Unalaska volleyball and wrestling teams came home Sunday night with a tournament trophy in tow. / Credit: Lauren Rosenthal
This weekend, Unalaska’s wrestling and volleyball teams made a splash in their final tournaments before regional championships.
The girls’ volleyball squad competed at Cook Inlet Academy’s tournament in Soldotna. Coach Julie Heard says the team performed well right out of the gate, winning their first match against Holy Rosary Academy on Friday.
"And then the power went out and there was a five-hour power outage," Heard says. "We resumed play at five o’clock that night."
In Alaska, fishermen and scientists have a long history of working together to study the best way to catch seafood. And now that federal budgets are on the decline, they’re interested in doing more.
But as KUCB’s Lauren Rosenthal reports, researchers and trade groups around the state are struggling to line up their efforts.
State officials were in Unalaska on Friday to talk about a proposal pre-authorizing the use of chemical dispersants on oil spills in Alaska waters.
Officials from the Alaska Regional Response Team spent four hours at City Hall taking public comment on the proposed changes.
They said the update to the state’s 25-year-old spill response plan wouldn’t guarantee that the controversial dispersants would be used -- it would just make it easier to deploy them in the event of a crude oil spill from a tanker.
The planning commission passed a resolution Thursday to allow for an apartment in the old Elbow Room property in downtown Unalaska.
The conditional use permit goes to the owners of the building, a ministry group known as Alexandria House. They already have a commercial use permit for the first floor; now, they hope to put a tenant on the second floor.
After almost a year of searching, Unalaska has a new finance director. Patricia Soule will fill the position starting in January.
Unalaska Human Resources director Kelly Stiles says Soule was one of two finalists for the job, out of about 10 applicants total.
"We didn’t have a lot of applications at first when we first posted the job, which we kind of assumed we wouldn’t," Stiles says. "Governmental accounting is kind of a niche field, and we were looking for someone very particular."
Residents braved chilly weather on Saturday for a home-cooked Filipino dinner -- and a chance to support the local Fil-Am Association's typhoon relief efforts.
The line spilled out the door at the Burma Road Chapel. While it was cold and drizzly outside, there were piles of hot adobo, rice and egg rolls to be had inside, all prepared and served by members of the Fil-Am Association.
On Saturday, an Unalaska jury found Michel Bain not guilty of child sexual abuse.
Bain, 39, was facing eight felonies. The state alleged that he had sexually abused his two young daughters while they lived with him in Unalaska between 2006 and 2008.
During a two-week trial, jurors were presented with a wide array of witnesses and evidence. The jury visited the Kashega Drive residence where some of the alleged abuse was said to have taken place. And they heard from Bain, his two children, and their mother. All of them were called to testify.
The trial for a local fisherman accused of sexually abusing his two daughters wrapped up today in Unalaska.
For two weeks, jurors heard the case of 39-year-old Michel Bain. Bain faces eight felonies ranging from incest to sexual penetration of a child under 13. The state alleges that Bain molested his two young daughters while they lived with him in Unalaska, from 2006 to 2008. Bain was arrested and the state of Alaska filed charges against him in 2011.
