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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded a $15 million grant to the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to expand composting operations in five Southeast Alaska communities — and Wrangell could be one of them. The intent of the grant is to reduce organic waste in landfills, reduce greenhouse gas methane emissions generated from decaying garbage and promote local food production, said Brandi Tolsma, an environmental specialist with Tlingit & Haida in Juneau. The tribal council plans to expand its c...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy made the pledge and he’s stickin’ to it. Too bad he is putting national anti-tax politics above tax fairness in Alaska. Specifically, he vetoed legislation this month that would have taxed car rentals through online platforms the same as car rentals from brick-and-mortar agencies with local offices. And he vetoed legislation two years ago that would have taxed vape and e-cigarette products the same as traditional tobacco products. The car rental fairness legislation passed with 51 out of 60 state senators and rep...
Bob Dalrymple likes what the borough has managed to get done the past few years, particularly its focus on maintenance of public facilities and developing new capital projects, such as winning a federal grant to rebuild the downtown harbor floats. "I'd like to keep up with that momentum," said Dalrymple, who is running unopposed for a second three-year term on the assembly. "There are some real challenges coming up." He lists among the challenges finding a way to dispose of the former hospital...
The borough hopes to learn this week the exact location and condition of the kinked blockage in the treatment plant outfall pipeline that has forced a temporary solution — discharging the wastewater on the beach near City Park. “It’s essentially been bent in half,” Public Works Director Tom Wetor said of the 12-inch-diameter plastic pipe, which was hooked Aug. 30 by a boat anchor and damaged as the anchor line was being pulled up. Repairs could take a couple of months, he said Sept. 6. It just depends on how much work is needed. The borough has...
As if the borough’s Public Works Department wasn’t busy enough last week with the damaged sewage outfall line, the crew was pressed into evening work to repair a broken water main on St. Michaels Street. The ductile iron pipe on the hill above City Market probably was 40 to 50 years old, said Public Works Director Tom Wetor. “The stuff was supposed to last 60 years,” he said, but poor installation likely led to deterioration of the pipe and the break. A lot of utility pipe was buried around town and throughout Alaska during the heavy flow of...
We deliver you the Sentinel as one piece, whether in print or online. If you’re reading this in print, just pretend that the sheets of paper folded together are one piece. Regardless of how you read the paper, it has five elements: Paid advertising, news, the Sentinel’s editorial, my personal opinion column and opinions from our readers. Each has different rules and standards. Each is essential for newspapers that want to serve their community. Paid ads are pretty simple: The advertiser, be it a business or an individual or a government agency,...
Assembly Member David Powell has filed to run for mayor, taking on incumbent Patty Gilbert in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Gilbert is running for a second two-year term as mayor. Powell is in his ninth year on the assembly. In another contested race on the ballot, Chris Buness is seeking a second three-year term on the port commission, with Tony Guggenbickler, Eric Yancey and Antonio Silva also on the ballot. The top two vote-getters will each win a three-year term. Guggenbickler has never held elected office in Wrangell, though he served...
The borough is asking a military training program to help assess and clear out a sunken barge and tug offshore the former sawmill property near 6-Mile. It’s unclear how long the vessels have been stuck on the bottom but it’s likely been 25 or 30 years, according to current and past borough officials. Though the vessels do not impede access by the scrap metal salvage barge operator that has a five-year lease on the borough-owned property, the sunken vessels could become a problem if Wrangell is able to attract a long-term user or buyer for the...
Remember those perplexing math problems in school? Not the easy ones that required only simple subtraction, addition, multiplication or division. I’m talking about those word problems that told what seemed like a purposefully confusing story about trains moving in opposite directions at different speeds and you had to calculate how far apart they would be in an hour. I figured the purpose was to teach us problem solving. Though in my early school years, the biggest math problem I wanted to solve was how to buy 25 cents worth of candy when I h...
The borough has started a newsletter, the first in a series of initiatives to provide more information for the public, particularly focused on promoting economic growth. The second initiative will be monthly informal discussions titled “Our Town, Our Future.” The “economic coffee chats” will be held the third Friday every month, starting Oct. 18, said Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director. The meetings will be held at a different location each month, she said, with the first location undecided as of last week. The series will...
Staff at three borough offices saw a need and got together to do something about it. Their answer is to provide after-school activities three days a week over the next three months. “There’s always been the need for after-school care in the community … to fill that gap for parents and children,” said Sarah Scambler, director of the Irene Ingle Public Library. The activities will be free; no advance registration required. The program is open to children 7 through 13 years old, though younger children are welcome, but they must be accompa...
Candidates have long waged election campaigns on catchy slogans, snappy jingles, popular promises and misleading but memorable mottos. It’s getting worse. The music is better but the lyrics are lacking. Vagueness is in vogue. The less specific candidates are with their actual plans to fulfill campaign promises, the less the opposition and analysts can pick apart the flaws. Running for president or Congress? Promise more funding for child care, lower taxes, lower prices at the grocery store, stronger defense, defeating China for jobs and i...
Some of the best times in life are when a bad thing turns into a good thing. When frustration and disappointment transform into happiness. It’s not magic, though it seems magical. It’s when someone you don’t even know steps up and does something nice. I recently flew to Washington, D.C., and being frugal, which sounds so much better than cheap, took a 53-minute train ride from the suburban airport to the stop closest to my downtown hotel, rather than the more convenient but 20 times more expensive taxi. The Metro train station was almost a mil...
