Front Street in downtown Ketchikan. (KRBD file photo)

All-terrain vehicles became street-legal in Ketchikan on Jan. 1 after a new state regulation from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration took effect in many parts of the state.

New state regulations allow properly-equipped ATVs on roads with speed limits of 45 miles per hour or less. The vehicles must be registered with a license plate and have working lights and other safety equipment. The driver must be licensed and insured.

But some officials have expressed concerns about whether off-road vehicles are safe on city streets. Ketchikan’s city manager and police chief each said they were worried four-wheelers and side-by-sides aren’t safe enough to share the road with cars and trucks. They recommended the council keep ATVs off city streets. The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission says ATVs are “extremely dangerous” on paved roads. City governments in Juneau, Anchorage and Sitka have banned them on city streets.

But Ketchikan’s City Council voted 4-3 last month to allow ATVs to remain street-legal when the new regulation went into force on New Year’s Day. Council Members Janalee Gage, Mark Flora and Judy Zenge were opposed.

Council Member Lallette Kistler asked the City Council to reconsider last week. But in a unanimous vote on Thursday, the council decided not to. There was no discussion.

It’s not clear whether Ketchikan’s borough could ban ATVs — in a statement, Ketchikan’s borough attorney, Glenn Brown, says it’s not a settled legal question.

“If it were tested, I believe second class boroughs would be empowered to prohibit them. Second class boroughs have statutory powers to regulate the licensing and operation of motor vehicles to the extent that it does not conflict with state law,” Brown said.

But so far, the borough hasn’t considered a ban.

Ketchikan’s decision comes as communities across the state are considering whether to allow four-wheelers and side-by-sides on local roads.

Craig’s City Council has temporarily banned ATVs until at least March 31. City Administrator Brian Templin says a working group is studying the issue.

“We’re going to be putting out a schedule for public meetings over the next several weeks, and my expectation is that the working group will be ready to make some recommendations or provide comments back to the City Council by the end of February,” Templin said by phone.

ATVs are allowed on city roads in Thorne Bay, but they must be inspected by the city annually and meet additional local requirements like visibility flags. That’s according to city code.

Klawock’s City Council will consider opting out at a meeting scheduled for next Tuesday, Jan. 18, the mayor told KRBD.

And Metlakatla’s police chief told KRBD that ATVs have been road-legal in that community by tribal ordinance for about the last two decades.

Disclosure: Ketchikan Borough Attorney Glenn Brown is a member of KRBD’s nonprofit board of directors, which does not direct news coverage.

The post ATVs are road-legal in Ketchikan after City Council declines to ban four-wheelers from city streets appeared first on KRBD.

Early results show Lee Burger leading Robert Harwell by 28 votes with nearly 50 left to count as of Wednesday. (City of Thorne Bay)

Voters in Thorne Bay went to the polls Tuesday to elect a City Council member to serve a two-year term as the community’s mayor. Early results show Lee Burger leading over Robert Hartwell by 28 votes. But the results are far from final: there are still nearly 50 ballots to count.

Election officials are set to tally the remaining votes starting at 5 p.m. Friday. Thorne Bay’s City Council is scheduled to certify the results next Monday.

The post Lee Burger leads Robert Hartwell in early results for Thorne Bay mayor’s race appeared first on KRBD.

Craig

Craig Mayor Tim O’Connor has a more than 40-vote lead over challenger Chaundell Piburn in preliminary results. But with roughly 60 absentee and questioned ballots yet to be counted, O’Connor hasn’t won just yet.

Margins are even thinner in the race for Craig City Council Seat D: incumbent Hannah Bazinet has a razor-thin five-vote lead over challenger Trampus Conaster in preliminary results. For City Council Seat C, unopposed incumbent James See looks to have won another three-year term.

There were two races for seats on Craig’s school board. Patricia Conaster leads Jeremy Crews by 70 votes, greater than the number of ballots left to count. And Joel Steenstra looks to have won an uncontested three-year term on the board.

These results are unofficial, with absentee ballots set to be counted on Thursday. The City Council is scheduled to certify the election later that day.

