Sorted by date Results 1042 - 1066 of 1297
A project to improve storage capacity at Southeast Alaska Power Agency's (SEAPA) Swan Lake hydropower facility continues along with efforts to finance it with up to $11.36 million in bond sales. Over the past month, SEAPA's executive director Trey Acteson and general counsel presented updates on the planned expansion of the facility located northeast of Ketchikan on Revillagigedo Island. Each of SEAPA's three member utilities-Wrangell, Petersburg and Ketchikan- heard presentations on the...
For the first time in more than two months the board of trustees for Wrangell Medical Center found themselves with a quorum March 25, in a meeting postponed from the 18th. The hospital’s financial situation remains delicate as staff recover from a difficult combination of low reserves, high receivables, sluggish Medicaid payments and rising operating costs. In her board report, hospital CEO Marla Sanger reported a $155,000 loss for the month of February, or $141,822 when grants were taken into account. Net charges came to $704,398, short of a...
Wrangell residents and other Alaskans from around the state were given more opportunity to voice concerns over impending cuts to state programming during a public hearing held Monday evening for the draft of next year's budget being considered by the Senate Finance Committee. Six Wrangellites came to their local Legislative Information Office to provide testimony via telephone, along with residents of Petersburg and Ketchikan. “I am speaking in opposition to the cuts to the Alaska Marine Highway System,” borough manager Jeff Jabusch told the...
Workers at a logging camp on nearby Zarembo Island discovered the body of a Nevada man in the early evening of March 24. David Fussell, 55, of Stagecoach, Nev., was found unresponsive by a coworker in the passenger seat of a parked truck. First aid was performed, but Fussell was declared dead on the scene when emergency personnel arrived. Alaska State Troopers were notified just before 5 p.m. Fussell’s body was sent to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy. The death is considered to be of natural causes, with Troopers reporting no fou...
The high school is getting ready to sponsor a bit of culture, as it comes Wrangell's turn to host this year's Southeast Alaska Regional Artfest next week. Sixty students and 15 teachers from schools around the region will be represented, coming from Klawock, Skagway, Petersburg, Craig, Sitka, Mount Edgecumbe and Juneau. "We're honored to host the continuation of the Southeast Alaska Artfest," said Wrangell High School's art teacher, Anne Luetkemeyer. Fifteen different classes will be offered to...
While the threat of service reductions looms over the Alaska Marine Highway System as the Legislature devises its budget, starting this summer travelers will at least have another option to hop between islands in the area. The North End Ferry Authority (NEFA) in Coffman Cove is starting up Rainforest Islands Ferry, a three-stop service between Wrangell, Petersburg and Prince of Wales Island. Beginning June 14, the ferry's new public passenger-vehicle service will connect stops at Coffman Cove,...
Wrangell residents are invited to shake off their winter malaise and step down to the annual Health Fair this Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon inside the Nolan Center. The fair will feature booths put up by 45 different agencies, groups and organizations related to health and wellness. Participating groups are many and varied, aimed for all ages. Alaska Island Community Services (AICS) will have its Teddy Bear Clinic for the wee ones, Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department will provide free blood pressure checks for adults, and Hanna’s Place will h...
Environmental organization Earthjustice announced last Friday groups it is representing in a trio of lawsuits opposed to U.S. Forest Service’s Big Thorne timber sale have filed two notices of appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, following the dismissal of their suits by a federal judge in a March 20 ruling. The Big Thorne sale involves the harvest of around 6,200 acres of forest on Prince of Wales Island and includes the clearcut of old-growth rainforest. Klowock-based mill Viking Lumber was awarded a contract last September to h...
Even before getting into its own upcoming budget, Wrangell’s Assembly had plenty of numbers to crunch at its regular meeting Tuesday evening, with an hour-long joint session held beforehand with the local school board regarding its upcoming budget and a presentation by Wrangell Medical Center’s executive on the state of the hospital’s finances. (see adjoining stories) Borough Manager Jeff Jabusch reported next year’s budget is coming along on task, with a draft likely to be ready for review by mid-April. “We’ll bring you a balanced budget one w...
School Board members met with the Wrangell City and Borough Assembly, city staff and school district officials at a joint work session late Tuesday afternoon. Of particular importance, they discussed a draft budget for the 2016 fiscal year. Ahead of anticipated declines in Foundation Support by $162,188, Wrangell School District staff is looking at making more than $156,144 in cuts to the operating costs. This decline in revenue includes one-time and special education funding provided by the state. One-time funding was promised by the state...
Wrangell Medical Center CEO Marla Sanger updated the Wrangell Borough Assembly on the hospital’s financial situation at its Tuesday evening meeting. “We are solvent. We’re just being very cautious,” she said. In December, Sanger and acting CFO Olinda White approached the Assembly to reveal the hospital was experiencing financial difficulties. An annual audit had, among other concerns, reported finding a $3.5 million loss in written-off costs related to the hospital’s previous bid to build a new facility. “I don’t think our financial sit...
