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Category: Alaska News
Syria was among the first nations to be added to the State Department’s proscribed list. It has been removed under the rule of a former al-Qaida-affiliated militant.
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Cost overruns likely on Lutak Dock
The Lutak Dock replacement project will likely be over budget, engineers said this week.
Engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol told borough staff in a meeting Monday that initial design work has shown higher costs than the company expected earlier this year, when they told borough leaders they were “confident” in the borough’s chosen dock design fitting within budget.
Now,…
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Fall election ballot finalized
The full slate of candidates for the October municipal elections is now set.
Assembly candidate Debra Schnabel and planning commissioner Patty Brown will no longer be on the ballot, pulling out of the race prior to Tuesday’s candidate withdrawal deadline.
Schnabel said she thought it could be “problematic to win a seat with the vote split among five candidates.” She also said she was in support of new candidates showing interest in elected office. “I’ve…
The organizer of the ballot initiative to return the planning commission (PC) to an appointed body suggested in last week’s CVN that the current PC doesn’t follow code, do their homework or know how to read plans. As a current PC member (representing myself), I would like to point out to the initiative organizer that our commission has more diverse representation than we ever had as an appointed body. We focus on a more rounded…
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Leased cruise ship dock a bad idea
Why would we lease out our cruise ship dock to an outside corporation, letting them make all the decisions about how many cruise ship passengers come to town? They will do what’s best for them, not what is best for us. Three-hundred-thousand passengers each summer? No thanks!
I live here because I want to be part of a community, with businesses run by folks who live here and care about our town, and a place…
On behalf of Haines Huts and Trails, I want to express our sincere gratitude to the Chilkat Valley Community Foundation for their ongoing yearly support.
CVCF’s consistent investment in local organizations like ours makes a profound difference in our community. Thanks to their support, we were able to hire our first full-time seasonal trail crew employee this summer, fundraise for our four-person 2027 trail crew, build the Tukga Hut, and continue planning out future huts…
A gray whale carcass washed up on a beach north of Ocean Shores, Washington, It was one of the 187 gray whales that, as of late August, have been found dead this year along West Coast shorelines from Mexico to Alaska. Environmentalists are seeking a return of Endangered Species Act protections for the population, and they cited recent years’ die-offs as a major part of the justification. (Photo by Hal Bernton)
Amid a decade of die-offs and a sharp decline in the population of gray whales that swim along the Pacific coast of North America, three environmental groups are preparing to sue the Trump administration over its failure to bring back Endangered Species Act protections for the animals.
The Center for Biological Diversity, the International Marine Mammal Project and Oasis Earth on Tuesday submitted a notice of intent to sue the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration over gray whale protections.
Oasis Earth submitted a petition a year ago to NOAA Fisheries for a threatened or endangered listing to be granted to the Eastern North Pacific gray whale population. But the agency neither issued a 90-day finding on the petition’s validity nor a 12-month finding on the population’s status, as required under the law, the groups’ notice said.
With its population halved over the past decade, the gray whales’ situation is dire, the groups said. Lapses in Endangered Species Act action put the whales “at greater risk of extinction,” their notice said. “These delays contribute to the decline of the gray whale population.”
A notice of intent to sue, which is filed at least 90 days before a complaint is filed, is required under the Endangered Species Act.
The Eastern North Pacific gray whale population was estimated at about 27,000 in the 2015-2016 period. Last year, the population fell to about 12,890, one of the lowest levels since counts began in the late 1960s, according to NOAA Fisheries. This year’s count indicated a bit of a rebound, with a median estimate of 17,750 animals, the agency said last month.
Despite that increase, Endangered Species Act protections are still needed, the environmental groups said.
“We’ve lost half of these Pacific gray whales in just a decade. It couldn’t be clearer that the population needs protections, but we’re just getting silence from the Trump administration as the crisis unfolds,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Gray whales are washing up dead all along the West Coast, and if federal officials keep dragging their feet, it could be too late for the species,” she said. “These majestic whales are starving and they face other threats we need to fix to save these creatures from extinction.”
