Category: Alaska News

Juneau Author Corinna Cook is heading to the Chilkat Valley this week for an event centered on her newest book, Permafrost Is An Archive And Other Inheritances From The Alaska-Yukon Borderlands.  Cook, whose writing blends research and personal reflection, sat down with the Chilkat Valley News’ Rashah McChesney to talk more about the collection. 

This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

Rashah McChesney: Your essays move between reporting, memoir, philosophy, and literary criticism. What kind of reading experience are you trying to create for someone picking up this book for the first time?

Corrina Cook: I write in the tradition of the essay. I think that one thing that essayists are really involved in is trying to define what is an essay. We don’t agree. But what we do agree on is that an essay involves movement. The way that I teach it to my students is that an essay is always in motion between the three poles of research, lived experience and reflection. 

The research is anything we learn from outside of the body’s senses, and then personal experience is our lived life, and then reflection involves the movement of the mind. So, my interest in that form has everything to do with that sense of movement. In my perfect world, I’d like a reader to have a chance to think a thought that she hasn’t thought before…and also potentially rub up against questions that are not easy. 

One thing that I was really struck by is that a lot of nonfiction about climate change focuses on catastrophe or policy. Your work often seems more interested in memory, relationship, and meaning. I’m curious why you approach climate change in that way? 

I sometimes describe my interests as like, I’m interested in social problems with a geologic sense of time. I see a lot of exciting innovation in terms of climate grief adaptation coming out of the arts. 

I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t have activists in it, I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t have like policymakers in it. I want good attorneys making strong legal arguments on climate. But I also don’t think that arena is the only option, especially in this part of the north. 

Part of our colonial reality is that we’ve got these very local specific changes that our small communities and families and neighbors have to live with and have to figure out how to live with and at the same time are relying on federal powers, federal decision makers in very far away lands, on the other side of the continent. I just find that disconnect really fascinating. Someone will be making policy somewhere but, you know, in fjord country we’re seeing landslides and increased rainfall and decreased returns in salmon runs and how do we, in our small communities, find good enough ways of living with that kind of complicated loss that those changes entail? 

The title Permafrost Is an Archive treats land almost like a living record keeper. I am so curious what drew you to that metaphor?

Yeah, I was talking with a permafrost scientist, the director of Yukon University’s permafrost research lab. He made, to me, the very poetic and interesting point that ice and humans come into the land together. When you look at geologic epochs and this massive cooling event that happens on earth, it coincides with the evolution of Homo sapiens. So, this permafrost scientist told me that ice is a record of basically all of humanity so it’s very interesting that globally so much ice is melting. That’s like, our species’ most core library. So, I’m just very swept up in the kinship that implies between ice and the human animal. 

The Alaska-Yukon borderlands are central to this collection. I wonder if this region reveals anything to the north that outsiders often miss. 

I think of the drawing of borders up here as extremely strange. I think that might be a, kind of, basic answer to the question. It’s very weird that we have a line along the mountains and that on one side our neighbors have a Canadian healthcare system to contend with and on the other side of the mountains the neighbors have an American healthcare system to contend with. That’s just a surprising thing about the border. 

I think also there’s a lot of exchange and connection across these northern coast mountains. That goes very easily into geologic time, the accretionary belt of North America certainly doesn’t stop at the Alaska-Canada border. So kind of like the way that all of these jumbled bedrocks have landed in North America in the first place, that crosses the border. Then we have these generations and generations of kinship and trade ties, people walking back and forth over these mountains and sharing information, sharing material goods, trading information, trading material goods but also intermarrying, making really strategic choices about when to call a conflict a conflict and when to create alliances and avoid a conflict. That seems very integral to our inheritance here. 

Your writing often circles around the idea that the past is still present in the landscape. Do you think people in Alaska experience history differently because of the land itself and how close we are to that history? 

I think we’ve just got a hugely diverse set of people here. I think that you’re walking around with neighbors who find it very easy to truncate history at a specific moment, whether that’s contact or whether that’s pipeline. I certainly do have neighbors who help dig me out of the ditch who find it very easy to find Alaska history as starting with the pipeline. Then I have neighbors who dig me out of a ditch who don’t see it that way at all, who see a much longer extensive history and, you know, the deer’s use of the Hilda Creek estuary in early spring as this kind of standing long-term understanding of why we don’t disturb certain watersheds and shorelines. I think these time scales seem to exist side-by-side in Alaska. I think that really in the neighborly part of it is, I do not think the way that all of my neighbors think but I do rely on all of my neighbors. 

Is there one essay that feels especially important to read in Southeast Alaska? 

My larger agenda is that even though I focused on our border lands here, I think the collection is relevant to the Americas writ large and potentially globally. That aside, I think that the Kohklux Map essay is potentially the most regionally grounded in the Chilkat Valley and beyond. So that would be one that I think is really important to point at. 

