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Monday
May 21, 2013
1,976 Boot Old Record
Although not yet officially announced by the Guinness Book of World Records, 1,976 runners & walkers are now claiming for Ketchikan the title of largest rainboot race participants. This was the second attempt in Ketchikan to break the record held by the Giles School in UK. Ketchikan runners and walkers gathered on a rainy day on the Third Avenue Bypass Saturday in their rainboots to establish a new world's record. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest Wellington boot race involved 1,366 participants in an event organized by Giles School in Lincolnshire, UK, on April 3,2009. The route of that UK race was 1.38 miles.
Front Page Photo by CHARLES HABERBUSH ©2013
(Please respect the rights of photographers, never republish or copy
without permission and/or payment of required fees.)
Ketchikan: UW Medicine and PeaceHealth Plan to Form New Affiliation - University of Washington Medicine and PeaceHealth have signed a groundbreaking Letter of Intent to create a strategic affiliation that will provide patients throughout much of Washington and Alaska with access to the most comprehensive care available in the Pacific Northwest.
The Letter of Intent, which was signed today [May 20] is expected to be memorialized in further definitive agreements by Sept. 30, 2013. The agreement will bring together two mission-driven, not-for-profit health systems – each with a focus on evidence-based medicine, community health improvement and cost effective care – to provide a full continuum of services as envisioned under health care reform.
The two organizations will remain legally separate and independent; governance will not be affected. No government regulatory approval is required.
“This affiliation allows us to coordinate care and services with a respected health care organization that has deep roots in the region and shares our passion for serving everyone in the community regardless of their ability to pay,” said Johnese Spisso, Chief Health System Officer for UW Medicine. “Together, our systems provide an extraordinary amount of charity care to patients across the state of Washington.” - More...
Monday - May 20, 2013
Alaska: Governor to Sign Oil Tax Reform Bill; Protest Planned - Governor Sean Parnell will sign oil tax reform legislation in Anchorage on Tuesday. Senate Bill 21, the More Alaska Production Act, will be signed by the Governor at a special meeting of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce.
Not everyone is as pleased as the Governor with this new oil tax legislation.Members of Vote Yes! Repeal the Oil Giveaway have planned to gather in front of the Dena’ina Center Tuesday at 11 a.m. to protest the signing of Senate Bill 21, which they say will cost Alaskans an estimated $4.5 billion over the next five years alone, and much more than that if prices rise.
“This is one of the worst bills to pass the legislature in our entire history as a state,” said Vic Fischer, a member of the state’s constitutional convention and former senator. “It runs afoul of our constitution, which guarantees Alaskans the maximum benefit from the sale of our natural resources. It’s an unjustified and egregious giveaway that must be stopped.”
Members of the group are collecting signatures to put the question of whether to repeal SB 21 on the ballot. Hundreds of Alaskans from around the state have volunteered to help collect the needed 30,000 signatures.
“We are going gangbusters,” said Pat Lavin, the group’s coordinator. “Alaskans know when they’re getting bamboozled, and SB 21 just doesn’t sit right with people across the state. When the legislature gets things wrong, it’s up to the citizens of Alaska to set things right with a referendum.” - More...
Monday - May 20, 2013
Alaska: Parnell Rolls Out Exploration Proposal for ANWR 1002 Area - Governor Sean Parnell today announced an exploration proposal for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) 1002 Area, which the state has developed and is offering to help finance.
“Accurately defining the oil and gas resource potential is a critical part of understanding the value of the 1002 Area to the nation,” Governor Parnell said. “The federal government has the responsibility to do this under federal law, but is clearly reluctant to do so. Therefore, we are stepping forward with our expertise and financing to provide a detailed resource evaluation and exploration proposal.”
Governor Parnell outlined the proposal in a letter sent to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, and he and Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan rolled out the 187-page document during a press event at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Also speaking at the Monday event in support of the proposal were Charlotte Brower, mayor of the North Slope Borough, and Rex Rock, president and chief executive of the Arctic Slope Regional Corp., a regional Alaska Native corporation based in Barrow. - More...
Monday - May 20, 2013
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Mother-To-Be
This female hummingbird found a lovely spot on top of one of DUANE & KAREN GALLOWAY's outside decorative hangings to build and lay its eggs. She is currently sitting on two.
