Alaska News

After spending the winter at the Homer harbor, the ‘Endeavor’ left Friday morning (Terry Rensel photo)

After a seven-month-long stay at the Homer harbor, Buccaneer Energy’s jack-up rig Endeavor left Kachemak Bay Friday morning. The company plans for the rig to drill in the Cosmopolitan Unit near Anchor Point.

Download Audio

The City of Homer asked Buccaneer to move the rig to make way for a fender replacement project at the harbor’s Deepwater Dock, where the rig has been moored since last August.

Homer Harbormaster Bryan Hawkins says the materials for the fender replacement have arrived from Seward and are in place on the dock. Jay Brant Construction of Homer is the contractor in charge of the project, which is expected to take about a month to complete.

The Endeavor was given a Certificate of Compliance by the U.S. Coast Guard over the weekend.

Another Cook Inlet jack-up rig, Furie Operating Alaska’s “Spartan 151,” received the same certificate Tuesday from the dock in Port Graham.

The examinations included verification of the rigs’ documentation, safety equipment, machinery installations and watching crew perform fire and abandon ship drills. Coast Guard Inspector Jay Jerome says certificates of compliance are issued to all offshore drilling units before they can get to work.

Calls and emails to Buccaneer representative Jay Morakis were not returned in time for this story. In a news release earlier this month, Morakis said the Endeavour had also received permitting approval from the American Bureau of Shipping to move to the Cosmopolitan Unit.

Before the Endeavor can drill at Cosmo, however, it still must receive approval from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

If you live in Anchorage, you may want to double check your Assembly precinct before voting on Tuesday. The Anchorage Municipal Clerk’s office says redistricting has shifted the boarders of precincts in three areas of the city.

Download Audio

Amanda Moser is the Deputy Clerk of Elections at the Anchorage Municipal Clerk’s office. She says this past year, the Assembly declared the districts did not adequately represent the population, and in November they drafted and approved new Assembly district maps. Moser says voters in three main areas could be voting in a new district.

“It mostly affects people midtown, west Anchorage area and also midtown south Anchorage. The line shifted in the midtown west Anchorage area to address split precincts that we had their previously. And then the line in South Anchorage is a little bit further South in some areas.”

Officials with the Municipal Clerk’s office say the redistricting was an effort to eliminate split precincts.

“Voters who live in those split precincts, would go into the precinct and instead of everyone voting on the same ballot, they would have to determine what part of town they lived in to issue them the ballot.”

Moser says split precincts occur when a precint is divided into to two or more assembly districts. They are problematic she says because they require the distribution of multiple ballots at polling places. redistricting did not completely eliminate split precincts, but it should simplify things. The Department of Justice did not object to the new districts.

Anchorage Municipal Elections are Tuesday, April 2nd. The polls will be open from 7am until 8pm.

• Anchorage Municipal Elections webpage
• Anchorage Assembly District 1
• Anchorage Assembly District 2
• Anchorage Assembly District 3
• Anchorage Assembly District 4
• Anchorage Assembly District 5
• Anchorage Assembly District 6
• League of Women Voters: Ballot Review
• Sample Ballot
• Notice of Election
• Follow the Municipal Elections on Twitter
• AR 2012-181

Over the weekend, the Anchorage School Board appointed a new board member, but Sunday he declined the position because of his employment with VECO corporation during a corruption scandal. Tonight the board plans to appoint the runner up.

Download Audio

On Saturday, the board listened to 31 candidates that had applied to fill the vacant seat D, left open by the departure of Gretchen Guess. They narrowed it down to two candidates. The board voted and chose Tom Corkran. School Board President Jeannie Mackie says board members chose Corkran because of his financial expertise

“We believed that he possessed a skill set which could have greatly helped navigate the district through a very serious budget reality. Unfortunately his association with a company which was involved with corruption has tainted his ability to be effective. So he has stepped away from the appointment.”

Although he was not convicted of any wrongdoing, Mackie says, Corkran did work for the now defunct Alaska-based oil pipeline service and construction company VECO corporation at the time of a corruption scandal. In an email to School Board President Jeannie Mackie Sunday, Corchran said he was declining the position because:
” … it is apparent that my appointment would be a tremendous distraction to the Board’s mission and purpose for the students and teachers of this district.” Mackie says the board will likely appoint their number two choice, Kameron Perez Verdia.

