Initial Report and Recommendations - Alaska Department of Law

For many years, Alaska had a State Revenue Sharing (SRS) program that helpedfund municipal governments. The SRS program no longer exists and its demise hasmade it more difficult for municipal governments in rural Alaska to survive.Further exacerbating the problem of providing sufficient governmental services inrural Alaska is the continuing failure of inter-governmental cooperation, particularly – inmany small villages – between municipal and tribal governments. As mentioned in thenext section of this report, there are a few examples of highly successful, cooperativearrangements between tribal and municipal governments, but they do not represent thenorm. These examples of successful cooperation do illustrate, however, that this is oneobstacle to improved rural services that can be overcome.C. Successful ApproachesProgress is possible, however, and there are a number of law enforcement, justice,and treatment programs that work well today and offer successful strategies that could beadapted elsewhere.An example of a successful law enforcement arrangement can be found inQuinhagak, a small village on the Kanektok River east of Kuskokwim Bay, less than amile from the Bering Sea Coast. The total population is around 612, and 97 percent ofthe residents are Native, almost exclusively Yup’ik. Under Alaska’s local option law,Quinhagak voted “dry,” banning all sale, importation, and possession of alcohol. Underan agreement between the second class city government of Quinhagak and the tribalgovernment of the Native Village of Kwinhagak, the maintenance and operation of allcity services were transferred to the tribal government, and the IRA council and cityadministration were merged into one. As part of this agreement, a joint law enforcementauthority was established, which is administered by the tribal government, and lawenforcement applies equally to tribal members of the Native Village of Kwinhagak andnon-Native residents of the second class city of Quinhagak. The Kwinhagak/QuinhagakMemorandum of Agreement was reviewed by several of the Commission’s workgroups,and the Commission offers it as a model that other rural Alaska villages could follow. 42Kake, located on Kupreanof Island in Southeast Alaska, has developed andrefined a highly successful restorative justice system, initiated by Mike Jackson, the StateMagistrate in Kake. The population of Kake is about 665, of whom 75 percent areNative, predominantly Tlingit, and its governments include both that of a city and afederally recognized tribe, the Organized Village of Kake (OVK). Having suffered manyproblems with the community’s youth for many years, including alcohol abuse and a highsuicide rate, the community in 1999 organized the Healing Heart Council and CirclePeacemaking, both of which are embedded in Tlingit tradition but, at the same time,closely coordinated with the Alaska Court System.Quoting from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government,which awarded the Organized Village of Kake its “High Honors” in 2003:42A copy of the Quinhagak MOA is on the Commission’s website.Alaska Rural Justice and Law Enforcement Commission - Page 26