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Former President Donald Trump has a narrow lead in most polls in a tight race for the White House, but he is far and away the leader in handing out personal insults. This guy tosses out crude nicknames, offensive language and outlandish statements like shark hunters toss out stinky chunks of fish meat to attract their catch. It’s called “chumming,” but there is nothing chummy about U.S. presidential politics. And the “catch” is voters. Trump has a massive mental thesaurus of insulting names for his political opponents, a strategy he has relie...
Wrangell is not immune to the nationwide shortage of electrical transformers, and the delivery delay has pushed back the borough’s sale of 20 lots at the residential subdivision near 6-Mile Zimovia Highway until the spring. The borough wants to wait until the streets and utilities are finished at the property before opening access to the land for potential buyers to evaluate which lots they may want to buy. The transformers and buried electrical lines are part of the work. The land sale had been tentatively planned for late summer or fall, b...
They may be out of sight to the general public but they are never out of mind for the U.S. Forest Service. The agency maintains 35 mountaintop repeater towers within the Tongass National Forest to provide radio coverage for their field crews and first responders. A contractor is installing new repeater stations at five sites this summer in the Wrangell and Petersburg ranger districts, part of an ongoing effort to switch out older units with newer models. Of particular importance to Wrangell, a...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has long prided himself on being a fiscal conservative. He has consistently adhered to that mantra, with the exception of his long-standing advocacy for a state checkbook-draining supersize Permanent Fund dividend. As a fiscal conservative, the governor has always talked of keeping a short leash on spending, a tight rein on appropriations, a firm grip on the budget. Too bad that stinginess extends to explaining his budget vetoes. Critics of Dunleavy’s vetoes of legislative appropriations for the state fiscal year that s...
A $38.6 million federal grant will help lower the cost of energy-saving heat pumps for an estimated 6,100 Alaska households stretching from Ketchikan to Kodiak, including Wrangell. The money will provide rebates of between $4,000 and $8,500 per household for the purchase and installation of a heat pump. The funding is in addition to federal tax credits of up to $2,000 per household. The federal grant for coastal Alaska, announced July 22, will go the Southeast Conference, a community and economic development nonprofit for the region, and...
Unbelievable, which is the opposite of what real news should be. But believe it that Elon Musk is pushing errors and false news into the heads of people around the world. Whether for his personal profit, personal ego or personal fun, it’s irresponsible and dangerous. Musk, a serial entrepreneur who is as flaky as cold cereal, believes Grok, his artificial intelligence service pedaled through X, formerly known as Twitter, should be a news source. “What we’re doing on the X platform is, we are aggregating. We’re using AI to sum up the aggrega...
Sam Pausman, the Sentinel's newest reporter, switched coastlines to start work in Wrangell on July 15. He moved from Maine to Alaska. "I wanted to see something totally new, nothing close to anywhere I had ever been before," Pausman explained. The closest he had ever been to Alaska was Chicago. A May graduate from Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, he majored in history, with a focus on journalism. He worked on the college newspaper, including a stint as editor-in-chief his senior year,...
Bearfest this week provides an opportunity for people to try their artistic skills at making holiday ornaments. In the shape of bears, of course. But nothing ordinary about these ornaments — they will hang on the national Christmas tree on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. Forest Service has selected a tree from the Wrangell Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest — they won’t say which one yet — and the agency has called on Alaskans to create 10,000 ornaments for the big tree and multiple smaller trees that will be display...
Though it may be of little solace to people who struggle to find available housing, Wrangell continues to rank among the lowest-cost communities in the state for apartment rents. This month’s Alaska Economic Trends magazine, published by the Alaska Department of Labor, shows the median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment — utilities included — at $1,081 in Wrangell and Petersburg, which are lumped together for the annual survey. That’s the lowest of the 11 areas covered in the report. The Kodiak Island Borough topped the survey at $1,713...
Wrangell is in a Goldilocks situation when it comes to tourists. Too many is no good. It would leave the town feeling stuffed. Too few is what we have, leaving the town hungry to fill its economic bowl. Just enough more visitors to warm up the economy would be the right amount. Too bad it’s not as easy a choice as Goldilocks picking which porridge to bear down on. Wrangell is not a tourism-dominated community like Skagway or Juneau. Nor does it want to be. But a little more sales tax revenue would be a good thing, particularly if those sales t...
The state of Alaska, with all the legal wisdom of a political agenda and the flowing words of a high-priced law firm, has filed a claim against the federal government. Nothing new about that — the state has filed and signed onto more lawsuits against the national government in recent years than President Joe Biden has forgotten dates or former President Donald Trump has told lies. Nothing to be proud of in any of that. The state’s latest legal endeavor came July 2 in a dubious lawsuit — with a few errors and omissions for poor measure — that as...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed more than $230 million in spending from the state budget but left intact $6.5 million for repairs to Wrangell school buildings, along with $5 million for stabilization work at the community’s water reservoir earthen dams and $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route from the southern end of Zimovia Highway. In addition to covering state-provided public services, construction projects and community grants, the budget bills signed by Dunleavy on June 27 also will provide an estimated $1,650 t...
