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Alaskans have been anguishing over the price of oil ever since 1977, when the first barrel of crude flowed down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. That was the same year Elvis Presley died. And just as people have been speculating ever since about Elvis’ death, so, too, have Alaskans spent too much time speculating about the price of oil. Some advice: Don’t be cruel, don’t get all shook up about it, and cast aside your suspicious minds. Shake off the fixation, don’t let market predictions rattle you, and roll with whatever happens. Alaska cannot co...
Word choice matters. Thinking through how others will read and perceive words is important, especially when sharing opinions. The Sentinel editorial last week is a case in point. My purpose in the editorial was that the borough assembly could have interviewed candidates for the manager’s job in public. I think they should have, but that’s just my opinion and my view of the law from the perspective of a journalist who has written about public policy and government in Alaska since 1976. I wanted readers to know that the courts have held that suc...
Polite requests didn't work, so I'll try bribery. Not the illegal kind that infects corrupt nations and businesses, but the nice kind, sort of like how your parents offered you dessert if you finished the broccoli on your plate. Think of a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen as that piece of broccoli. And think of a free 2022 Alaska calendar by award-winning Juneau photographer Mark Kelley as your dessert. Just as colorful as and artistic as chocolate cake, an ice cream sundae or a...
The deep snow and strong winds are making the moose in Alaska’s Interior cranky. Who can blame them. More than four feet of snow fell in Fairbanks in December, with over six feet in Denali National Park. Moose have long, strong legs, but those fur-covered limbs need to carry them around until spring, when there is something more to eat for energy than frozen tree bark and scraps of leftover Halloween pumpkins frozen into the ice. Grubhub does not deliver to moose. And even though they don’t have to worry about COVID-19 or wear a face mask or...
It’s helpful to remember the past, to learn from both the good and bad. Neither should be forgotten. Reliving the good can bring us joy and give us a chance to say thank you. Vowing never to repeat the really ugly moments can make us smarter and make our communities better. This week presents just such an opportunity. It was a year ago, Jan. 1, that I purchased the Wrangell Sentinel for the third time, proving that you can pay an accountant for wise tax and financial advice but you don’t have to pay attention. It’s been exhaustively fun, recon...
Maybe we need to pay more attention to what kids are saying. Especially around the holidays, when adults can get wrapped up in ribbons and bows and sometimes forget it is the thought, not the gift that really matters. Youth and innocence make for honest, direct answers. Funny ones, too. No politically calculated holiday greetings from these children. Sure, they’re kids, so they want toys and games and anything electronic. But in their heartfelt letters to Santa, Wrangell elementary school students told us what’s important to them and what sho...
For the sake of this holiday political fable, let’s assume there is a Santa Claus and the all-knowing gift giver tracks your behavior 365 days a year, not just the month or so before Christmas — much like your phone, your web browsing history, Alexa, front-door camera or whatever other electronic tracking device that watches over you. Santa knows who has been naughty or nice long before anyone starts wrapping December presents. And let’s hope that Santa — and coastal Alaska voters — have been making the list and checking it twice for the past...
Sometimes, connecting the dots is the best way to learn. The first set of dots cost $87 million in federal pandemic aid money. That’s the price of the contract the state signed with an Atlanta-based for-profit health care staffing firm to provide up to 470 medical professionals to help out at 15 Alaska hospitals and medical clinics, schools too, for 90 days. The travelers helped relieve the strain during the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak this fall, when Alaska was in record territory for new cases and hospitalizations. The Wrangell Medical C...
I don’t celebrate my own birthday — gave that up when I grew up and mom stopped giving me money to take all my friends bowling at Dom DeVito’s Lanes, where the bar was off-limits but it still felt cool to put our pop bottles in the same holders meant for beer. Newspaper birthdays, however, are different, and they’re worth celebrating. Not only because the newspaper is still alive, despite the growth of Facebook, but because the paper’s age is a sign of strength and stamina, unlike my age, which is a sign that I talk more about arthritis...
It was the same day that Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the state would help hospitals cope with record numbers of COVID-19 patients by assisting with decisions to ration care, and the same day that the state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, said Alaska is “at the worst place in the pandemic that we’ve had this entire time.” It was the same day that the governor announced Alaska would spend $87 million to bring in out-of-state medical workers to help relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospital staff. And it was the same day Alaska set a r...
Could anything be more difficult than getting the Alaska Legislature to settle on a workable, affordable, sustainable fiscal plan for the state? Yes. Getting a clear majority of Alaskans to accept the reality and the need for a workable, affordable, sustainable fiscal plan for the state probably is more difficult - and yet it has to come first. Most legislators understand the numbers, even if they disagree or dislike the math and the choices. Many just need a permission slip from their...
The governor’s office got it wrong when it referred to $400,000 in state funding for the Alaska Legal Services Corp. as a subsidy. Guess they had to come up with a catchy explanation of why Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the long-standing state help for the program which provides legal assistance for low-income Alaskans. Calling it a “subsidy” sounds like an attempt to diminish its value, tossing it into the tainted pork barrel of boondoggles that fiscal conservatives say must end. They are right about that. Subsidies with little or no benef...
