Empire Archives: Juneau History for the Week Ending September 7

Front page of the Juneau Empire newspaper from September 6, 1984. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)

Empire Archives is a Saturday series featuring a short compilation of the most important Juneau Empire stories from back issues of 1984, 1994 and 2004.

This week in 1984Juneau City-Borough Assembly will cancel an existing contract for an unfinished downtown parking lot and tourist facility, purchase designs for the project and put it out to bid. The decisions came Wednesday night after a three-hour public meeting and a brief closed session of the Assembly. City officials plan to meet with the project’s contractor and engineers today, but it’s unclear how much Wednesday’s decision will cost the city, said Kevin Ritchie, deputy city-borough manager. The tone of Wednesday’s meeting was serious, as Assembly members and a vocal audience discussed a recent court decision to halt construction of the nearly half-completed parking lot, which would also expand the city’s Marine Park along Marine Way. Construction on the city’s contract with Kiewit Construction Co. was halted Friday by a court order, pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Betty “Belle Blue” Breck, who has been described as a citizen advocate and claims the city used an illegal bidding process when it sought a designer-contractor for the project last spring. The allegations were the subject of discussion between Breck and other residents and rebuttals from city officials during the Assembly meeting. Breck opposed the decision to rebid the project, arguing that it would give Kiewit “a very strong advantage” in the bidding process because he is the most familiar with the current project.

Original story: “Parking Garage Contract Cancelled, Rebid” by Betsy Longenbaugh. 08/29/1984.

This week in 1994The Tlingit reached back into their past for an old Native American antidote to crime when they ordered the exile of two boys who admitted to getting drunk and robbing a pizza delivery man. The teens are set to spend the next year to 18 months on separate, remote islands in hopes of breaking the cycle that traps too many young Alaska Natives: alcohol, crime, and prison. Now comes the long wait for an answer to the big question: Will it work? The first Tlingit tribal court hearing in a generation ended Friday night with the verdicts read to the 17-year-old defendants in a bingo hall turned courtroom in Klawock. In an unprecedented move, a Snohomish County Superior Court judge in Washington state last month sent the case to tribal court. He reserved the right to sentence the boys to prison if they fail to successfully complete their exile. The tribal chief judge announced Friday evening that Adrian Guthrie and Simon Roberts would be taken to the islands immediately, but instead they were held overnight on a fishing boat moored near the old Klawock cannery.

The case was widely publicized internationally, but a judge ended the banishment in 1996 amid reports of unauthorized visits to the city by the teens and visits to their isolation facilities by media and family members. The judge ended the banishment in 1996, sending both to prison. Guthrie, who lived in Juneau after his release, was arrested multiple times in the years that followed, including for incidents involving setting off dynamite in a motel room and holding a gun to a sleeping teen’s head.

Original Story: “Tribal Justice Evicts Teenagers” by Brian S. Akre. 04/09/1994.

This Week in 2004Alaska is calling on communities and religious groups to apply for federal grants to promote marriage. President George W. Bush’s Healthy Marriage Initiative was established in 2002 to promote marriage and provide couples with access to marriage education services. Total funding for the Alaska program is $500,000, which will be distributed through the state Department of Health and Human Services in grants of up to $50,000. “Healthy marriages are the foundation of our society, and this funding will provide Alaskans with many tools to improve their ability to enjoy a successful future with their families,” Human Services Commissioner Joel Gilbertson said in a prepared statement. The national women’s advocacy group says the $1.5 billion federal program is a waste of taxpayer money and a “pork barrel” project for right-wing religious organizations. “This administration has decided that the solution to poverty is to simply marry off all the poor women,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. Gandy spoke by cellphone in New York on Wednesday after giving a speech on abortion rights at a protest at the Republican National Convention. “A good use of this money is to provide poor women with the skills and education to be self-reliant and self-sufficient to take care of their children,” Gandy said. She added that promoting marriage is not the government’s job: “That’s obvious, especially with an administration that says the government should keep its nose out of people’s business.” Bob Buttcane, the state’s coordinator of faith-based community initiatives, said the program is not about persuading couples to get married if they’re not ready. Buttcane is also an ordained minister at Unity Church in Juneau, but he said his status as a religious leader is separate from his work in the state.

Original story: “Alaska Gets $500,000 Grant to Promote Marriage” by Timothy Inklebarger. September 2, 2004

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at [email protected] or (907) 957-2306.