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Following a contentious meeting last week, the Planning and Zoning Commission held a follow-up workshop Tuesday evening to address neighbors concerns about a proposed senior housing and assisted care facility. With 30 people sitting in, the meeting was perhaps the liveliest City Hall has hosted since P&Z looked into the propriety of raising chickens in residential zoning back in 2014. The issue at hand was a conditional use permit being applied for by Daniel Blake and Shannon Bosdell, which would convert the Sourdough Lodge they are...
Wrangell has narrowed the field for its new borough manager, with city staff and members of the Borough Assembly holding a teleconference with five candidates during a closed-door meeting Friday. Current manager Jeff Jabusch announced his plans to retire back in September, which is to take effect at the end of day March 31. In his current post since 2013, the move brings to a close four decades of employment with the city, much which was spent as its finance director. The Assembly accepted the...
January 18, 1917: On Tuesday evening a banquet was given at the Wrangell hotel by several of the business men in honor of the Wrangell basketball team. Cash Coulter was apparently the one who originated the idea, and saw that it was carried out. It was one of the most pleasurable events that has taken place in Wrangell this season. Hon. P.C. McCormack acted as chairman, and as soon as the guests were seated made a few appropriate remarks explaining why the banquet was given, and praising the basketball team giving Wrangell a lot of advertising...
Wrangell Public School District unveiled its first draft for next year’s operating budget at its board’s Monday evening meeting. Overall, the school district’s budget is projected to be 2.3 percent higher than the FY17 revised budget, coming in at $5,953,642. As with other city departments, the new fiscal year is slated to begin July 1. Accounting for the rise, step-and-column increases are anticipated to raise the teacher and support salaries budget by about $48,000, with another $96,000 increase in payroll benefits associated with a 10-pe...
Monday, January 9 Agency Assist: Smoke. Citizen Assist. Agency Assist: Alarm. Tuesday, January 10 Report of Harassment. Citizen Assist: Vehicle Unlock. Noise Complaint. Wednesday, January 11 Agency Assist: FD for a sinking tug. Thursday, January 12 Agency Assist: WMC asked for assistance. Agency Assist: Fire Department possible house fire. Furnace malfunctioned. DV Disturbance. Traffic Stop: Verbal warning for faulty equipment. Friday, January 13 Agency Assist: DOT. Traffic Hazard. Agency Assist: Alarm. MVA: Vehicle in the ditch on Ishiyama...
The state has so far not received any applications from a number of floathouse owners contacted last autumn. Since October, the Department of Natural Resources has been reaching out to identified owners of floating facilities anchored along the Stikine River’s tidal area, the land which is under its clear jurisdiction after resolving a longstanding dispute with the United States Forest Service last March. The floathouses being targeted are those anchored within the tidal influence of the river, which ends just beyond the terminus of Shakes S...
A state task force set up to further develop a sustainable mariculture industry is setting up several advisory committees as part of that process. The Alaska Mariculture Task Force was set up by Gov. Bill Walker following recommendations by the state’s marine industry. The group announced January 13 that after five meetings it is on its way to proposing an implementable plan by its deadline of March 1, 2018. These recommendations will address public and private investment, regulatory issues, and research and development needs. To that end, A...
Alaska’s 30th Legislature convened for its new session on Tuesday, with the state’s finances presenting a daunting challenge for the next 90 days. The spending deficit is projected at around $3.1 billion this year if the budget is left as-is. Agency spending has come to just over 13-percent since FY15, and the budget as a whole has taken a 29-percent cut when capital projects and other funding is considered. Revenue has failed to cover operating expenses since FY13, but has covered an ever-dwindling proportion since. This year the $1.2 bil...
Wrangell High School's boys basketball team chalked up a pair of wins over Haines last week. "We saw some definite good things," said Wolves coach Ray Stokes. In Wednesday night's game, they took an early lead on the visiting Glacier Bears, with Riley Blatchley's four two-pointers helping build an 18-10 lead during the first quarter. Wrangell continued to build on that lead the rest of the game, finishing with a score of 60-40. Haines was given plenty of opportunities to keep up, with the team...
Wrangell's high school girls basketball team added a win and a loss to their season, playing in Haines over the weekend. "It was a pretty tough weekend overall," said team coach Laurie Brown. The Lady Wolves played a strong first quarter on Friday evening, racking up 19 points to Haines' 11 but then the hosts turned the tables on Wrangell, scoring 19 points of their own during the next quarter to Wrangell's four. Brown recounted the team's defense had a tough time versus Haines' players. "They...
As lawmakers convene this week in Juneau, Alaska’s fishing industry sees a glimmer of hope that its budget won’t be gutted again. Under Governor Walker’s proposed budget for FY18, the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game reflects a .3 percent increase to $70.7 million. It’s a big relief for an industry whose oversight budget has been slashed by more than 30 percent over two years. “All regions show slight increases,” said Tom Gemmell, a numbers guru and executive director of the Halibut Coalition in Juneau. “It...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – State officials have announced that tests of Alaska seafood continue to show no detectable amounts of radiation, five years after a deadly earthquake and tsunami set off a nuclear disaster at a Japanese power plant. More than 16,000 people were killed in 2011 after Japan’s 9.1-magnitude earthquake, which led to nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Since then, U.S. and international agencies have been conducting tests to determine the health of marine life along the U.S. and Canada, KTVA-TV rep...
JUNEAU (AP) – Alaska legislators agree on the need to address the state’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit. But rifts remain over how best to do that, with divisions forming over taxes, how much to keep cutting spending and whether the state needs to tinker with Alaskans’ beloved yearly oil wealth checks. A new 90-day legislative session began Tuesday, with many lawmakers citing a sense of urgency amid the continued drawdown of state savings. Last year’s regular and special sessions were snarled by gridlock ahead of a heated election season....
ANCHORAGE (AP) – The state of Alaska on Friday sued two federal agencies to overturn a ban on certain hunting techniques on national refuges and preserves, including the killing of black bear sows and their cubs in dens with the aid of artificial light. The state also wants the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow the hunting of black bears and grizzly bears, also known as brown bears, over bait. Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, said in an announcement that Alaskans, especially rural residents, rely on h...
PETERSBURG – An application for an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) permit alteration to release 40 million chum salmon in Thomas Bay brought forth by the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) has been approved. The application process has taken just over a year to secure the location, north of Petersburg, for the release but the change is something NSRAA general manager Steve Reifenstuhl has been thinking about for a while now. “I looked at Thomas Bay approximately 20 years,” he says. “Had temperature probes o...
JUNEAU (AP) – Bills that would restore the portion of Alaskans’ oil wealth checks that were cut by Gov. Bill Walker last year were filed Monday, ahead of the start of the new legislative session. The legislation to restore dividends was proposed by Republican Sen. Mike Dunleavy of Wasilla and incoming Republican Rep. David Eastman of Wasilla. Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski of Anchorage revived a proposal he has pushed previously with little success which he said would enshrine the current dividend formula in the state Constitution. The Ala...
