Photo of the Month Ketchikan: 2017 Cruise Ship Calendar (PDF) - Calendar Courtesy Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska Ketchikan: Public Meetings Ketchikan: Upcoming Events Historical Ketchikan June Allen Dave Kiffer Louise B. Harrington Ketchikan Weather Ketchikan's Forecast Weather History for Sept. 2017 Ketchikan's Historic Weather Nat Weather Service KTN Ketchikan Tides & Currents Search the News Ketchikan Alaska RSS widget

Ketchikan: Redford movie was based on former Ketchikan resident; Tom Murton was first probation officer and Ketchikan jail manager By DAVE KIFFER - In 1980. Robert Redford starred in a movie called "Brubaker" about a crusading prison warden in Arkansas who tried to eliminate prison corruption and improve conditions for prisoners.

"Brubaker" was loosely based on the story of Tom Murton, a corrections official who indeed attempted to reform the Arkansas prison system before creating a big enough political stir that he was fired. He then wrote a book called the "The Arkansas Prison Scandal." 

But what is generally not known is that Murton had an Alaskan connection. For several years in the early 1960s, he was the probation officer and the state jail supervisor in Ketchikan.

Murton was born in Los Angeles in 1928, but his family had Oklahoma roots and they soon returned to the Sooner State where Murton was raised. After serving in the military, he graduated from Oklahoma State University In 1950 with a degree in animal husbandry. By then, his father had moved north to the territory of Alaska and Murton - who had spent some time in the military in Alaska - joined him there, graduating with a degree in mathematics from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.

When Alaska became a state in 1959, many of the governmental functions of the federal government transferred to state control and the new government was scrambling to find people fill positions in the newly created departments.

In 1960, Murton joined the newly created Alaska Department of Health and Welfare. Corrections was a subset of that department within the Division of Institutions. Within that division was the Youth and Adult Authority which had nine separate locations in Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Ketchikan and Nome. Ketchikan had two facilities, the Ketchikan State Jail which took over the federal jail space in the Federal Building on Stedman Street and the Ketchikan Detention Home - a youth facility that occupied a building next to Norman Walker Ballfield near City Park.

Murton began his time in Ketchikan as the first state probation officer. He proved to be a prolific memo writer and, from his memos, we can follow his time in Ketchikan. In January of 2016, State Archivist Dean Dawson poured through the several boxes of records dealing with Murton and created "Tom Murton - His Alaska Connections State and Federal Records Correspondence." The records detailed not only Murton's time in Alaska, but a period nearly two decades later where he was negotiating returning several boxes of the records to the state that Murton may or may not have taken illegally.

"Intelligent and conscientious with a dry sense of humor, Murton could also prove abrasive and uncompromising with others, especially his superiors," Dawson wrote into the intro to his collection of Murton memos. "Murton made his reputation by helping establish the Alaskan correctional system...he was eventually fired for giving controversial testimony before the Legislature concerning prison conditions."

It would not be the last time that Murton would be fired from a corrections job.

"Murton was famous for his exhaustive, multi-page, single spaced memoranda that often contained very few paragraphs, sometimes one paragraph per page." Dawson added. "His 'Murtonian' language was well know within the Department of Health and Welfare."

Many of the memos deal with the challenges of staffing and stocking the institutions, according to Dawson.

"Murton states that he 'inherited an unique filing system' his way of saying that it was quite inefficient," Dawson wrote. "Murton was involved in the procurement of everything from tooth brushes, cigarette tobacco, shave lotion, shirts, trousers, clamp lamps, plumbing supplies, paper clips, stamps, security razors, uniforms and fingerprint ink rollers. Washing machines were a really big deal."

How Murton dealt with all this showed his character as well, according to Dawson.

"It...clearly depicts how Murton's style assured his unemployment after a relatively short time with the State of Alaska," Dawson concluded.

Murton was working at Clark Junior High School in  Anchorage in 1960 when he applied for the position of superintendent in the new Youth Conservation Camp. Charles Pfeffier - the director of the Division of Institutions - decided that Murton wasn't quite qualified to be in charge of an entire facility, but offered him a position as a probation officer. Pfieffer would grow to regret his decision to hire Murton.

On August 1, 1960, Murton began his case work in Ketchikan. Murton later wrote - in an unpublished dissertation that is also part of the state archives - that he was also unofficially put in charge of the jail and given the responsibility for hiring officers and developing standards for operations and training. Many of the standards that he developed were then used at other facilities in the state, according the dissertation.

Within a week, though, Murton was already developing a reputation as a bit of a "fuss budget."

On August 8, he sent a memo to Pfeiffer complaining that every time he switched jobs in Alaska he was required to pay the $10 School Tax again.

"No less than four times has this happened to my wife or myself," He fumed, adding that he was willing to take the case to Governor Egan, if necessary.

A week later, Murton was still concerned about finances telling Pfeiffer in another memo that he was so low on cash that his family was "down to beans and sow belly now and could use the per diem check very well."

Another week later, Pfeiffer was already cautioning Murton to be a little more flexible in his position. - More...
Friday PM - October 06, 2017

FISH FACTOR: Pacific cod stock in Gulf of Alaska at all time low, scientists say By LAINE WELCH - Fishing outlooks for some of Alaska’s largest catches are running the gamut from celebratory (salmon) to relief (Bering Sea crab) to catastrophic (cod). 

First the bad news.

Stakeholders were stunned to learn that surveys yielded the lowest numbers ever for Pacific cod in the federally managed waters of the Gulf of Alaska, meaning from three to 200 miles offshore. 

Seafood.com was the first to report the bad news as the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting got underway last week in Anchorage.         

