Sorted by date Results 1 - 21 of 21
A 23-year-old artist from Wrangell had her first solo show in Petersburg on Friday, where she was stunned by the turn out and support. The artist, Jaynee Fritzinger, was nervous for her first show at Firelight Gallery and Framing in Petersburg. For two weeks before, she had been waking up before 5 a.m., painting about 10 hours a day. "I was nervous that I wouldn't have enough pieces," Fritzinger said, "or nervous that people wouldn't show up, or nervous that maybe my art wasn't good enough."...
If it proves financially feasible, Wrangell Medical Center may soon pass from municipal ownership to new management. At a public meeting held inside the Nolan Center on Monday evening, representatives of the City and Borough of Wrangell and the hospital explained WMC is in pretty dire straits at the moment. WMC chief executive Robert Rang said the facility has been having increasing difficulty meeting costs to operate. "The hospital's been losing money for several years," he reported....
PETERSBURG – A Petersburg man is facing controlled substance charges after police intercepted a package shipped to him that contained about an ounce of heroin. Kelsey McCay, 25, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, according to the Petersburg Police Department. McCay was the subject of an investigation after police developed information that heroin was being shipped to him. A search warrant of the package was granted and police d...
PETERSBURG – The CEO of Southeast Alaska’s wholesale power provider stopped by an assembly meeting on Monday to update Petersburg on its projects and financial wins so far this year. Trey Acteson, CEO of Southeast Alaska Power Agency, the primary electric provider for Wrangell, Petersburg and Ketchikan, explained multiple ways on how the organization is cutting costs, mostly from fighting strict regulatory proposals. “As many of you know,” Acteson said, “I’m pretty active in that arena.” SEAPA saved $30,000 annually when the Federal Energ...
PETERSBURG – A Petersburg man is facing controlled substance charges after police intercepted a package shipped to him that contained about an ounce of heroin. Kelsey McCay, 25, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, according to the Petersburg Police Department. McCay was the subject of an investigation after police developed information that heroin was being shipped to him. A search warrant of the package was granted and police d...
PETERSBURG – Two Petersburg residents are facing controlled substance charges after they allegedly coordinated the shipment of methamphetamine from Mexico to Mitkof Island. Carlos Sandoval, 53, and Helen Olson, 49, appeared before Petersburg Magistrate Judge Desiree Burrell for a felony first hearing on Wednesday afternoon. They were each charged with one count of second degree Misconduct Involving a Controlled Substance. According to court filings, police were told Sandoval had traveled to Me...
PETERSBURG – Police seized items from a residence in Petersburg last week that are consistent with the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine, according to a release from the department. Last Thursday and Friday, Petersburg officers served multiple search warrants at a residence on Cornelius Road, and “another location,” according to the release. Officers seized glassware, listed chemicals, materials used to package controlled substances for distribution and other suspicious substances, which will be submitted for official identi...
PETERSBURG – The library in Petersburg is about a month away from unveiling its 20-foot storyteller totem pole. The Petersburg Public Library is adding a roughly $40,000 red cedar totem pole called the "Storytellers Pole," carved by Tommy Joseph, a Tlingit carver from Sitka. Joseph had an idea about 11 years ago to build a totem pole that caters to children and the storytellers they grow up with. He pitched the idea to the Petersburg library about four years ago, and it stuck, but the library h...
PETERSBURG – Two Petersburg teens last week pleaded not guilty to charges of harassment in connection to chasing and hitting multiple deer with a pickup truck in early February. Jasmine Ohmer, 17, and Sebastian Davis, 17, appeared before Judge William Carey in the Petersburg District Court for an arraignment hearing last week. Ohmer pleaded not guilty to harassing game. Davis pleaded not guilty to harassing game, as well as reckless driving. According to court documents, on Feb. 5, Davis allegedly used a pickup truck to chase and hit two deer a...
PETERSBURG – Alaska Wildlife Troopers filed charges against two Petersburg teens who allegedly hit multiple deer with a truck last week, filmed it, and then uploaded it to social media. The teens, 17-year-old Sebastian R. Davis and 17-year-old Jasmine C. Ohmer, were charged on Monday with harassing game, a misdemeanors, according to court documents. Davis was charged with reckless driving as well. The charges stem from a video taken last week that emerged on Snapchat, a social media app. The video shows a truck traveling southbound on W...
A hydro power agency in Southeast Alaska proposed to cut a customer rebate last week after it increased by nearly $1 million in 2017, but the board shot it down while keeping the possibility of a future slash in play. Trey Acteson, CEO of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, or SEAPA — which provides most of the power used by Petersburg, Wrangell and Ketchikan — gave two propositions to its board last Thursday: Give $2.7 million in rebate money back to the ratepayers, or cut it by 30 percent to save for future projects and debt. “I think it’s...
