Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 191
The borough assembly has approved a 30% boost to water rates effective May 1 instead of a 21% rate hike with additional smaller, staggered increases until 2026 originally suggested by staff. The assembly approved the increase April 26 after it postponed a decision on the 21% rate increase at its March 22 meeting. Several assembly members including Patty Gilbert said they had wanted to hear more public comment on the issue. At the April 26 meeting where the 30% increase was approved, no one from the public showed up to speak on the issue....
As borough staff finalize the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the Capital Facilities Department is requesting $350,000 toward a fuel tank project to bring the high school and Public Safety Building into regulatory compliance by replacing underground diesel storage tanks with aboveground tanks. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation inspected the now almost 40-year-old underground tanks in 2020 and determined they were out of compliance with regulations, and recommended they be taken out of service and removed. The Public...
The borough assembly has approved applying for a $3.8 million loan from the state to fund construction of a new water treatment plant, estimated to cost nearly $15.4 million. The borough has nearly $11.1 million in funding from two federal grants and one federal loan, leaving a shortfall of $4.3 million, according to information presented to the assembly for its April 26 meeting. The assembly approved seeking a loan from the Alaska Drinking Water Fund, to be paid back over 20 years. It would cover construction of a new building to house...
A black bear cub seen wandering Shoemaker Loop off Zimovia Highway at 5.5 Mile last week was euthanized in Petersburg on April 24, a day after a state wildlife trooper and U.S. Forest Service officer captured it following several sightings by residents who live along the roadway. Trooper Chadd Yoder with Alaska Wildlife Troopers got a call from Wrangell police about people seeing a bear cub for days without its mother. “It was apparent the bear was separated,” he said April 25. “What happened to mom, we don’t know.” Jimmy Nelson, a Forest Se...
The borough assembly on April 26 postponed a vote to put the old hospital building up for online auction after assembly members raised the question if the $830,000 starting bid went up to or beyond the $1 million limit in the law for selling municipal property without a vote of the people. If that were to happen, the sale would have to be approved by voters at an election — either the regular one in October, or the borough would have to hold a special election. The assembly will consider the issue again at its May 10 meeting. “If it (bi...
The borough assembly may put the old hospital building up for online auction next month, at a starting bid of $830,000, the value deemed by a recent commercial appraisal. A Florida-based substance abuse treatment center that had expressed interest last year in taking over the property had told borough staff it was waiting on an appraisal but hasn’t been back in touch. The borough assembly on Tuesday considered a resolution to put the 30,596-square-foot former Wrangell Medical Center on nearly two acres along Bennett Street up for auction on p...
“Right now, we’re in a low-productivity era,” said Bill Auger, a fifth-generation commercial fisherman with 35 years of experience. Salmon fishing in District 8, in front of the Stikine River, has been closed for several years, and the gillnet fleet is limited to two days a week in District 6, west of Wrangell. “There is less out there to catch. Everybody is trying to do the best they can to catch what they can. Rebuilding the stocks is a big concern, and how you go about rebuilding them,” Auger said in an interview April 11, a week after Wrang...
The borough assembly has postponed for the second time a decision on a proposed increase in water rates, and is now considering a 30% boost instead of the 21% rate hike originally suggested by staff. The assembly last month delayed a decision on the 21% rate increase after several members said they wanted to hear more public comment on the issue. At the April 12 assembly meeting, Assemblymember David Powell said he doesn’t put much stock in future assemblies honoring the incremental rate increases over several years included in the original p...
Wrangell’s Marine Service Center has seen a 20% to 30% increase in haul-out requests after Sitka’s boatyard closed April 1. “We’ve been getting overflow from Sitka since February,” Port Director Steve Miller said April 13. Normally the busy time starts April, May and June, “but we’ve been going hard since the first of March.” Like most people in need of a haul-out, a lot of the Sitka boat owners are looking for a fresh set of zincs on the bottom of their vessels to prevent corrosion and a pressure wash. “We call it a shave and a haircut,” M...
The borough assembly has rejected a staff proposal to remove the cap on sales taxes payable on individual purchases. Dropping the limitation, which shuts off Wrangell’s 7% sales tax on the purchase price above $3,000, could have generated an estimated $500,000 a year in additional revenue for the borough. The assembly April 12 accepted moving to second reading the other provisions of the ordinance that would make some administrative changes to the sales tax code, but deleted the change to the tax cap. The ordinance is scheduled for a public hea...
The community is short of public restrooms near the City Dock and could be short port security staff this summer if people don’t apply for the jobs soon. One is an immediate concern, while the restroom shortage requires a longer-term solution. Tour operators and borough officials met last Wednesday to discuss the upcoming visitor season, which could be a challenge for borough staff and tourism operators, said Port Director Steve Miller. “Finding a driver, finding security. No one is applying for the jobs,” he said. “I haven’t jumped on that y...
When Michelle Lopez opened Taste of Asia nearly seven years ago, it was after her boyfriend had become her ex-boyfriend. She had come to Wrangell to be with him from Juneau, where her parents had moved from the Philippines 30 years ago. She stayed in Wrangell to make a life for herself and her kids. When she came here, there were no places that served rice, she said. "I was so hungry. I thought maybe I should look for a place to put a little business." The owner of the Front Street building Tast...
The borough is moving to solve the problem of dwindling burial space in town. The community this summer will get a new columbarium, a structure for keeping urns, and the borough assembly has approved an expansion to Sunset Gardens Cemetery. The expansion, in two phases, will add 100 burial plots. Only three plots remain in Sunset Gardens at 1.5 Mile Zimovia Highway, on the uplands side of the highway, and four in Memorial Cemetery at 1 Mile, on the water side of the highway. But even that number is iffy. “The borough has been reluctant to s...
