He’s out
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Boeing’s CEO resigns under fire for 737 Max crashes
Vikings, Packers battle in key NFC North tilt
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22/13 More weather, Page A2
W of 1 inner Awa0* 201 Exc rds fo 8 e r Rep llence i o n rt * Ala ska P i n g ! res
CLARION P E N I N S U L A
Vol. 50, Issue 66
Holiday note There will be no paper Wednesday and the Clarion office will be closed to allow Clarion employees to spend Christmas with their families.
In the news
‘Troopers have been busy’ on holiday patrol Alaska State and Wildlife Troopers are halfway through their high-visibility enforcement campaign for the holiday season and have already issued 525 traffic citations, according to a Dec. 23 press release from the Department of Public Safety. The enforcement campaign began Dec. 11 and will continue through Jan. 1. “We’re only halfway through our holiday safety campaign and troopers have been busy,” Lt. Freddie Wells, Deputy Commander for B Detachment, said in the release. “We will continue to enforce safe seat belt usage and keep our eyes out for people driving under the influence, driving distracted, speeding, driving aggressively — anything that could jeopardize the safety of Alaskans during the holiday season.” Trooper contacts from Dec. 11 through Dec. 23 resulted in 20 misdemeanor DUI arrests, 20 drivers charged with driving with a suspended or revoked license and 16 Report Every Dangerous Driver Immediately reports made with five of those 16 drivers ultimately determined not to be DUI. Also during that time period, 75 damage-only crashes, nine crashes resulting in injury and four fatal collisions were investigated by troopers. Of the 525 citations issued, 243 were issued for speeding and 13 were issued for seat belt or other occupant restraint violations. Funding for the increased highway patrol efforts comes from the National DUI Events High Visibility Enforcement Campaign. Funds are issued through the Alaska Highway Safety Office.
Man charged in 2017 homicide ANCHORAGE — A Washington state man See news, Page A3
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Tuesday, December 24, 2019 • Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
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Dunleavy responds to Pebble Mine report Governor doesn’t answer questions about verbatim language. By Peter Segall Juneau Empire
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and his staff are defending the relationship between the administration and the Pebble Partnership, following a report from CNN alleging the company coached Dunleavy and staff to advocate for the Pebble Mine. In a phone interview with the
Empire on Friday evening, Dunleavy said there was always discussion with parties on both sides of an issue during the planning phase of any Gov. Mike project. “There’s always Dunleavy discussion, there’s always review,” Dunleavy said. “Historically speaking, when it comes to resource based projects, there’s discussions with investors, there’s review of information.” On Dec. 19, CNN released a report
claiming to have emails between Dunleavy and his staff and Pebble showing the company coached and even ghost wrote a number of letters and talking points for the governor. On Dec. 20, CNN published a letter from Dunleavy to the Army Corps of Engineers alongside a draft of the same letter from Pebble’s chief of staff with identical language highlighted in yellow. Both letters are almost entirely highlighted. When asked about the identical language Dunleavy said, “I understand that people have said that. The point for me is that’s there’s always
review of data of papers.” Dunleavy was critical of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama that in 2015 issued a preemptive veto against the Pebble Partnership’s Canadian parent company Northern Dynasty Minerals. “The concept of a preemptive veto is just wrong,” Dunleavy said. “I don’t believe it’s good for Alaska, I don’t think it’s good for any project if you just shut down before you understand what that project could do for or could do in terms of harm.” See report, Page A3
Soldotna looks to expand cemetery By Victoria Petersen Peninsula Clarion
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union recently described as “a systemic, decades-long indifference to the safety of Alaska Native women.” What has been happening in Nome isn’t an isolated episode in the struggle over sexual assault and institutional accountability. Many law enforcement agencies in small communities across the United States are facing questions about how aggressively they pursue reports of sexual violence. In Nome, there was hope that the police department was starting on a new path after growing public outcry led to a turnover in leadership. Earlier this year, the city’s new
The city of Soldotna is looking to expand its cemetery, which is reaching maximum capacity. The Soldotna Community Memorial Park on Redoubt Avenue opened to the community and area residents in 2011. Since then, lots have been filling up fast. The memorial park came up at Soldotna City Council’s Thursday meeting, where the council voted to support a resolution to amend policies and fee schedules for the memorial park. One recommendation decreases the number of plots a person can reserve in the park from 10 to six. Currently, when someone makes a reservation they can reserve up to 10 interment locations. “Our cemetery is filling up with reservations rapidly, not occupants, reservations and we do have a limited amount of space,” city clerk Shellie Saner said at the Dec. 12 meeting. Initially, the park included plot areas for burials with both flat and upright markers, a columbarium with granite niches for cremains, a memorial wall where plaques are placed for loved ones and a designated area for veterans and their children. In 2016, the city constructed an additional 101 full-size plots and a row of smaller plots for cremains. There are currently no standard
See cold, Page A6
See cemetery, Page A2
Wong Maye-E / Associated Press
Nome Police Chief Robert Estes speaks during a Feb. 23 interview. Early in 2019, Estes launched an internal cold case audit that uncovered evidence that the agency regularly failed to fully investigate sexual assaults. But in October, he resigned his post, saying the city failed to provide enough resources to continue the case audit or police the city on a daily basis.