Thorne Bay

Most races in Thorne Bay are too close to call with more than 70 ballots left to count.

But there are two races where the results are unlikely to change: Incumbent Charles Jennings looks to have beaten Dennis Sylvia in the race for City Council Seat B, and Shane Nyquest appears to have bested Bradley Clark for Seat G.

Incumbent Lee Burger has a healthy lead over Everett Cook in the election for Seat F, but the margin is just less than the number of ballots left to count. For Seat D, Jeffrey “Bubba” Oatman has a roughly 50-vote lead over incumbent Cindy Edenfield. And incumbent Thom Cunningham trails challenger Robert Hartwell by roughly 60 votes. Thorne Bay election officials will count the remaining ballots starting at 5 p.m. Friday.

Klawock

In Klawock, a crowded field of six candidates are competing for two City Council seats. Janelle “Macaset” Friday looks to have clinched one of them, but the second is still too close to call. Leslie Isaacs has a nine-vote lead over third-place Sampson Nickerson with a dozen absentee and questioned ballots to be opened on Monday.

Friday also won a seat on Klawock’s school board, as did Henrietta Kato. Both races were uncontested.

Hydaburg

In Hydaburg, incumbent Mayor Anthony Christianson leads challenger Thomas Morrison by 15 votes. He’ll likely get another three-year term. Marvell Nix looks to have bested Vicki LeCornu for City Council Seat 4 by a large margin. In the race for Seat 3, Raymon Guthrie has just a seven-vote lead over Tony Stevens. City officials say all absentee ballots have been counted, and there’s just one questioned ballot that’ll be eligible to be counted when Hydaburg’s City Council holds a special meeting Monday to certify the election.

School board races were fairly definitive. Marcella Grant will likely fill Seat 1, and Marvell Nix will likely get Seat 2, both by large margins.

Metlakatla

Metlakatla held a primary election in the race for Metlakatla Indian Community Mayor. With all votes counted and the primary certified by the election secretary, Albert Smith and Keolani Booth will advance to the Nov. 2 general election.

Additional reporting by KRBD’s Stella Yelich in Ketchikan.

Correction: A previous version of this story said there were 13 questioned and absentee ballots left to count in Hydaburg’s election. City officials say all absentee ballots have been counted, and all but one of the city’s questioned ballots came from ineligible voters, leaving just one vote left to count on Monday.

The post Preliminary election results for Prince of Wales Island and Metlakatla appeared first on KRBD.

Schools on Prince of Wales Island are moving to partial or full distance learning as cases on the island rise. That’s in contrast to some Ketchikan schools, which are preparing to resume full-capacity classes.

Prince of Wales Island schools

As of Friday, 10 people on Prince of Wales Island had tested positive for COVID-19 in the prior 14 days. A total of eight cases were active on Friday, according to the island’s COVID-19 hotline. School officials use those metrics to determine whether to offer in-person learning.

Klawock City School District announced Friday that students would move to fully online learning for the next week. Craig City School District, which has stricter COVID-19 policies, moved to 100% distance learning Nov. 30.

Many smaller communities served by the Southeast Island School District are also moving to fully online education.

Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove’s schools will run remotely through at least Dec. 10. In Hollis and Nakauti, school will be online through at least Dec. 17.

Students in Kasaan will attend in person for half-days. Whale Pass students will continue to attend all day in person, but they’ll have to wear masks.

Information on Hydaburg School’s upcoming schedule was not immediately available Saturday. The school has run remotely since Nov. 16.

Officials at each Prince of Wales Island school district say meals will continue to be available while students learn remotely.

For more information about COVID-19 cases on Prince of Wales Island, call the COVID-19 hotline at 888-894-1321 to reach a frequently-updated recording from public health nurses.

Ketchikan schools

Meanwhile, Ketchikan High School will remain at 50% capacity Monday and Tuesday. That’s after school district officials announced Friday that two more people associated with the school had tested positive for COVID-19. According to a statement from Superintendent Beth Lougee, as of Friday, a total of six people associated with the school had tested positive in the past week.