PETERSBURG-A former Petersburg police officer was banned from working in the state of Alaska after sexual harassment allegations against him were presented to a state ethics council in early December. Kent Preston, who was with the Petersburg Police Department for nearly a year in 2015 and 2016, can no longer become certified as an officer in Alaska. The Alaska Police Standards Council made the decision after it heard Executive Director Bob Griffiths' case against Preston on December 5. "It's...
PETERSBURG – Trooper Cody Litster was about to pack everything he needed for the day into his truck one Thursday morning when he got a phone call about a shooting in his jurisdiction, 50 miles away. "It seems like it's all making sense now that I've asked a few more questions," said Litster, on his first call with a school administrator in Kake, who reported the shooting. Litster, a wildlife trooper, was in Petersburg when he first heard from Kake, a small village with no local police th...
PETERSBURG – Medical staff, an advocacy group and the police station in Petersburg have created a three-pronged approach to sexual assault cases. “Understanding what sexual assault is, it’s kind of eye-opening,” said Annette Wooton, the executive director of a Petersburg advocacy group called WAVE, or Working Against Violence for Everyone. “For a lot of people, when you look at the statutes, you realize ‘oh, I’ve been assaulted.’” The Sexual Assault Response Team, or SART, is headed by local police, medical professionals and WAVE. Wooton said...
State troopers arrested a Kake man last week after he sat in a Chevrolet pickup truck and sprayed semi-automatic gunfire into a construction site trailer with eight people inside, leaving no one hospitalized or shot. Jacob Hallingstad, 46, was arrested on Thursday in connection to the shooting in Kake. Nine charges were doled to him at a felony first hearing in Petersburg over the weekend, to which he teleconferenced from the Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau. Sgt. Nicholas Zito with the Alaska State Troopers filed a report into court...
PETERSBURG — The Borough Assembly on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution supporting the Southeast Alaska Solid Waste Authority recommendation to participate in a regional scrap metal recycling system. The approval fast tracks a financial plan that will organize a barge to come to Petersburg and pick up any scrap metal waste the community wants to dispose of, said Karl Hagerman, the Public Works director. A five-year “master plan” agreement with Waste Management and SEASWA has formed in surrounding regions and Petersburg committed to it th...
Fifty women from Petersburg and Wrangell played in a golf outing on Saturday to raise money for cancer patients in southeast Alaska at the 2017 Rally for Cancer Care. The outing, sponsored by the Wrangell Medical Center Foundation, generated more than $3,200 to help pay for travel costs that cancer patients have. The Muskeg Meadows Golf Course hosted 34 players from Petersburg and 16 from Wrangell. Others came just to donate, participate in the silent auction and eat breakfast and lunch with...
The country is preparing for an astronomical moment that hasn’t happened in 99 years, and southeast Alaska will witness about 60 percent of it. For the first time since 1918, a total solar eclipse will cut through the United States on Mon., August 21. A 70-mile wide totality line will move through the country, starting at Oregon and ending in South Carolina. People within that line will see the moon pass between the sun and earth completely, causing a brief period of daytime darkness, said Rick Braun, a land surveyor and Petersburg resident w...
PETERSBURG – The ballot in October has five initiatives for Petersburg residents to vote on so far, including an amendment to the Charter, a tax break for business owners, off-road vehicles on public roads, a ban of fluoride and the development of the Scow Bay fishing yard. The change to the Petersburg Charter would allow the City of Kupreanof its own dock within the Petersburg Borough. All the docks on the island are owned by the state of Alaska, currently. But Kupreanof has passed ordinances that would allow it to maintain a dock. Now the Cha...
PETERSBURG – Qualified voters in Petersburg will be asked to weigh-in on development of the Scow Bay fishing yard, and decide whether to authorize the Borough to put $500,000 down on the project, a fraction of the total cost but a concise statement that would turn the discussed expansion into a reality. Four members voted in favor and one against a decision to pass the spending question to voters, which asks if the city should use $500,000 of the Economic Fund --- a job-creation and economic development account --- to help build a small vessel...
PETERSBURG - The Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions issued a press release on Tuesday addressing the murder and manslaughter charges against 24-year-old William Christopher Allen, the driver of a vehicle that landed upside down after running off a Petersburg road on July 4, 2016, killing two and injuring one. The state alleges that Allen was driving a Borough-owned van moments before the crash, despite warnings from doctors to not because of a seizure disorder that was “well-known” and “well-documented,” according to Assistant Attorney Gener...