Gov. Mike Dunleavy accepted Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner Jason Brune’s resignation on Wednesday. Brune, who has served as commissioner for nearly five years, is leaving to pursue a future in the private sector, the governor said. His last day will be August 20.
“Commissioner Brune’s tenure in DEC demonstrated his uncanny ability to balance environmental protection with responsible natural resource development,” Dunleavy said. “While I am sorry to see him go, I respect his decision with the knowledge that his outstanding leadership at a new venue will continue to move Alaska forward.”
“It has been an honor to serve with Governor Dunleavy and so many great commissioners over the years,” Brune said. “I’m so proud of and grateful for the hard work DEC employees do on a daily basis, in close collaboration with the regulated community, to advance our economy while protecting human health and the environment.”
Deputy Commissioner Emma Pokon will serve as acting commissioner until the governor selects a permanent replacement later this year.
In August 2022, the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly passed Resolution 2999 accepting the donation of the Telephone Hill property from the State of Alaska.
The land was finally transferred to Juneau this March after the Assembly appropriated $100,000 for a study to prepare a redevelopment master plan and implementation strategy for the property. The first public engagement meeting was held this month and attracted a large crowd. Additional opportunities for public comment will be available in the coming months.
The Telephone Hill property covers approximately 4.2 acres in the center of downtown Juneau and over half of the property could potentially be re-developed into a downtown hub with mixed uses of green/public gathering space, multi-family housing, or even some commercial use.
Currently, less than half of the property is utilized by the Downtown Transit Center and Parking Garage, a pocket-size park and trail, and a parking lot. The remaining 2.5 acres is occupied by four single family homes, two duplexes, and a small five-unit apartment building, all with renters on month-to-month leases.
Understandably, the tenants living there are unhappy with the prospect of vacating their residences. But they have been living on borrowed time for decades, ever since the State purchased the property in 1984 for $4.6 million, $2 million of which was contributed by CBJ. The 1984 agreement provided for compensation to the city if the state didn’t develop the property within 10 years. That never happened.
For almost 40 years, the tenants have managed to hold off any cancellation of their leases.
It hasn’t escaped the attention of city leaders that after millions of dollars of investment, there hasn’t been a commensurate return to the city. After all, should taxpayers be subsidizing a handful of renters who currently live on the last sizable piece of prime real estate in the city? Unlike a conventional rental arrangement where a private property owner would be paying property taxes, this property is tax exempt.
According to the city, under the state leases inherited by CBJ, rent collected from all 13 residences only averages $1,113 per month per unit and tenants aren’t responsible for most utilities. This revenue pales in comparison to forgone real estate taxes, fuel oil, property management fees, maintenance expenses, and CBJ’s liability as a landlord.
Increasing housing in the downtown core seems to be a potential use most prominently mentioned. Selling a portion of the property to allow for a multi-family housing project would help ease the housing crunch in the city and lower overall housing costs. Preserving some green space and the existing trail and park also seems high on everyone’s list.
However, as long as renters occupy the property, the effort will be continually challenged as cold-hearted and dismissive of the neighborhood’s historical locale. It’s been pointed out that Telephone Hill is one of the “oldest historic neighborhoods” in the city. It once housed the district courthouse, the city jail, and Juneau’s first telephone company in addition to private homes.
On the other hand, the courthouse and jail are long gone and the remaining structures have been modified extensively and don’t qualify for historic recognition. Instead of preserving old out-of-code structures, the area history could be memorialized with suitable signage and public art.
The study process and implementation will take some time, but notifying tenants of lease expirations shouldn’t be delayed. The Assembly can consider a reasonable termination date that will allow tenants sufficient time to find alternative housing.
Whatever the Assembly decides, preservation of the property in its current form is not an appropriate option.The tenants may feel that is heartless. But good public policy suggests a municipally-owned asset should be managed for its highest and best use. The CBJ should not be in the business of renting tax-exempt homes to private individuals when Juneau property taxpayers are burdened with ever increasing taxes on the homes and businesses they own.
As it is now, the property primarily benefits a few fortunate individuals with little benefit for everyone else.
The CBJ Assembly deserves credit for initiating this long over-due process.
After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.
A bulletin published by the Alaska Division of Epidemiology that described the rise of congenital syphilis in Alaska has been quietly edited to reflect that those who are pregnant are mothers and no longer referred to as the generic and ambiguous “pregnant persons.”
The version published earlier had avoided the term “women” and used the politically gendered jargon “pregnant persons” when referring to expectant mothers.
The Dunleavy Administration took quick action, however, upon learning of the troubling terminology from the Division of Epidemiology:”Pregnant persons” is typically used in this era to describe transgenders who are pregnant, or used to describe all expectant mothers in a way that doesn’t exclude or hurt the feelings of transgenders who are confused about their genetic disposition or reproductive gear.
By Wednesday, the bulletin terminology had been cleaned up and is more scientifically correct. In Alaska, the women are strong, the men are good looking and mothers are, well, female. The bulletin can be viewed at this link.
