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Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in reelection campaign mode, which is sort of like pie á la mode — political apple pie with a big scoop of partisanship on top. The governor earlier this month issued an administrative order that he said was necessary to protect Alaskans from federal overreach. His examples of heinous federal overreach included vaccination requirements, improved IRS enforcement against tax cheats, and efforts to protect school board members from hostile crowds. In a fit of concern over personal liberties, the governor also ordered state ag...
A divided Alaska Redistricting Board voted last week on a final map that could give one of the more conservative areas of the state, Eagle River, a second seat in the state Senate. All three board members appointed by Republican elected officials supported the map. The two who were not appointed by Republicans opposed the map. In addition to redrawing the boundaries for the state’s 40 House seats, the board had to decide the pairings of two House districts each to create 20 Senate seats. It was those Senate district boundaries that prompted l...
As the state’s largest city, Anchorage should be a leader, a role model for the rest of Alaska. The city of almost 290,000 people, about 40% of the state’s population, should be a wise, steadying influence — much like a big brother or big sister. And yet, Anchorage is an unruly sibling of late, more prone to tantrums than solving problems. The political behavior is appalling. The bickering and nastiness are shameful. The intolerance promoted by some community leaders is a role model of the worst kind. Anchorage is divided between those who w...
Wrangell’s public library is 100 years old this week and ready to turn the page for its next century. The library’s history includes several chapters, starting with 802 books on the shelves on opening night Oct. 31, 1921, about equal to the 821 residents counted in the 1920 census. It must have been a long wait for popular books back then. Members of the Wrangell Civic Club led the movement to open a library. The town was just 18 years old and ready for a library, which shared the building at the site where the senior center is now loc...
Rather than grumbling about face masks or grousing about politics, many of Wrangell’s students are working to improve the school, the community and the world. They are thinking about their life in the future and the life of others today. Good for them, and good for everyone. The high school students in BASE — Building a Supportive Environment — are working to help feed other students, recognize staff for their good work, support students who are having trouble, and even contribute to a microloan program that helps people in need around the w...
Doctors at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute are there to help make people think and feel better about themselves, to overcome the troubles that disrupt their lives and sometimes endanger the public. They are not there to make a governor look good, or to pledge allegiance to whatever agenda a new governor wants to promote. Good that a federal judge could see the difference. The judge last Friday ruled that two psychiatrists were wrongfully fired for political reasons when Gov. Mike Dunleavy took office in 2018. Their offense, according to the...
The state has activated emergency crisis protocols that allow 20 hospitals to ration care if needed as Alaska reports among the nation’s worst COVID-19 infection rates of recent weeks, straining the state’s limited health care system. The declaration last Saturday covers three facilities that had already announced emergency protocols, including the largest hospital, Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, and facilities across the state, including hospitals in Wrangell and Petersburg. Though Wrangell Medical Center is covered under the o...
Once again, Alaska legislators have gaveled back into special session because Gov. Mike Dunleavy wants to show his constituents that he believes in one thing above all else: The largest Permanent Fund dividend in state history. He’s like a wide-eyed kid in the candy shop, only he’s got a record-setting Permanent Fund balance jingling in his pockets and wants to spend some of it to buy chocolates for everyone in the state. Talk about a dangerous sweet tooth that can only decay the future growth potential of the state’s only savings accou...
The first 100 out-of-state health care workers have started arriving in Alaska to help at medical facilities overwhelmed with record patient counts due to surging COVID-19 infections. The state health department has contracted to bring on 470 health care workers, including about 300 nurses, to help the strained workforce. Alaska is using $87 million in federal funds to cover the costs. The first health care personnel reported to the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage for orientation on Tuesday. The contractor said the remaining nurses,...
Filling out an election ballot isn’t very hard. Ink in the ovals, being careful to stay within the lines, and then turn in the single-sided piece of stiff paper for counting. It’s not much to ask of residents once a year. Wrangell holds its municipal elections next Tuesday. And while several races are uncontested, three school board seats and a borough assembly seat will be decided by voters. This is a chance for residents to have a say in the direction of the borough and the school district, which combined spend more than $10 million a yea...
While Wrangell did not report a single COVID-19 infection between Sept. 10 and 21, the state tracking website reported almost 8,000 new cases over that period. Alaska’s numbers are so bad lately that the state’s average rate of daily new infections over the past week is more almost triple the national average — and higher than any other state — as reported on The New York Times COVID-19 tracking page. Alaska is facing “one of the sharpest surges” in the country, the state epidemiologist said Sept. 16, adding that it’s not clear when the situ...
The math is simple. Take the 2020 Census for Alaska and divide by 40, so that each state House district represents the same number of residents - 18,335. But then nothing beyond the math is easy. It's impossible to carve up the state into 40 districts of exactly the same population. A battle ensues every 10 years over where the lines should be drawn for legislative seats, taking into account areas of population growth and population shrinkage. The job of the Alaska Redistricting Board is to foll...