“The board will be meeting at a regularly scheduled board meeting this evening and we will discuss next steps. I believe Kameron Perez Verdia is still interested in accepting the appointment and the board will re-vote this evening.”

Perez Verdia was chosen as an alternate to Corkran. His resume says that he was born in Alaska and graduated from Barrow High School and hat he is currently the CEO at Avant-Garde Learning Alliance, a statewide education non-profit focused on education reform. Verdia must be appointed by a vote of the school board. If he’s appointed he will be sworn in tonight.

• Tom Corkran letter (PDF)
• Anchorage School Board
• ASD Appointment Applicants

Traveling Outside, many of us encounter questions about Alaska stemming from curiosity and ignorance. Do we live in igloos? Is it always winter with six months darkness?  Is American money accepted?   But rural Alaska residents often feel their urban-dwelling fellow Alaskans have just as many misperceptions about their bush homes.  As part of our on-going series looking at how we define our culture and live our lives as Alaskans, Len Anderson presents these examples.

Download Audio

For over 60 years, Inupiaq Chester Ballot has lived above the Arctic Circle in the coastal community of Kotzebue, located in Northwest Alaska. Ballot says people can comprehend 60 below, but they have a hard time grasping that some upriver communities can experience 90 degrees in summer.

“And the light, you know.  They ask, ‘Does it get dark up there six months a year?’  And I say, ‘No.  We can go up on the hill, up Cemetery Hill and we can look at the sun.  If it’s a clear day, we can look at the sun for an hour and 43 minutes on the shortest day of the year.  And in the summer time,  if we have all clear days, you can see the sun for 44 days, beginning in early June and ending in July,” Ballot said.

Another misconception:  just because notherners live in the Arctic, does not mean they like to be cold. Inside their wall tents out camping, or their homes in town, they’re toasty warm. That’s another one: those houses that may look like “shacks” to some outsiders.

Hadley Ferguson has lived most of her life in Kotzebue.  She’s says urban residents who see pictures, even those who visit, are surprised by them.

“I think a lot of get culture shock when they first come into a vill…town like Kotzebue or smaller villages.  They’re used to the nice fancy houses.  They come into, their first perception is that they’re shacks.   But they don’t understand that a lot of it is due to weather conditions.  And you go inside the home and they’re beautiful.  So, I’ve heard them talk and say that’s one of the biggest shocks that they had,” Ferguson said.

Carl Weisner grew up in the northwest Alaska village of Shungnak and now lives in Kotzebue; he says urban Alaskans have a theoretical grasp of higher bush prices, but the reality still produces a wallet shock.

“When folks from the urban area come to the Northwest Arctic, they expect the cost of living is equivalent to their experience.  And it’s just not.  We have to pay greater than $10 a gallon in some villages for gasoline,” Weisner said.

On the positive side, Weisner says many visitors are surprised at the closeness existing in rural communities, a bonding that extends beyond family.

“It’s necessary, because in order to overcome some of these challenges, like the extremely harsh winter and cold weather conditions, or other challenges in the country, we have to cooperate.  We have to communicate and work together in order to make something happen,” Weisner said.

For several years, Dean Westlake has worked on rural economics and development in various jobs and rural location.  He has returned to Northwest Alaska and has served on the borough assembly.  Westlake says one urban misperception that he often encounters grates on him more than others.  It’s the urban accusation that rural Alaska is an economic drain on state finances.   He adds his response is his own, not necessarily any official position

“We need to think through this and understand where the resources come from.   Who subsidizes who, here? should really be the question.  When we say, all rural Alaska is a drain, hey buddy, rural Alaska is the resources, and let’s get that straight right now,” Westlake said.

Sometimes the difference between urban and rural lies in how one views the same situation.   In Kotzebue, the thick ice on the sound will remain solid into June while in the town itself scattered snow piles resolutely resist the long daylight hours. Visitors can find the scene disturbing – snow and ice in June?  Not so for locals.

“In the summertime, spring time about June when the ice breaks up and you hear the crinkling of the ice floating by there and the sun not setting.   To me it’s indescribable to be here, to enjoy it, to see it.  To live here, it’s great.  It’s home,” Ballot said.