Fitch Ratings, one of the top international credit rating agencies, downgraded the United States government’s credit rating from the highest level of AAA to AA+.
The downgrade comes as a warning sign for the U.S. economy, which continues to grapple with surging debt levels and elevated deficits.
For comparison, the State of Alaska has an A+ rating from Fitch for general obligation bonds.
The key drivers behind Fitch’s decision to lower the country’s credit rating include the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, the high and growing general government debt burden, and an erosion of governance relative to countries with ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ ratings over the past two decades.
The erosion of governance has been evidenced by repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions by Congress, which have negatively impacted confidence in fiscal management.
Fitch highlighted the lack of a medium-term fiscal framework, a complex budgeting process, and limited progress in addressing medium-term challenges related to rising social security and Medicare costs due to an aging population.
The rating agency expects the general government deficit to rise to 6.3% of gross domestic produce in 2023, reflecting weaker federal revenues, new spending initiatives, and a higher interest burden.
The downgrade predicts that the general government deficit will further widen to 6.6% of GDP in 2024 and 6.9% of GDP in 2025, mainly driven by weak GDP growth in 2024, higher interest burdens, and wider state and local government deficits.
The interest-to-revenue ratio is expected to reach 10% by 2025, compared to 2.8% for the ‘AA’ median and 1% for the ‘AAA’ median, due to the increased debt level and higher interest rates compared to pre-pandemic levels, Fitch predicted.
The general government debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to rise over the forecast period, reaching 118.4% by 2025.
This is more than two-and-a-half times higher than the ‘AAA’ median of 39.3% of GDP and ‘AA’ median of 44.7% of GDP. Fitch’s longer-term projections foresee additional debt-to-GDP rises, posing greater vulnerability to future economic shocks.
Despite the challenges, Fitch acknowledged several structural strengths supporting the United States’ ratings, including its large, advanced, well-diversified, and high-income economy. Additionally, the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s primary reserve currency provides the government with more borrowing and financing flexibility, at least for now.
However, the economic outlook for the United States is not optimistic. Fitch projects the economy will slip into a mild recession in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. This projection is based on tighter credit conditions, weakening business investment, and a slowdown in consumption. Real GDP growth is expected to slow to 1.2% in 2023 from 2.1% in 2022, with overall growth of just 0.5% in 2024.
In response to the economic challenges, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates multiple times, with expectations of further tightening in the future. The Fed aims to bring inflation down towards its 2% target, but the persistent high inflation rate complicates their efforts.
“The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘A.A.’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions,” Fitch said in its announcement.
Just a few months ago, a permit for driftnet salmon in Bristol Bay went for over $225,000. There were many in that general price range late last fall. This month, the prices at permit brokerages show that some are being offered for as little as $140,000, more than a one-third drop in value.
The price for commercial fishing permits goes up and down through time. In 2020, Bristol Bay drift permits could be found for between $170,000 and $180,000. Then they went up, and now they are down.
The Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission tracks the approximate value of permits across the various fisheries. For salmon in Bristol Bay, the price of a permits has been dropping for years, according to the Estimated Permit Value Report:
But according to permits listed at brokerages, the official value of the permits is far higher than what is being asked this season. The permits sold through brokerscome with specific site leases or equipment, which makes it difficult to calculate just what is going on with permit values in real time.
With prices for Bristol Bay wild sockeye salmon at nearly record lows, however, some permit holders may be rethinking their future in Bristol Bay. It’s expensive to fuel a boat and feed a crew, when farmed and hatchery grown salmon has flooded the worldwide market, with no end in sight.
The market for commercially fished Bristol Bay salmon is also up against salmon product in the freezers of America that is left over from last year.
Peter Pan and Trident Seafoods are buying sockeye from Bristol Bay fishers for 80 cents a pound this year, half of what was being paid last year and some of the lowest prices since 2015.
On Tuesday, Canada will be the first country to require printed cancer warnings on each and every cigarette. Since 2001, the country has required the warnings on the outsides of the cigarette packages with increasing visibility, but now, users will see “Smoking causes cancer” every time they light up.
The law will be phased in and won’t take effect for one year. Starting with king-sized cigarettes, the law will then apply to regular cigarettes, and eventually rolling papers. The warnings don’t appear to apply to marijuana cigarettes. Marijuana is legal in Canada for all uses, both recreational and medicinal.
The new law is designed to stop young people from taking up the tobacco habit. Lawmakers said that many youth don’t buy packs of cigarettes, but rather get them individually from friends and family, so they don’t see the packaging on the boxes and packs.
According to the Canadian government, in 2020, the prevalence of current cigarette smoking among youth aged 15 to 19 was 3% (63,000), a decrease from 5% in 2019. The prevalence of daily and occasional smoking among youth was unreportable due to small sample size.
According to Gallup, the only recent president to have a lower approval rating than President Joe Biden during his 10th quarter in office is former President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Biden’s average approval rating for his 10th quarter is now at 40%. For Carter, it was 30.7% for the same period of his presidency.
The poll, conducted July 3-27, saw Biden slipping three points from June polling results.