Cook is scheduled to be at The Bookstore at 4 p.m. on Friday, May 15 for a meet and greet, followed by a 5:30 p.m. reading and discussion. 

The post Q&A: Corinna Cook on Ice, Memory and the Alaska-Yukon border appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Alaska will recognize Hispanic Heritage Month under a new law signed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

The month recognizing Hispanic heritage will be September 15 to October 15 each year. The legislation encourages schools, community groups and other public and private organizations to honor the history and culture of Hispanic Americans.

Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, D-Anchorage, is the bill’s sponsor, and said in a statement that the month is a time to honor and celebrate “the rich cultural tapestry that Hispanic and Latino Americans have woven into the fabric of our nation.”

There was no bill signing ceremony. A spokesperson for Dunleavy’s office said the governor signed the bill to acknowledge those contributions. “He believes it is important to recognize the rich traditions, history, and achievements of Hispanic Americans,” said Jeff Turner, Dunleavy’s communications director, by email Tuesday. 

The period also marks the anniversary of the independence of several Central American countries from Spain, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico. 

“While Alaska may seem distant from the heart of Latin America, the contributions of Hispanic and Latino Alaskans to our state’s history, culture, and economy are undeniable. From pioneers and settlers to artists, educators, and business leaders, Hispanic and Latino individuals have made significant impacts in every corner of our state,” Gray-Jackson wrote. 

Gray-Jackson said in an interview Tuesday her goal since being elected to the Alaska Senate was to spearhead recognition of diverse cultures in Alaska by enshrining them in law. Since 2019, she’s sponsored legislation to recognize Black History Month, Alaska Native Heritage Month, Filipino American History Month, Juneteenth and Women’s History Month, which passed last year. She said next she’d like to see June recognized as LGBTQ Pride month.

“All it takes is one person to begin the effort, and that one person happens to be me,” Gray-Jackson said. “And I’m grateful for all the support that I’ve gotten since 2019 and, No. 1 when it comes to our very diverse communities, I’m just really proud to welcome our neighbors to Alaska who enrich our communities.”

“I see them; I value them,” she added. “I appreciate their contributions to not only our community, but to the world.”

The law will take effect on August 6. 

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Last week, a state court approved the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s plan to resume killing scores of brown bears, including newborn cubs, across a 40,000 square mile area in southwest Alaska. The goal of the extensive bear kill effort, according to ADFG, is to reduce the number of predators in order to increase the size of the Mulchatna caribou herd. 

The court stated:

“The Court is in no position to second guess the Department’s biologists in their technical conclusions. The Court must give deference to the Department on these technical game management decisions… The information considered by the Board (of Game) at the July 2025 meeting could be problematic or incorrect. However, the Court is not in the position, nor does it have the authority, to make that determination at this point in the proceedings. The Court simply does not possess the technical and specialized skills to do so.”

Indeed, this is a perpetual problem, and one that Rep. Andy Josephson’s bill, HB364 — “An Act relating to intensive management of big game prey populations” — seeks to resolve by requiring independent scientific peer review of all predator control proposals from the state. Science requires independent peer review.  

Regarding the ruling, the ADFG commissioner stated: “We are happy that science prevails.” They may be happy, but science clearly did not prevail.  

What did prevail is the state’s continued reliance on inadequate, anecdotal information to advance its objective of killing predators as political spectacle to mask its mismanagement, including its wildly unrealistic population goal of 30,000 – 80,000 for the Mulchatna caribou herd. Science points to lack of adequate nutrition, rather than predation, as the main driver of Mulchatna caribou numbers — a fact the state conveniently ignores.

Regarding HB364, the administration did not endorse the bill and the Legislature has ignored it entirely.  Obviously, predator control advocates do not want independent scientific review of their proposals, as they know such proposals would not survive independent scientific scrutiny.  

So “we the people” are left not to trust the state administration, the legislature or the courts on such matters of natural resource policy. And scores of brown bears will be killed in the next few weeks, without solid scientific justification, ostensibly on behalf of all Alaskans.

Hopefully, our next governor will better appreciate science and the need to apply it effectively in resource policy.

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A late amendment to a bill nearing final passage in the Alaska Capitol would exempt some Alaska Native village corporations from public financial disclosures required by state law.

On Monday afternoon, the Alaska Senate’s labor and commerce committee voted to amend House Bill 126 with a new section that reduces and caps the number of Native corporations required to share information annually with the Alaska Division of Banking and Securities. 

Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski and chair of the labor and commerce committee, declined to answer questions when asked Tuesday about the change. 

In Monday’s committee hearing, Bjorkman said, “I think members of the media might be interested in information therein, but at the end of the day, I don’t know that information is their business because it happens within the confines of a Native corporation.”