Chester Ballot and many other residents walk along the shore every evening, taking in that exhilarating, comforting panorama.

The FV Katmai is clearly identifiable even after 41-years on the bottom. USCG photo

In February 1972 a Kodiak-bound fishing boat out of Mobile, Alabama, disappeared without a trace, taking all hands with it. Now, 41 years later, the Coast Guard announced that the fishing vessel Katmai has been found.

It was stumbled across by a Schmidt Ocean Institute survey of the ocean floor in December, while working for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The crew of the research vessel Falkor saw an unknown sonar blip about 200 miles offshore, but had no record of a sunken vessel in that spot. They sent a remote operating vehicle, or ROV, down to investigate, and there they found the Katmai in 9,000 of water in remarkably good shape.

The Coast Guard was notified and initiated a cold-case investigation.

What they determined was the Katmai departed Mobile, where it was constructed by Bender Ship Building, on February 18, 1972, and it never made its destination of Alaska, or even as far as the Panama Canal.

The Katmai had disappeared without a trace and was presumed sunk in the Gulf of Mexico. It was skippered by owner Oskar Joos, and had aboard his wife, their eight-year-old child, and crewman Clinton Hollevoet.

The Coast Guard has contacted the families of the victims and told them what happened to their loved ones.

Sequestration of federal spending is going to mean a change in volcano monitoring. The Alaska Volcano Observatory watches the volcanoes because ash cloud eruptions that get up high enough can be a severe hazard to intercontinental aviation. But maintenance of the seismic network has been repeatedly reduced due to state and federal budget reductions, and just 120 of almost 200 seismic monitors in the state are in working condition.

The Observatory announced Friday that it will no longer seismically monitor Little Sitkin, Ukinrek Maars and Ugashik-Peulik volcanoes with real-time equipment. They will have to rely on satellite data, infra-sound and reports from pilots and others to detect eruptions.

An Alaska State Trooper helicopter rescue ended in tragedy on Saturday night when the rescue helicopter crashed near Larson Lake, killing all three people on board.

At approximately 10:00 pm on Saturday, March 30, the Alaska State Troopers dispatched their AStar helicopter, Helo 1, to assist a stranded snowmachiner in the Larson Lake area. According to the trooper dispatch, the snowmachiner was picked up and the helicopter took off to rendezvous with medics at the Sunshine Tesoro. Helo 1 never arrived, however, and a search and rescue operation began for the overdue helicopter.

On the morning of March 31st, a Rescue Coordination Center (RCC) aircraft spotted the crashed helicopter near the south end of Larson Lake. RCC personnel searched for survivors, but none were found. The pilot, one Alaska State Trooper who was assisting in the rescue, and the snowmachiner are known to have been on board. The Department of Pubic Safety had not released the names of the crash victims as of the evening of March 31.

Megan Peters, Public Information Officer for the Department of Public Safety, was not able to specify whether the snowmachiner was a Talkeetna resident or whether the trooper on board was from the Talkeetna post. Peters also said there was no definitive cause identified as of Sunday evening, and that the investigation is ongoing. She called the incident an “extremely devastating blow,” to the search and rescue operations of the State Troopers, and stated that it will have an impact on residents all over the state. Peters said that while the helicopter can be replaced, the lives on board, and the experience and dedication they represented, are gone. The Troopers do still have helicopter rescue capability in the form of two Robinson 44 helicopters, but they are not capable of the lift capacity of the larger AStar that was lost. More information will be forthcoming as the Department of Public Safety releases it.

On Thursday, the Alaska State Senate passed its operating budget, and it’s slightly smaller than the one proposed by Gov. Sean Parnell. Parnell hopes to see more budgets like that in the future. He’s proposed a five-year commitment to keep state general fund spending at $6.8 billion annually. Combined with his oil tax plan, the proposal could mean a combination of belt-tightening measures and big withdrawals from Alaska’s savings accounts. APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez reports.

Highways, libraries, port projects: Alaska got plenty of these things over the past few years. Since 2008, the state has spent $7 billion on capital projects. Thanks to a major injection of oil revenue, the legislature was also able to pad its savings all the while. That’s about to change.

