Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 667
It’ll be early fall before the borough offers for sale 20 lots at the new Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) residential subdivision upland from Shoemaker Bay, but residents interested in buying and building a home on the property can start lining up financing. In addition to conventional lenders such as banks, credit unions and the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., Haa Yakaawu Financial Corp., which works with the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority, offers a couple of different home loan programs, including one with below-market int...
The same day that she graduated from high school, Alisha Armstrong and her family decided to step up and help the community. Armstrong is the lone candidate for this year’s Fourth of July royalty contest, and will sell raffle tickets to help raise money for the holiday celebration. The ticket sales kickoff is planned for May 31 and will continue through July 3, with the prize drawings on July 4. The chamber of commerce sponsors the Fourth festivities and depends on royalty candidates to sell tens of thousands of raffle tickets. The c...
By Larry Persily Sentinel writer The Alaska state ferry Columbia — which has been out of service since late November for its annual overhaul and repairs but was supposed to go back to work this summer — will be laid up until the end of the year. Extensive corrosion in the 51-year-old ship’s fire suppression system is the reason for the extra time in the shipyard, Department of Transportation spokesman Sam Dapcevich said Friday, May 17. During the Columbia’s extended absence, the Alaska Marine Highway System has diverted the Kennicott out of...
National news stories last week reported that a survey of almost 1,500 Amazon employees across 42 states found that one in three need government assistance, primarily food stamps or Medicaid. The news matches a Government Accountability Office analysis in 2020 that covered nine states and found that Amazon — and Walmart, too — were among the biggest employers of workers whose earnings were low enough that they qualified for food stamps. That Amazon and Walmart would be near the top is no surprise: Walmart is the largest private-sector emp...
Funding to repair and rebuild Wrangell’s Public Safety Building is her top priority for federal aid for the community, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. It’s among the more than 500 requests for federal money the state’s senior senator has submitted for inclusion in a dozen different appropriation bills that Congress will consider for the federal fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The requests from across the state total about $2.5 billion, Murkowski said in an interview May 16. “Believe me, we won’t g...
Several of Wrangell’s requests are included in the state capital budget of public works projects that the Legislature approved last week, sending the spending plan to the governor for signature into law or veto. Unless the governor uses his veto powers to eliminate or reduce the appropriations, Wrangell would receive $5 million toward stabilization work at the earthen dams that hold back the community’s water reservoirs; $200,000 to start planning what’s being called an “escape route” for Zimovia Highway residents to drive across the island to...
The Republican-controlled Alaska House of Representatives last Saturday did their best impersonation ever of the U.S. House, spending all day on legislation that will never make it into law. It was the same kind of political circus that the nation has endured the past couple of years after a skinny margin of Republicans took control of the U.S. House, beholden to a small group who spend more time on social media than doing their schoolwork. Too bad teachers cannot take away their phones. Rather than focus on bipartisan legislation that could he...
The town’s population could double for a day. Holland America Line’s Nieuw Amsterdam, with accommodations for just over 2,100 passengers plus a crew of more than 900, is scheduled to tie up at Wrangell at 8 a.m. Thursday, May 16, staying until 7 p.m. It will be the ship’s only visit to Wrangell this summer. It will be the largest ship to bring travelers to town, just beating out Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, which is scheduled to visit twice — July 18 and 29 — and can carry up to 2,081 passengers. The Queen Elizabeth is actually a little long...
As of last week, just one Wrangell business had obtained the required state permit to provide commercial tours at Petroglyph Beach State Historic Site. The largest cruise ship of the summer is scheduled to tie up in town on Thursday, May 16, bringing as many as 2,000 visitors to Wrangell. The ancient stone carvings at the beach are among the community’s most popular visitor attractions. “We’re hoping we can work with everyone to get them into compliance,” Preston Kroes, the Southeast Alaska superintendent for state parks, said May 10. The par...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has indicated he is willing to accept a one-year increase in state money for schools as legislators work toward a $175 million addition to the funding formula before their scheduled adjournment deadline May 15. The increase would cover almost two-thirds of the projected revenue gap in the Wrangell School District operating budget for the 2024-2025 school year. Districts statewide face significant budget deficits after more than seven years without an increase in the state’s per-student funding formula. Though both the H...
The U.S. Forest Service plans to build six new cabins and a new campground in Southeast Alaska and wants to hear from the public on proposed fees for the facilities. One of the new cabins will be constructed at Little Lakes, on a former logging road about 25 miles from downtown Wrangell and near the Long Lake Trailhead. The proposed fee for the Little Lakes cabin is $75 a night, which is at the high end of the range of fees charged for use of existing cabins in the Tongass National Forest. Cabins in the Wrangell district range from $30 to $75....
One proposal to solve the impending energy shortage for Alaska’s population centers is to go back in time. To the 1970s, when coal was king in the U.S. The governor, legislators, municipal officials and business leaders are worried that the Railbelt — the population corridor stretching south from Fairbanks, through the Matanuska Valley and Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula — will run short of natural gas before the end of the decade. The region has lived off the nearby underground warehouse of natural gas from the Kenai Peninsula and Cook Inlet...