A long time ago, the Sentinel called out a mayor for taking an action without city council approval (this was before Wrangell became a borough). The mayor had sent a letter to a federal agency, stating the city’s official position on an issue — but it was merely his personal opinion. There was no council discussion, no public notice. It wasn’t that controversial a position, but the point was that the mayor, no matter how well meaning, should not speak for the city without first making sure the elected council is in agreement. The mayor came...
With just days to go before the start of Fourth of July activities, organizers still are looking for more volunteers and sponsors — and, of course, hundreds of people ready to run, paddle, stuff their faces with pies, throw pies at public officials and everything else that goes into the holiday celebration. “You can never have too many volunteers,” said Tommy Wells, executive director of the chamber of commerce, which organizes the events calendar. As of Monday, the chamber still needed volunteers to run the log roll and greased pole event...
Most everything pays better than newspapers. A lemonade stand in the winter, a barber shop at a convention of bald men, dry cleaning services for Carhartts — even canned farmed pink salmon at an Alaska street fair — all could be more profitable than running a newspaper. I used to think that publishing a quality paper, full of accurate, informative and entertaining news, always taking care to spell everyone’s name correctly, would produce enough revenue to pay the bills. But after reading more about political campaign donations, I reali...
Trident Seafoods’ plan for its Wrangell plant this summer “is to run hard,” with as many as 180 workers on the processing lines, packing headed-and-gutted pinks and chum salmon for the fresh-frozen market. “You’ve got to get them out of the water and into the freezer” to have the best fish for consumers, said Jeff Welbourn, senior vice president of Alaska operations. It’s all about time and temperature, he said of producing a quality product. The company has added a new fish oil plant to its Wrangell operations for this summer, he said. “We...
They can't do anything about the weather, but organizers of Wrangell's Fourth of July events are preparing for the wettest and hoping for the warmest. They have made room at the covered downtown pavilion for musical groups to perform in the afternoon and evening of the Fourth. The bands need electricity, which doesn't mix very safely with rain, said Tommy Wells, executive director of the chamber of commerce, which organizes the annual holiday celebration in town. The events start with a golf tou...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, his attorney general and others in the administration are spending a lot of time and state money defending Alaska against its perceived political enemies, fighting the U.S. government at every turn of the river, protecting Alaskans from the latest federal regulations and standing up for conservative values. The list includes picking fights with private banks that want to move away from oil and gas lending, egging on fights over library books, supporting the state of Texas in its fight to string razor wire along the border...
Consumers think of seafood as a premium purchase, which is not a good image when household budgets are tight and shoppers are worried about inflation. “The problem is not the fish,” said Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “The challenge is in the global marketplace.” Woodrow in February called the 2023 market for Alaska salmon “rock bottom” with low prices and weak demand, though maybe the industry was coming off that rocky bottom, he said then. Now, as the season is getting underway this summer, “a lo...
Sales tax revenues came in under projections for the first three months of the year, an indication of a weakening economy and a worrisome sign for the community, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said last week. “We’re at that point we’re going to have to trim things down,” he told the assembly at a budget work session Wednesday, June 5. Mayor Patty Gilbert called the manager’s draft spending plan “the leanest budget” she has seen. In addition to proposing laying off two of the police department’s seven-member force of certified officers, Villa...
The draft budget before the borough assembly includes eliminating two positions from Wrangell’s seven-member force of certified police officers. The spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said, is constrained by flat property tax revenues, a decline in sales tax receipts, a long list of deferred maintenance projects and declining reserve funds. The layoffs, proposed for Sept. 30, would result in the department pulling back from 24-hour coverage, Villarma explained at a borough assembly budget w...
Wrangell is among the more pessimistic towns in this year’s annual business survey conducted of Southeast communities. About half of the 35 Wrangell business leaders who responded to the survey had a negative view of the town’s economic outlook, and almost one-third expected they would need to cut jobs this year. None of that surprises Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director. “Our downtown district is not doing as well as it has in the past,” she said in an interview Thursday, June 6. Residents are spending more money onl...
There is nothing longer in America than a presidential election campaign. And that is not a good thing. A long vacation is enjoyable. Long summers are a treat. Reuniting with long-lost friends is special. But long campaigns are becoming indescribably painful. Just think of an Excedrin headache that lasts all year for more than 240 million eligible voters. It could be like the supply-chain shortages of the pandemic, with people clearing out store shelves and grabbing for the last bottle of headache medicine. Still not convinced how miserable...
In addition to focusing on big-dollar issues, assembly members at last week’s budget work session discussed a collective $50,000 question: Whether the borough should contribute money to KSTK radio, the chamber of commerce and the senior center. The issue of improving playgrounds also came up toward the end of the meeting. Unlike recent years when the borough assembly appropriated cash for the radio station, chamber and senior center, the draft budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 does not include any such direct payments. Borough M...
A Talkeetna high school student who comes to Wrangell for the Fourth of July most every year to visit family is the winner of this year's chamber of commerce competition to design an official logo for the holiday celebration. Kyla McChargue said her winning design, with boats and planes converging on Wrangell, is intended to show everyone coming to town for the Fourth. "I just wanted to show that even if you don't live in Wrangell ... it's home," she said last week. Kyla, 15, who will be a sopho...