Rotary Duck Race
Dear Editor: The Rotary Club of Sitka is excited to announce the winners of this year’s sold out annual duck race!
The winners are: first place, Susan Padilla; second, Spike Arnold; third, William Kanosh; Red Lantern, Bob and Melissa Capone; and random winners, Tam Fondell, Eleanor Adams, Jim Malkin, Sheri Polak, Interiorworks and Mudry Construction LLC, Karla Efler, Marcus Hernandez, Irene Keck, Rosemarie Carranza, Shauna Thornton, Jenny Eells, Tami Brownell, Ozzie Rose, Cory Baggen, Christine Silvanio and Foy Nevers.
The Rotary Club of Sitka and our Sitka Duck Race had a very successful year due in large part to our community supporters – 954 generous individuals and businesses purchased tickets this year. Thank you all! We would like to express our gratitude to Alaska Airlines for their generous, continuing donation of two roundtrip tickets almost anywhere they fly, to Sea Mart Quality Foods, this year’s prize sponsor, and First Bank, this year’s ticket sponsor.
We continued our Business Sponsor initiative created last year and grew that part of this year’s race from 24 (last year) to 41 for 2019. They were all very generous to our event: Coastal Collision; A Little Something; Interiorworks and Mudry Construction LLC; Sitka Checkered Tours; Waddell and Reed; Stedman Insurance Agency; Youth Advocates of Sitka; Northrim Bank; Harry Race Pharmacy and Photo; State Farm Insurance (Steve Baker); Old Harbor Books; Backdoor Café; Russell’s; LaBrea Precision LLC; Napa Auto Parts; Sitka Studio of Dance; Pioneer Bar; Oceanside Therapy Center; Dapcevich Accounting; Foreign Auto; Sitka Tours; Premier Training of Alaska; Pizza Express; All Valley Party Rentals; Postal Palm Springs; Law Office of Stuart M. Nachbar, PC; Sitka True Value Hardware; First National Bank of Alaska; Tongass Threads Consignment Store; Beak Restaurant; Halibut Point Marine Services; Precision Boatworks; Andrews and Van Lohn Insurance (Laura and Jim Clemens); Davis Realty; KCAW – Raven Radio; Alaska Computer Center; Jessie’s Reindeer Redhots; Cooper Marine Services; the Sitka Soup; Wells Fargo Bank; and Buckland Equipment.
This year, thanks to the efforts of many and the generosity of our supporters, we sold out our entire flock of 3,000 ducks on the evening of July 3.
Thank all of you in Sitka and beyond who, through your purchase of Sitka Duck tickets, continue to allow the Sitka Rotary Club, now celebrating its 79th anniversary, to continue to fund local projects which help make Sitka the most wonderful place in the world! See you next year!
John Weitkamp, Cynthia Gibson, Co-Chairs
Sitka Duck Race Committee
Sitka Rotary Club
Plumbing Inspector
Dear Editor: My mother gave me instruction through a number of aphorisms, one of which was “If you don’t do it right the first time, you’ll have to do it again.” It’s a bit of advice worth keeping in mind. When dealing with construction, “doing it again” can become extremely expensive. It’s best by far to follow the rules – which are based upon procedures that work and are efficient. To help us, we have inspectors who are thoroughly knowledgeable and up-to-date in the rules. We have city plumbing/heating inspectors and electrical inspectors. We also have state inspectors who make sure the contractors are qualified, and are licensed and bonded.
Unfortunately, we must deal with another instance of people in responsible State positions sidelining Southeast Alaska’s needs. The state Commissioner of Labor Tamika Ledbetter has decided that Palmer should have two of the three state plumbing inspectors and Southeast is to have none: the Southeast state plumbing inspector position will be moved to Palmer. Until this decision, there has always been one state plumbing inspector in Fairbanks, one in Southcentral (Palmer), and one in Southeast Alaska. The commissioner of labor figures that two state plumbing inspectors in Palmer can do the entire road system and one of them can occasionally be flown to Ketchikan – which hasn’t even a city plumbing inspector (among the cities served by the state plumbing inspector, only Juneau has a city plumbing inspector); the commissioner of labor says it will cost only $200 more to fly an Inspector from Palmer than from Juneau. After the position is moved, Southeast will likely be neglected and be an area where “anything goes”: plumbers and homeowners who know a little plumbing will have a heyday. And future plumbing-related problems will proliferate.
The Southeast Alaska plumbing inspector has served Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan and Petersberg, and potentially his jurisdiction should include at least Haines and Wrangell (cities with over 2,500 population). The person who currently holds the Southeast state plumbing inspector position lives in Juneau. His travel funds were cut several months ago, which made the position ineffective on a broad basis; however, even with this curtailment, he has been exceeding expectations. Working mostly in Juneau, he has done more than the inspections expected by his job description (which requires 250 a year).
The job of the state inspector position is different from that of city plumbing inspectors.
The state plumbing inspector is tasked with testing and licensing plumbers and with checking plumber’s licenses and the licenses and bonding of contractors – a significant protection to the owner of the building being constructed. The current Southeast plumbing inspector had been finding violations on a regular basis, and Sitka’s city building official and various contractors have been asking for the Southeast plumbing inspector to come.
The Juneau state senator and representatives and the Department of Labor Union Local 71 are trying to stop the move of Southeast’s state plumbing inspector position to Palmer. Please consider how you might augment the pressure on the state commissioner of labor to change her mind about this intended loss of a state plumbing inspector position in Southeast Alaska. One way to begin would be to contact our legislators and the governor. (Contact the Legislative Information Office (LIO) for assistance.)
Alice J. Smith, Sitka