Agency spokesman Michael Milstein declined to comment Tuesday on the environmental groups’ notice. He cited NOAA’s policies on pending litigation.
The Eastern North Pacific gray whale population has been struck by die-offs for several years, with beached animals found from Mexico to Alaska. NOAA determined that deaths from 2018 to 2023, with 690 documented cases, constituted an “unusual mortality event,” a finding that justifies further research. After a brief lull, the gray whale die-offs picked up.
There were 179 gray whales found dead last year along the Pacific coast, according to NOAA. This year’s toll has already exceeded that. As of Tuesday, 187 had been found dead this year, including 22 in Alaska, Milstein said.
The emaciated condition of the dead whales has supported scientists’ contention that the die-offs are tied to climate change. The whales spend summers feeding in Arctic and subarctic waters off Alaska, and long-term warming and changes in sea ice have affected supplies of the high-fat prey that gray whales need, scientists say.
Climate change and the resulting loss of suitable prey is the main threat facing the gray whales, the environmental groups said in their notice. But there are other threats, including ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear and marine debris, the notice said.
A recent NOAA Fisheries report cites 31 documented cases of gray whale entanglements in fishing gear in Alaska from 1990 to 2024.
Eastern North Pacific gray whales were previously protected under the Endangered Species Act, but they were delisted in 1994 following a population increase that scientists attributed to the end of commercial whaling.
That delisting was premature, the environmental groups argue in their notice of intent to sue.
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify the groups are preparing to sue under the Endangered Species Act.
Voters at Anchorage City Hall wait in line to cast their ballots on Nov. 4, 2024, the day before Election Day. City hall, in downtown Anchorage, was one of the designated early voting sites in the state’s largest city. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday on legal challenges brought by two groups on opposing sides of the state’s current ranked choice voting election system. The two groups of plaintiffs brought lawsuits against the Alaska Division of Elections challenging the language of a ballot measure, set to go before voters in November, abolishing the voting method along with other changes.
Ballot Measure 2, which will appear on the ballot as 24ESEG, would overhaul the state’s elections system via three major components: repeal ranked choice voting; rescind the nonpartisan, open primary system; and repeal campaign disclosure rules enacted by voters in 2020.
A Superior Court ruled in June that the state’s ballot summary was “true and impartial,” siding with the Alaska Division of Elections, overseen by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom.
Plaintiffs have appealed that decision to the Alaska Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a fast-tracked ruling before a division deadline of Sept. 2 to print general election ballots.
One group of plaintiffs are represented by attorney Scott Kendall, an author of the 2020 ballot measure implementing Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primary system. They argued that the current ballot measure language is unclear, partisan and omits serious implications of the repeal effort.
The other group of plaintiffs, drafters of the measure, is called the “Repeal Now” campaign. The measure’s primary sponsors are Republican gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, along with former Anchorage library director Judy Eledge and former Alaska House Rep. Ken McCarty of Eagle River.
In court, attorneys representing Repeal Now argued against the lawsuits being combined and for a series of language changes, including changing of the term “repeal,” which they say is not easily understood by voters, and the term “true source” of campaign disclosures as “inflammatory partisan suasion.”
Under Alaska law, the division is required to prepare a ballot measure with a “true and impartial” summary of the proposed law. It must be “free from misleading tendency, whether the amplification, of omission, or of fallacy, and … must contain no partisan coloring.”
In the June ruling, a Superior Court judge found the division fulfilled its legal obligation and “if ballot summary language is true and impartial, the Court will not invalidate the language just because better language could be written.”
On Tuesday, the division, represented by attorney Laura Fox with the Alaska Department of Law, argued that the ballot language could be edited thousands of ways, but the division fulfilled its legal duty and prepared the ballot with a “true and impartial” summary and title.
“This case is not an editing exercise,” Fox argued. “We’re not assembled here as a big team of editors trying to polish a piece of writing by committee, as fun as that might be. Instead, the question here is just whether the summary clears the basic hurdle of being true and impartial. Because it does, the court should affirm.”