State law currently requires corporations with at least 500 shareholders and $1 million in assets to provide financial documents to the state, which treats them as public records. 

Because Native corporations are exempted from federal disclosure requirements, existing state law provides the only free public avenue for non-shareholders to inspect their work. 

Of the state’s 200-plus Native corporations, 59 are currently required to file reports with the division, and the number is growing over time because shareholders are splitting their shares and passing them to their descendants, pushing more corporations over the 500-shareholder limit.

The new definition would limit disclosures to corporations with 500 shareholders when they were created, regardless of how many they currently have. 

That change would exempt at least seven village corporations — the division isn’t sure of the exact number and is reviewing another 30. None of the 12 regional corporations would be affected by the change because each had more than 500 shareholders when they were created. 

Shareholders of each exempted corporation would still have access to financial information, but members of the public would not.

Curtis McQueen, executive director of the Alaska Native Village Corporation Association, is supporting the change and wrote to the committee, saying that the modification brings state law back to its original intent.

“The amendment will exempt, as was originally intended, smaller village corporations from the filing requirements. This amendment will allow their staff and leadership to focus their time and energy on improving the health of their communities and providing benefits to their shareholders, not filling out forms and complying with the complex requirements of the division of banking and securities,” he said.

Attorney Christopher Slottee, representing the Village Corporation Association, testified separately, writing that no other private corporation in the state is subject to the same reporting requirements as Alaska Native corporations.

“It means that an ANC’s non-Native competitor in the same federal contracting market … faces no public disclosure obligation, while the ANC must publicly expose the financial details that inform its pricing, overhead structure, profit margins, and executive compensation to the exact same competitors,” he wrote. 

The original bill was from Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome. On Monday, members of the labor and commerce committee asked a Foster aide if he was open to the change.

“It’s not core to what the bill itself does, but we are not opposed to it,” the aide said. 

Alaska has more than 200 village corporations and 12 regional corporations, which were created as part of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

Since that act, many of these corporations — legally distinct from tribes, which are sovereign governments — have become a powerful force in Alaska, holding vast swaths of land and employing tens of thousands of Alaskans.

Many corporations have also become important nationally because they receive preferential treatment under federal contracting rules. Under the 8(a) program — named for the relevant section of federal law — some Native corporations have become successful behemoths with more than a billion dollars in annual revenue. 

Most had humble beginnings, with just a few hundred initial shareholders. Federal law prohibits those shares from being publicly traded or sold, so Native corporations are not required to file documents with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, as publicly traded corporations are.

On Monday, Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, proposed an amendment with a different exemption criteria, but members of the committee rejected that proposal. 

After Monday’s action, members of the committee voted to advance the bill to the Senate Rules Committee, the last stop before a vote of the full Senate. 

Because the bill has already passed the House, Senate approval would trigger a single up-or-down vote in the House, which would be asked to agree or disagree with the change.

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Alaska’s industrial development agency this week is set to vote on spending $190 million on controversial plans for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The budget, drafted by staff and still pending approval by the agency’s governor-appointed board, includes up to $175 million for advanced geologic testing, plus as much as $15 million to bid on new areas of the refuge in an upcoming federal lease sale.

If approved, the plans from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, could represent a major step toward development in the refuge. They could also represent a massive expenditure, as $190 million exceeds the yearly general fund budgets of more than half of Alaska’s executive branch agencies.

The refuge occupies the state’s northeast corner, east of existing oil infrastructure, and its future has been the subject of a fierce, decades-long national debate. No oil is produced there now, and just one community sits within it, the Iñupiaq village of Kaktovik.

AIDEA’s proposed spending is outlined in a resolution that the authority’s board is set to discuss at a meeting Wednesday. The state published a notice about the meeting on Sunday.

The geologic work, known as seismic testing, involves searching for oil deep underground by using sound waves — a technique that geologists liken to an ultrasound of the earth.

The program would allow the agency to move to “the next level” of exploration and development in the Arctic refuge, according to Randy Ruaro, AIDEA’s executive director and a former chief of staff to Gov. Mike Dunleavy. But it would also come with risk, as there is no guarantee that exploration would lead to the discovery of profitable deposits; the authority’s critics say its money would be better invested in Alaska’s permanent fund.

AIDEA bought seven leases in the refuge, totaling about 365,000 acres, at a sale held during the first Trump administration five years ago. But it has yet to do any exploratory work.

“It’s time to move forward and get the oil and gas on the coastal plain, on our leases, producing for the nation,” Ruaro said in a brief phone interview Sunday.

There could be “billions and billions of barrels of oil” beneath the refuge’s 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, Ruaro added. He cited an October report commissioned by AIDEA that describes the refuge’s coastal plain as the “most prospective unexplored onshore area in North America,” citing new discoveries just to the west.