The signs of spring are unmistakable. Migratory birds have begun their return to Wrangell's trees and shrubs, the days have grown longer and somewhat sunnier, and the smell of hooligan smoking and frying waft from residents' homes. Continuing a local tradition, some families have been distributing the oily fish to friends, neighbors and most anybody who wants them. It's a tradition Janice Churchill and her family have been keeping for a long time. "I have fished fifty-some years with my...
Wrangell’s Thunderbirds basketball team had a rough week at the 69th annual Juneau Lions Club Gold Medal Basketball Tournament. The yearly tournament is an invitational event, largely using High School Federation Basketball rules. Second-place winners last year, Wrangell’s team received its invitation in January. Wrangell won its first game March 15, beating Angoon in a close match 69 to 68. The game was a rematch of last year’s B Bracket championship game, only this time Wrangell came out on top. “It was kind of a little payback,” said Cody...
Wrangell's High School boys basketball team members were welcomed as hometown heroes last Thursday, after taking fourth at the State Tournament in Anchorage last week for the 2A division. It was the team's first trip to State in more than a decade, and though it did not bring back a title Wrangell's players brought home several awards. "I was really proud of the boys," said the Wolves' coach, Ray Stokes. "They all did great." The team won two of its three games, and beat region rival Metlakatla...
Legal challenges to the Big Thorne timber sale were dismissed in their entirety by a federal judge last Friday. Ten environmental groups filed three separate legal actions against the United States Forest Service (USFS) last year, challenging its planned sale on Prince of Wales Island. United States District Judge Ralph Beistline denied the plaintiffs’ motions for summary judgement, granting in favor of USFS. The Big Thorne sale would allow timber to be harvested from approximately 6,200 of the area’s 232,000 acres of forested land over sev...
Wrangell Public School District will be partnering more closely with the University of Alaska Southeast’s Tech Prep Program in coming months, setting up an office for the program’s coordinator, Kimberly Szczatko. A memorandum of understanding was approved by the Wrangell School Board earlier this month and a formal agreement is in the process of being signed, but tentatively, Szczatko expects to be relocated from the Juneau office by May. Once here, Szczatko will be better able to assist high school students to enroll in tech prep pro...
Wrangell’s Planning and Zoning Commission was able to meet last Thursday for the first time since January. Commissioners examined the future of Silvernail Road, whose right-of-way cuts a course through the Marine Service Center yard and connects with Front Street. The Harbor Department would prefer to see the largely conceptual road vacated to free up space for leasing, but Economic Development head Carol Rushmore has expressed reluctance to relinquish it so easily. In Rushmore’s view, having the road guarantees the property access to Fro...
As Wrangell looks to future growth, the owners of its largest hotel are likewise looking to expand. Southeast Properties owner Bill Goodale and Stikine Inn manager Jake Harris have made preliminary appearances at recent assembly, port, and planning and zoning meetings to pitch their idea. They would like to purchase 27.45 square feet of tidelands adjacent to the hotel property. Once acquired, the inn's owners could then begin expanding the building, adding rooms and ground-level retail space. Go...
Nearly 100 residents headed to the Nolan Center the evening of March 11 to preview a short film produced about themselves. Entitled “Water is Life,” the ten-minute video follows the Stikine River from its headwaters to its terminus and highlights its importance to nearby communities. Shooting was conducted last fall by a film crew working for Inside Passage Waterkeeper, which visited Wrangell, Petersburg and Telegraph, British Columbia. In addition to gathering footage of the river and its wildlife, interviews were conducted with a variety of...
A bagpiper sets the mood before Saturday's Shamrock Shuffle, where over 40 participants braved nippy gusts to run, ride or skate a five-kilometer course....
One Wrangell resident hoped to stir up some interest in an alternative to subscription-service television at the Wrangell Borough Assembly meeting March 10. Sue Horner introduced herself as 31-year military veteran and recent arrival to the community. While settling in, one of the things Horner noticed was Wrangell did not make use of Alaska Rural Communication System (ARCS) programming. “I was surprised and disappointed,” she told the Assembly. She explained the ARCS network is a system of satellite-fed, low-power television transmitters pro...
Nearly four dozen runners, bicyclists, walkers and longboarders make their way up Case Avenue at the start of the Southeast Beasts' Shamrock Shuffle 5K. The group's first major run of the year, it raised $560 for Wrangell High School's vocational education program....
Earlier this month, three members of the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department (VFD) were able to gear up and attend this year's Scott Firefighter Stairclimb in Seattle, Wash. Firefighters Chris Hatton, Adam Sprehe and Dorianne Curley made the trip along with Tim Buness. The three joined 1,897 other firefighters on March 8 to climb the Columbia Center, the West Coast's second-tallest skyscraper. In its 24th year, the annual charity event draws firefighters from around the world, raising money and...
As legislators in Juneau prepare a budget for the state's next fiscal year, Alaska residents have been urged to contribute their say as cuts are considered. Since the Legislative session began on Jan. 20, lawmakers have been weighted with the task of finding ways to address a more than $3.6 billion deficit. To that end, the State House was looking at making a nearly 10 percent, or about $240 million, cut from state spending over the previous fiscal year. Among areas affected by the cuts would be capital improvements, education, transportation,...
