Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

Kenai Peninsula Borough residents have filled nearly all the available time slots to offer an invocation at Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meetings in 2019.

April 16, when the assembly meets in Seward, and Oct. 8 are the only dates on which no one is assigned to give an invocation, according to the borough’s website.

Kalliste Edeen will be offering the invocation at the Jan. 8 meeting.

At the November meeting, the borough assembly voted to not appeal the Superior Court decision that cited the borough’s invocation policy as unconstitutional. At the same meeting, an updated invocation policy was passed to allow a more diverse group of people the ability to give invocations at assembly meetings.

In October, the borough lost a lawsuit against plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska in a fight over its invocation policy, which allowed certain groups and individuals to offer an invocation at the beginning of each meeting. The plaintiffs, Lance Hunt, an atheist, Iris Fontana, a member of The Satanic Temple, and Elise Boyer, a member of the Jewish community in Homer, all applied to give invocations after the policy was established in 2016. All three were denied because they did not belong to official organizations with an established presence on the peninsula. They sued and the ACLU Alaska agreed to represent them.

Anchorage Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson ruled the invocation policy, passed in 2016, violated the Alaska Constitution’s establishment clause, which is a mandate banning government from establishing an official religion or the favoring of one belief over another. Article 1, Section 4 of the constitution provides that “no law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion.”

Kenai Peninsula Borough residents can sign up for the April 16 and Oct. 8 invocations on a first-come, first-served basis through the borough’s website.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

Starting Jan. 1, 2019, Alaska’s minimum wage will be raised by 5 cents, from $9.84 to $9.89.

The 5 cent raise is to adjust the wage for inflation. In 2014, Alaskans voted to raise the minimum wage by $1 in both 2015 and 2016, and require the rate to be adjusted annually for inflation, according to an October press release from the Office of the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Tips do not count toward the Alaska minimum wage.

To adjust for inflation, the state uses the previous calendar year’s Consumer Price Index for urban consumers in the Anchorage Metropolitan Area. The index is a measure of the average change in prices paid by urban consumers over time.

“When there’s a rise in the CPI, there’s a rise in wage,” Paloma Harbour, Administrative Services Director for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, said.

Harbour said inflation has remained fairly consistent over the last few years.

In each of the years 2017, 2018 and in 2019, the minimum wage was raised by 5 cents, Harbour said.

By law, Alaska’s minimum wage must remain at least $1 per hour over the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25. Alaska is among 29 states with minimum wages above $7.25, the highest being Washington state at $12, and in July, Washington, D.C., will pay workers at least $14 per hour, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. The federal minimum wage hasn’t risen in over a decade.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

A partial government shutdown that could extend into next year has shuttered several federal operations on the peninsula, and left other government employees working without pay.

Federal Aviation Administration employees, which include air traffic controllers and technicians at the Kenai airport, are still performing essential duties, but without pay, Greg Martin, a spokesperson with the FAA, said.

Martin said FAA employees in Kenai, and around the nation, remain on the job to retain public safety.

“There’s no operational impact for Kenai because air traffic controllers and technicians remain on the job,” Martin said.

The shutdown started Saturday after President Donald Trump and lawmakers reached an impasse over the president’s demand for $5 billion to fund a border wall.

Funding lapsed for nine Cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Interior, Agriculture, State and Justice. Roughly 420,000 workers were deemed essential and are working unpaid, while an additional 380,000 have been furloughed.

Employees deemed essential or otherwise exempted from their respective agency furloughs can’t take any vacation or sick days.

Locally, a handful of federal entities will be closed and unavailable.

Activity on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge will be allowed to continue, but no visitor’s services will be available and the refuge warns that entrance into the refuge will be at the risk of the visitor.

Both Lake Clark National Park and Kenai Fjords National Park remain accessible to visitors, however, access may change without notice and current conditions will not be updated. Visitors should enter at their own risk.

The Kenai office for the United States Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is closed due to the partial government shutdown, according to their office voicemail.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Soldotna and the Women Infants and Children office in Kenai are both unaffected by the partial government shutdown.

The shutdown will likely extend into next week. The House and Senate gaveled in for a perfunctory session Thursday but quickly adjourned without action. No votes are expected until next week. Lawmakers are mostly away for the holidays and will be given 24-hour notice to return, with Republican senators saying they won’t vote until all parties, including Trump, agree to a deal.

Although furloughed federal workers have been given back pay in previous shutdowns, it’s not guaranteed. The Senate passed a bill last week to make sure workers will be paid. The House will probably follow suit.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

On the morning of Nov. 30, many residents on the Kenai Peninsula received automated tsunami warnings on their cell phones following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake. While Seward and Homer evacuated their schools and braced for impact, some residents in Kenai may have been left confused.

An hour or so after the earthquake rumbled the peninsula, Kenai City Manager Paul Ostrander was on the radio, assuring residents that they had nothing to worry about when it came to a potential tsunami. Shortly after this, the warnings were canceled across the state.

The tsunami warnings, which come from the federal level, were automatically issued to communities in the Cook Inlet region the morning of Nov. 30.

Could a tsunami traveling up Cook Inlet affect the city of Kenai? Scientists say maybe.

Donald More, acting director of the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, said there is a tsunami threat for Kenai, though it’s a small one.

The city of Kenai sits at the crux of the mouth of the Kenai River and the silty salt waters of Cook Inlet. Moore said tsunamis caused by earthquakes will slowly diminish as they travel up Cook Inlet toward Anchorage. He said Kenai is not under threat when it comes to thrust-generated tsunamis.

“Kenai will probably not see significant damage from this kind of tsunami,” Moore said.

Moore said a different kind of tsunami could affect Kenai — one that is caused by landslides, both above and underwater.

In 1883, the southern Cook Inlet volcano St. Augustine erupted, sending a massive chunk of the mountain into the sea. The landslide caused four 20-feet-high waves to crash on the shores of the Kenai Peninsula, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

“The Kenai Peninsula is in risk of this kind of event,” Moore said.

Moore said the National Tsunami Warning Center and the Alaska Volcano Observatory work closely to watch St. Augustine.

“We monitor earthquakes in the vicinity of the volcano,” Moore said. “We have special warnings in place for St. Augustine.”

Moore said these landslide-generated tsunamis are difficult to track and predict.

“You don’t know when or where the land is going to slope,” Moore said. “It could be underwater. It could be an earthquake near the coast that causes a landslide.”

Earthquakes that reach a magnitude 7.1 or higher are typically the threshold for the warning center to start monitoring potential tsunamis, though they could happen with smaller earthquakes as well, he said.

Just like with earthquakes, Moore said there is uncertainty when it comes to predicting and assessing tsunami threats.

In the case of another tsunami warning, the National Tsunami Warning Center encourages residents in coastal communities to seek higher ground or move at least 1 mile inland until there is no longer a threat.