‘Cold cases’ review hits a wall By Victoria McKenzie and Wong Maye-e Associated Press
NOME — The two cops — the cold case detective from Virginia and the evidence technician from Alaska — had a mission. Sift through more than a decade of grim stories from this small city set between the Bering Strait and Alaska’s western tundra. Nome’s new police chief, another Virginia transplant, asked the two to untangle whether the city’s police department had failed hundreds of people — most of them Alaska Native women — who had reported they’d been sexually assaulted. So they spent weeks inside the police station on the edge of town, squinting at computer screens and stacks
of paper. What they found horrified them. Again and again, the files showed, officers had failed to investigate rapes and other sexual crimes. In some cases, the two cops say, officers had never questioned the suspect. In other cases, they say, dispatchers had taken distraught calls from women saying they’d been sexually assaulted, and no one from the department had bothered to go to talk to them. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my career,” said the cold case investigator, Jerry Kennon. The two cops had uncovered evidence confirming a pattern of inaction that a local group of sexual assault survivors had been protesting for years — a law enforcement failure that the Alaska
McConnell not ruling out witnesses in trial By Zeke Miller Associated Press
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that he was not ruling out calling witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial -- but indicated he was in no hurry to seek new testimony either -- as lawmakers remain at an impasse over the form of the trial by the GOPcontrolled Senate. The House voted Wednesday to impeach Trump, who became only the third president in U.S. history to be formally charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But the Senate trial may be held up until lawmakers can agree on how to proceed. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is demanding witnesses who refused to appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and former national security adviser John Bolton. McConnell, who has
“We’ve said let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton. Fair is fair.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
all-but-promised a swift acquittal of the president, has resisted making any guarantees, and has cautioned Trump against seeking the testimony of witnesses he desires for fear of elongating the trial. Instead, he appears to have secured Republican support for his plans to impose a framework drawn from the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. “We haven’t ruled out witnesses,” McConnell said Monday in an interview with “Fox and Friends.” “We’ve said let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton. Fair is fair.” That trial featured a 100-0 vote on arrangements that established two weeks of presentations and argument before a partisan tally in which
Republicans, who held the majority, called a limited number of witnesses. But Democrats now would need Republican votes to secure witness testimony -- and Republicans believe they have the votes to eventually block those requests. In a letter Monday to all Senators, Schumer argued that the circumstances in the Trump trial are different from that of Clinton, who was impeached after a lengthy independent counsel investigation in which witnesses had already testified numerous times under oath. Schumer rejected the Clinton model, saying waiting until after the presentations to decide on witnesses would “foreclose the possibility of obtaining such evidence because it will be too late.”
Schumer also demanded that the Senate, in addition to receiving testimony, also compel the Trump administration to turn over documents and emails relevant to the case, including on the decision to withhold military assistance from Ukraine. Schumer told The Associated Press on Monday that he stands ready to negotiate with McConnell, and that he hopes questions about witnesses can be settled “right at the beginning.” Without witnesses, he said, any trial would be “Kafkaesque.” “Let’s put it like this: If there are no documents and no witnesses, it will be very hard to come to an agreement,” Schumer said. If McConnell won’t agree, “We can go to the floor and demand votes, and we will,” he added. Schumer told AP the Democrats aren’t trying to delay the proceedings, saying the witnesses and the documents his party is asking for are directly relevant to the charges in the See impeach, Page A2