Borough Election OCTOBER 03, 2017 Unofficial Election Results Click here to download 10,401 Registered Voters Voter Turnout: 1,828 21 Percent Voter Turnout Ballots to Count: 203 Absentee 7 Special Needs 145 Questioned 355 Votes to be counted by Canvas Board on Wed. - Oct. 04, 2017 Ketchikan Borough Assembly 3 Year Term - 3 Seats Open Amanda (AJ) Pierce 862 Alan Bailey 889 Kevin Gadsey 568 Joel W. Jackson 655 Kent L. Colby 651 Susan Pickrell 944 Ketchikan School Board 3 Year Term - 2 Seats Open Diane Gubatayao 1,297 David Timmerman 489 Glen Thompson 1,123 Ketchikan School Board 1 Year Term - 1 Seat Open Bill Blankenship 503 Glenn J. Brown 952 Ketchikan City Council 3 Year Term - 3 Seats Open 3 Running - No Contest Dick Coose 503   Mark Flora 577 David Kiffer 762   KGB Proposition 1: Special Sales Tax on Marijuana YES: 1,235 NO: 579 City Proposition 1:Transportation Network Companies (like Uber) YES: 276 (Prohibits) NO: 594 (Allows)

Ketchikan: Ketchikan General Election is Tuesday, October 3, 2017; SPECIAL BOROUGH TAX & ALLOWING TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS IN CITY ON BALLOTS - By MARY KAUFFMAN -On Tuesday, October 3, 2017, Ketchikan Borough voters will have the opportunity to vote on candidates for Borough Assembly Members, School Board Members, and a ballot proposition that is asking voters to approve a 5% Borough special sales tax on marijuana and marijuana products. The City currently levies a special 5 percent sales tax on marijuana and marijuana products as well as a 4 percent general sales tax. The Borough currently levies a 2.5 percent sales tax.

In addition, voters in the City of Ketchikan will have the opportunity to vote for three candidates in a non-contested race for City Council and one ballot proposition which if approved by the voters would allow the operation of transportation network companies such as Uber in the city limits of the City of Ketchikan.

There are 6 candidates running for three, three-year term seats that are open on the Ketchikan Borough Assembly. The candidates are Amanda (AJ) Pierce, Alan Bailey (running for reelection), Kevin Gadsey, Joel W. Jackson, Kent L. Colby and Susan Pickrell.

Three candidates are running for the two seats open on the Ketchikan School Board for three year terms. Candidates are Diane Gubatayao, David Timmerman and Glen Thompson.

Two candidates are running for the one seat open on the Ketchikan School Board for a one year term. Candidates are Bill Blankenship and Glenn Brown.

Borough voters who live within the boundaries of the City of Ketchikan or the City of Saxman will vote on additional races.

There are 3 candidates running for the three, three-year seats open on the Ketchikan City Council. The election is uncontested. Running for reelection are Dick Coose, Mark Flora and Dave Kiffer.

On August 21, 2017, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly adopted Ordinance 1839-Substitute-Amended, which established a 5 percent areawide special sales tax on marijuana and marijuana products. The special sales tax would be in addition to the Borough’s areawide sales tax of 2.5 percent. Thus Proposition 1 is on the Ketchikan Borough ballot.

Marijuana sales within the City of Ketchikan would be subject to applicable City of Ketchikan sales tax rates. The City currently levies a special 5 percent sales tax on marijuana and marijuana products as well as a 4 percent general sales tax. Ordinance 1839-Substitute-Amended provides that the amount of the City special sales tax on marijuana is deducted from the Borough special sales tax on marijuana sales within the City of Ketchikan, up to a maximum of 5 percent.

If approved by the voters, the special Borough sales tax on marijuana would become effective January 1, 2018. Unless extended by Borough voters, the tax would expire after five years. Proceeds of the tax would be placed in the Ketchikan Borough’s General Fund and would be appropriated by the Borough Assembly on an annual basis as they see fit.

If Proposition 1 passes, the Ketchikan Borough would levy a special 5 percent sales tax on marijuana and marijuana products with an offsetting credit for special sales taxes paid on such sales within the City of Ketchikan. In summary, Marijuana sales are currently subject to a 2.5% general sales tax rate outside the City of Ketchikan and a total sales tax rate of 11.5% within the City of Ketchikan. Adoption of this proposition would adjust those rates to a total rate of 7.5% outside the City of Ketchikan and retain the total sales tax rate of 11.5% within the City of Ketchikan.