Front Page Feature Photo by Susan Hoyt ©2013
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Fish Factor: The fuel cell, a maritime benchmark By LAINE WELCH - National Maritime Day on May 22 is a holiday created by Congress in 1933 to honor America’s sea-going industry. It marks the day when the steamship Savannah set sail from Georgia on the first ever transoceanic voyage under steam power.
As celebrations are underway, another maritime benchmark will be set as the first full container of 18 tons of fresh salmon from Chile is offloaded from a cargo ship in California after an iceless month at sea.
How can that be? By using fuel cell technology in a new way.
A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device that converts hydrogen and oxygen into water, and in the process, it produces electricity.
“We use that capability and take out the oxygen from a palletized, plastic wrapped container of fish to less than 200 parts per million. So we basically cause the fish to go dormant and extend their natural shelf life,” explained Mark Barnekow, CEO of California-based Global Fresh Foods. “It all gets done at the processing plant before it even gets loaded on the truck.”
More than 30 shipments of fresh Chilean farmed salmon, as well as tilapia and barramundi from Asian countries, have been delivered so far to the east coast of the US, to Japan and vans will soon set sail for Europe. The company plans to expand to shipping other seafood species as well.
“Throughout each shipment our fuel cell wakes up every 10 minutes and reads the atmosphere. If it detects the oxygen levels have risen, it actually scavenges it to keep the level low,” Barnekow said of GFF’s patented SAF-D system. - More...
Monday - May 20, 2013
Southeast Alaska: March Against Monsanto planned in Sitka - Tens of thousands of people around the world will gather on May 25, in more than 300 cities in protest of the agrochemical giant, Monsanto. One of those cities where a march is scheduled to take place is in Sitka, Alaska, on Castle Hill, the location where Russia sold the vast territory of Alaska to the United States.
Sitka's march organizer, Brett Wilcox, chose Castle Hill for Sitka's March Against Monsanto for its symbolic significance. "There are many similarities between the original 'Land Grab' that took place with the first European expansion and Monsanto's current global 'Seed Grab,' Wilcox states.
Wilcox said, "Both involve the privatization of Nature, a concept that was largely foreign to Native Americans and Alaska Natives. And both have resulted in loss of freedom and loss of life. The difference is that Monsanto's seed grab not only further disenfranchises Native Americans; it disenfranchises all nations and all people. The citizens of the world are, as it were, sitting in our canoes in Sitka Sound, watching powerful people and corporations claim and repackage life as their own, thereby stealing our seed sovereignty and seed freedom." - More...
Monday - May 20, 2013 |
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Alaska - Northwest: Catching Up With Catch Shares - Ralph Brown runs a 75-foot trawler, Little Joe, out of Brookings, Oregon. He fishes for pink shrimp, Dungeness crab, and groundfish, moving between the Oregon and Alaskan coastlines at different times of year. In 2011, the West Coast groundish fishery, which typically accounts for more than half of Brown’s gross, converted to a catch shares system of management. As a result, for both Ralph Brown’s business and for the groundfish he depends on, things are looking up.
The cod end of a trawl net, coming up full with groundfish.
Photo credit: Ralph Brown
Flexibility Is Up
Before the change, fishing for groundfish on the West Coast took place in two-month bouts. During each mini-season, fishermen would race to catch their limit before time ran out. This led to unsafe conditions on the water and to periodic gluts as boats all brought their catch to market at once.
Today, each fisherman or company is allocated a percentage of the year’s total allowable catch for a species. That share of the catch—the catch share—translates into the fisherman’s individual quota for the year, and they can fish it whenever they like. - More...
Monday - May 16, 2013
Alaska: Protecting sustainable fisheries through enforcement actions- American Seafoods Company and the owners and operators of the catcher/processors Ocean Rover and Northern Eagle were charged on May 8, 2013, by NOAA’s Office of General Counsel for tampering with the equipment used for weighing Alaska pollock. Pollock on these vessels are processed for many uses, from frozen fish sticks and imitation crab to roe and fish oil.
The respondents in these cases are alleged to have adjusted their flow scales to record lower weights, and then recorded these inaccurate weights in their logbooks in violation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the American Fisheries Act.
