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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...
Amid all the legislative debate over the size of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend, the amount of state support for schools and loud pleas from communities across Alaska for more money for docks, sewage treatment plants, roads and building repairs, there is a bill that draws only a few people to its hearings. Senate Bill 45, sponsored by Kodiak Senator Gary Stevens, would bring vaping products, also known as e-cigarettes, under the state’s tobacco tax and regulation statutes. Stevens and other supporters have been trying for years to win legi...
A big part of a well-functioning democracy is running for office or, if you don’t want your name on the ballot, backing a candidate, taking a position on a ballot issue, and writing checks for the campaigns you support. Writing those checks to elect your favored candidates and contributing to campaigns to win, or defeat, ballot propositions that do, or do not, serve your interests and align with your beliefs is everyone’s constitutional right. Freedom of expression includes the freedom to spend your money to promote your own self-interests and...
Maybe Alaskans were tired of hearing the all-too-familiar refrains: Good candidates don’t run for public office anymore; it’s too expensive; ill-mannered social media posts go after their families and disrupt their lives; voters are too easily swayed by misleading attack ads; and no one wants to hear the truth about solving the country’s problems. So why bother running for office. Clearly, 51 candidates to fill the seat of the late Don Young, Alaska’s congressman for the past half-century, decided to ignore all the reasons not to run. Or mayb...
The Alaska House went back to work on Monday after canceling floor sessions last week when several members refused to wear face masks amid an outbreak of COVID-19 among lawmakers and staff. At its worst last week, almost 10% of the 60 legislators and more than 300 staffers in the Capitol had tested positive for the coronavirus. House Speaker Louise Stutes said she canceled floor sessions due to an unwillingness by several Republican lawmakers to comply with temporary masking rules she had imposed. The speaker announced March 28 that masks...
Wrangell schools are not short of dedicated staff, engaged students or supportive parents. But what the district is short of — and getting shorter — are students and funding. That is a bad combination, putting stress on the schools as management puts together a budget for the 2022-2023 school year, and creating a serious long-term problem that needs the full attention of the school board, borough assembly and, most importantly, the community. The Wrangell School District has been losing students for the past 25 years, dropping from more tha...
Posted 2:30 p.m. Friday, April 1 The state health department website reported Friday that there have been 54 COVID-19 cases in Wrangell in the past 14 days, with 28 of those in the past seven days and nine in the past two days. The case counts include only those test results reported to the state; at-home test results are not included. Wrangell's case count, while significantly higher than the average over the two years of the pandemic, is down substantially from the post-holidays record-high surge in January and February. Statewide counts are... Full story
High oil prices driven by the war in Ukraine, tight global oil supplies and OPEC’s decision not to pump more crude are adding tens of millions of dollars per month to the Alaska state treasury. The rush of oil revenues is boosting the governor’s push for a larger Permanent Fund dividend for individual Alaskans this fall, while also fueling legislative interest to increase funding for education and deferred maintenance — or just save some of the money for the next time oil prices fall. The Alaska Department of Revenue last week issued its annua...
Challenging the U.S. Census undercount for Wrangell would not change the numbers, but presenting the case to the state could be a profitable use of borough time. While the census count showed Wrangell dropped from 2,369 residents in 2010 to 2,127 in 2020, the Alaska Department of Labor’s Research and Analysis Division arrived at an even steeper loss of population — from 2,412 in July 2011 to 2,096 in its July 2021 estimate. Considering the lack of empty homes or apartments in town, it’s hard to see where the community lost more than 200 residen...
It's been too long, more than a decade, since a state Office of Children's Services caseworker has been assigned to Wrangell. Welcome back, we missed you. The borough and school district have been trying for years to get state officials to put back money in the budget for a caseworker in town. The position is so important to help children struggling with the emotional challenges of life that the borough offered two years ago to share the cost of the position with the state. News of the offer was well publicized in town, winning strong support...