The Ketchikan Borough estimates that the tax would generate approximately $30,000 to $50,000 annually. Legalized marijuana is a new industry in the Ketchikan Borough, and firm estimates of sales and tax revenue are unavailable by the Borough. The revenue from the tax would not be restricted for a special purpose.

If this proposition fails, the Ketchikan Borough would not collect a special sales tax on marijuana and marijuana products. These products would continue to be subject to the current Borough sales tax rate of 2.5 percent and the Ketchikan Borough General Fund would forgo the estimated annual revenue stream of between $30,000 and $50,000 collected through the tax.

City of Ketchikan voters will consider Proposition 1 on their ballot. This is on the ballot because the City Council for the City of Ketchikan passed Ordinance No. 17-1855 which would prohibit transportation network companies such as Uber or Lyft from conducting activities with the city limits, meaning any person or entity that uses a digital network to connect Transportation Network riders with Transportation Network drivers who provide prearranged rides. (Prearranged rides does not include car poor or van pool arrangements or transportation using a public vehicle for which a taxicab certificate of public convenience or public vehicle certificate has been issued by the city.) - More...
Sunday PM - October 01, 2017

Southeast Alaska: Alaska loses another fight on Roadless Rule By MARY KAUFFMAN - Environmentalists won a major battle in a long legal war over the Clinton administration's 2001 Inventoried Roadless Rule that limited road construction and logging in national forests. On September 21, 2017 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the state of Alaska’s recent lawsuit to exempt the roadless rule for millions of acres of wild roadless national forest lands in Alaska from logging and logging roads. Alaska was joined by mining, logging, construction, road-building and utilities industries in challenging the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

The roadless rule was imposed by the Clinton administration just days before leaving office in January 2001. The rule prohibits timber harvesting and road construction on 9.5 million acres in the Tongass National Forest, an area nearly twice the size of New Jersey, and impacts every community and industry in that region. The rule also applies to 5.4 million acres of land in the Chugach National Forest in southcentral Alaska.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon dismissed with prejudice last Wednesday, Sept. 20th, finding the plaintiffs failed to prove that the Department of Agriculture had violated any laws, dismissing the 16-year-old case.

Alaska and the industries wanted to exempt from the rule from the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass with16.8 million acres is the nation’s largest of the 192 million acres in the National Forest system.

“While I am still reviewing this decision, I am deeply disappointed to see it handed down,” U. S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said in a prepared statement on September 25, 2017. “A judge can dismiss a case, but Alaskans cannot dismiss the negative impacts the roadless rule is having on our communities. The rule has decimated our timber industry and serves mainly to prevent the access needed to construct everything from roads and power lines to energy and mining projects. I recognize the damage this rule is causing, particularly in Southeast, and will pursue every possible legislative and administrative option to exempt us from it.”

Murkowski is chairman of both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee.

Congressman Don Young (R-AK) also issued a prepared statement commenting on the court's recent decision.

“The Clinton-era Roadless Rule was nothing more than a last-ditch effort to end the multiple-use mandate of federal forest lands – something that is required by law, but often ignored by the ivory tower elite,” said Congressman Don Young. “Not only did this rule violate the authorities granted to Alaska within ANILCA, it was done without proper consultation or consideration of the countless communities that rely on responsible resource development." 

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Young said, “At the same time Congress is being asked to address our nation’s inability to deal with catastrophic forest fires and the need for improved forest management practices – including access to protect at-risk areas or remove dead and dying trees – we see our hands being tied by this ill-conceive rule. If any reasonable form of Alaska’s timber industry is to exist in the near future, it’s imperative we restore Alaska’s exemption from the Roadless Rule – through legislation or administrative action – as quickly as possible. Regardless of the court’s ruling, I will be working to outline a path forward that exempts Alaska from a rule that continues to kill economies, destroy livelihoods and prevent responsible development. When the court fails Alaska, I believe it’s Congress' responsibility to act.”

Judge Leon wrote in the 45-page ruling: “Alaska seems to want this court to presume that, because the USDA conducted such a far-reaching rulemaking in an extraordinary short time period, the USDA necessarily did not satisfy NEPA’s [National Environmental Policy Act] goals of adequate public disclosure and informed decision making.”

Judge Leon rejected that argument, finding that the USDA “adequately considered” each concern in applying the rule to the Tongass Forest.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, enacted by President Bill Clinton in 2001, prohibits the damaging development, including commercial logging and the construction of most roads. In 2000, the U.S. Forest Service was already maintaining close to 400,000 miles of roads, more than the country’s entire interstate highway system.