Students at the high school were previously set to return to full-capacity classrooms five days a week on Monday. Lougee says the delay is intended to give school district leaders and public health officials time to evaluate the impact of the six new cases.

Revilla Junior-Senior High School and Schoenbar Middle School will resume full-capacity classes Monday as planned, district officials say. And elementary schools will continue to attend in person five days a week, as they have since the beginning of the school year.

Ketchikan’s locally-reported community risk level remains at Level 2, or “moderate,” as of Saturday afternoon.

According to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, Southern Southeast Alaska returned to “high” alert status last week. That’s after the area’s state-issued alert level briefly fell to “intermediate” in the week after Thanksgiving. As of Saturday, the entire state is at “high” alert status.

The post Ketchikan HS pushes back return to 100% capacity as many POW schools move to distance education appeared first on KRBD.

Thorne Bay resident Sam Sawyer says he was heading into Klawock for a doctor’s appointment when he came across a landslide blocking state highway 929 near Black Bear Creek Monday. (Photo: Sam Sawyer)

UPDATE Tuesday, 4:00 p.m.: In Klawock, Mayor Don Nickerson, Jr. says that city residents are no longer being asked to conserve water. Local officials had put out an advisory after a reservoir flooded and officials shut down the city’s treatment facility. But Nickerson said Tuesday afternoon that the city’s water plant is back up and running normally.

Update Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.: All seven landslides have been at least partially cleared, and Big Salt Lake Road, North Prince of Wales Road and Port St. Nicholas Road are all passable. State transportation crews are continuing cleanup operations Tuesday, and Craig officials are asking motorists to avoid Port St. Nicholas Road as mop-up operations there continue. Craig City Administrator Jon Bolling thanked local residents, businesses and Craig’s federally-recognized tribe for their help in the cleanup effort.

Original story below

Heavy rains toppled trees and buried roads on Prince of Wales Island Monday. Local and state transportation crews are responding to at least seven landslides blocking roads on the Southeast Alaska island.

Big Salt Lake Road is the only road connecting small communities on the island’s north and east sides with the larger cities of Craig and Klawock.

Sam Sawyer said he was heading from his home in Thorne Bay to a doctor’s appointment in Klawock when he came upon a mass of dirt and timber making the road impassable.

“It didn’t look like it was really that bad of a slide until I walked up on it,” Sawyer said via phone Monday.

He says the slide was near Black Bear Creek, about five miles northeast of the Klawock airport on state highway 929, also known as Big Salt Lake or Boundary Road.

“I could hear a lot of water flowing over the center of the — center of the slide, which I couldn’t see due to all the trees that were blocking my — blocking my view. But I tried walking towards the center of it to see if I could see if anybody had gotten caught in it or anything like that. And within the first couple steps, I sank down in mud up to my knees. So I backed — I got out of there,” he said.

It’s one of three slides on the highway linking eastern and western POW, state transportation officials said. Another, smaller slide near milepost 8 and the Klawock Airport was partially cleared Monday morning, local officials say. That allowed motorists caught between to return to Klawock. State transportation reported responding to a third slide near Klawock, though little information is available on that incident.

Local officials are also asking residents to conserve water.

“Our reservoir is flooded,” said Klawock Mayor Donald Nickerson, Jr.

He said inflows to the city’s reservoir have overwhelmed the water treatment plant, prompting the city to shut it down.

“I’ve never seen the dam like that before, so I’m really worried about it. I’m just hoping there’s no damage to the dam. That’s our only water resource we have for Klawock,” he said.

Klawock Mayor Donald Nickerson, Jr. said the city’s drinking water reservoir overflowed Monday. Local officials asked residents to conserve water. (Photo: Donald Nickerson, Jr.)

Officials in the western POW community of Craig say another three landslides are blocking traffic on Port St. Nicholas Road south of town. Local officials are asking motorists to avoid the road until it’s cleared. Brian Templin is coordinating the local response in Craig.

