Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 191
Looking to possibly boost returns with minimal risk, the assembly has voted unanimously to amend municipal code to allow investment of the borough’s enterprise funds in stocks and bonds. The collective balance of the five generally self-supported enterprises funds was more than $9 million last month — Municipal Light & Power, the water system, sewer system, sanitation services and port and harbors funds. Those five accounts are maintained separately from general fund government expenses. Finance Director Mason Villarma told the assembly on Feb...
Nick Allen, a 16-year-old high school junior, likes to draw boats. "I live in a fishing community," Allen said. "Been around boats my entire life. Drawing them was even cooler." Allen said he started drawing around the age of 12. First it was speedboats. About a year and a half ago he "moved into the commercial fishing side of art." "I drew a seiner first and it was terrible," he said. "To see the progress over a year and a half, it's insane." He's now making stickers of his artwork, and...
A mixed martial artist who was the inaugural flyweight champion on a 2017 television show - and made history as the first American Native woman Ultimate Fighting Championship title holder - punched in a short visit to Wrangell in February. The purple-belt jiu jitsu holder, who was in town to visit a friend, made a surprise drop-in on a Wrangell class Feb. 16 without telling the participants who she was, at first. "Normally, it's been Victoria Carney and I," Wrangell jiu jitsu instructor Matt...
An award-winning film chronicling the Metlakatla boys basketball team's run to the 2018 state championship will make its Wrangell screening debut next month. "Alaskan Nets" plays at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 5, at the Nolan Center. Tickets are $20. Californian Jeff Harasimowicz, director and producer of the documentary film, said he got the idea in 2017 when he was scrolling sports stories, which he loves, on ESPN.com and came across a 2016 photo story by photojournalist Samuel Wilson about the...
The borough is considering purchasing the 38.59 acres at the former sawmill site at 6-Mile Zimovia Highway for a possible tourism or other collaboration with Sealaska, the regional Native corporation for Southeast. Finance Director Mason Villarma said the borough met with Sealaska CEO Anthony Mallott on Feb. 9. Discussions, which are still in a very preliminary stage, included a potential partnership with Sealaska for the property as a deep-water port for tourism or a specialty mill for the corporation’s wood products division. Sealaska o...
The Wrangell Ranger District wants to restore a parking area at Roosevelt Harbor. The problem is about 70 vehicles in various stages of decay on top of it, going back a couple of decades at the site on Zarembo Island, about 12 miles southwest of the Wrangell City Dock. Roosevelt Harbor is vulnerable to pollutants and sediment from runoff at the parking lot, said District Ranger Clint Kolarich, of the Wrangell Ranger District last Tuesday. The harbor is a popular spot for hunters and campers,...
The port commission has voted to increase most of Wrangell’s port and harbors rates, generally about 2% per year for the next five years, sending the new fee schedule to the borough assembly for consideration. The new rates would take effect this July and apply to most port and harbors services, including long- and short-term storage and haul-out rates at the Marine Service Center, transient and reserved moorage in the harbors, electricity hookups, use of the gridiron and hoists. The borough had generally been raising port and harbor rates a...
A Southeast drug enforcement task force seized 24 grams of methamphetamine valued at $3,600, along with $11,440 in cash Feb. 15 after searching three homes in Wrangell. A man and a woman were detained but not arrested, pending further investigation, Police Chief Tom Radke said. The investigation, which has been underway for a couple of months, revolved around a package mailed to Wrangell, believed to come from north in the state, Radke said. The task force — Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs, or SEACAD — consists of police departments fro...
Archery is on target at the community gym through March 25 to keep the blues from the winter cold and the winter rain at bay. Instructor Winston Davies oversees the activity, and has a few bows, arrows and sheaths to clip to your belt or waistband on hand if you don't have one of your own. It's not an instructional class per se, but Davies is happy to give a few pointers to people who've been removed from the sport for a while, even if it's been nearly a decade. Davies taught math and science...
A state and federally designated economic development organization for Southeast Alaska has received $1 million in two grants to build up mariculture in the region, with half the money to go toward applying for an even larger grant and the other half going to design a processing facility on Prince of Wales Island. A $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration will be used “to build an application to allow us to compete for $50 million,” Robert Venables, executive director of Southeast Conference, said last Friday. The $50...
The temporary, pop-up mobile towers have been ordered for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska's pilot project that will provide wireless internet service in Wrangell, but it will be later in the year before the system goes live. Chris Cropley is a network architect at Central Council, which is setting up the federally funded broadband service named Tidal Network. He's been there since last April. His job is a mix of disciplines - part technical, part...
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium is providing free COVID-19 at-home test kits on a first come, first served basis. A Feb. 7 post on SEARHC's Facebook page said it is providing two boxes per household, but the Wrangell Medical Center pharmacy, where the test kits are being handed out, is not tracking who is asking or how many times. "We're just asking people to be respectful so there's more for the community," Carly Allen, hospital administrator, said last Thursday. After a...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association wants to move the Chief Shakes Island footbridge to allow better access for buses coming to the popular site and possibly setting aside an area for selling Native crafts. The plan would be to move the bridge access point to create more room at the harbor parking lot, along with rebuilding the decade-old wooden walkway to the island. “They envision the new access to not only clean up the former harbor parking lot but create an in/out access for buses and a place to potentially sell Native goods,” Carol Rus...