If visitors read the bear-sighting sheet at Anan Wildlife Observatory, which the workers fill out every season, bear names would sound more like tax forms: 7-05-A, for the first bear spotted on the stream to fish on July 5, and 7-05-B, for the second bear spotted on July 5. Well, humans only do so well with numbering systems before our penchant for nicknames kicks in: Casino, Crack and Scuba Sue, to name a few. Bear naming can be a controversial issue, Dee Galla, outdoor recreation planner at...
The Port and Harbors Department wants to strengthen municipal code to lessen the burden of paying for derelict and impounded vessels. It drains the department’s coffers when clunkers take on water or sink, leading port staff to foot the cleanup efforts and the department to foot the bill. The port commission is asking the borough assembly to amend municipal code to hold boat owners liable for disposing of derelict boats. The commission has also begun discussing whether to require boat owners to have insurance if their vessel is moored in a W...
The Port and Harbors Department plans to select a company this month to design a surveillance camera system for installation at Wrangell harbors by the end of the year. The department has about $407,000 from two federal grants — $148,000 in fall 2020 and $259,468 in fall 2021 from the Department of Homeland Security — for the design, purchase and installation of a security camera system. It’ll help keep an eye on things, and prevent theft and illegal dumping of garbage, such as a ‘70s-era Volkswagen Beetle chopped into pieces found in a dumps...
An official with a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that has awarded more than $820,000 to the Wrangell borough, Forest Service and tribe said more could be on the way. The Wrangell Cooperative Association was awarded $620,000 from the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, part of a $25 million federal grant program intended to help diversify the economy of Southeast communities. The borough was awarded $100,000 to manage lands for the improvement of wild blueberry harvests and $103,000 for trail upkeep. The program also provided...
When contractor Jesse West said, "we destroyed everything," it sounds pretty bad, out of context. But that's exactly what his Petersburg company Rainforest Contracting was hired to do - pull down the old Anan bear viewing deck and walkway and put up a new one for the U.S. Forest Service. "So far we've demo-ed everything that was up there," West, president of Rainforest Contracting, said March 29. "It's all stacked in piles and ready to get taken out of there." The concrete and wood and metal...
The borough is not looking to inhibit private development or evict business owners with its pending purchase of the former sawmill property at 6.5 Mile, no matter the rumors on Facebook, Mayor Steve Prysunka said. The property owner accepted the borough’s offer of about $2.5 million for the 39 acres, with closing on the sale expected June 1. More than 50 replies and comments were added to a Facebook posting last month, questioning whether the borough would kick Channel Construction off the property. The Juneau-based company periodically collect...
Pulling up the driveway just past Johnson's Building Supply at 2.5 Mile is turning the page to a chapter of Wrangell history - with a red barn at the top of the hill. Iver Pederson Nore stepped from the deck of a fishing vessel onto the Southeast Alaska shore in 1910, according to an Alaskan Dairies Historical Society's 1982 spring publication. Originally from Norway (and thus, the surname Nore), he would leave a mark on Wrangell by establishing a dairy farm in 1933. Purchasing used lumber and...
A lightly used 32-foot-long police jet boat moored at Heritage Harbor may be sold to save money. The borough assembly at a work session March 22 went over its insurance expenses ahead of finalizing its budget for the upcoming fiscal year. It discussed insurance costs for the old hospital, earthquake coverage, museum exhibits and about $6,000 a year the borough pays to insure the police boat. “I understand the business end of it,” Chief Tom Radke said March 29. “I hate to lose it. Right now, it’s still under discussion.” Radke said the boat...
Tlingit and Haida is looking to have someone on staff to help with installations and customer service when it starts up its pilot broadband network in Wrangell this fall. The Central Council is advertising for a “digital literacy specialist” and installation technician in Wrangell, said Chris Cropley, network architect at Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska on March 29. The wireless internet service in Wrangell will be the Central Council’s first in Southeast. The position is advertised at $29.59 to $37.75 per h...
A 21% increase in sewage rates will take effect in May, adding about $8.50 a month to a residential utility bill. The borough has not raised the rate since 2015 and anticipates costly upgrades will be needed to the community’s sewage treatment system to meet state and federal standards. The assembly unanimously approved the increase at its March 22 meeting. Though a similar rate hike for water service was on the agenda, the assembly postponed action and set another public hearing on the issue for April 12. In addition to the 21% boost in sewage...
A Wrangell couple that escaped Prague during the 1968 Soviet Union-led invasion of Czechoslovakia is finding parallels to the Russian invasion of Ukraine - and it is bringing back old memories of escaping Prague shortly after they were married. Ivan Simonek, 78, and Gina Simonek, 77, arrived in Wrangell in November 1968 with swimsuits packed - not because they were planning to take a dip in the Zimovia Strait, but because the couple, 25 and 23 at the time, had a honeymoon planned in Yugoslavia....
The hooligan are back. When the eagles disappear from town and the sea lions start hauling out on the beach at Lesnoi Island, it's a pretty sure bet hooligan season is upon the Stikine, said David Rak, forester at the U.S. Forest Service in Wrangell. If you go to the north side of Wrangell Island, Rak said, you can hear the sea lions barking from a spot where hundreds haul out on the beach at Lesnoi Island. "When the eagles all disappear from town, they're over there," Rak said last Wednesday....