The area’s true oil and gas potential has long been a mystery, though; much of the geologic data that’s been collected there is decades old, and preliminary. Reporting by the New York Times before the 2021 lease sale indicated that confidential results from the sole test well drilled inside the refuge were not encouraging.

The Trump administration is currently taking sealed bids in another lease sale in the refuge, with 700,000 acres available and results to be announced June 5.

AIDEA intends to submit bids, according to Ruaro. “We’re absolutely interested,” he said.

AIDEA’s board chair, Bill Kendig, declined to answer questions Sunday about the proposed spending.

The proposal on Wednesday’s agenda explicitly exempts authorization for “drilling or well execution,” but Ruaro said the board could change that at the meeting.

The prospect of oil development in the refuge — the nation’s largest federal wildlife reserve — has been hotly debated for 50 years.

Leaders from Kaktovik and other North Slope communities largely support opening the coastal plain to oil companies.

But the area includes the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd — a cultural touchstone and important traditional food source for the Gwich’in people, who live over the Brooks Range to the south but still within the herd’s migration route, and who are stridently opposed to oil development.

The refuge also provides habitat for migratory birds, polar bears and musk oxen.

Until 2021, the area was never formally opened for oil development, in spite of intense lobbying efforts by Alaska’s congressional delegation.

And it remains far from existing oil infrastructure, which is concentrated near the massive Prudhoe Bay field some 60 miles to the west.

The oil industry itself showed little interest in the first-ever lease sale in the refuge, in 2021. AIDEA was the top bidder, and no major companies participated.

The Biden administration canceled AIDEA’s leases in 2023. But a federal judge later restored them, and the industry’s outlook in the Arctic has shifted since then, with huge demand at a recent lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Nonetheless, opponents of drilling in the Arctic Refuge say they’ll be fighting AIDEA’s move toward development.

Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, called it a “deeply unpopular project” that lacks a “meaningful public engagement process.”

“They know that they don’t have the support of the majority of Alaskans, and most certainly don’t want to face the voices of Gwich’in,” Moreland said in a text message Sunday. “We will continue to fight any entity that bids on leases on the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge under the legally questionable grounds that this administration is holding a lease sale on. This is way too important to the survival of the Gwich’in and their communities.”

The United States Bureau of Land Management on Monday formally cancelled the so-called “Public Land Rule,” which required the agency to consider conservation and development equally in land-use decisions for millions of acres across the West.

The BLM published a notice Monday in the Federal Register finalizing its elimination of the 2024 rule, officially known as the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule. The agency first announced it was considering eliminating the rule in September.

The Biden-era rule provided guidance for ensuring conservation received due consideration along with mining, timber, grazing, recreation or other uses on public lands. It also allowed the BLM to issue leases specifically for conservation, though the agency never issued any.

The BLM’s notice Monday said officials had received and responded to nearly 140,000 public comments in response to the proposal. Ultimately, officials said eliminating the 2024 rule was necessary because it “threatened to restrict productive use of the public lands and introduced uncertainty and unnecessary burdens in planning and permitting.” The rule’s elimination comes alongside executive orders and other actions by the Trump administration to expand drilling, mineral production and other commercial uses of public lands.

Michael Carroll, a campaign director for environmentalist group The Wilderness Society, said Monday that the rule’s rescission, which officially goes into effect in 30 days, will leave millions of acres across the West newly vulnerable to oil and gas extraction and mining.

“They’re effectively saying, ‘We’re just going to prioritize extraction across BLM lands,’ Carroll said. “They’re going to be prioritizing industrial-scale development on those public lands. I think we’ll see that right away.”

He also noted that the BLM determined it did not need to consult with Indigenous tribes in its decision to rescind the rule, which he called “shocking in terms of its disrespect to tribal nations,” many of which sit adjacent to federal lands.

The Wilderness Society was among many environmental groups that denounced the end of the “Public Lands Rule” on Wednesday. Several public statements from the groups mentioned the pending U.S. Senate confirmation of Steve Pearce, a former New Mexico Republican congressman, as BLM director.

If the Senate confirms him, Pearce, who has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, will oversee an agency that is no longer required to consider conservation as an acceptable use of public land, Carroll said.

“Today is a bad day for those people who care about public lands and care about the Bureau of Land Management,” he said. “But we’ll keep fighting and keep pushing back.”

This article was first published by Source New Mexico, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Source New Mexico maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Goldberg for questions: info@sourcenm.com.

A Kenai man is facing five felonies after being accused of letting a brush fire escape containment and start a wildfire near the Sterling Highway on the Kenai Peninsula last year.

The Alaska Department of Law’s Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals filed those felonies and five misdemeanors against Keith Richard Crowder, 48, on May 4. 