Gallup says that Biden’s average quarterly approval rating has not risen above 42% since his third quarter in office, when it reached 44.7%. His average ratings in the first two quarters of his presidency were 56% and 53.3%, according to the polling company.
However, Democrats are still very much still on board with Biden, with 86% of them saying they approve of the job he is doing.
Only 2% of Republicans approve of the job Biden is doing and 38% of independent voters approve.
As for Vice President Kamala Harris, her approval rating is even lower, at 38%. But among Democrats, 80% currently approve of the job she has done as second in command.
“At 38%, Vice President Kamala Harris’ favorability rating is slightly lower than Biden’s and similar to her late 2022 reading, as is her unfavorable rating of 53%. Nine percent have either never heard of Harris or don’t have an opinion of her,” Gallup reports at this link.
Do you approve of the job Biden has done this quarter? Put your answer in the comment field below.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski responded on Tuesday to the announcement of new indictments from a Washington, D.C. grand jury against former President Donald Trump relating to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, which the jurors said led to a riotous situation at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
Acknowledging that she voted to convict him during one of his impeachment trials, Murkowski used X (Twitter) to explain how she feels about the indictment:
“In early 2021, I voted to impeach former President Trump based on clear evidence that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it. Additional evidence presented since then, including by the January 6 Commission, has only reinforced that the former President played a key role in instigating the riots, resulting in physical violence and desecration of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Today, the former President has been indicted on four criminal counts. Like all Americans, he is innocent until proven guilty and will have his day in court. s that process begins, I encourage everyone to read the indictment, to understand the very serious allegations being made in this case,” Murkowski wrote.
X users were not especially charitable toward the senior senator from Alaska. There were well over 3,000 responses to her statement by 11 pm Alaska time on Tuesday.
“We already know you’re a communist!! You didn’t need to tweet it!!!” posted one person on X. “I sincerely hope your constituents vote to impeach you Madam,” wrote another. The bashing and venting went on and on throughout the day on Tuesday.
President Joe Biden, while threatening to withhold funds from states that refuse to push gender ideology in schools, has now defunded archery and hunting programs in schools across America.
The anti-hunting decision came as an unusual interpretation of the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” which passed last year following a series of school shootings.
Under color of law, Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona made the decision to halt federal funding for programs that provide “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.” That includes, according to the Biden Administration, hunting and archery programs.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who supported the bill, stated at the time that it was a response to the demands of the American people for decisive action to protect students and educators. She said it was a very “targeted” bill that would not infringe on Second Amendment rights.
The BSCA amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which had provided funding for hunting and archery programs since 1965.
Alaska, which has a strong archery program supported by the State Department of Fish and Game, highlights the benefits of such programs on its website.
According to ADF&G, archery is a sport that fosters success irrespective of age, gender, size, or physical abilities and over 200 schools in Alaska now offer archery programs. The department cites statistics showing that school archery programs lead to increased student engagement in the educational process, improved classroom performance, and reduced dropout rates.
One of the major concerns raised by critics of the decision is the potential impact on the mental health and well-being of students. Defunding these outdoors programs could reduce access to communal activities that promote friendship and outdoor engagement, potentially increasing the prevalence of solitary screen time, which has been linked to various mental health challenges among youth.
Forbes magazine reports that students who participated in the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) were 40% more engaged in the classroom, and over 90% of them intended to seek out more outdoor opportunities. NASP says that 1.3 million students from nearly 9,000 schools across the country participate in its programs.
The International Hunter Education Association, another organization affected by the funding cut, has a mission to promote safe, responsible, and ethical practices among hunting educators.
As schools have started to cancel their hunting and archery programs due to the funding cut, some lawmakers are taking action. Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee has introduced legislation to amend the ESEA. His proposed amendment would allow funding for training students in archery, hunting, and other shooting sports.
Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who both voted in favor of the BSCA, are now criticizing Cardona’s interpretation of the new law.
Today, Rep. Mark Green introduced the “Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act,” cosponsored by Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina.
“Children in Tennessee schools should not be prevented from receiving safety and skills training in archery, hunting, and other shooting sports by the Biden administration. The classes President Biden wants to defund aren’t only about hunting and archery, they are about teaching young Americans how to respect nature and to focus on a goal. The Biden administration’s decision to strip funding for these important classes doesn’t just miss the mark, it misses the entire target.”
“The Biden administration’s decision to cut funding for these classes is a direct reflection of his disconnect with many Americans. We are a nation of hunters and fishermen. While President Biden lives in his own Swamp, Tennesseans are hunting and fishing in them,” he said.
Rep. Green continued, “The attack on these educational opportunities is another clear example of how this administration does not respect federalism. We already saw the Biden administration take away Title X healthcare funding from families in Tennessee because of our state’s pro-life laws, this is another attack on the values Tennesseans hold dear. If schools in liberal enclaves don’t want to teach their students these skills then fine, but forcing those views on communities that cherish this tradition is wrong.”
Rep. Green emphasized the significance of hunting as a cultural tradition with deep historical roots. He said the Biden Administration’s decision to defund these programs encroached on the values and preferences of the citizens he represents.