The Alaska Supreme Court justices will either uphold the lower court’s decision or order the division to revise the language. They’re expected to issue a ruling before Sept. 2 and then follow sometime later with an extended legal opinion.
Timeline of ballot measure and legal challenges
Alaska voters narrowly rejected a similar initiative to repeal ranked choice voting in 2024. Proponents quickly restarted the campaign in 2025, collecting more than 34,000 signatures to again place the question on the ballot in 2026. The division first published the ballot language last December.
A group of plaintiffs represented by Kendall filed a lawsuit challenging the ballot language in January. Plaintiffs include Anchorage Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel, AFL-CIO union president Joelle Hall, and former member of the Juneau Borough Assembly and vice president of Ocean Conservancy ‘Wáahlaal Gidaak Barbara Blake. They argued the ballot language was biased and inaccurate.
The division subsequently revised the ballot language in February with significant changes to the title and summary. The plaintiffs dropped the lawsuit without prejudice, according to court documents.
In mid-February, the Repeal Now group filed a lawsuit challenging the new language, arguing “opponents got their preferred language” adding the term “repeal” three times, and the summary was not “true and impartial.”
In March, the division again revised the title of the ballot measure, adding the phrase “ending ranked-choice general elections.”
Giessel and fellow plaintiffs filed a new lawsuit, and the two suits were consolidated by the Superior Court judge in April.
Both groups of plaintiffs filed suggested ballot language with the court, and the state filed a motion defending their ballot language.
Court arguments
On Tuesday, Kendall argued before the Supreme Court that the ballot language should be a clear map for voters to understand what the measure does.
“But the state’s language here isn’t a map. It’s effectively an obstacle course where a voter can only understand Ballot Measure 2 by doing independent research outside the four corners of the ballot language. The state’s language is unclear, contains partisan suasion, and omits details that would give voters significant pause,” he said.
In particular, Kendall raised concerns the ballot measure does not clarify that if passed, nonpartisan or Independent voters would be excluded from voting in party primaries, unless registered with that party.
“It fails to make clear that Ballot Measure 2 specifically empowers political parties at the stroke of a pen to make it illegal for undeclared and nonpartisans to vote in the primary election,” he said. “I think voters need to be put on notice, especially the two-thirds of voters that don’t belong to either party, that you may not be able to vote in the primary election at all.”
Kendall also argued the language related to campaign finance disclosure rules was inadequate, and fails to give details of the implications.
If passed, the measure would repeal campaign disclosure rules and limits enacted by the ballot measure passed in 2020, including rules that individuals and entities who contribute more than $2,000 to candidates or campaigns must disclose the true source, as defined by law.
Attorney Julie Pack, representing the group of plaintiffs with the Repeal Now campaign and supporting the ballot measure, argued against the use of the term “repeal” because she said campaigners collecting signatures for the ballot measure found voters were not familiar with the term.
“Many people do not use that word on a daily basis. It’s not common parlance. It is for lawyers. It’s not for people who are not lawyers, and it’s not a term that is readily understood,” she said.
Justices pushed back, pointing out the term is in the name of their organization.
“My organization named itself before they canvassed, got all the signatures, talked to over 31,000 Alaskans, and understood that repeal is not a word that lots of people understand,” she replied. “So my client named itself before it learned that repeal is a term that’s mildly to moderately sophisticated.”
“There is no need to use words that are sophisticated,” she added. “When ‘redo,’ ‘remove,’ ‘undo,’ ‘get rid of’ are perfectly fine, and they would protect Alaskan voters’ right to know what they’re voting on.”
Pack also raised concerns with the term “true source” related to campaign finance disclosures, and argued the measure would maintain “open primaries.”
Arguing on behalf of the Division of Elections, Fox urged the justices to reject the plaintiffs arguments and affirm the lower court’s decision that the division met its legal obligations and should print the ballot measure as is.