According to a probable cause statement attached to the charging document, Crowder was burning two debris piles, also known as slash piles, on June 11, when a Forest Service officer responded to a call reporting smoke in the area.

The officer told Crowder to put out the fires, and the next day, a state fire prevention officer talked with Crowder and issued him a large-scale burn permit, which Crowder signed.

Under the permit, he could burn only one pile at a time, and “he could not cap the piles with dirt because it would hold the heat in and continue to burn into the ground and when weather conditions got right, it could reignite and escape,” according to the probable cause statement.

On July 4, a medevac helicopter reported a wildfire burning near the TJ Seggy’s gas station on the Sterling Highway. Firefighters, aircraft and helicopters responded to the fire, extinguishing it by July 6, after it had burned 8-10 acres.

A state fire officer traced the fire’s origin to one of the slash piles on Crowder’s property.

“One of those slash piles showed clear signs that the fire had escaped the pile into the edge of the forest and appeared to be the specific origin point of the main fire perimeter,” according to the probable cause statement.

Another slash pile “was actively smoldering, and it appeared the remaining seven slash piles had extensive heat deep inside of them. It appeared that the piles had been capped with dirt rather than fully extinguished at the time burning was complete,” the statement reads.

Online court records list no attorney for Crowder, who faces arraignment at the Kenai courthouse on May 21.

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Members of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District school board say the district will take the state to court in a dispute around its authority to approve and establish new charter schools.

The district is challenging the Alaska State Board of Education for its approval of a new charter school after the locally elected board unanimously denied the application. The Fairbanks board cited a wide array of problems with the charter proposal, as well as millions in costs to reopen a school it closed last year to address a severe budget deficit.

But the group behind the charter school, Pearl Creek STEAM, appealed to the state, and the governor-appointed State Board of Education approved the new charter school on April 29, saying the application was sufficient. 

While the appeal process for new charter schools is in state statute, officials with the district had concerns about the state’s process and whether the state should be overriding local control to create new charter schools. 

The state approval would overrule the local board’s denial of a new charter school — requiring the district to approve the charter and establish the school in less than four months, to open in August. 

The state approval of a charter school over objections by a local district is highly unusual, said Lisa Parady, executive director of the Alaska Council of School Administrators. 

“It is my understanding that it’s the first time the state board has imposed a charter school on a district,” she said by email on Monday. “I’m not aware of any court case that has occurred in the past eight years at least on a denial or overturning of a charter school decision.”

The board announced at a May 4 meeting it plans to appeal the decision in state court. 

New charter school under dispute

Charter schools are tuition-free schools that are publicly funded but independently run based on a “charter” contract that allows for alternative educational offerings from traditional district schools. In Alaska, there are currently 32 charter schools.

The group behind the school, Pearl Creek STEAM — focused on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics — say there has been an interest in the focus for decades, and it has a wide base of family and community support for establishing the school.

The new charter school proposes serving roughly 350 students from kindergarten through sixth grade.

The Fairbanks school board members unanimously voted in October to reject the application for a new charter school at the former Pearl Creek Elementary School, which was one of three schools closed last year due to address a roughly $16 million dollar deficit. 

In a 52-page written decision, board members raised a wide range of concerns including with the applicant — known as an Academic Policy Committee — and its plans for facilities, student instruction, transportation, school meals, the budget and others. “It appears likely not just that the APC’s vision may not be implemented, but that the proposed school could fail entirely,” they wrote. 

Bobby Burgess, president of the Fairbanks school board, said in an interview Thursday that the board’s opinion hasn’t changed.

“We highlighted several legal errors, parts of the application that we believe did not follow state law, as well as technical errors, and that included problems with the math and the budget,” he said.

Opening the new charter school would also cost the district an estimated $2.8 million. 

But in a 15-page written decision the state Board of Education in April found the charter application was in compliance. The decision affirmed Education Commissioner Deena Bishop’s review and approval of the application in January, after the group behind the charter school appealed to the state.

Burgess said the district is appealing the state’s approval in court, arguing the state board did not thoroughly evaluate the application and made a decision in executive session without a public vote. He said instead the board issued the approval, seeming to rubber stamp the application as complete, rather than evaluate on its merits. 

“If there was something written in every section, then, in their opinion, that constitutes an application that is worth that should be approved regardless of whether the contents actually make sense, or regardless of any flaws that might be in the contents,” he said. “So that’s ultimately what guided our decision was that we believe that their decision was made in error.”

Charter proponents say proposal is sound

The group behind Pearl Creek STEAM has rejected the local school board’s evaluation as incomplete and not based on law or “substantial evidence.”

Jennifer Redmond, a parent and treasurer of Pearl Creek STEAM, said in an interview Friday she and the school’s supporters are disappointed with the district’s decision to take the issue to state court. 