“We’re asking folks not to self-dispatch. We’ll probably need a lot of help to get the slides cleared. But it’s much more helpful if we request help or know that the folks are coming rather than having folks simply show up on scene,” he said Monday.

The National Weather Service reported a little more than 1.5 inches of rain in and winds between 5 and 10 miles per hour with gusts up to 30 Monday morning in Craig. Klawock’s airport has seen upwards of 3 inches since noon Sunday, meteorologists said.

It had forecast periods of heavy rain with two to four inches possible for the panhandle.

Juneau-based meteorologist Kimberly Vaughan said it could have been worse, as the latest weather system to hit the region did not bring strong winds.

“You know, a good recipe for landslides is a wind shift, strong winds — they’re rattling the trees and then you’ve got soil that’s already compromised due to being so saturated. So we at least didn’t have the combination going on to facilitate potentially even more mudslides,” she said via phone.

And a Department of Transportation spokesperson says state crews are responding to a seventh slide near mile 15 of North Prince of Wales Road south of the Coffman Cove turnoff. No injuries have been reported in Monday’s incidents.

With additional reporting from KFSK’s Joe Viechnicki in Petersburg

The post Seven landslides on Prince of Wales Island block key roads appeared first on KRBD.

A citizen-led recall campaign to oust nearly half of Thorne Bay’s city council narrowly failed by less than two dozen votes in the Prince of Wales Island community.

The petitioners accused council members Eric Rhodes, Roslyn Hert and Roger Longbotham of improprieties stemming from the dismissal of Thorne Bay’s city administrator. The council members all deny wrongdoing.

A final tally from Friday evening included absentee voters, which decided the election.

Eric Rhodes, who controversially suspended the administrator while serving as acting mayor, kept his seat by eight votes. Longbotham and Hert each won by between 10 and 20 votes.

A total of 206 people voted in Thorne Bay’s recall election.

The post Recall effort in Thorne Bay fails narrowly, leaving council intact appeared first on KRBD.

An aerial shot of Prince of Wales Island (KRBD file photo)

Nearly half of Thorne Bay’s city council is facing a recall election on Tuesday. Proponents of recalling three of seven elected officials in the Prince of Wales Island community accuse city leaders of improprieties stemming from the ousting of the city administrator.

Days before his contract was set to lapse at the end of February, then-Thorne Bay City Administrator Wayne Benner was suspended by the acting mayor, Eric Rhodes.

“There were numerous reasons as given in the written notice,” Rhodes said in a phone interview Sunday.

Rhodes says Benner failed to properly file for a multimillion-dollar road-building grant and pointed to friction between Benner and city staff. Benner submitted his resignation soon after he was suspended, according to Rhodes.

Benner is not listed in the phone directory and could not be reached for comment.

Recall proponents reached for this story wouldn’t speak on tape. But Thorne Bay residents David Egleston and Gregory Kerkof circulated a mailer to Thorne Bay voters saying the city administrator’s suspension was improper. They pointed to a section of the municipal code that says only the city council can fire or suspend the city’s top manager.

A mailer sent out by recall proponents argues that three Thorne Bay council members bypassed Alaska’s Open Meetings Act and improperly fired the city’s top manager. The council members deny any wrongdoing. (Courtesy of Gregory Kerkof)

Both proponents say the mayor violated the state’s Open Meetings Act, which prohibits a quorum of elected officials from talking about official business. Egleston is a city employee, and he says that in a staff meeting after the suspension, “Rhodes indicated that some of the council members ‘got together,’ that the majority of the city council from the south side had determined the city administrator should be suspended.”

Three members in all are alleged to have improperly discussed the ouster and are now facing recall — Roger Longbotham, Roslyn Hert and Rhodes.

Rhodes denies doing anything improper.

“There never was a meeting outside of the Open Meetings Act, and the actions of suspension are legal,” he said.

Hert and Longbotham each say they never participated in a non-public meeting.

Voters head to the polls in Thorne Bay Tuesday, June 30.

The post Nearly half of Thorne Bay City Council to face recall election Tuesday appeared first on KRBD.