According to the National Resource Defense Council, the timber industry — and states like Alaska where the industry holds a lot of influence — has for years been challenging these protections, and environmental groups, including NRDC, have fought off numerous efforts to overturn them.

Alaska had sought to exempt the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest, America’s largest, from the Roadless Rule. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that effort in March 2016. The court's recent decision in favor of groups represented by NRDC and Earthjustice applied to the nationwide rule — a huge victory for our pristine public lands, for the wildlife that inhabit them, and for future generations who will also be able to cherish them.

“This rule has weathered endless attacks by corporate interests and their allies,” says Niel Lawrence, NRDC’s Alaska director. “But it’s as enduring as the old-growth forest it protects. No rule has saved as much federal forestland from destruction. Now it has itself been saved, once again.” 

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had previously dismissed the case for exceeding the six-year statute of limitations.  An appeals court overturned that ruling, saying the clock started ticking when a federal court reinstated the rule in 2006, not when the rule was first issued in 2001. Alaska filed its challenge in 2011, seeking to overturn the rule on multiple grounds. Today’s lengthy and careful ruling finds that each of those claims lack merit.

Alaska has been fighting the roadless rule — and defending a 2003 exemption to that rule for the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest — for years. In March, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal of a ruling striking down the Tongass exemption, ending that case.

“The Roadless Rule was adopted with overwhelming public support nationwide,” said Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo.  “It protects 50 million acres of public lands that provide clean water for communities, habitat for imperiled fish and wildlife, and some of the best opportunities Americans have for fishing, hunting, camping, and other recreation.  Today’s decision should put to rest the long legal battle over this commonsense rule.”

"Today's [Sept. 20, 2017] decision provides a critical affirmation of the importance of the Roadless Rule in protecting our nation's and the state of Alaska's most essential intact habitat and forested lands,” said Meredith Trainor, Executive Director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.

Trainor said, “This precedent-setting decision should remind all Americans of the importance of protecting our public lands from attacks by industry groups seeking to undermine our most fundamental and cherished environmental protections. The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council is proud to have played a part in defending this vital rule."  - More....
Sunday PM - October 01, 2017

FISH FACTOR: Chum Salmon Set Catch Records Statewide By LAINE WELCH - Chum salmon returned home to Alaska this year in numbers never seen before from Southeast to Kotzebue, and set catch records statewide and in many regions. 

Chums, also called dogs because of their long use as a prime food source for Alaska Native dog teams, are the most widely distributed of all Pacific salmon and occur throughout Alaska. The fish usually comprise about 15 percent of the total salmon catch, and this year’s tally of almost 25 million is the biggest harvest since 2000.  

At Kodiak, for example, a chum catch of nearly two million was 37 percent higher than usual and the highest take since 1995. Southeast Alaska’s chum catch topped 11 million, and at an average price of $.80 a pound, each fish was worth more than $7 to fishermen. 

Chums also helped push Norton Sound salmon fishermen to a record $2.8 million pay day, the first time the dock value has topped $2 million. At Kotzebue, two buyers showed up for the first time in three years and flew off with a half million pound chum salmon catch. And at the Yukon, fishermen harvested over one million chums for a fishery value of nearly $700,000.

 “It’s a great year to have a record catch. The market for Alaska chums could not be better,” said Andy Wink, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group. 

“Some years you have a situation where there is not enough demand to soak up all that you produce and prices come down. We might see a little price affect because it’s a record year, but factors coming into this season were really supportive for chums,” he added. 

Topmost, the harvest in Japan, one of the largest chum producers, was down 30 percent in a run of several years’ bad catches. There is no backlog of fish is in U.S. cold storages, and higher priced farmed salmon has buyers looking for other options. Wink said wild chum salmon from Alaska, often marketed with the more upscale name of “keta,” fits the bill. 

 “Those high farmed prices raised the bar for everything else and it gets more people interested in doing something with keta, and it also benefits from all the sockeye promotions,” he said, adding that several big supermarket chains are doing a “salmon series.” 

“They will do promotions all season long and go from sockeye to chum to coho salmon,” he said. “That makes for a really nice progression.” 

The chum roe market also is ripe. 