This week seems like a good time to explain to readers the different roles of a newspaper. In particular, this newspaper. Actually, any week would be a good time, as I am often reminded that many readers are confused at the different parts of a newspaper. How are news, opinion and advertising different? What are the rules for each? And who decides which is what and when? First and foremost, the Wrangell Sentinel is a newspaper. Which means we try to provide readers with news of the community, its residents, its government, and the businesses...
Blame legislators for overspending and underachieving at the underlying need for a long-term fiscal plan for the state - if it makes you feel better. They certainly have made some poor decisions. But Alaskans need to look at their own reflection in the mud puddle of politics and realize we share in the blame for electing and encouraging bad decisions by many of those same lawmakers. We're just as guilty for decades of irresponsible requests for state funding, unreasonable expectations that the...
When I was a kid, if my brothers or I acted up while on a family drive — six people packed into a sedan, without air conditioning and long before the days of spacious minivans — our dad would do like so many of his generation. He would keep one hand on the steering wheel, turn his head toward the back seat, and announce in a menacing voice: “If you don’t stop that, I’ll put a stop to it.” We knew how he intended to stop our bickering, so we usually sat down and behaved. Today’s version of that childish behavior is playing out aboard airlin...
Wrangell has several multimillion-dollar problems: Replacing the water reservoir dams and repairing the piping; rebuilding the water-damaged public safety building; and reusing or demolishing the old hospital building. Even with the highest sales tax rate in the state, even if tourist spending fully recovers next year and the economy grows, there wouldn't be enough sales tax receipts coming in to cover the costs of even one of the projects, let alone all three essential community needs. Sure,...
I know things change and I too sit around with friends and bemoan how it used to be, how we miss the old days, how much better things were then. Good thing I went online to complain to friends instead of writing a letter. Who knows when it would have arrived. Though the U.S. Postal Service motto says "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" will delay the mail, that has not protected it from politics, poor management at the top and lack of congressional action. I admit that impatience...
I know Wrangell people have opinions and viewpoints and all sorts of interesting thoughts in their heads. I hear them in the stores, see them on Facebook and listen when people talk with me on the street. But I don’t read them in the Sentinel. I feel like the Maytag repairman in the TV commercials — lonely because no one calls. We can fill that missing piece in the newspaper. I say “we” because while I am eager to print your letters to the editor, you need to write them. I’ll provide the newspaper space free of charge for letters. All you n...
Consistency is a good thing, whether it’s parents applying rules to their children or elected officials following the law. Inconsistency can mean children misbehave because they know they will sometimes get away with it. And inconsistency can allow elected officials to do what will politically please their constituents most of the time rather than what is right all of the time. Such as those elected officials who clamor and pound the campaign trail, demanding that the Legislature “follow the law” and appropriate money for the Permanent Fund...
The last time Alaska changed the state tax on motor fuel, gasoline cost about 36 cents a gallon at a Lower 48 pump, the average home price in the United States was $24,000, and the average price of a new car was about $3,500. The motor fuel tax rate in Alaska in 1970 was 8 cents a gallon, about half the price of a cup of coffee. Gasoline now runs about $2.50 a gallon in the Lower 48, $3 in Anchorage, and closer to $4 a gallon in California. The average home price in the country is over...
"Confidence in an economy matters," Dan Robinson, research chief at the state Department of Labor, told the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this month. "There is an economic cost of not solving these problems." He was talking with legislators about the state's job loss, population loss, economic loss and inability to agree on a fiscal plan to pay for public services long term. For most of the past 30 years, Alaska has taken from savings, prayed for high oil prices and rejoiced at any...
I wrote my first news story 52 years ago last week for my college paper. That year and every year since, I was taught, reminded, practiced and adhered to Associated Press style and always identified elected officials by their political party. Put a D after their name, or an R. It was automatic, a blank space that reporters had to fill in. An elected official's name without a party affiliation was incomplete. It was as if the party initial told readers all they needed to know, and our reporting...
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan became law on March 11. Much of the federal money is directed to help states, cities, businesses and individuals recover from the economic damage of the pandemic. Aid for the beleaguered tourism, travel and hospitality industries - which suffered more that most with the near-total shutdown of events and vacations - was a major part of the congressional work. And yet, here it is a month later, and the governor's office has only now announced it will propose...
The Canadian border has been closed for more than a year and, judging from last week's news, it's not likely to reopen in the late-spring future or even the early-summer future. British Columbia recorded its highest number of daily cases last week. For the first time in the pandemic, British Columbia reported more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases on two consecutive days. Last Friday's case count was a record high, surpassed the next day by an even higher count. The previous record was set just...
The federal money that will flow into our state from the American Rescue Plan - the latest round of pandemic aid from Washington, D.C. - is the proverbial once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Alaskans to do good things with more than $2 billion. The total includes almost $1.2 billion that will go to the state, $357 million for schools, $230 million for local communities, a couple hundred million dollars more for housing assistance, tens of millions each for energy improvements to homes, the...
