Coming up this week: There are more questions than answers at the state’s Chinook Salmon Symposium this week, the fate of foreign cannery workers is still up in the air, and Senator Begich issues a challenge to the makers of Xtra Tufs. We had help this week from KSKA’s Ellen Lockyer in Anchorage.

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            The Baranov Museum is slated for some changes in the coming year. Katie Oliver is the executive director for the museum and joined KMXT’s Talk of the Rock on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming exhibit redesign.
            “Well this is a project that we’ve been talking about for several years, but we wanted to finish up a lot of the structural work we’ve been doing on the historic facility, on the museum building which is a national historic landmark," she said. So we applied for a federal grant last November to take a look at exhibit redesign and storytelling in the museum in a very thoughtful and comprehensive way. And we were awarded that grant in July of this year. So we’re still in the first sort of quarter of the year long work in reimagining the exhibits.”

            Oliver said part of the grant allows staff to travel and research archival materials held off island. Anjuli Grantham is the curator of collections for the museum and recently returned from a trip doing just that.

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            The Kodiak City Council got one step closer to finalizing the state legislative priorities Tuesday night during its work session. City Manager Aimée Kniaziowski said four projects have made the priority list, but one project may show up later depending on how elections go in November.
            Currently, Monashka Bay pump house improvements are first on the list. Kniaziowski said the pump house operates with 1940s equipment and is in desperate need of an upgrade

            Other items on the list have been carried over from the last legislative session. These include E-911 emergency equipment and funding for the Phase Three of pedestrian improvements on Shelikof Street from Pier 2 to downtown.
            Kniaziowski said the list can be amended at a later date, something that will probably have to be done if funding doesn’t come through for pier three improvements. 

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           There were noticeably fewer foreign students working in Alaska salmon processing facilities this past season. That’s because of uncertainty that surrounded the student guest worker program known as the J-1 Visa. The state department had threatened to end the program abruptly during the months leading up to the salmon season, which did not give processors enough lead time to recruit and hire the students, who mostly came from Eastern Europe, particularly Turkey.
          Alaska Senator Mark Begich worked with the state department to delay action on ending the program, but he said its fate is still under review:
           He expects an update from the state department on the J-1 Visa this week, but in the meantime his staff is putting the finishing touches on his H2O program.