Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 613
The former general manager of Thomas Bay Power Authority is asking the utility’s Board of Commissioners for a severance package that was denied upon termination earlier this year– and has retained legal counsel in order to do so. The Commission terminated Paul Southland as the head of TBPA on April 26 after Commissioner Dave Galla moved to relieve him of his duties. That motion passed 5-2 among the commissioners, with members John Jensen and Robert Larson voting no. Southland, who said at the time he planned on returning to work in the com...
The City and Borough of Wrangell has received a payment of $250,000 in the settlement with former Wrangell Medical Center DEO Noel Rea – except Rea didn’t make the payment. The payment, in fact, came from the insurance company that indemnifies WMC and its officers, the Chubb Group Insurance. Borough Manager Tim Rooney said the checks, which were drafted in March, were received by city attorney Bob Blasco and forwarded to City Hall. “The money was deposited and now, any money that we spent on le...
With news breaking nationally of alleged tapping of Verizon cell phone and data customers by the National Security Agency, a provider of long-distance communications in Alaska is saying they cooperate with Federal subpoenas – but won’t say if a little known process allows the government to get at Alaskan’s private information on their network. The largest independent provider of wireless, land line and Internet service in Alaska, GCI, said this week that while the company works with the government when subpoenas or other warrants are issued by...
A Wrangell jury last week found 54-year-old Steve Marshall guilty of assaulting his former girlfriend in 2011, though the panel acquitted him of a more serious set of charges accusing him of sexual assault. The twelve-member jury returned their verdict in the late afternoon of Saturday, June 8 after deliberation began on the previous day, lasting for nearly 12 hours. Specifically, Marshall was found guilty of Assault in the First Degree and Assault in the Third Degree – charges that Judge W...
The Wrangell Ferry Terminal will be out of commission for three days in June to replace a portion of the underside of the ramp leading to the vessels when they are berthed. The closure is set for June 18-20, affecting ferry traffic during those days by prohibiting use of the dock for Alaska Marine Highway System ships. According to Jeremy Woodrow, a communications officer for the Alaska Department of Transportation, the work involved includes a complete replacement of critical infrastructure...
Wrangell not only has a new medical clinic, but a brand new physician added to the staff of the Alaska Island Community Services location on Wood Street. Dr. Laura Dooley, who has been affiliated with Bartlett Regional Medical Center and Southeast Regional Health Consortium, began work this week and will be seeing patients at the new facility. Dooley, who just arrived in town with her husband, said she has been here in the past during her travels throughout the state. “It’s good to be here in...
A former administrator at Wrangell Medical Center has been named as the new head of Providence Valdez Medical Center. Officials with Providence Health and Services said last week that Barbara Bigelow will begin her new job at the hospital on Aug. 5. She was named as the interim administrator at WMC after the departure of Kendall Sawa, who announced in October his desire to make a move to Washington State. Sawa replaced former CEO Noel Rea after the former WMC Board of Directors terminated him....
The proposed Mariner’s Memorial at Heritage Harbor is one step closer to becoming a reality as the Wrangell Port Commission has released a professional design document showing what the structure might look like once built. A set of elevation drawings and a floor plan completed by Corvus Design of Anchorage is now in the hands of the city – plans that show an octagonal design with some sides of the memorial open to the air and to allow visitors to enter the gazebo-styled structure. Port Com...
For Alaska Natives, food is essential – and traditional foods are of extreme importance to the indigenous people of the Last Frontier as they choose to live their history and culture in the modern age. In Wrangell, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium leads the way with its traditional foods program, under the direction of Ken Hoyt. Hoyt moved to Alaska in 2012 to take over the program and has, in the past year, introduced a variety of projects to the Natives and non-Natives of W...
The United States Coast Guard and members of the Alaska State Troopers search and rescue team spent the better part of Tuesday evening at LeConte Glacier after a Pacific Wings Beaver aircraft out of Petersburg crashed, leaving one reported as dead. The aircraft, which was carrying a pilot and six passengers, crashed at the glacier in the late afternoon of June 4 and was carrying sightseers, according to a statement by Coast Guard Sector Juneau. Senior Chief Chad Mountcastle said the U.S. Coast Guard was working to mount a rescue operation at...
After more than a year of planning, design and construction, the brand new Alaska Island Community Services clinic held an open house to show off the multi-million dollar building, its technological innovations and ways its new floor plan would assist clients in the medical and counseling process. The new facility, located on Wood Street, opened on June 5 and has nearly doubled the number of examination rooms available to patients. It cost nearly $4 million to build and is now prepared to offer...
There was a time when the front page of the Wrangell Sentinel was bracketed by the phrase “Founded in 1902 – Lumber capital of Alaska.” Those days ended in the 2000s, when Silver Bay’s operation at 6 Mile Zimovia Highway shuttered its doors for good, and with the demise of the mill site came a downturn in the industry that built Wrangell – timber. Even though the industrial side of logging is long gone in the Borough, the memory of what came from our forests still lives on in the Chuck Oli...
The City and Borough of Wrangell faced a check up from Alaska Mental Health Trust senior resource manager Paul Slenkamp after a report of excessive tree removal near the end of the road at 12.5 Mile Zimovia Highway last month. In what was defined as a timber cut to remove dangerous trees near the power line extension between Pats Lake Road and McCormack Creek, the city electrical department was issued an authorization to trim the area to remove dying or decaying trees that were threatening the...