Chum roe is the most valuable of all salmon and Japan’s harvest shortfall will boost demand for Alaskan supply. Wholesale prices for all salmon roe skyrocketed during the first four months of this year, according to Alaska Department of Revenue data.  For chum roe, the price averaged $20.03 per pound up from $15.44 at the same time last year. - More...
Sunday PM - October 01, 2017

Alaska: Scam Alert: Flooded Automobiles Flooding Markets - The Consumer Protection Unit of the Alaska Attorney General’s Office warns Alaskans that flood damaged vehicles in the aftermath of hurricanes Harvey and Irma are expected to make their way to markets across the country.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance warned that consumers in states which do not directly track flood damaged vehicles, such as Alaska, are particularly at risk. The BJA recommends that consumers educate themselves about a vehicle’s history before making any purchase decisions.

Overseen by BJA, the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) is designed to prevent concealment of flood damage and other vehicle histories. After past hurricane events, authorities reported truckloads of flooded vehicles being taken out of the impact zone where they were dried out, cleaned and readied for sale to unsuspecting consumers in states that do not brand flood vehicles. It is currently estimated that due to Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, as many as 1 million flood-damaged automobiles could potentially be passed on to unsuspecting buyers in the coming weeks and months. 

The floods caused by or associated with these hurricanes have resulted in severe water damage to thousands of vehicles that can make electrical systems and airbag sensors prone to failure. Prior to purchasing a vehicle, NMVTIS allows consumers to find information on the vehicle's title, most recent odometer reading and brand history. A “brand” is a descriptive label that states assign to a vehicle to identify the vehicle's current or prior condition, such as “junk,” “salvage” or “flood” designation. By capturing into one system specific information from multiple entities such as state motor vehicle departments, insurance carriers, salvage auto auctions, automobile recyclers, and junk and salvage yards, NMVTIS offers states and consumers protection from title fraud and potentially unsafe vehicles. - More...
Sunday PM - October 01, 2017

TOM PURCELL: Spending Other People's Money - I can't blame them, really. It's human nature to want something for nothing.

I speak of two tenants who recently moved into a rental unit I own. I made the mistake of renting the unit for one flat rate that included "free" utilities.

Since the tenants didn't have to pay directly for their electricity usage, they cranked the air conditioner day and night. There was no incentive for them to turn it off when they were at work during the day or away for the weekend.

Whereas the electric bill for that unit averages about $50 per month this time of the year, their electric bill came in just under $200 per month - for the simple reason that someone else (that would be me) was footing the bill.

I got to thinking about this concept recently. It is the reason our government is so bloated and our deficit and debt (we just exceeded $20 trillion in debt a few weeks ago) are so high.

This is because millions of Americans like the concept of spending other people's money to benefit themselves - or, to be more precise, they vote for politicians who promise to give them things using other people's money.

Of course, our politicians never use the word "spend" - they say "investment." But the dough they spend has to come from somewhere. It comes from you and me - from those who work and earn - and is transferred to those who want stuff.

I prefer to call it what it really is: bribery. Our politicians use our own money to promise things to other people who sell their votes to the politicians who promise them the most. - More...
Sunday PM - October 01, 2017

MICHAEL SHANNON: Millionaires & Billionaires Fighting 'Oppression' - Oppression certainly isn't what it used to be. Instead of vicious police dogs, water cannon, billy clubs and Bull Connor, America is greeted with the sight of millionaires and billionaires kneeling in football stadiums trying to make white America feel guilty without so much as a Chihuahua yapping in the background.

And they aren't alone. The Opposition Media, celebrity culture, leftist pastors, educators, politicians, various groin activists and Hollywood were all united in condemning the USA for the alleged subjugation of blacks. The protesters had no compunction about attacking the president and insulting the flag.

If this is "oppression" it's news to Stalin, Hitler, Saddam and Kim Jong-Un. If I were a white supremacist, I think I'd demand my money back. From all appearances it's whites, conservatives of all colors and taxpayers who are being told to sit down and shut up.

Instead of being a lonely and dangerous stand against institutionalized brutality and "oppression" the "take a knee movement" has rapidly become this fall's Ice Bucket Challenge. The difference being the Challenge was a showy, self-involved effort on behalf of a real disease, while take a knee is a showy, self-involved effort on behalf of a grievance fantasy.

The left claims to own science, so let's look at the data. First of all the U.S. is one of the least racist nations on the planet. An investing and investment newsletter, with the credibility-dissolving name of Insider Monkey, performed an analysis of racism polls that included "responses of over 85,000 people from 61 countries" and found our country didn't even make the top 25 of the most racist countries.
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Sunday PM - October 01, 2017