Channel Construction, which runs the scrap metal recycling operation at the former 6-Mile mill site, has resumed accepting unusable vehicles and large appliances from the public — and it’s free. The company collects scrap metal from throughout Southeast Alaska and ships it by barge for recycling out of state. It has operated at the mill site for more than a year, and recently signed a five-year lease to use the borough-owned property. The drop-off site reopened to the public on May 3 and will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays and Sat...
The Alaska Marine Highway System is waiting for the prognosis after a full-body scan of the state ferry Matanuska, looking for rusted steel — the equivalent of a cancer scan of the 61-year-old ship. The Matanuska has been out of service for 18 months after it went into the shop for its annual winter overhaul, only to find a lot more “wasted” (rusted) steel in its hull, decking and other areas of the ship than expected. That prompted the scan, which has been completed. Marine architects are working up a cost estimate, said Craig Tornga, marin...
The state House needed an auctioneer last week. Instead, it wasted three hours in a meaningless bidding war as the Republican-led majority told Alaskans they cared far more than anyone else about supporting education and ensuring state-funded alternatives for correspondence school students and their families. That meant they didn’t want to move too quickly to fix the constitutional problem of state money going to private and religious school programs. Let the millions continue to flow and wait for the Alaska Supreme Court to hear the appeal o...
The state had paid out more than $167,000 in disaster relief aid to 11 Wrangell households as of last month, with more than two dozen applications waiting on review for federal assistance. State and federal disaster declarations opened the door for individuals and businesses to apply for financial aid to cover property damages and other expenses caused by the deadly Nov. 20 landslide that struck at 11.2-Mile Zimovia Highway. As of April, the state had paid $167,023 to 11 households, representing 15 claims for expenses such as property damage,...
Less than two years ago, Alaskans voted overwhelmingly against convening a constitutional convention to amend the state’s founding document. More than 70% of voters said no thanks, it’s a bad idea. It was the sixth time in a row, going back to 1972, that voters by wide margins rejected the whimsy of shaking up the constitution as you would a game of Etch A Sketch and redrawing the fundamental laws of Alaska. While they oppose reopening the constitution to a potential wholesale rewrite, Alaskans have approved multiple specific amendments ove...
The first small tour boat of the summer is due May 9, with the first large cruise ship scheduled for May 16, and it’s time for the borough’s annual pre-season informational meeting for businesses and anyone else involved in the tourism industry. The meeting is set for 9 a.m. Thursday, April 25, in the assembly chambers at City Hall. The agenda includes a review of the cruise ship schedule, along with staging and transportation logistics for business that pick up and drop off passengers. If all of the ships’ berths are full, Wrangell could...
The Alaska Senate has passed a capital budget to fund roads, school repairs and rebuilds, housing, water and sewer systems and other public works projects across the state — but the spending plan is short of funds to cover repairs to Wrangell’s three aging school buildings. The budget bill approved by the Senate on April 12 will move next to the House for its consideration and possible amendments before a legislative adjournment deadline of May 15, at which time the governor could exercise his authority to veto individual items in the spe...
Neither President Joe Biden, 81, nor former President Donald Trump, 77, is necessarily too old to be president. Their biggest flaws are not their ages, it’s that they are blocking and discouraging younger people from getting a chance to lead the country. It’s because the two nominees are so certain that they are best suited for the job of leading the country and that they, more than anyone else, are best able to manage a nation of 335 million people. They seem to think that younger leaders are not as capable as they are. Their ego tells the...
The state capital budget approved by the Alaska Senate last week includes $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route for when Zimovia Highway is blocked by landslides or other disasters. The route would connect the old logging road at Pats Creek on the west side of Wrangell Island to the Spur Road on the island’s east side. The borough estimates the total cost of design and construction at roughly $5 million, and requested $500,000 in state funding to start planning and design work. The Senate approved the capital proj...
Who better to talk about education in Alaska than students. They could continue leaving it to school administrators, elected officials, their parents and teachers to speak for them, but that would be the easy way out. It’s also been unsuccessful. Looking to break that losing streak with the governor and state legislators unwilling to adequately fund education, hundreds of high schoolers around the state last week showed they are frustrated at the outcome. From Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, in Anchorage, Eagle River, Homer, Bethel and Utqiaġvik, st...
Commercial trollers had a productive winter catching kings along the outside waters of Southeast, but area runs are still weak and sportfishing restrictions around Wrangell this summer are similar to recent years. District 8 in front of the Stikine River and the waters closest to town will be closed to king fishing through July 14. “The retention of king salmon is prohibited, any king salmon caught must be released immediately,” according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. District 6 and most of District 7, encompassing the Back Cha...
The Fourth of July is three months away, and the start of ticket sales for the annual fundraising raffle is still eight weeks away, but the chamber of commerce figures it’s not too early to start asking who wants to volunteer for this year’s royalty competition. The royalty contestants sell tens of thousands of $1 raffle tickets that pay for the community’s Fourth of July fireworks, festivities and events. They get to keep a portion of their sales for all their hard work, using the money for college or anything else. Ticket sales start May 3...
Alaska faces a seriously long list of long-term serious problems. Our population is aging, people are not moving here fast enough to replace those who leave, too many employers lack enough workers to fully staff their operations, and the state’s finances are as stable as oil prices — which is to say not. State funding for K-12 education is frozen in time from the past decade. We maintain our deteriorating public buildings about as well as a teenager cleans their room. And we seem in a contest to see which is in shorter supply in our com...
