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Four-term state House member Dan Ortiz deserves another two years representing Wrangell, Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island communities. He knows the district, knows the issues and has been persistent in his work in Juneau to ensure that his communities are not forgotten when the state budget is put together and when legislation is drafted. Ortiz is not a speechmaker but is not shy about standing up for the ferry system, community needs such as state money for improvements to Wrangell’s water treatment plant, and better funding for s...
Alaska’s constitution doesn’t need an overhaul, a new transmission or rewiring. It could use a tune-up to restrict campaign contributions from rich people, corporations and political action committees, and a new set of mud flaps to protect the Permanent Fund from political meddling. But it doesn’t need a wide open constitutional convention to take apart the vehicle in hopes that it will still run well after it is put back together. Vote no on the constitutional convention on the Nov. 8 ballot. It’s just not needed, and Alaska cannot afford...
Lisa Murkowski has represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate since December 2002. She has done it well and deserves another term. The fact that Murkowski, a lifelong Republican, has disagreed with her party at times, been at odds with former President Donald Trump, or sometimes worked and voted with Democrats does not diminish her abilities, her knowledge of the issues and her hard work in the Senate. Those qualities are positives, not negatives, though her angry detractors portray those same qualities as disloyal to the party. Rather, they show...
The Wrangell School District could face a financial squeeze in the next several years, forcing hard decisions over which programs get cut, what classes go away and how much staff is left. It’s not that the administration or staff did anything wrong. Just as school districts statewide, Wrangell has been waiting on some legislators and governors to put aside their biases against teacher unions, their personal views on political issues and their tendency to hold schools responsible for every shortcoming in society, and move to approve an i...
Wrangell voters last week defeated a proposed $8.5 million bond issue that would have paid for needed repairs at the almost 40-year-old Public Safety Building, which suffers from water damage, rot and other problems. Despite general grumpiness around town over property taxes, borough spending, the economy and inflation, the defeat was not overwhelming. The proposition lost by just 65 votes out of 583 ballots cast, 44.4% to 55.6%. That is not an insurmountable margin to overcome — and it is margin that the borough assembly needs to confront. R...
It’s been almost three years since SEARHC started its move out of the borough-owned hospital building on Bennett Street into new quarters. It’s been almost five months since the borough embarked on multiple efforts to sell the unused property. Since then, there have been no buyers, no serious expressions of interest, not even a prescription to ease the financial pain of maintaining the empty facility. The $830,000 asking price for a decades-old building with a lot of problems is about as attractive as an old pickup truck that needs new tires, a...
Wrangell should vote yes on Oct. 4, giving the borough permission to sell or lease the former 6-Mile sawmill property — if a private developer steps forward. This isn’t a final vote on a development plan, and any sale or lease would require borough assembly approval, a public hearing and a lot of public information. This is a let’s-be-prepared vote to save time in case the borough receives an offer. It would allow borough officials to negotiate a sale or lease and present it to the assembly for a public hearing and consideration without havin...
The Sentinel often criticizes state ferry system management for bad decisions. But now it’s time to praise them for a good decision. Dropping the “dynamic pricing” structure for ferry service this fall and winter, October through April, is the right thing to do. There was nothing dynamically well-liked about the 3-year-old pricing system that added a surcharge of 5% to 50% on passenger, vehicle and stateroom ticket prices on popular sailings. The state was trying to run the ferry system like an airline, charging more as the ships fill up. Unlik...
Alaskans this week will start receiving their $3,284 payout from the state treasury, a combination of a large Permanent Fund dividend ($2,622) and a one-time bonus ($662) to help people pay higher energy costs. The payment is almost triple the size of last year’s dividend. Two reasons for the generosity: This is an election year, and oil prices for the state fiscal year that ended June 30 were almost 70% higher than the previous year, generating more than $2 billion in additional dollars for the state general fund. That fund pays for schools, r...
The port commission last week declined to recommend that the borough lease a portion of its newly purchased property at the former 6-Mile sawmill site for use as a scrap metal recycling yard. It was nothing against the recycling business — Channel Construction, out of Juneau — which previously used the property under its previous owner as a staging area for scrap metal collection. Rather, port commissioners said they need more information before making a decision: The length of the lease, the terms and, perhaps most importantly, how it wou...
The borough assembly and staff spent a fair amount of time at last week’s assembly meeting, explaining the intent of a contract with an appraisal firm to reassess the value of all the property in town. Homes, businesses, industrial properties, empty lots — they will all get a new look to make sure the borough’s valuation is fair. This is about treating property owners equitably. It’s also about following state law, which requires that cities and boroughs assess property “at its full and true value.” This is not about raising taxes, though seve...
The 2020 presidential election is over. Multiple judges in multiple federal and state courts have ruled multiple times against frivolous claims of voter fraud, conspiracy, computer hacking and criminal intent. Courts, prosecutors, most members of Congress, even former President Donald Trump’s attorney general all agreed there is no evidence that the election was stolen. No matter how much some want to believe otherwise, Joe Biden was legitimately elected president of the United States. Certainly, he could lose the job in 2024, but in an e...
Wrangell residents, particularly new and would-be residents, are well familiar with the lack of housing options in town. Few homes for sale, few apartments for rent, and even fewer lots to build on. Sometimes, it feels like people would have better luck hooking a record-size king salmon than snagging a place to live. And those big fish are hard to find. It’s not just Wrangell that is inflicted with a shortage of available housing. It’s everywhere in the state, particularly Southeast, from Haines and Skagway at the northern end, south to Ketchik...
August is a time for fishing, the last of any gardening work and the enjoyment of harvesting the fruits (and vegetables) of that effort. It’s a time for home repairs, while there is still a plausible chance of dry weather to patch the roof, refinish the deck or scrape and repaint the siding. It’s also a time to consider serving in public office. Probably you’re thinking you’d rather pick garden slugs or clean the gutters than serve on the borough assembly, school board or port commission. At least no one criticizes you for those other pursuit...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 4-1 on Aug. 1 to establish a new task force to address the community’s housing crisis. Assemblymember Jeff Meucci said the task force would work with the assembly’s backing to look at housing needs in the community. “Like child care, I think this is one of the most important issues facing Petersburg,” Meucci said. “Every person that we’ve hired within the borough over the past several months — police officers, up at the fire department, Mountain View Manor (senior citizen housing) — they were all lookin...
The process will stretch over the next couple of months, with a public hearing and a lot of public information, but it looks like the borough assembly will ask voters in the Oct. 4 municipal election to approve borrowing as much as $15 million for long-needed repairs to all of the school buildings and the Public Safety Building. Selling bonds to finance the work will mean promising to repay those bonds, which will mean higher property taxes until the debt is repaid. Anyone who has driven by and looked at any of the buildings can see they need a...
More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, parents across Alaska are still struggling with long wait lists, high costs and limited capacity at child care centers. Federal grant funds administered by the state and a child care nonprofit are helping providers cope with financial struggles and staff retention. However, the money is available only to licensed child care facilities — which Wrangell does not have. But help may be coming later this year. The state plans to distribute federal money as community grants to help new providers s...
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...