A trash masher installed inside the garage at the borough's garbage transfer station has had some teething issues. The baler, which the borough started up in late October, began having problems after one of its sensors got smacked. After troubleshooting over the phone didn't work, the public works department added Wi-Fi to the machine to try and get the manufacturer to gain access to its computerized controls, Jeff Good, borough manager, said in a report to the borough assembly Feb. 8. "AP&T was...
Elizabeth Peratrovich Day is Feb. 16, honoring Native rights activist Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich of the Tlingit Nation who championed equal rights and whose testimony paved the way for the Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act passed by the territorial Legislature in 1945. In Wrangell, Tlingit storyteller and language expert Virginia Oliver is teaching schoolchildren at Evergreen Elementary, Stikine Middle and Wrangell High School about Peratrovich, who was born in Petersburg in 1911, and lived part of her life in Angoon. “Alaska Native children...
The port and harbors department will purchase and install cashless meters that accept credit cards at dock hoists in Wrangell that will allow people to use them around-the-clock. The department is buying four credit card readers at a total cost of $11,000 from El Dorado, Arkansas-based manufacturer IDX, and will work with electricians in Wrangell for installation, Port Director Steve Miller said Friday. Two will be installed at Reliance Harbor in front of the harbor master office, one in the boatyard at the Marine Service Center and one at...
The fire department is continuing to hand out free, at-home COVID-19 test kits as the community’s level of new cases declines after a record-breaking January. Starting Dec. 30 and continuing through Jan. 30, the borough reported 185 cases in the community, the worst outbreak by far of the pandemic. Since then, the borough has reported 13 new infections, including six reported on Monday evening. As of Monday, the fire department still had 325 test kits, said Capt. Dorianne Sprehe. A shipment of an additional 242 boxes is on the way from the s...
Robbie Marshall, 25, and Kiara Marshall, 22, have known each other since elementary school. Robbie actually took Kiara's sister to the prom. Kiara and Robbie both ended up in her sister's wedding party in the summer of 2017. They started talking after that. Kiara's first impression of Robbie was that "he was really goofy and really cute." By November, they started dating. When they found out they were pregnant, "I asked her parents for her hand in marriage," Robbie said. But he still needed to...
Joe Hommel in 1996 at age 24 used to swing by the meat department at IGA to visit his best friend. Then Charity, 18, started working there, too. "It started with saying 'Hi' to my friend. Then I started saying 'Hi' to Charity," Joe, now 49, said. Charity, 43, said she lived on a boat for seven years with her family, and Wrangell was one of her favorite towns to stop in. Her family was sailing from Juneau to Ketchikan, and she jumped ship in Wrangell, getting a job at the former iterations of IGA...
Verda Villarma remembers Felix Villarma winked at her from the bleachers at a high school football game in Idaho seven decades ago. She was a cheerleader. "She was a good looking gal," he said. "Every time I'd look up there, he'd wink at me," Verda said. That was the first time they met. "He was very good looking," she added. Verda turns 89 in June, and Felix turns 90 later this month. On May 20, the couple will celebrate 67 years of marriage. "It sometimes amazes me," Verda said. Felix came...
Wrangell Medical Center has experienced staffing shortages due to the recent jump in COVID-19 cases, but it has not led to delays in procedures or rescheduling, said Carly Allen, hospital administrator. “We have been able to maintain full operations thanks to the hard work of our employees and the … (traveler) nursing staff that are still with us,” Allen said. Wrangell as of Monday was up to 190 COVID-19 infections reported by the borough since Dec. 30, almost three times the community’s highest monthly count of the pandemic and represe...
Mad Hesler has always noticed the tiny stuff. The Wrangell artist and business owner of Tongass Resin grew up in northern New Hampshire in the White Mountains, and first came to Alaska in 2015 for a summer job as a camp counselor in Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula when she was a junior at Plymouth State University, majoring in outdoor education. She had to return to New Hampshire for college, but Hesler, 27, said she "had this huge sense of, 'This is where I'm supposed to be.'" Hesler grad...
Finance Director Mason Villarma has been on the job for about five months and is proposing changes to the borough assembly that he believes could bolster Wrangell’s financial health. At a work session Jan. 25, Villarma said the borough’s assets totaled $39.7 million as of Dec. 31, a mixture of cash, cash equivalents, money market funds, investments and other accounts. Some can be spent, some is in long-term savings, and some is reserved for self-sufficient funds such as the electric utility and port and harbors. Almost one-quarter of that mon...
The state energy office is nominating corridors along Alaska’s roadways for electric vehicle charging station funding, including possibly in rural communities, using Federal Highway Administration money. It’s reached out to ask if Wrangell wants to be included in the request. Borough Manager Jeff Good told the assembly at its Jan. 25 meeting that the Alaska Energy Authority already has earmarked the state highway system for the program, and has asked Wrangell if it wants to be included in the funding request. Good on Monday said the energy aut...
After a delay pushed work on the Anan Wildlife Observatory to this spring from last fall, the Forest Service said the project timeline is still holding steady. The upper observation deck is set to be torn down this spring and reconstructed in time for the July 5 to Aug. 25 summer viewing season — weather depending — said Tory Houser, acting district ranger. “So far, it’s been a hard winter,” she said, but as far as funds and personnel, they are good to go. The Forest Service last June entered into a $989,800 contract with Petersbur...