“It’s going down. We’re going to be drawing from reserves,” says Karen Rehfeld, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Rehfeld is part of Gov. Sean Parnell’s budget team, and their goal is to stop the growth of state spending and then ultimately bring it down. Their proposed fiscal plan is in response to forecasts that show revenue declining as less oil comes through the TransAlaska pipeline.

The state was authorized to spend $8 billion from the general fund this past year, and now Parnell wants to see a cap of $6.8 billion. But even that cut doesn’t avoid a deficit. According to analysis by the state’s legislative finance division, the state still may have to draw $61 million from its reserves this year with the smaller budget passed by the Senate. That’s a base number that doesn’t factor in the costs of new legislation or projects that the legislature would like to see.

Complicating matters is the governor’s oil tax proposal, which would cut taxes on producers as an incentive to increase throughput. If that overhaul passes, legislative finance anticipates that the draw from reserves will be closer to $1 billion because of a loss in revenue. That figure is expected to be even larger next year.

Rehfeld says the administration is prepared to dip into the state’s $16 billion reserve funds, but they would like to offset those withdrawals down the road.

“The hope is that we would get [an oil tax] bill to pass, and then we will see some production increases, and that’s the whole point,” says Rehfeld. “But we know that we have to plan for and manage the use of reserves here, at least in the short term.”

With the state already obligated to cover many of operating costs like retirement payouts, the place in the budget that’s easiest to cut is the capital side.

“Certainly I think we’re going to see much smaller capital budgets,” says Rehfeld. “But I think if you go back, and in our history we’ve had very small capital budgets. In the 1990s, we were barely covering what we needed to just capture federal highway funds.”

That could have some unintended consequences, though. Sitka Republican Bert Stedman was co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee for six years, and he managed an aggressive increase in capital spending during his tenure. He credits that capital growth with creating jobs in Alaska while the rest of the country faced a financial crisis.

“Alaska weathered the economic storm very well,” says Stedman. “In fact, if you looked at the data you’d hardly even see there was an economic recession in Alaska at all. Yet there was mass unemployment and foreclosures in the southern 48.”

Stedman says that capital spending could be dialed back now that the national economy is improving. But he warns that a major draw down in capital spending could still have ripple effects on the state’s economy. Stedman, a critic of the governor’s tax plan, also says he doesn’t see the trade off between lower oil taxes and a larger capital budget as being appropriate.

“The public will understand budgetary constraints when they’re needed. They do it in their homes. They do it in city hall. They’ll do it in the state,” says Stedman. “But if you give up substantial revenue when it’s not warranted, it will be a very hard sell.”

On Monday, the Senate will be taking public testimony on the capital budget, while the House will hear comments on the oil tax proposal.

Listen to the full story

Download Audio

At a news conference Wednesday the septuagenarian explained how his father employed immigrants on the family farm in Central California.

Download Audio

“My father used to have a ranch. We used to hire 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes. It takes two people to pick tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine,” Young said while explaining immigration reform.

At about noon Friday, Young issued a statement apologizing, saying he meant no malice, did not want to offend, and his language should have been left in the 20th century.

A whole host of Republicans called on Young to apologize, including Senator John McCain and Speaker of the House John Boehner.  Senator Lisa Murkowski, a fellow Republican, took to Facebook to call his comments offensive.

The slur comes just weeks after the GOP analyzed its 2012 election losses. Among the findings: The party needs to embrace comprehensive immigration reform to stay relevant in a demographically changing America.

Some Republicans said comments like Young’s aren’t helping what the GOP is branding its Growth and Opportunity Project.

 Authorities at the Matanuska Susitna Borough Friday opened a single bid for the ice breaking ferry, Susitna. Borough spokesperson Patty Sullivan says the bid came from Europe

 ”The sealed bid was opened today from a Dutch marine company and they offered 751 thousand dollars to buy the Susitna ferry. “

The bid came from Workships Contractors, BV based in Rotterdam.

But Sullivan said Borough officials are not making any decisions on the sale of the ferry just yet. There are other options on the table

“It was one bid, and that is one option. There is also still on the table, the avenue of transferring the vessel for free to an eligible government entity in the US who would put it into ferry service. And the Borough is also accepting unsolicited bids to buy the ship. “

She says the sealed bids were an official process, but the Borough will consider an unsolicited bid if one comes in.