The deadline for registration in the popular Summer Reading Program is set for June 30 at the Irene Ingle Public Library. This program is held annually beginning June 1 and runs through the end of July. All students in Kindergarten through Grade 9 are eligible to attend. The basis of the program, which began in 1998 is simple – after reading a book, students take a retention test on a computer, which is graded and provided to the school district at the end of the program. Each book is worth a certain amount of points and students receive v...
The Royalty Court for the 2013 Wrangell Fourth of July celebration was officially presented last Friday night, May 31, at the Stikine Inn – and the month-long push toward a fundraising goal of $100,000 began in earnest. The three young women taking part this year, Darian Meissner, Kayla Rooney and Jennifer Ludwigsen, were all present as Queen Mother Jill Privett introduced them to the audience. Afterward, she commented on what it meant for the large crowd to come out and support the trio taking...
For many Natives in Southeast Alaska the use of natural herbs and plants is as essential today as it was to their ancestors in years past – and whether they are used to alleviate pain, or help as a dietary supplement, the wild medicine of Wrangell’s forests and wilds are abundant. One of the most common plants in Wrangell’s pantheon is yarrow. It grows nearly everywhere on the island and is identifiable by its feathery leaves and fine-tooth hairs along the stem. It is also identifiable by its sm...
Heavy rains took out the first day of the City Market Golf Tournament last weekend at Muskeg Meadows golf course – though the second day saw a combination of Wrangell and Petersburg players finish at the top of their game. The team of Robbie Robinson, Ray Pederson, Greg Scheff and Eric Kading finished Saturday with a net score of 33, while the straightest drive went to Robbie Robinson at 7-feet. Glacier Larsen took the closest to the pin honors with a distance of 23-feet, 4-inches. Course manager Shannon Booker said the tournament, which was a...
The jury trial of former resident Steve Marshall for felony charges related to an alleged 2011 sexual assault began this week in Wrangell’s First District Court. Marshall, 54, was arrested on Dec. 7, 2011 at his residence in the Bloom Trailer Court after police responded to an argument between Marshall and his former girlfriend, Sonja Turner. Court documents allege that Marshall, who was indicted by a grand jury on seven charges, including sexual assault and assault in the first degree, is a...
With eight words – and the stroke of a pen – Superior Court Judge William B. Carey dismissed the lawsuit against former Wrangell Medical Center CEO Noel Rea and six former members of the WMC Board of Directors that were recalled last year, along with a counterclaim brought by the defendants. “The complaint and counter-claim are dismissed with prejudice,” Carey wrote in his April 29 order. The lawsuit stemmed from the actions of the former board in their firing of Rea on June 20, during their las...
You know it’s getting close to summer in Wrangell when the boats and skiffs of locals are on the water looking for King Salmon – and especially when the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce puts out their scale to weigh the incoming fish for the annual King Salmon Derby. The 61st annual derby began on May 11 and will run through June 9, with a total of $30,000 in cash and prizes available to the winners, including a $6,000 first place award. Chamber of Commerce manager Cyni Waddington said the eve...
A former Wrangell resident who was convicted in 2011 of being part of a drug distribution operation in the Borough and sentenced to more than three years in prison has asked a judge to review evidence in his case. Marcelo Soria, 48, pled guilty in June of 2011 to one count of Misconduct Involving a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree – Delivery or Possession with Intent to Distribute a Schedule II or III drug. Soria was indicted after information came to light that he was sending large amounts of cash to Mexico via City Market’s Wes...
The Lady Wolves hosted the Petersburg Lady Vikings softball team for one last pair of games for the 2013 season – and saw their neighbors to the north walk away with two victories, each in the double digits. The first inning of Sunday’s double-header against Petersburg started out with the Lady Vikings holding an 8-4 lead – and saw a pair of runs from Sarah Tate. Each team only scored two runs apiece in the second inning, with Ruby Brock and Raven Hansen scoring for Petersburg, and Darian Meiss...
With the Chief Shakes Tribal House project completed earlier this month, and the rededication ceremony written in the history books, the main objective of the Wrangell Cooperative Associated has shifted to their next major building effort – a carving shed for traditional Tlingit woodwork. The shed, which is currently under construction on Front Street at the corner of Lynch Street, will be about 3,600 square feet in size and will have a training room, a carving room, as well as totem storage a...
Anyone driving down Shakes Street during the past two months probably couldn’t help but notice the massive steel rebar structure going in at the Marine Service Center – a steel design that will reinforce massive slabs of concrete that a new marine hoist will ride on in years to come. The project, which is Phase II of the MSC renovation, includes two sections of rebar and concrete construction that was awarded by the Borough Assembly to Southeast Roadbuilders on March 12 as a base bid and alt...
The Wrangell Medical Center Foundation held their 6th Annual Brian Gilbert Memorial Golf Tournament last weekend at Muskeg Meadows – under better weather than previous tournaments – and saw a total of 60 players come out over the two-day event. On Friday afternoon, a round of casual golf was played, with a 9-hole best-ball scramble as the format. First place in the event went to the team of Greg Scheff, Ed Rilatos, Dave Doyon and Matt Jurak with a net score of 18, while Keene and Faye Koh...
