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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...
Sure, the Sentinel's main job is to report the news. But we also want to serve as the community bulletin board. Think of the newspaper as a weekly posting, delivered for everyone to see - even better, you don't need to stand in the wind and rain to read the sheet. The problem is, our bulletin board has empty space, and that doesn't do anyone any good. We need your events to fill up the board. We could hand out hundreds of pushpins to stick event notices to the pages of the Sentinel each week....
Though it's a little far afield from life in Wrangell, there is a life lesson in the controversy over President Joe Biden's choice to run the federal Office of Management and Budget. A lesson to keep your thumbs at your side, unless you're hitchhiking. The nominee, Neera Tanden, is in jeopardy of losing Senate confirmation because of tweets she sent while in a previous job as chief executive officer at the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress. The tweets were nasty, political...
The 18 or so Wrangell middle school and high school students who belong to BASE - Building a Supportive Environment - are the role models I never paid attention to when I was their age long ago (1960s). They got together on their own because they saw their classmates dealing with stress, pressures, mental health issues, and even drab hallways, which senior Jade Balansag described as "boring corridors of nothingness." Senior Jacob Dow did his research and learned that surroundings can make a big...
Maybe you did not like her vote to convict former President Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial. Maybe you wanted her to stick with most Republicans who cast their ballot to acquit because you believe the evidence was weak, or that Trump never intended to ignite a riot at the Capitol last month, or that Congress cannot impeach a former president. Maybe you think the senator, now in her 20th year, isn't conservative enough for your Republican tastes, and you believe she has grown too...
It is going to be another rough year for Southeast Alaska communities. The closure of Canadian waters to cruise ships on their way to and from Alaska is going to mean a lot fewer visitors to towns up and down the Panhandle. Wrangell is among them. But some visitors will still come to Wrangell this summer, whether by smaller cruise ship, air travel or the state ferries. And the Sentinel wants to do everything it can to make that number as large as possible, promoting the community as a...
Just because I don't use Facebook doesn't mean I don't see its value in spreading the word about community events online. Even better, people like it because it's free. But the Sentinel also does that, and the publicity is free, too, though we need to know about the events before we can share the news with Wrangell. Is your community group holding a meeting that is open to the public, holding a fundraiser, looking for donations or simply or looking for new members? Is your organization doing som...
It's good that President Joe Biden and members of Congress, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and members of the Alaska Legislature are all talking about doing more to help people hurt financially by the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting damage to the economy. The harm to people's lives and livelihoods has been terrible and, in many cases, long term. But not everyone needs help, and we should not use the state and federal treasuries for one-size-fits-all solutions. Workers who have been able to stay on the j...
Between state budget cuts, a mainline vessel engine breakdown, a halt to port calls in Prince Rupert, B.C., and COVID-19 travel restrictions, the Alaska Marine Highway System has struggled the past year to provide service to Wrangell and the rest of Southeast. Under the governor's proposed budget for the state fiscal year that starts July 1, the ferry system would have even less money to provide service. "Woefully inadequate," Ketchikan Rep. Dan Ortiz, who also represents Wrangell, described...
Walking around Wrangell the days before Christmas, it felt much the same as when I first arrived in town in May 1976. People said hello, starting as soon as I stepped out of the airport terminal. Drivers waved. And the Wrangell Sentinel office was on Front Street. I can't say I planned to return as owner of the Sentinel, but it just seemed right. It's not a matter of reliving my youth - I'm too old and sensible for that. My neck is too stiff to sit at a keyboard 12 hours a day. My knees don't...
Predictability and dependability. More than anything else, that's what the communities served by the Alaska Marine Highway System need. The communities need to know the schedules further in advance so that they can plan school sports, scholastic and musical events, regional festivals, and confidently market to tourists in a post-COVID world. Residents need the dependability of ferry service for medical appointments, commerce and shopping, vehicle repair appointments at dealers, and of course...