“We had worked really hard, and had multiple reviews of the application that was a sound, legal and strong application for a charter school. And we had a lot of families that had already applied to the school, and were looking forward to opening it in the fall,” she said. 

Redmond said the group has developed robust plans for a STEAM-based curriculum, instruction and facilities plan at the former Pearl Creek school site. She said they planned to work with the district and within the district-wide system for services like school nutrition and transportation. Redmond pointed to declining enrollment as a major issue for Fairbanks, and noted roughly 20% of the applicants for the new school would transfer from homeschool or private schools, adding students to the district.

Redmond said since the state’s approval of their appeal, they saw a surge in interest and student applications. She said they’ve received roughly 325 student applicants for 352 places.

“While I understand that we’re also talking about local control, local control is also for parents, teachers and community members to come together and put together a charter school that’s been enshrined in state law to create innovation in the public school system,” she said. 

Redmond said the group is prepared to defend their application in court, but would rather work with the district to move forward in establishing the new school in the fall.

“We’re also always prepared to collaborate at any point, to sit in a room and discuss this and really come to an understanding,” she said. 

Questions of cost to open charter, after school closures

Burgess, with the Fairbanks school board, said the district is concerned about the cost of opening the new school on such a short timeline, and sees the potential financial impacts district-wide. 

“The costs to the district are significant,” he said. “It would require significantly scaling back the investments that we were able to make in this year’s recommended budget, which included things like behavioral support, aides in elementary school, music programs districtwide for elementary school and ELP — Extended Learning Program — teachers for elementary, and then just, of course, the reduction in class sizes.”

Redmond, with the Pearl Creek STEAM school, said the district has the budget to fund the new school, and sees the enrollment of new students as a boost to the district, as well as providing new educational opportunities to Fairbanks students. 

Redmond cited the school district’s $2.6 million budget surplus this year. The district achieved the surplus after it closed three elementary schools to address a $16 million budget shortfall last year. 

But Redmond said the district drafted the budget, knowing the appeal could be approved. 

“They knew there were going to be possible changes coming forth, one of which would be this charter school,” she said. “They had plenty of time to plan for this possibility.”

District to appeal the state’s approval decision in court

Burgess said the district has yet to file the appeal in state court, and expects the process of establishing the school will be put on hold as the court case progresses.  

As of Monday, the appeal had not yet been filed in state court. 

Education Commissioner Deena Bishop said in a statement Friday the department was aware of the legal challenge, but had not yet received formal notice of an appeal. Bishop defended the state’s approval of the application. 

“Alaska law requires that a charter denial be supported by substantial evidence and grounded in statute and regulation. The decision was based on the governing legal requirements and the administrative record before it,” she wrote. 

Bishop said the state will defend the decision through the appeal process in court. 

“The Department is charged with following the laws set forth by the Legislature and will abide accordingly, to any requirement of participation in due process if and when presented with such,” she wrote. 

Burgess said the board recognizes the state’s authority and the legal system of checks and balances in reviewing charter school applications. 

But Burgess said the Fairbanks board has had dozens of emails from supporters and officials in other districts, recognizing the larger issue of the state’s decision as potentially setting a precedent for the governor-appointed state board overruling locally elected school boards. 

“Essentially, what they’re saying is that any group that turns in a charter application and puts in something relevant in every box in that application deserves a charter school, regardless of the flaws in the application or the effects to a district and its overall operations and finances,” he said. “That’s a precedent that is worth fighting.” 

Burgess said the board recognizes the process is difficult for the community, amid several consecutive years of budget cuts and changes across the district. 

“It’s tough. We understand that there’s a number of people who have been working on that charter, who are hoping that their kids can go there and you know, and the closure of the school in the first place, of course, caused a lot of stress and pain for people in this community,” Burgess said. “But we also have the greater the district as a whole is our responsibility, and we have to keep that in mind.”

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The Haines Borough Assembly meeting on May 12 will include the first reading of the FY27 budget. The Chilkat Valley News’ Will Steinfeld and KHNS’ Melinda Munson sat down to talk about the budget process.

Melinda Munson: The budget process has started, and it will make its first appearance at the assembly meeting. Can you walk us through that process?

Will Steinfeld: Where we’re at right now is this is the first official chance for residents to weigh in on the borough’s budget plan for the upcoming year. The whole budget has to go through by June 15. But before that happens, there’s all these public hearings. There’s going to be at least two, maybe a third. And there’s likely going to be a whole bunch of amendments to the budget by assembly members that will change what the plan is going forward. 

I think what the Assembly is really looking for here is the optimal mix of services for residents, given the money that the borough is taking in. And that’s a hard question to answer … What is that optimal mix of services? So, I think when people weigh in and come to assembly meetings and tell assembly members what they want to see from their government, I think that at least has some role to play in what the final budget plan is.

