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Few would dispute that Wrangell needs affordable, dependable child care services. The lack of child care keeps parents away from filling the long list of job vacancies around town and, when their kids are sick, can keep them away from the jobs they already hold. People need to work and want to raise children, and the community needs more children in school and more people to take jobs — child care seems a reasonable approach toward meeting all those needs. And while there are some at-home providers in town, and certainly friends and r...
Probably no one enjoys paying property taxes. It’s a big check, rather than a few dimes or dollars in sales taxes each time at the register. But it’s an essential part of the municipal budget, second only to sales taxes in bringing in revenue to pay for schools, roads, police, fire and other services. The tax is based on the value of property — whether commercial or residential, the tax rate is all the same. Cities and boroughs across Alaska send out assessment notices each year, telling property owners what their home, fourplex, wareh...
Early voting will open Aug. 1 for the Aug. 16 special election to fill the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young and the primary election, also Aug. 16, for governor, Legislature, U.S. Senate, and to select the top candidates for a full two-year term in the U.S. House. Voters may cast their ballots between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays through Aug. 15 at City Hall assembly chambers, said Sarah Merritt, state elections worker in Wrangell. “You never have to give a reason” to vote early, Merritt said. Voters can choose to vote early if the...
Of Wrangell’s 667 COVID-19 cases reported to state health authorities since the count started in March 2020, almost 20% — 128 infections — have been recorded in just the past three months. That is double the statewide average, which shows about 10% of pandemic cases have been reported in the past three months. New variants of the coronavirus are pushing up infection rates across the United States as the nation works through its third year of the pandemic. Alaska’s seven-day case rate per 100,000 people was second highest in the nation as of l...
Alaskans in less than five weeks will elect the state’s first new member of the U.S. House in almost 50 years. Literally, this could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to choose who will represent the state as its lone member in the chamber. Voters on Aug. 16 will choose from three candidates to fill the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young. On that same day, Alaskans will cast ballots in a primary election to decide which of 22 candidates will advance to the November general election for a chance to win the seat for a full two-year t...
No surprise, but the borough received no bids for the former hospital property. No one was willing to pay the $830,000 minimum price for the building, much of which is 55 years old. It’s not like there’s a lot of value to the building, unless a new owner wanted to run a medical center or long-term care facility, which isn’t needed in Wrangell after SEARHC spent $30 million building its new medical center just a few blocks away. Besides, the old building’s health records show a patient in ill health. “Many of the mechanical and electrica...
Starting the final week of the Wrangell King Salmon Derby, Eric Halstead was holding his lead with a 43.4-pound catch. Almost four dozen fish had been weighed in as of Sunday evening, with no one coming close to Halstead in the second week of competition. The derby opened June 15, and Halstead hooked his leader on June 17. The derby runs through 9 p.m. Sunday, with $7,900 in cash prizes. The largest king salmon entered in the derby will win $3,000; second place is worth $2,000; and third place wins $1,000. As of Sunday evening, Stanley Johnson...
The colonies — later to become states — figured out that the new nation would be stronger as one, uniting behind a common cause and set of laws. Sure, there were intense debates around the meeting rooms, differing factions and multiple disagreements. Thankfully, there was no social media to amplify the arguments, and politics had yet to descend into expensive circus acts of deceitful promises, unrealistic pledges and ugly campaigns. The delegates who wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the delegates who wrote the U.S. Con...
The 848-foot-long Norwegian Sun cruise ship bumped into a chunk of ice last Saturday while traveling to Hubbard Glacier, which drains into Yakutat Bay. Norwegian Cruise Line confirmed on Monday that the ship canceled its port call in Skagway on Sunday and headed to Juneau to assess the damage, according to Juneau radio station KINY. Coast Guard divers in Juneau were assessing the damage on Monday. According to the website Cruise Hive, the ship, with capacity for 2,400 passengers, was on a nine-evening itinerary from Seattle to Southeast. “On J...
Alaska state ferry service between Ketchikan and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, resumed on Monday afternoon. The last state ferry voyage to the Canadian port city was in late fall 2019. The Matanuska made a quick round trip Monday and is scheduled for another voyage on Friday. “(The) Matanuska made a test sailing to Prince Rupert about a week ago and all went to plan,” state Transportation Department spokesperson Sam Dapcevich wrote in a Friday email. This summer’s service is limited, with two round trips scheduled the third week of July,...
The borough is making progress on its long and expensive to-do list. The decisions are not easy and several are costly. Many have been around a long time. That’s not because anyone did anything wrong. Rather, it takes time to confront hard decisions to resolve long-standing problems. And, in many cases, it takes time to find money to pay for the solutions. But the decisions are necessary and deserve the community’s support. After wrangling over multiple options, the Wrangell assembly has put up for sale the former hospital building. The borough...
One of Alaska’s largest private COVID-19 testing providers plans to close its public testing sites in the state by the end of June. The decision by the private company will not affect SEARHC’s continuation of testing services in Wrangell. The decision by Capstone Clinic is mainly driven by financial considerations, said Matt Jones, Capstone’s director of non-clinical operations. Jones said it began with an abrupt move by the federal government earlier this year to no longer cover the costs of COVID-19 tests or treatments for those without healt...