With a little over a week left before the filing deadline, six of seven incumbents on the assembly, school board and port commission have submitted paperwork or announced plans to seek another term in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Candidates have until 4 p.m. Aug. 30 to complete and turn in the declaration form, which is available at the borough clerk’s office in City Hall. Mayor Patty Gilbert was the first incumbent to file for reelection. She will seek a second two-year term. Assembly Members Jim DeBord and Bob Dalrymple both have filed f...
More than 130 cases of whooping cough — also known as pertussis — were reported across Alaska in the first seven months of the year, with seven confirmed cases in Southeast in June and July. The statewide case count is five times higher than the number of infections reported in all of 2023, according to an Aug. 5 alert issued by the Alaska Division of Public Health. “Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory disease that can cause severe coughing fits and difficulty breathing, particularly dangerous for infants, the elderly and those with...
Fire Chief Jordan Buness grew up in a volunteer fire department family. "It's something I knew that I always wanted to do," he said of serving as chief. "I wanted to earn my way into that," taking every training class he could over the past 20 years. He got his chance when his father, Tim Buness, retired on June 5 after 35 years as chief. Jordan's grandfather, Gordon, was the first of the three Buness generations to lead the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department. "My dad ingrained that (community...
Separate from the borough general fund that pays for police, the local contribution for schools, the Nolan Center, recreation programs and other public services, the borough maintains three accounts dedicated to industrial and residential development. The combined balance of the three accounts could total about $2.3 million by the end of the fiscal year next June 30, assuming expenses and planned land sale revenues come in as expected. All three funds date back to the 1990s and are focused on making borough property available for private develo...
To modernize an old expression, Alaskans are fiddling while the Permanent Fund burns. Not literally, of course. The Permanent Fund’s stocks and bonds, real estate deeds, lease agreements and investment contracts are all safely stored. But the fiddling part, that’s true. And because it’s a state election year, we can expect a lot of candidates to turn up the volume on their fiddles. No matter how off-key the music, no one ever loses an election by playing happy tunes about big Permanent Fund dividends. No one wins an election talking about...
Between books, a laptop or tablet, lunch and whatever else students stuff into their backpacks, the load can add up to some serious weight. It also can add up to a sore back, shoulders and neck. It’s easy to overload a school backpack, said Kathleen Hansen, an occupational therapist with SEARHC in Juneau, where she works with children and adults. “Many people are very surprised to find out how much their backpack weighs,” she said. Her advice is to “pack smart as they ready for school.” The new school year in Wrangell starts Aug. 22. “There is...
With school a week away, SEARHC nutrition services manager Tara Farley has healthy advice for parents who are starting to think about packing and preparing snacks and lunches for their children. But, she adds, “You are never going to hear me say don’t eat this and don’t eat that.” Rather, she talks of picking the best foods, moderation, cutting back on sugars and refined carbohydrates — and getting kids involved in making decisions about what to eat. “Involve kids in packing their own lunches,” Farley suggests. For example, parents and t...
Alaska state law requires children to get vaccinated against multiple serious diseases to attend school, but it’s about more than keeping students and their classmates healthy, said the chief medical officer for SEARHC. “You’re protecting your community,” said Juneau-based Dr. Cate Buley, a family medicine practitioner with 21 years of experience at SEARHC. Vaccinations are an effective tool to prevent disease throughout the community, she said. “What we really worry about is our babies and our elders.” With the start of the school year just a...
The Aug. 20 primary election for the state House district that covers Wrangell is a preview of the Nov. 5 general election. All three primary election candidates to succeed Rep. Dan Ortiz in representing Ketchikan, Metlakatla and Wrangell in the House will advance to the November round under Alaska’s voting system that sends up to the top four primary finishers to the general election. Competing for the seat are Jeremy Bynum, a Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly member and Ketchikan Public Utilities electric manager; Grant EchoHawk, also a m...
Wrangell this year will go without state ferry service for almost three weeks in late November and early December under the fall and winter schedule released Aug. 2. The service gap will occur between the time the Alaska Marine Highway System pulls the Kennicott out of service for major work and until it can transfer crew from the Kennicott to the Columbia, and outfit the Columbia, said Sam Dapcevich, Alaska Department of Transportation spokesman. The Columbia has been out service for repairs since last November. Other than the three-week gap,...
The 10 senior centers operated by Catholic Community Service in Southeast Alaska are serving about 50% more meals than they provided before the pandemic hit in 2020. However, tightened budgets and reduced staffing are making it difficult. Meals counts spiked during the pandemic as seniors stayed home and depended on delivered lunches but, unexpectedly, demand for meals on wheels has not declined much since COVID restrictions were lifted in communities, said Erin Walker-Tolles, executive director of the Juneau-based nonprofit. The numbers of...
The Wrangell Elks Lodge has been around since 1935, putting on community programs for kids, veterans and others over the years. But it’s just as well known for Friday night hamburgers and Saturday night steak dinners. As popular as the dinners have become over the years, the Elks are not immune from the same problem confronting many other community groups in town — they need volunteers. It takes at least three volunteers to staff the Friday burger night and at least two for the Saturday steak night, said Dawn Angerman, who co-manages the lod...