So last year, the school ended up getting more money than was typical. And after a lot of citizen comment, the pool got more money than was originally budgeted. Nonprofits did not get any money. What are the things that we’re watching for in this year’s budget discussions?

One thing I’ve heard in recent weeks is Borough Manager Alekka Fullerton has encouraged assembly members to hey, if you think there are changes you want to propose to this budget, try and make them early. Make them at this first public hearing, instead of waiting right till the end. In that way, residents have time to see what these changes are, hear the debate and then tell assembly members what they think.

And the Haines Economic Development Corporation is on the agenda. What is the HEDC, exactly, and what will they be talking about?

Haines Economic Development Corporation – they recently dissolved. They had been doing economic development work –  a lot of studies and research about the local economy, providing data. They’re back now. They’ve reorganized their board, and they’re supposed to get money from the borough to continue doing work, at least similar to what they’ve been doing.

Last assembly meeting, a kind of broad range of assembly members seemed hesitant about giving them more money. Or outright have said, you know, I don’t think we should give them more money until we figure out what’s going on with all nonprofits. 

The one update for this week is the mayor has come out and said he is going to veto any cuts to HEDC funding. The mayor has that power to veto legislation. His rationale for that is, he says the borough has a special tax that they levy that’s supposed to go toward economic development. And right now, HEDC is the avenue we have to spend it. And the mayor says if we’re going to tax citizens, we owe it to them. We have responsibility to them to spend it in the way that we promise. So that’s his reasoning.

There’s a new tour permit on Tuesday’s agenda for a boat tour. Give us some details about that.

This is one that got a lot of public input, outcry, maybe you could call it, last time it was heard. AMG owner Sean Gaffney is coming to the Assembly to ask for a new permit for a boat tour that would go into Lutak Inlet. Residents around Lutak last time expressed a lot of worry about noise, disturbance to wildlife and themselves, their neighborhood. And the Assembly approved part of Gaffney’s proposal, but for this Lutak Inlet portion said, please resubmit and come back to us. 

So Gaffney is back this week. He has written up a whole number of kind of conditions, or stipulations he would have on these tours that seem like they’re aimed at addressing the concerns that have come up. So talking about limiting the frequency of these boat trips, the distance the boats would be from shore, trying to talk about boat speed and reducing noise. We’ll see if that lands with residents, and which side the Assembly decides to come down on.”

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The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears swept the team titles at the Haines Invitational Track and Field Meet this past weekend in another warmup before Southeast teams travel to Juneau for the 2026 Capital City Invitational on Friday and Saturday, a preview for the May 22-23 Region V championships at Ketchikan.

At Haines, the Crimson Bears won the boys team title with 52.5 points, nipping Haines’ 49.5 and Skagway’s 34. The JDHS girls won with 86 points, Haines tallied 35 and Skagway nine.

Haines sophomore Isaac Jones won the boys 100 meters in 12 seconds flat, edging JDHS junior Krew Ridle who leaned in for 12.2 and senior Sarah Jones the girls 100 in 13.6, just in front of JDHS sophomore Shandiin Frommherz in 14.0. Skagway senior Royce Borst won the boys 200 in 24.7 and S. Jones repeated in the girls with a 29.5 win.

JDHS came to the front of the distance events with sophomore Addie Hartman winning the girls 400 in 1:08.4, junior Kaia Mangaccat the 800 in 2:37.0 and the 1,600 in 5:35.7 and senior Lua Mangaccat the 3,200 in 13.43.4. On the boys side, sophomore Anderson Murry won the 800 in 2:27.7, classmate Emmett Hightower the 1,600 in 5:24.2 and classmate Carson Kautz the 3,200 in 11:36.6.

JDHS senior Meliame Tupou won the shot put with 28’10 and the discus with 83’0. JDHS freshman Vince Nizich won the boys long jump with 17’7.5 and Harman the girls high jump with 4’7, and freshman Eleanor Peterson the girls triple jump with 27’10.5.

Following are Haines Invitational event winners and/or JDHS placers:

100m boys – 1 I. Jones, HNS 12.0; 2 Ridle 12.4; 4 fr William Westmoreland 13.0; 6 so Jarry Maghinay 13.1; 7 so Ethan Ward 13.4; 9 jr Isaiah Carrillo 13.6; 11 so Osian Morris 14.0; 12 so Lucas Wyatt 14.1.

100m girls – 1 S. Jones, HNS 13.6; 2 Frommherz 14.0; 3 so Mya Hayes 14.8; 4 sr Isabella Reyes-Boyer 15.4; 5 So Lydia Goins 15.4; 7 fr Adeline Janson 15.7; 7 fr Bailey Israelson 15.7; 14 fr Lucy Wall 17.0; 17 so Kaylee Frickey 18.5.