“What’s going to happen next, is the [Borough] manager will talk with the FTA, the Federal Transit Administration, and learn our options. If the Borough sells the ship to a private company, we would like to know what amount of our financial obligation is relieved. If the Borough gave the ship to a government entity in the US, how much of the financial obligation would be relieved. So we need to know those answers before the decision makers can take a look at it. “

Any action on the ferry has to be approved by the Borough Assembly. Sullivan says that two US government agencies have expressed interest in the ferry. Letters have been received from Los Angeles County, which would like to use the ferry between LA and Catalina Island, and the US Virgin Islands would like to use it on a run between two islands.

Download Audio

 Authorities at the Matanuska Susitna Borough Friday opened a single bid for the ice breaking ferry, Susitna. Borough spokesperson Patty Sullivan says the bid came from Europe

 ”The sealed bid was opened today from a Dutch marine company and they offered 751 thousand dollars to buy the Susitna ferry. “

 The bid came from Workships Contractors, BV based in Rotterdam.

But Sullivan said Borough officials are not making any decisions on the sale of the ferry just yet. There are other options on the table

  “It was one bid, and that is one option. There is also still on the table, the avenue of transferring the vessel for free to an eligible government entity in the US who would put it into ferry service. And the Borough is also accepting unsolicited bids to buy the ship. “

She says the sealed bids were an official process, but the Borough will consider an unsolicited bid if one comes in.

 ”What’s going to happen next, is the [Borough] manager will talk with the FTA, the Federal Transit Administration, and learn our options. If the Borough sells the ship to a private company, we would like to know what amount of our financial obligation is relieved. If the Borough gave the ship to a government entity in the US, how much of the financial obligation would be relieved. So we need to know those answers before the decision makers can take a look at it. “

 Any action on the ferry has to be approved by the Borough Assembly. Sullivan says that two US government agencies have expressed interest in the ferry. Letters have been received from Los Angeles County, which would like to use the ferry between LA and Catalina Island, and the US Virgin Islands would like to use it on a run between two islands.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough assembly shot down an ordinance Thursday night that would have paid people $30 a day not to burn wood when air quality is poor.

Listen to the full story

Download Audio

The Aleutian community of Adak wants ferry service. In a resolution passed last month, the city council asked the state marine highway system to consider sending a ferry out to the community at least once a year.

Download Audio

McDonald’s bet on their new Fish McBites to help lift the company out of financial doldrums this winter. The gamble didn’t pay off: The new product didn’t sell very well, and it’s going to be pulled from the menu at the end of the month.

But as KUCB’s Lauren Rosenthal reports, the McBites experiment wasn’t a total flop — at least, not for Alaskan fishermen.

Listen to the full story

Download Audio

The idea of allowing a genetically engineered salmon to be sold for human consumption has galvanized the Alaska Legislature to oppose the idea.

Listen to the full story

Download Audio

Photo by Ariel Van Cleave, KBBI – Homer

Each year, hundreds of fishermen brave the cold weather and sometimes choppy seas to compete in the Winter King Salmon Tournament in Homer. Pete Wedin has tried his hand at catching the heaviest fish for the last 16 years. And he was out on the water again last week in search of that sweet spot. KBBI’s Ariel Van Cleave hopped on the Early Dawn with Wedin and three other anglers and brought back this story.

Listen to the full story

Download Audio

This week we’re heading to the community of Brevig Mission, on the Bering Sea Coast north of Nome, Mike Olanna lives in Brevig Mission.

Download Audio

It’s not every scientist who decides to study a certain population of animals only to watch it go extinct.  But for biologist and author Eval Saulitis, that’s what is apparently happening.  A pod of Killer Whales in Prince William Sound it unlikely to be able to sustain itself after the Exxon Valdez oil spill of more than twenty years ago.  She’ll tell her story next Tuesday, on Talk of Alaska.

HOSTS:

• Steve Heimel

GUESTS: 

• Eva Saulitis, author, “Into Great Silence”
• Callers Statewide

PARTICIPATE:

• Post your comment before, during or after the live broadcast (comments may be read on air).
• Send e-mail to talk [at] alaskapublic [dot] org (comments may be read on air)
• Call 550-8422 in Anchorage or 1-800-478-8255 if you’re outside Anchorage during the live broadcast

LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. on APRN stations statewide.