Flow scales are used to ensure accurate catch accounting. Adjusting the equipment to record a lower weight allowed the vessels to go over their quotas, essentially stealing fish from others permitted in the Alaska pollock fishery.
Felony and major civil cases involving the potential for significant damage to the resource or to the integrity of management schemes are a high priority for the Alaska Division of NOAA’s Law Enforcement, which investigated these cases. - More...
Monday - May 16, 2013 |
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Alaska: Former Alaska State Employee and Wisconsin Nurse Indicted for Worker's Compensation Fraud, Perjury and Theft - Scott A. Groom and Laurayne K. Fischer, both currently of Wisconsin, were indicted on May 17, 2013, for 93 counts of perjury, scheme to defraud, theft and falsification of business records. Of the 93 counts, 55 were against Fischer and 38 against Groom.
Groom is a former State of Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT) employee. He worked for DOT in Fox, Alaska as an operator at a weigh station. According to labor records, Groom was injured on the job in 1999. In 2002, Groom moved to Wisconsin. In 2008, he settled his workers' compensation claim with the State of Alaska for $201,500. Under the settlement, the State agreed to provide future medical benefits.
Shortly thereafter, Groom allegedly began receiving massage treatment from Fischer in the State of Wisconsin. Fischer has represented that she is a certified nurse in the State of Wisconsin and the State of Alaska paid for Groom's treatments. - More...
Monday - May 16, 2013
Alaska: Property Tax Assessor Charged for Fraudulently Billing Medicaid for Over $60,000 - Today, 36 year old Lorie Nabong Batac of Anchorage, an Anchorage property tax assessor, was charged with two counts of medical assistance fraud for claiming to be providing personal care attendant services to two Medicaid recipients when she was allegedly working another job or the recipients were traveling alone outside of the United States. No arraignment date has been set by the court as of yet.
Personal care attendants are health care providers that the Alaska Medicaid program pays for providing home-based health care services to Medicaid recipients. The program is designed to allow Medicaid recipients to stay in their home rather than being placed in a nursing home type setting. Medicaid pays approximately $24 per hour for the services provided and the personal care attendant receives approximately $16.50 per hour.
The charging document states that Batac allegedly billed Medicaid on five different occasions between October 2008 and January 2012, for personal care attendant services she claimed to be providing to two different Medicaid recipients when the recipients were traveling outside of the United States. Between November 2008 and March 2010, Batac also allegedly billed Medicaid for personal care attendant services she claimed to be providing the same recipients during times that she was working as a cashier at Home Depot. The total fraud alleged is over $60,000. - More...
Monday - May 16, 2013
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 Open Letter: Eliminate the IRS By A. M. Johnson - Now is the opportune time to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service. A service that was created by Congress, oversighted by the President and corrupted many times by both parties by many many members of Congress, and lobbies who have had rules bent and made illegal in so very many incidents. Always at the expense of the common man. - More...
Monday - May 20, 2013
Sealaska Nobility & Decreased Dividend & By Andre LeCornu -
To say that these Sealaska people are actually avaricious and elitist is a gross understatement. The current lands bill is under fire throughout the state. This corporation has wrought more divisiveness and disunity than unity. It is a corporation and will not and cannot meet our needs as tribal people. It is farcical to think for a moment that the corporate goals are even compatible with our tribal needs. The philosophies of these organized entities are at opposite ends of the spectrum. To have a Sealaska board member as President of the tribe clearly defines contradiction. Even the use of the term"tribal member shareholder" is a cruel joke and nonsensical in the real world. - More...
Monday PM - May 20, 2013
Time for a FairTax By Roy Newsom - The FairTax Plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue replacement, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment. This nonpartisan legislation (HR 25/S122) abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax - administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities. The IRS is disbanded and defunded. The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system. - More...
Monday PM - May 20, 2013
VOTE FOR MYRNA GARDNER By Martha Gallagher -
I urge all family, family & shareholders to vote directed and give your votes to Myrna Gardner. - More...
