State budget cuts are impacting a prosecuting attorney responsible for some court cases in Petersburg.
Borough manager Steve Giesbrecht told the assembly Monday that an attorney’s position added to the Department of Law’s office in Juneau has been eliminated. “We’re expecting reduced services, going back to probably more how it was before,” Giesbrecht told the assembly. “We don’t know what the extent of that is going to be at this point yet.”
The state added that attorney for the Juneau office in 2012 after Petersburg officials complained about short staffing in the district attorney’s office, a high dismissal rate for court cases and lack of communication with local police.
In other news, Giesbrecht also reported the new collection truck for the borough’s sanitation department wouldn’t be delivered until late October or early November. “This pushes back the start of the blue cart program by a month or so and we plan on working with Rugers Trucking the existing contractor that’s been doing it to see if they’ll be willing to do a contract extension to take us until the end of the process when the truck and the carts are all here,” he said.
The borough will be switching from blue plastic bags and a private contractor to blue plastic containers and borough employees for curbside pick up of recyclables.
Giesbrecht also reported damage to the water line serving Petersburg’s middle harbor following some big tides this spring. He said silt and mid from Hammer Slough buried the pipe, causing it to pull apart with the tide change. The manager said the problem would be fixed in the next couple of weeks but he said that middle harbor would have no potable water until the line is fixed.