SUBSCRIBE: Get Talk of Alaska updates automatically by e-mail, RSS or podcast.

TALK OF ALASKA ARCHIVE

Bagpipers led Choose Respect marchers in Anchorage today. The annual event is aimed at heightening awareness of Alaska’s blight of sexual assault while gathering support for the state administration’s campaign against domestic violence.  

　The march kicked off at noon. Alaska Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell, Senator Lisa Murkowski, and other state and city notables led the march, all helping to hold a Choose Respect banner the three blocks to the city’s Town Square. They were joined by church and civic groups, and city workers spending their lunch break for a cause

   The North wind was biting, the temperatures low, and the mood somber in light of the recent death of a Hooper Bay woman at the hands of an abuser. Treadwell told rally goers at the finish of the march that Alaska’s epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault will end when the silence protecting abuse ends.  Treadwell spoke at a podium overlooking what is normally the square

  “And I want to live in a generation where we don’t hide domestic violence, sexual assault, these issues in the family, in our families, in our homes any longer. That we bring it out in the open, that we work with the social services. And you know, if that happens, our numbers may go up, before they go down. We may feel worse before we get better, but we are gonna get better, and that’s what I know, that you coming out today, is going to help make happen. “

 Senator Murkowski added her remarks shortly afterwards.  Before taking the podium, Murkowski has been approaced by Alaska Native activist Desa Jacobson, who protested  that funds spent on the rally would have been better spent on rural village protection.  Murkowski alluded to the incident, saying that she was ashamed that Alaska leads the nation in violence against women

  “I am ashamed that we are the rape capitol of the nation. Everything that we are doing is reactive. It’s after the fact. It’s after these women and these children have been violated, It’s after their lives have been ruined. Because long after that perpetrator has served his time, or paid his fine, or moved on with his life, that woman, that victim is living with that trauma for the rest of her life.. if she’s alive. “

  Despite the   cold, marchers waved colorful signs, the sun came out and free coffee and sandwiches were offered.  But the crowd was reminded of the rally’s grim purpose, when a young Juneau woman, introduced only by her first name, Connie, gave a first hand account of her efforts to escape an abusive marriage.

  “For me, in my situation, an inquisitive person told me ‘that’s not normal in a marraige.’ That statement started me on a path towards ending my rationalizations. These are rationalizations that said, for over ten years ‘he didn’t really mean to say that to me. He’ll get better, and if I just do more of anything, if I just cook more, if I just work harder, things will change.’ I told myself to cope. Statistics show that the rate of intimate partner homicides goes up dramatically if a person threatens to kill themselves, threatens to kill somebody else, or they use a weapon in an altercation. I’m here to say today that I rationalized all three of these situations away, in my story.”

 Treadwell told the group that silence about domestic violence only condones it. He said choosing respect means getting involved – and he askedthe crowd to make a pledge

   “You can repeat after me. I pledge never to commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women, men, children, the elderly and the vulnerable. So help us God. Thank you very much.”

Congressman Don Young says he’s not worried about an investigation into whether he violated ethics rules.

Download Audio

The House Ethics Committee announced this month that they’re looking into whether Young misused campaign funds, failed to report gifts, and lied to federal officials. During a visit to Juneau, Young told reporters that he is cooperating with the investigation. He also accused the committee of playing politics in targeting him alongside New Jersey Democrat Rob Andrews.

“Reality is that I truly believe that they had to have a Republican as well as a Democrat,” said Young. “As you know, Andrews is under the scrutiny, too. And we’ll see what happens. I’m confident where I’ve been and I always have been. If I wasn’t that confident, I couldn’t continue to run and look Alaskans in eye.”

Young said that the new investigation should not affect his work in Washington.

“I’ve been under a cloud all my life,” said Young. “I’m sort of like living in Juneau. It rains on you all the time, and you don’t even notice it.”
Young had previously been under investigation by the FBI for similar charges, but the agency concluded that there was not enough evidence to convict him beyond reasonable doubt. In a 2010 memo, the FBI said they had instead “forwarded a letter outlining certain actions taken by Congressman Young and will leave punishment to the discretion of the Ethics Commission.”