Fisheries biologist Steve Barbeaux of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle said the summer survey, done every other year, revealed that the cod year classes for 2012 and 2013 appeared to be “wiped out,” and the data suggest recruitment failures through 2016.  

Overall, the surveys reflected a 71 percent decline in Gulf cod abundance since 2015, and an 83 percent decline since 2013. The cod crash coincides with the record warm Gulf water temperatures in 2015, Barbeaux said.

Preliminary estimates indicate cod catches in the Gulf of Alaska next year could drop by 60-85 percent, although the data must undergo further analysis and could change when final decisions are made in December. 

The 2017 Gulf cod harvest from federal waters was 150,000 metric tons (330 million pounds), which was down 20 percent from the previous year. 

The cod crash will be felt in waters closer to shore as well. 

“The state cod fishery harvest guidelines are based on the federal harvest level. So as that declines, the state harvests will decline as well,” said Forrest Bowers, deputy director of the commercial fisheries division for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game (ADF&G). 

The state waters allowable cod harvest for 2017 is approximately 45 million pounds. 

Pacific cod accounted for 12 percent of Alaska’s fish harvests by volume in 2016, and 11 percent of the value. Alaska fishermen produce roughly 16 percent of the global cod catch.

The 2018 cod catches in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands fishery are expected to remain the same at nearly 527 million pounds.   - More...
Friday PM - October 06, 2017

Ketchikan: NEW HORIZONS RECEIVES QUALITY AWARD - New Horizons Long-term Care unit at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center recently received a Quality Achievement Award from Mountain-Pacific Quality Health, the Medicare quality-innovation network, quality-improvement organization for Alaska. 

New Horizons was one of seven long-term care facilities in Alaska to be recognized for quality performance at the annual meeting of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association Health in late September. PeaceHealth Ketchikan's Chief Administrative Officer Ed Freysinger and Shannon Updike, RN, Vice President of Patient Care, were on hand to accept the award. 

"We're very proud to receive this quality award," said Freysinger. "It recognizes our caregivers' diligence to provide our long-term care residents with the highest-quality, safe care. It's just another example of the great care our community members can expect at our local medical center."  - More...
Friday PM - October 06, 2017

Alaska: Statewide gonorrhea outbreak in Alaska - The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services is warning residents of a statewide outbreak of sexually transmitted gonococcal (GC) infection – commonly called gonorrhea. Reported cases of gonorrhea climbed from 1,115 in 2015 to 1,454 in 2016, a 31percent increase. Cases are continuing to increase in 2017.  

During the first 6 months of 2017, there were 1,035 cases reported. More than half of those cases (56 percent) occurred in Anchorage, and 58 percent were in individuals aged 29 or younger. 

Alaska’s outbreak is part of a national trend of increasing sexually transmitted disease rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2016 STD Surveillance Report indicates that there was an 18.5 percent increase in gonorrhea rates nationally from 2015 to 2016.  In 2016, Alaska ranked 4th in the nation for gonorrhea case rates. 

Any sexually active person can get gonorrhea through unprotected vaginal, anal, or oral sex with an infected partner. In pregnant women with untreated gonorrhea, the infection may spread to the eyes of their babies during childbirth. Symptoms in men include a burning sensation when urinating; a white, yellow, or green discharge from the penis; and painful or swollen testicles. Symptoms in women include vaginal discharge, burning on urination, and abdominal cramping. Rectal infection in both men and women can cause discharge, itching, and pain. Gonorrhea in the throat may cause a sore throat. Some men and most women with gonorrhea do not have any symptoms. - More...
Friday PM - October 06, 2017

BLAIR BOSS: The United States of Anxiety - What happened last weekend in Las Vegas is not, in the strictest sense, a Second Amendment issue. It is symptomatic of something deeper. There is little doubt that if more restrictive laws were in place to limit the sale of certain types of weapons, as well as devices that increase their lethality, the terror unleashed may have been less devastating. 

Gun regulations or restrictions, even those as benign as background checks and waiting periods, arouse divisiveness and hostility among many Americans. Emotions and fears run high, preventing both sides of the issue from honestly and intelligently sitting down and arriving at a place where gun aficionados and Second Amendment stalwarts can maintain their Constitutional rights while, at the same time, effecting concessions that protect the interests of the public at large.

This is a debate that will continue to rage, increasingly so with each mass shooting and act of terror. Politicization of the horrors experienced in Las Vegas, Newtown, Orlando, San Bernardino, and Columbine is par for the course for both sides of the issue. The time for rational consensus on how best to confront unwarranted violence is now. 

Unless you are one of the family members or friends of someone directly or indirectly involved with the tragedy in Las Vegas, this frightening moment in time will soon become one in a series of blurred memories; one more nightmare held in our collective conscious. What will remain, however, is an anxiety more existential in nature. One that affects all of us. - More...
Friday PM - October 06, 2017

RICK JENSEN: Facebook is the New Big Brother - You're putting your life at risk, one like at a time.

Facebook's fairly recent slog into transparency reveals some rather nasty big-brother surveillance of their users.

It's always been a given that a service provider who does not directly charge customers can only pay the bills and employees if they're being subsidized, either by the government, advertising or leasing access to their clients' information.

The more information the service provider has, the more they can charge their own clients for access to that information.

There's really nothing new to this. Grocery stores, insurance companies and retailers of all sorts have been collecting such information for ages.

What's new is having two billion active monthly users willingly or unwittingly handing over their most personal data and that of their children to one site that then sells the information to thousands of businesses.

Facebook even tracks you across third-party websites, which a California judge decided is legal because you should know they do this and you should do more to keep your browsing histories private. - More...
Friday PM - October 06, 2017