200m boys – 1 Borst, SKG 24.7; 5 jr Krew Ridle 25.5; 8 Nizich 26.6; 9 Westmoreland 26.7; 11 Ward 27.2; 12 Carrillo 27.7; 14 Wyatt 28.5; 16 Maghinay 29.1.

200m girls – 1 S. Jones 29.5; 3. Goins 33.5; (prelims Frommherz 29.2; Hayes 31.6; Reyes-Boyer 32.0; fr Clara Van Kirk 33.2; Israelson 33.3); 12 L. Wall 35.4.

400m boys – 1 so Brody Ferrin, HNS 58.2.

400m girls – 1 Hartman 1:08.4; 3 Frommherz 1:11.5; 4 so Kira English 1:21.0; 5. Van Kirk 1:22.6.

800m boys – 1 Murray 2:24.7; 2 Hightower 2:31.0; 3 jr Gage Keller 2:36.4.

800m girls – 1 K. Mangaccat 2:37.0 2 so Nevah Lupro 3:00.6 / sr Della Mearig 3:00.6 4 L. Mangaccat 3:01.8; 5 English 3:03.1; 6 Peterson 3:14.1; 7 fr Emmalynn LaPlante 3:15.7.

1,600m boys – 1 Hightower 5:24.2; 2 Keller 5:30.5; 3 Kautz 5:33.2; 4 so Lucas Nelson-Vallejo 5:38.0.

1,600m girls – 1 K. Mangaccat 5:35.7; 2 Mearig 6:32.5; 3 L. Mangaccat 6:34.4; 4 Lupro 6:35.7; 5 jr Ellie Jo Wall 7:13.7; 6 LaPlante 7:18.5; 7 Peterson 7:19.8; 8 sr Zoe Lessard 7:31.1.

3,200m boys – 1 Kautz 11:36.6; 2 Murray 11:42.5; 4 Nelson-Vallejo 12:29.1; 5 so Finnan Kelly 13.22.6.

3,200m girls – 1 L. Mangaccat 13:43.4; 2 LaPlante 14:49.6; 4 EJ Wall 15:00.0; 5 Lessard 16:08.2.

4×100 Relay boys – 1 Skagway (sr Brenden Moncibaiz, jr Luke Tronrud, sr Camden Lawson, Borst) 50.2; 2 JDHS (Ridle, Nizich, Maghinay, Westmoreland) 53.4; 3 JDHS (Wyatt, so Heleman AitaotoTela, Hightower, Morris) 54.5.

4×100 Relay girls – 1 JDHS (Reyes-Boyer, Goins, Hayes, Frommherz) 1:00.1; 3 JDHS (Van Kirk, Janson, L. Wall, Israelson) 1:05.8.

4×400 Relay boys – 1 HNS (Jones, sr JC Davis, fr Evan Knight, Ferrin) 4:07.6; 3 JDHS (Hightower, Murray, Keler, Kautz) 4:55.9.

4×400 Relay girls – 1 HNS (so Ava Rosenberry, fr Sophia Heddin, jr Talis Swaner, so CC Elliot) 5:15.5; 2 JDHS (Mearig, Lupro, Lessard, K. Mangaccat) 5:42.1; 3 JDHS (EJ Wall, LaPlante, Frickey, Peterson) 6:02.4.

Shot Put boys – 1 AitaotoTelea 34’9.75; 3 sr Ames Patterson 32’0; 9 sr Zach Prather 22’10.

Shot Put girls – 1 Tupou 28’10; 2 sr Isabelle Martin 24’8.5; 9 sr Eva Goertzen 16’10.5; 10 fr Fiona Koelsch 16’7.5.

Discus boys – 1 sr JC Davis HNS 122’6; 3 Patterson 102’10.5; 5 AitaotoTelea 82’5.5; 10 Prather 63’5.5.

Discus girls – 1 Tupou 83’.0; 2 Martin 80’6.5; 7 Goertzen 50’8.75; 10 Koelsch 45’10.5; 12 Frickey 31’3.

High Jump boys – 1 Borst SKG 6’0; 5 Nizich 5’o; 6 fr Maximus Sean Sangster 4’10.

High Jump girls – 1 Hartman 4’7.

Long Jump boys – 1 Nizich 17’7.5; 3 Sangster 15’10.5; 5 Maghinay 14’6.5.

Long Jump girls – 1 Rosenberry HNS 13’2.5; 2 Hartman 13’1.5; 3 Goins 12’9.5.

Triple Jump boys – 1 so Wade Lloyd HNS 38’6; 5 Sangster 30’6.

Triple Jump girls – 1 Peterson 27’10.5.

This story was originally published by the Juneau Independent.

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