The Alaska Department of Transportation works hard to serve the public that uses the state’s airports and roads, but it is running at half-speed with public information about the ferry system. Management needs to steer itself toward a more open channel of communication. Almost a year ago, the Alaska Marine Highway System reported the Columbia could return to work this summer after being held out of service since 2019 for repairs and to save money. “Could return” as in “would return” if the state could hire enough crew to restaff the vessel. The...
From log rolling to similarly shaped but much smaller and lighter wiener tossing — and everything in between, whether moving or not — the events over the long July 4th weekend are going to be plentiful. However, the chamber of commerce needs help. At least 15 volunteers are needed to help pull apart raffle tickets for the annual prize drawing, set up and take down booths, direct people and generally help out wherever needed over the several days of community festivities. Brittani Robbins, the chamber’s executive director, said there are about...
It costs far too much to run a political campaign in this country and, sadly, Alaska is no exception. Donors contributed more than twice as much money to candidates in the race for U.S. Senate in Alaska in 2020 than bidders were willing to pay just a few months later for the long-sought oil and gas leases on a million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That’s a commentary both on the failure of the ANWR oil-drilling dream to punch holes in the tundra and that political donors are willing to pour so much money down a campaign hole. C...
Despite repeated claims and allegations conjured up from the thin air of political dishonesty, there has never been any proof, no charges and convictions, no indictments for voter fraud that cost Donald Trump his reelection dream in the 2020 voting. And yet, the former president and his followers continue to spew out and stir up claims that thieves will do it again in 2022. It’s called “preemptive excuses.” If they lose in this fall’s elections, it must have been stolen. Can’t be that voters picked someone else. Best to start now with the...
Na-Dena`, a joint venture between two Alaska Native corporations, is working with Klawock Heenya, the village corporation for the Prince of Wales Island community of about 800 people, to make Klawock a cruise ship destination. Juneau radio station KINY reported last week of the development plan between Huna Totem Corp., the village corporation for Hoonah, about 200 miles north of Klawock, and Doyon, the Fairbanks-based regional corporation for Alaska’s Interior. Klawock is on the west side of Prince of Wales, about 70 miles southwest of W...
A newspaper’s job is to use its pages to inform, educate, even entertain readers. That includes sharing opinions, though hopefully those opinions are more often educational than entertaining. More specifically and relevant to this year’s upcoming elections, a newspaper’s traditional role in the community it serves includes offering its informed opinions about candidates. The Sentinel this year will endorse candidates in most state and congressional races, maybe even some municipal races, which is a change from past years. Those endor...
The amount of this year’s Alaska Permanent Fund dividend was uncertain as of the Sentinel’s printing deadline Monday evening, but it is certain that the payments will total more than $1 billion above last year’s checks, maybe a lot more, depending on final budget action by the House and Senate. No doubt a lot of families need every bit of that to pay rent, buy food and clothes, cover utilities and fuel, particularly in rural communities where there are few cash-paying jobs. Equally of little doubt, a lot of Alaskans never counted on the overs...
As the Wrangell High School class of 2022 prepares to graduate on Friday, the Sentinel asked them to reflect on the past four years and how they would advise the class of 2023. Jimmy Baggen What are your plans after graduation? My plans after high school are to go to (the University of Alaska Southeast) and enroll in the diesel power tech program. I will be there for two years, and after that I may go into the diesel mechanics field. What will you miss about high school? I won't miss much about...
It’s looking increasingly hopeful that Wrangell will receive $4.1 million as a state grant toward a new water treatment plant. While not exactly a gift from heaven, it feels like a blessing nonetheless. Without the state funding for the $15-plus-million project, the borough would face the financially painful option of borrowing money for the needed water plant. The borough already has $11 million in assembled federal funds, which is a solid start, but that last $4 million or so could come at a hefty price to water utility ratepayers if W...
Probably nothing is more important to the community than its school. Not just for educating students, but as a point of pride and center of activities, and a source of future workers needed to keep the town in business. Good schools also are an attraction to bring new families to town, and to keep them here. It’s a cliché, but good schools cost money. “Doing more with less” is not a sustainable education plan, and the risk of losing more programs from an already limited school district operation is an admission of defeat, not hope, for future s...
The Alaska Senate could vote this week on a new formula to calculate the annual Permanent Fund dividend, though proposed amendments and lengthy debate are expected and passage of the bill is uncertain. The bill that passed the Senate Finance Committee last Thursday would set this fall’s dividend at about $2,600 per person, putting the same cash in Alaskans’ pockets as the House plan to pay out half that amount as a dividend and half as a one-time energy relief check to help Alaskans paying the price of higher heating fuel, gasoline and diesel b...
With just a few weeks left in the legislative session, House and Senate budget writers appear to agree that $2,600 is a good number to put into the hands of Alaskans this fall. But how they get there is different. The House-passed version of the state budget appropriates enough money to send every eligible Alaskan about $2,600 — half would be the annual Permanent Fund dividend, and half would be called “energy relief” to help people pay the higher prices for gasoline, diesel and heating fuel. Those same high prices have generated a lot of mo...
Just hours after a federal court judge voided the federal face mask mandate for air travel and other public transportation, Alaska Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines on Monday afternoon said masks would be optional on their flights. Other airlines are expected to follow suit. Alaska Airlines said in a statement that because of the judicial decision, passengers and employees effective immediately would have the option to wear a mask while traveling in the U.S. “While we are glad this means many of us get to see your smiling f...