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The borough assembly approved the sale of the former medical center and six adjacent lots to property developer Wayne Johnson on April 9. Johnson is a Georgia-based real estate developer hoping to build a 48-unit condo-style housing development with covered parking on the property. The borough sold the two acres of the former hospital property to Johnson for $200,000, which required approval from the economic development board and the planning and zoning commission as it was below the property’s appraised value of $830,00. Municipal code allows...
In 2017, a delegation from the Tlingit and Haida tribes flew to Colorado to meet with officials from the Denver Art Museum. The dozen tribal members came to discuss the return of a 170-year-old wooden house partition, painted by a master Indigenous artist. The panels - 67 inches tall, 168 inches wide - illustrate the story of how a raven taught the Tlingit to fish. The delegation told the museum that this screen never should have left Southeast Alaska and belonged home with its people under a...
The Alaska Senate has passed a capital budget to fund roads, school repairs and rebuilds, housing, water and sewer systems and other public works projects across the state — but the spending plan is short of funds to cover repairs to Wrangell’s three aging school buildings. The budget bill approved by the Senate on April 12 will move next to the House for its consideration and possible amendments before a legislative adjournment deadline of May 15, at which time the governor could exercise his authority to veto individual items in the spe...
The U.S. Forest Service is adding a dozen new positions in Wrangell, plus changing two jobs from seasonal to permanent. Most of the new hires are on the job, with a couple still in the hiring process. District Ranger Tory Houser estimated it's a 15% to 20% gain in staff. "Many of the positions are recreation positions," she said. "In our case, the influx is more a management decision to transition from having seasonal, temporary employees to having permanent employees that work a seasonal...
April 17, 1924 To meet the expense of sending contestants to the meet which will be held in Juneau next week instead of Ketchikan as first planned, the Wrangell PTA staged two benefits during the past week. The first was a food sale and tea held last Saturday afternoon in the Patenaude Building. All of the donated items found a ready sale and the event was well patronized. Cash donations were also received from many of the townspeople and the use of the building was given rent free so that the sum of $7.60 was realized. The second benefit was t...
NOLAN CENTER THEATER “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” rated PG-13, at 6 p.m. Friday, April 19, 6 p.m Saturday, April 20, and at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 21. The adventure comedy fantasy runs 1 hour and 55 minutes; tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for children under age 12. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. WRANGELL COMMUNITY CLEANUP 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 20, starting at the Evergreen Elementary gym. Trash bags will be provided. Cash prizes for trash volunteers. Lunch will be served at noon. FOREST SERVICE WORKSHOP 3 to 6 p.m...
The Permanent Fund dividend is important to a lot of Alaska households, but so is education, public safety, ports and harbors, roads and more. The state House did the right thing last week in rejecting a proposed constitutional amendment that would have elevated the PFD to a higher status than any other need in the state. Yes, Alaskans have to find a solution to the annual divisive, debilitating, political fight over the amount of the dividend. It has become worse than a distraction; it’s become an obstruction that prevents elected officials an...
Neither President Joe Biden, 81, nor former President Donald Trump, 77, is necessarily too old to be president. Their biggest flaws are not their ages, it’s that they are blocking and discouraging younger people from getting a chance to lead the country. It’s because the two nominees are so certain that they are best suited for the job of leading the country and that they, more than anyone else, are best able to manage a nation of 335 million people. They seem to think that younger leaders are not as capable as they are. Their ego tells the...
April is National Prevention of Child Abuse Month. The Alaska Children’s Trust partners with organizations around the state to create awareness and help nurture healthy families. BRAVE is one such group working in Wrangell to build a positive outlook for the future for our children and youth. Our work is based on our core values of Building Respect and Valuing Everyone (BRAVE). Too often, our society thinks of raising strong children as a parent or caregiver’s responsibility alone. This simply isn’t true. Community support and famil...
A high school organization founded by students several years ago aimed at inclusivity and students helping each other has expanded its focus, and its store in the school's commons area is selling an assortment of sandwiches, beverages and other snacks during lunchtime. BASE, founded by a group of Wrangell High School students in 2019, has grown over the years from decorating the halls to providing needed food to students, arranging teacher appreciations, working with school staff to learn how to...
The state capital budget approved by the Alaska Senate last week includes $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route for when Zimovia Highway is blocked by landslides or other disasters. The route would connect the old logging road at Pats Creek on the west side of Wrangell Island to the Spur Road on the island’s east side. The borough estimates the total cost of design and construction at roughly $5 million, and requested $500,000 in state funding to start planning and design work. The Senate approved the capital proj...
The borough assembly approved a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on April 9, covering public works, light and power, port and harbor and maintenance jobs, totaling about 23 positions. The agreement includes amendments to some job descriptions and the wage and grade table, effective July 1. Borough Manager Mason Villarma said they wanted to make sure changes were made to reflect inflation. He also said the borough noticed that some wages weren’t competitive with other municipalit...
