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a billion dollar finance development corporation, for seven years.

Ted Leonard

Leonard was also deputy commissioner for Commerce for the State of Alaska, director of Finance and Administrative Services for the City of Wasilla, and has been appointed to various finance positions for school districts across the state. He also worked in the private sector as a chief financial officer and is a small business owner for accounting and financial services.

But the Democrats went not with the numbers guy, but with the candidate they thought to be more amenable to their agenda: Hogan is a Public Health Nurse, a self-described advocate for homeless youth in the Mat-Su, and participates in the Mat-Su Opioid Task Force.

Alaska Democrats also spent over $700 for a Juneau candidate for the Assembly and over $800 to support Dan Mayfield for Mat-Su Borough Assembly.

[Read Democrats making nonpartisan races partisan]

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