Monday PM - May 20, 2013
SEAPA Study – Waste of Ratepayers’ Money By Bob Sivertsen -
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) is a nonprofit wholesale power provider, not a monopoly as recently alleged. As a nonprofit, revenues are invested back into the Agency's operations and maintenance, and most years, rebates are given back to the member communities, all of which benefit our communities. Revenues are not pocketed by owners or stockholders. Working through contracts with the member communities, including the Power Sales Agreement, is a standard part of a sound business plan, which is evidenced by the Agency’s delivery of reliable wholesale power to the communities of Ketchikan, Petersburg, and Wrangell at the low rate of 6.8 cents/kWh for over 15 years. Our stable wholesale power rate is the lowest in the State of Alaska and has significantly benefited this region. This is "unique" considering costs for almost everything else have gone up significantly over the same period of time. - More...
Thursday PM - May 16, 2013
Management Slate v Independent By Myrna Gardner -
For the first time in my life, I decided to run as an Independent candidate for the Sealaska Board. The challenges Independents face are many. There are only 44 days from the date the proxy is issued before the Annual meeting. The Corporation uses shareholder money to send board slate out to informational meetings. The meetings are scheduled one right after the other and unless you have an endless pit of money, it is expense to attend on your own dime. - More...
Thursday PM - May 16, 2013
Sealaska Corporation and the New Tlingit Nobility By Clarice Johnson -
I am a Sealaska shareholder. I grew up commercially fishing with my father, Moses Johnson, who taught us if we wanted the land to care for us, we needed to care for the land. - More...
Thursday PM - May 16, 2013
Kayhi 1963 Reunion? By Barb Burgett Johnson-
Does anyone know of plans for a (gulp) 50th reunion for Kayhi '63, &/or can give me a contact name? I understand they're normally around July 4th, or the preceding weekend. - More...
Thursday PM - May 16, 2013
RE: Trolls & Fraudsters By Edwin Irizarry -
After reading Mr. Hanger's initial letter on guns and the rebuttals that followed, I could not resist. I would like to address some statements that Mr. Hanger made and ask him some questions. I am not going to write about who I am or what great deeds I may have or not have done. Those who know me here in Ketchikan truly know my history. - More...
Thursday PM - May 16, 2013
The Whisper App and your kids By Jessica Travis -
I am appalled at the recent talk about the "whisper app" and what's even more disconcerting is what our youth, right here in Ketchikan are using this app for bullying. These things may be hidden under the guise of "anonymous" - but the words and photos being posted are not. Parents, you should be outraged! Take a look at this app. Search your child's phone and/or other devices for this app and see what they are posting. Some of the things that I have seen posted since I found out about this: - More...
Monday PM - May 13, 2013
Speed Limits North and South of Ketchikan By Marlene Steiner -
I would like to know why that the State of Alaska DOT has different speed limits, one going to Beaver Falls and two going to the end of the road out north. - More...
Monday PM - May 13, 2013
S.340 Transfers Public Wildlife Habitat to Private Ownership By Bruce Baker -
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s S.340 would transfer some of the highest quality old-growth wildlife habitat on the Tongass National Forest to Sealaska Corporation for clear-cut logging. The bill is not necessary to fulfill Sealaska’s land selection entitlement under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). It is a poor conservation tradeoff, and it is certainly NOT in the public interest. - More...
Monday PM - May 13, 2013
RE: Trolls & Fraudsters By Douglas J. Thompson -
Well you had me going there Mr. Hanger. I thought you were trying to convey a true and cogent point of view. It wasn't until your second letter that I realized you were doing a parody of the gun control position. When I realized you had not included or responded to one legal or historical fact, failed to address any opposing argument, arbitrarily threw out the Amendments and by extension the whole Constitution with its rule of law, filled your letters with disinformation, went off on irrelevant tangents, then the Bush/Obhama tactic of labeling any opposition as "terrorist" that I caught on. By the way thanks for the great compliment of calling me a "traitor" and "terrorist". That stands me in great company as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and all the other founding fathers. The Sons of Liberty were called terrorists in their time also. Trouble is it is hard to take a compliment that is given in context of a greater jest. - More...
Monday PM - May 13, 2013
RE: Trolls & Fraudsters By LCDR James Thompson USN -
Mr Hanger, in response to your letter implying I'm a troll or a fraudster several points of rebuttal are in order; - More...
Monday PM - May 13, 2013
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