The borough assembly on April 9 approved Mason Villarma’s contract as borough manager. The assembly vote was unanimous. Villarma went to work as finance director in September 2021 and has been serving as both finance director and interim borough manager since November 2023 when Jeff Good stepped down as manager to accept a federal job. Villarma’s four-year contract for borough manager goes into effect May 5. During his tenure as interim borough manager, he helped see the borough through the deadly landslide Nov 20 and recovery efforts. He spoke...
An Anchorage Superior Court judge has struck down an Alaska law that allows the state to allocate cash payments to parents of homeschooled students, ruling that it violates constitutional prohibitions against spending state money on religious or private education. “This court finds that there is no workable way to construe the statutes to allow only constitutional spending,” wrote Judge Adolf Zeman, concluding that the entire law must be struck down. The April 12 decision has major and immediate implications for the more than 22,000 students en... Full story
The time of year is approaching when birds flock to the river flats, and Wrangell is once again hosting the Stikine River Birding Festival. The festival will run from April 24 to 28 and will include a variety of bird-themed events and activities free of charge. This year is a bit of a lighter year, Matt Henson, who is organizing festival planning, said. They are focusing on community-centered, family-friendly events. Rather than a couple weekends of programming that the festival has offered in years past, this year’s schedule will be more c...
After more than a quarter-century, the nation’s largest national forest is getting a new management plan. On April 22, Wrangell community members will get a chance to learn about the proposed revisions to the forest plan and share their thoughts. A forest plan can be compared to zoning, Paul Robbins Jr., public affairs staff officer for the Tongass National Forest, explained. The plan helps guide management decisions, such as focusing on what areas are managed for recreation versus other activities, rather than looking at specific trails and c...
The chamber of commerce at its annual awards dinner last weekend honored several members of the community for their service, including the fire department and emergency medical services crew, municipal electric line crew and borough employees for their response to the deadly Nov. 20 landslide that hit Wrangell. “Nowhere was the ‘I can help’ spirit more evident than in November of last year when a tragic landslide befell our community. For weeks, volunteers and first responders showed just what an amazing place Wrangell is,” said Carolin...
One of Wrangell's two teams placed second in the Stikine Middle School Invitational Volleyball Tournament, losing to Klawock in the final, while a Petersburg team took first place in the other bracket after defeating a different squad from Klawock. The two-bracket competition of 13 teams from middle schools across Southeast was held at the Wrangell high school and community center gyms on Friday and Saturday, April 12-13. The teams included two from Wrangell, one from Craig, one from...
The Alaska House has sent to the Senate a state operating budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 with an almost $2,300 Permanent Fund dividend that would be the single largest expenditure in the spending plan. The budget also includes $175 million in additional one-time school funding, raising the total state contribution to school district operating expenses to just over half of what House members voted to spend on this fall’s dividend. The boost in state aid for the 2024-2025 school year, if approved by the Senate and signed into l...
The Alaska House of Representatives on April 11 rejected a constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed payment of the annual Permanent Fund dividend. The final vote was 22-18, five votes short of the two-thirds majority required to advance the amendment to the Senate for further debate. If it had won legislative approval, the amendment would have gone to the public in this fall’s general election. The amendment was part of a plan created in 2021 by a bipartisan working group after the state came within a week of a government shutdown d... Full story
The South Tongass Volunteer Fire Department station in Ketchikan caught fire early morning April 9, damaging multiple fire and EMS response vehicles. When the Wrangell Fire Department heard about the damages, they responded quickly by lending an ambulance to Ketchikan, sending it out on a barge later that same day. The fire started at 2 a.m. April 9, according to information from the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, and was under control by 3:49 a.m. and extinguished by 4:30 a.m. No one was injured in the fire. The Ketchikan department lost a 20-year...
A designated wilderness area in the Tongass National Forest, the largest U.S. national forest, is now a little bit bigger, after a land purchase and transfer arranged by two conservation organizations. ‘ Five acres of land that was formerly privately owned has been added to the forest’s Kootznoowoo Wilderness area on Admiralty Island, one of the organizations, The Wilderness Land Trust, said in a news release issued on April 11. The project, a partnership with the Juneau-based Southeast Alaska Land Trust, is the latest in a series of land pur... Full story
Monday, April 8 Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Deer complaint. Tuesday, April 9 Burglary alarm. Harassment. Found property. Harassment. Dog at large. Disturbance. Wednesday, April 10 Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Dog at large. Citizen assist. Noise complaint: Verbal for loud music. Thursday, April 11 Agency assist: Trouble alarm. Parking complaint. Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for under-vehicle lights. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for no headlights. Citizen assist. Friday, April 12...
Brian Hernando Fennimore, 53, passed away on March 14, 2024, in Wrangell after suffering from brain cancer. Brian was born on June 16, 1970, in Seattle. He grew up in Wrangell and was a 1988 graduate of Wrangell High School. After graduating from high school, Brian attended Clover Park Technical School in Tacoma, Washington; Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon; and Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Brian studied video/audio production at KTOO in Juneau and KTVA in Anchorage. Brian's... Full story