Former President George W. Bush on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our country showed Americans the difference between a statesman and a showman. In a speech at a memorial last Saturday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked planes crashed, Bush honestly and strongly confronted the growing divisiveness, hostility and political battles that have consumed America: "A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an...
At this point, anything is worth a try. If a healthy life, caring about family and neighbors, and wanting to dream about perhaps someday flying without a face mask isn’t enough of an incentive, maybe a chance at winning the Alaska vaccination lottery will be just the shot in the arm some people need. Literally. The state has decided to use $1 million in federal pandemic aid to offer a lottery — a weekly $49,000 prize for eight lucky adults (age 18 and over) of the 49th state who figure a chance at cash is worth a little ache in the arm. The...
Discussions and medical decisions about the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 should be based on facts, not scientifically untested and unproven rumors spread on social media. And certainly not on irresponsible health care advice prescribed by an elected official who seems to think a drug that kills worms in horses and cows might also destroy the coronavirus in people. A polite person might say "horse feathers" to such medical guidance from an unlicensed politician. A not-so-nice person...
It should be pretty easy to look at residential utility hookups, Permanent Fund dividend application statistics, housing occupancy and other data points to refute the U.S. Census Bureau count that shows Wrangell lost 242 residents between the federal government’s official tallies in 2010 and 2020. Anyone who has tried to find housing to buy or rent would certainly dispute the notion that all those people left town, putting empty homes or apartments on the market. But this mathematical dispute is much more than frustration over tight housing a...
For years, critics of state finances have said government should run more like a business. OK, let's see how that works. When companies are short of revenue, they first look at how to boost sales. Makes good financial sense to go out and attract more business, draw in new customers, maybe even raise prices while staying competitive. And companies look at their expenses. Are there better ways to run the operation that would save money. The absolutely last thing a well-run company would do is pay...
Yes, the amount of this year’s Alaska Permanent Fund dividend will be at stake when legislators convene in another special session on Monday. And while the PFD is important, legislators — and Alaskans — should not let the political fights over the dividend overwhelm the importance of resolving other financial disputes that jeopardize the lives of tens of thousands of Alaskans. In particular, there are the Power Cost Equalization (PCE) payments that benefit about 82,000 Alaskans in almost 200 rural communities across the state. The Legis...
The filing period opened this week for nine seats on the borough assembly, school board and port commission. Which means it's time for people to think about what they want for the community's future and how they could help make it happen. The best candidates are those who are for something, not against. Those who have ideas, not grudges and gripes. There is probably no shortage of people against COVID-19 health rules, taxes, zoning restrictions, cell phone towers, school policies, dog control la...
Just look at the numbers. More than 2,200 new cases of COVID-19 in Alaska over July 15-25. More than 200 active cases in Sitka alone last week, winning the top spot for the worst outbreak in the state. Almost 60 active cases in Cordova, a town of 2,800, resulting in the closure of a seafood processing plant. Juneau reported 44 new cases over the weekend, and more than 150 in the past two weeks. The city brought back restrictions to contain the spread of the more infectious Delta variant of the...
Looking around at all the boots, raingear and plastic tarps, it’s hard to imagine that Wrangell can’t handle a little water. The community can handle the rain alright. It’s collecting all that water, cleaning it and delivering it to our homes, offices and businesses that is a challenge. Wrangell’s 23-year-old filtration plant, which runs muskeg water through a variety of sand filters and other processes, struggles to efficiently provide all the water the community needs and often falls short of meeting state standards for safe drinking water. T...
Life is returning toward normal, but it isn't normal yet. COVID-19 is still infecting people, putting some in the hospital and killing Alaskans. The state reported four more deaths Thursday through Sunday last week, bringing the number of Alaskans killed by the virus to at least 374. Last Friday, Sitka reported its worst COVID-19 outbreak since December, with five new infections, making a dozen new cases in just two days. And then 11 more were reported on Monday. Nearly all of Sitka's recent cas...
Alaskans have taken a collective leap over the embankment of common sense. We didn’t merely leave the Church of Wisdom, we turned to the false political god of the Church of the Permanent Fund Dividend to lead us to the promised land. Think about what Moses would do. Instead of leaving the Israelites on their own for 40 days during his hike up Mount Sinai to retrieve the Ten Commandments, what if he had climbed Denali and returned with a long-term fiscal plan for Alaska, only to see the people praying to the golden letters “PFD.” He’d probably...
The borough is required to set the property tax rate for the next budget year that starts today, which it did. The rate will not change. And the borough is required to adopt a budget to guide its spending over the year, which it did, pretty much the same total for public services as this past year. But within that total, some of the individual numbers will change over the next 12 months, which is OK. There were too many unknowns, too many variables when the assembly approved the budget last month to expect that changes will not occur. The...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy will have multiple big decisions to make when the state budget lands on his desk and he decides which appropriations he likes and which he will veto. Alaska's governors have the power to pick and choose, line by line, which spending items they don't support, and can either totally eliminate them or simply cross out the number and write in a smaller amount. We ask that the governor this year not use his veto pen, pencil, Sharpie or highlighter on two budget items that are impor...