This 2011 U.S. Forest Service photo shows the body of water for which the town of Thorne Bay was named. (Creative Commons photo by U.S. Forest Service)

State health mandates technically carry the force of law. Some of them outline penalties for violators — breaking a state-mandated quarantine, for example, could mean a fine of $25,000.

But when someone violates them, enforcement can get murky.

Thorne Bay is a city of about 500 people on Prince of Wales Island.

The nearby city of Craig has seen two residents test positive for the coronavirus. And concerns about the spread of the virus have residents on edge.

But officials in Thorne Bay say they’re having trouble enforcing state and local emergency orders requiring that most out-of-state travelers quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

Acting city administrator Teri Feibel told Alaska’s Energy Desk that a man recently flew his private plane from Washington state to the island’s airstrip. She says he then tried to board a boat tied up in Thorne Bay’s harbor. But Feibel says he hadn’t filled out a state-mandated declaration form outlining his travel history and his intended quarantine location.

“We notified him of the requirement and he refused to fill out any paperwork, didn’t feel it applied to him and was very upset,” she said in a phone interview Thursday.

Unable to access his boat, the man left the harbor. But he returned the following day while Harbormaster Ron Wendel was at the city office.

“He showed up here in town and proceeded to take groceries —  couple cartloads of groceries — down the dock to his boat,” he said in a phone interview.

Wendel says he reported the apparent violation of state and local orders to law enforcement.

Thorne Bay doesn’t have its own police force — they rely on state troopers and a village public safety officer. But Wendel said state troopers weren’t much help.

“They explained to me at that point in time, that they could not help us at all because this is a state mandate, not a state law,” Wendel said. “And because it was not a law, there was nothing that they could do.”

For his part, 77-year-old Paul Lewis said he’s doing his best to comply with state and local health restrictions. He says he left Washington for Alaska to protect his wife.

“First of all, this is a life-or-death decision for me. My wife is 75 years old, and she has a very low immune system,” he said when reached by phone Thursday. “And the doctors told her that if she got the virus, it would kill her for sure. So I decided to come up here to cut the chance of her being infected by 50 percent.”

He said he’s lived on his 32-foot boat in Thorne Bay’s harbor seasonally for the past three years — that’s where he intended to ride out his mandatory two-week quarantine. And Lewis says that’s exactly what he’s doing.

He said he was unaware that state and local authorities required travelers to fill out a declaration.

But that statement from a local state trooper — that troopers can’t enforce mandates — troubled the two Thorne Bay officials. And it’s led to questions over how state law enforcement can ensure compliance with health mandates.

Acting administrator Feibel asked the town’s state representative, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, for help. Troopers say they’re focusing their energy on encouraging Alaskans to voluntarily comply with the mandates.

But Kreiss-Tomkins said it’s not clear what tools state troopers can use when faced with someone who won’t abide by the rules.

“My sense from the Department of Public Safety is that things are being figured out — how to deal with, sort of, ‘bad apples,’” he said.

At this point, state leadership says criminal charges aren’t the answer.

“We’ve done a tremendous job without having to order Alaskans around,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy told reporters Thursday.

“The idea that we’re going to use a heavy hand on Alaskans — we never talked about doing that. We don’t want to do that,” he added.

And Dunleavy said he’s pleased with the level of compliance so far.

But Kreiss-Tomkins said state and municipal law enforcement agencies need to figure out what to do when simply encouraging people to follow the law doesn’t work.

“If politely yet firmly asked at first to stop, and then it persists, then like, what’s step two? And then when do you really bring down the hammer?” he asked.

He said lax enforcement threatens to undercut compliance on a broader scale. In other words, if people see their neighbors gathering in groups or ignoring other mandates, that “weakens the degree to which others abide by those same rules,” Kreiss-Tomkins said.

For now, though, it’s not clear how — or if — state authorities will compel Alaskans to follow the rules.

This story was produced as part of a collaboration between KRBD and Alaska’s Energy Desk.

The post Some health mandates list stiff penalties. But it’s unclear how — or if — they’ll be used. appeared first on KRBD.