Former Wrangell resident Carroll Merritt, 86, died July 21, 2021, in Fort Benton, Montana. He was born in 1935, the first child of Bonnie and Ves Merritt, of Sturgis, South Dakota. During elementary school the family lived a short time in Deadwood, S.D., but most years were in Sturgis, where both sets of grandparents and other family were close. Carroll Merritt lived in Wrangell about 20 years, from the late 1960s to late 1980s, working as a teacher, said his widow, Agnes Merritt. They were married 51 years. He excelled in sports in high school... Full story
Former Wrangell resident Randy Charles Maygard, 68, died March 2. He was born Sept. 14, 1953, to Charles and Nancy Maygard, of Seattle. Randy grew up part of his life in Seattle, where he attended Jane Adams Junior High, then Nathan Hale High School. The family moved to Wrangell, where he completed his schooling. Randy spent his life working in the sawmill and commercial fishing industry. He started out in commercial fishing with his grandfather on the KED, and ended up owning his own boat, the... Full story
There really isn’t a strong reason for the state to keep the proposals confidential until it closes a deal to sell — or give away — the state ferry Malaspina. The Department of Transportation promised exactly that when it advertised for offers on the ship, promising in writing that any responses would be held confidential until the state seals the sale. Talk about running open government aground. The department, in its letter soliciting interest in the unused, elderly 450-passenger vessel, asked a lot of potential new owners. The state said...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska state senators said Friday they support legislation to temporarily suspend the state’s 8-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and also taxes marine and aviation fuels for one year, in an attempt to reduce the hit of rising fuel prices on Alaskans. No such legislation had been introduced, but Dunleavy, who is running for reelection this year, called for a suspension of the taxes to be added to a bill sitting in the House Finance Committee since last year. That bill would raise the state’s tax on gasoline by 8 cents a gal...
Applications are now being accepted for a federally funded financial assistance program for Alaska homeowners. Applications will be accepted through April 4 by the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., which is administering the $50 million program to help homeowners hurt by income loss the past two years due to the pandemic. As of last Friday, 13 Wrangell homeowners had preregistered for the program, out of almost 5,400 people statewide, according to Stacy Barnes, public affairs director at the agency. The aid can go toward eligible homeowners’ m...
Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas stands at the tidelands in front of City Park, where the borough plans to build a rock staircase and add a handrail to provide easier access to the waterfront. Thomas estimates the work may cost $2,000 to add the steps, which will blend in with the boulders that make up the naturally rocky shoreline. The department will look at what's left over in the budget from this fiscal year that ends June 30 or turn the page to the upcoming fiscal year to pay for...
The face mask debate is over for now — hopefully for good, if the community can stay healthy — and annual budget deliberations are starting over how much the borough will contribute to education and how the school district will spend its local, state and federal money. Which means it’s a good week to learn what students and staff are doing at Wrangell’s schools. There are a couple of examples this week that students are learning what’s important in life and how to manage and succeed after graduation. At Evergreen Elementary School, fifth gra...
March 2, 1922 The representative of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, W.L. Paul, favors a bill prohibiting fish traps in any bay or channel less than three miles wide, one mile from creeks and one mile from the entrance to bays. Mr. Paul said the enactment of such a law would remove all the traps around Etolin Island, most of the traps on Prince of Wales Island, and some of the traps around Ketchikan, but would not affect the traps in the larger channels. However, Mr. Paul adds that owing to the wording of the law (should such a law be enacted),...
Sometimes, governments just have to take a chance. They need to ensure the pieces are in place for economic development of their community, even if that means spending money on the potential — not a guarantee — of building jobs in the future. In Wrangell’s case, the almost 40-acre waterfront industrial property at the former 6-Mile sawmill site is one of those pieces. The borough assembly decision to buy the property is smart, long-term thinking. It’s about preserving the site intact for possible future use, rather than see it subdivi...
Parents, community leaders, borough and tribal officials are talking about what can be done to help solve Wrangell’s lack of child care options. Valerie Massie, of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, said she and others at a recent meeting all see the lack of child care and housing as the biggest hurdles to economic and community development in town. Lack of child care keeps people out of the workforce, and it seems there isn’t an employer in town without job openings. Part of the problem in establishing and running a child care center is...
Grant writing skills can be almost as useful to learn in school these days as reading and writing, and certainly are invaluable for the arithmetic of classroom and community programs. Funding is available from multiple foundations, government agencies and private businesses for those who can write an effective grant application. They need to tell their story, tell how the grant will make life better in their community, and tell it with conviction. The competition for grants can be intense, which is why it’s impressive to see Wrangell high schoo...
