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Wrangell’s City and Borough Assembly interviewed a pair of top candidates to replace the city manager next month. Jeff Jabusch announced his plans to retire last September, after serving as manager for nearly four years. He will be finished at City Hall on March 31, after which economic director Carol Rushmore will step in as interim manager until the transition is completed. Steps to hunt down a replacement for Jabusch were taken shortly after his announcement, and a months-long interview process yielded four candidates by mid-February. Three...
After four decades of public service, City Hall will bid farewell this month to its longtime finance director and recent borough manager, Jeff Jabusch. "It's going to be kind of strange, every morning getting up and not driving into this parking lot after forty years. My car will probably just come here automatically after that length," he said. "It's been very rewarding," he said of his tenure. "I've got to meet a lot of interesting people, and working with a lot of people, both staff people an...
March 19,1917: C.G. Burnett, A.B Pennycook, and E.P Clarke returned Saturday afternoon on the gasboat Peggy from a 300 mile cruise through Frederick sound, Chatham strait, and Summer strait. They report that all bays along Baronof Island are still frozen up. The following additional items of news were gleaned form a conversation with one of the members of the party. The Wakefield Company is putting in a one-line cannery in addition to its kippered herring plant. The company now has about 5,000 barrels of herring corralled in seine which will...
A reboot to the local hospital’s new building project was underway last week, with key contractors on site for predevelopment work. Wrangell Medical Center CEO Robert Rang informed the hospital’s governing board at its March 15 meeting that principal architect Joann Lott and company president Wayne Jensen of Juneau-based firm Jensen Yorba Lott were in town preparing preliminary plans for a new hospital facility on Wood Street. The pair had looked over the proposed site on March 13, which is adjacent to the current Alaska Island Community Ser...
Monday, March 13 Parking complaint: Report of person parking on private property. Agency Assist: Fire Department notified of alarm going off. Tuesday, March 14 Agency Assist: Random breath test. Harassing phone calls. Agency Assist: Structure fire. Traffic: Road blockage. Wednesday, March 15 Agency Assist: Alarm. Agency Assist: Electrical Fire. Thursday, March 16 Disturbance. Citizen Assist. Friday, March 17 Icy Roads: Caller reported black ice. Public works notified. Saturday, March 18 Found property: Returned to owner. Dog bite. Domestic:...
The environmental office of Wrangell Cooperative Association will be conducting field surveys later this spring to gauge air quality in the community. In a presentation to the Healthy Wrangell Coalition at its monthly meeting last week, WCA it was reported will be acquiring an electronic monitoring device that will read for particulate content in the air. Readings will be taken to gauge air quality and measure how prevalent such material is in the air over certain timeframes. Run through the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program (IGAP...
Donna Lea Larsen, 70, died on February 15, 2017. Donna was born on March 24, 1946 to Rosella and Ray Gibson joining her brother Dennis and just seven minutes ahead of her identical twin sister Dorris. Her baby brother Bill rounded out the family a couple of years later. Donna grew up in the Pittsburgh, California area and graduated from Pittsburgh High in 1964. She married Leon Harvey shortly after high school, and had her first child Kathleen (aka Toot) in February 1968. In August of 1968 Donna...
We join with the community in thanking Jeff Jabusch for his 40 years of service to the citizens of Wrangell. Jeff has maintained the public’s checkbook for much of that time and kept it balanced through boom times and busts. During Alaska’s oil boom era, the city built its public safety building, high school and municipal pool. When the Wrangell Mill closed in 1994, “it was scary bleak,” as Jabusch put it. Later, Alaska’s rich uncle, Sen. Ted Stevens secured a $37 million relief grant that public officials along with Jabusch leveraged into $200...
Have you ever had a story you were just aching to tell, but weren't sure how to best get started? Or is there a manuscript in the bureau you'd like to have published, but don't know how to get it into print? Local author Michael Bania sought to answer some of these queries in an open workshop last week for prospective writers and illustrators. Held at the Irene Ingle Public Library, about two dozen inquisitive residents brought their notepads, portfolios and laptops to the March 14...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A federal wildlife agency studying the Steller sea lion decline in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands is looking for help from citizen scientists. Volunteers don’t need raincoats or rubber boots to pitch in, just eyeballs and a computer screen. Fisheries researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration want them to sort through 500,000 images captured by 20 cameras at six remote sites. The job is simple: Flag photos that show sea lions. NOAA Fisheries biologist Katie Sweeney is specifically looking for 256 S...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A federal agency investigating an underwater pipeline leaking natural gas in Alaska’s Cook Inlet is expanding its review to a nearby oil pipeline. In a proposed safety order issued Friday, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said the 8-inch oil pipeline owned by Hilcorp Alaska LLC is subject to the same stresses as Hilcorp’s 8-inch natural gas pipeline and must be quickly inspected. The natural gas pipeline since mid-December has spewed hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of processed natur...
A bill that would rearrange how earnings from the Permanent Fund are used passed the Senate last week, with a version set next to be read by the House Finance Committee. The “Permanent Fund Protection Act” (SB 26) would arrange the Fund’s Earnings Reserve Account – from which the state’s annual dividends are paid out – so that the amount of money drawn from the earnings would be tied to a percent of market value, or POMV, approach. The bill would set up how the ERA would be tapped, and would set the POMV limit at a 5.25-percent withdraw ra...
JUNEAU – The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (ADOT&PF) is selling the M/V Taku through a sealed bid sale. The minimum bid price is $1.5 million and interested bidders must have a bid bond of $5,000. The complete bid package is available on the state's Online Public Notice website. ADOT&PF is selling the vessel "As Is/Where Is" to the highest bidder. The sale process involved getting Federal Highway Administration approval since federal funding was used to maintain the v...
SITKA, Alaska (AP) – A national group has honored a group of Sitka High School basketball players who last year helped pull residents from a burning building in Anchorage. The National Federation of State High School Associations announced Monday that the boys basketball team will receive the “National High School Spirit of Sport Award” for the western region, The Sitka Sentinel reported (http://bit.ly/2lX4bRd). “The basketball team members employed the skills of teamwork and quick thinking that they had developed through many years of partici...
Alaska salmon fishermen could haul in a harvest that nearly doubles last year’s catch, due to a projected uptick in the number of pinks. An Alaska Department of Fish and Game report on 2017 salmon run forecasts and harvest projections pegs the total catch at 204 million fish. That compares to just over 112 million salmon taken by fishermen in 2016. The catch last season included 53 million sockeye salmon—the fifth largest harvest since 1970—but only 39 million pink salmon, the smallest harvest since 1977. For this year, the forecast calls for a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Additional time has been requested to try to resolve a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by the group pursuing a gold-and-copper mine in southwest Alaska. Attorneys for the Pebble Limited Partnership and EPA on Monday asked that the lawsuit remain on hold until May 4. Monday was the deadline for a status update. The joint motion states that the parties have made “substantial progress in recent discussions” and are focused on trying to find a mutually agreeable resolution. The motion state...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Monday the bag, possession and retention regulations for this year's nonpelagic rockfish sport season. For all Southeast waters, Alaska residents have no size limit, with a bag and possession limit of one nonpelagic rockfish. Nonresidents enjoy the same, with the additional limitation of one yelloweye rockfish per year. This must be recorded in ink on the back of an angler's sport fishing license or harvest record card at the time of harvest. A...