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A budget debate has brought the state to within a week of the start of the new fiscal year and the risk that state agencies could close on July 1 if the governor and legislators cannot settle the dispute. The battle between the governor and lawmakers is whether the budget adopted by the House and Senate last week is valid and can go into effect on July 1. Several legislative leaders generally say yes, it probably is OK, but the governor says no, he cannot sign the budget bill as approved. Gov. Mike Dunleavy has taken a two-option approach to...
Most of a half-mile of slippery boardwalk trail at the Anan Wildlife Observatory is being replaced with gravel this summer, but that's just one of several U.S. Forest Service projects planned and proposed for the Wrangell area over the next several years. The agency is accepting public comments on another project proposed at Anan - a new deck at the viewing platform. "The existing viewing platform has reached the end of its usable life and needs to be replaced,"according to the Forest Service...
Actually, the hot dogs will be cold dogs. A new event at this year’s Wrangell Fourth of July celebration will be a wiener toss, planned for 8:30 p.m. July 3 on Front Street. Sponsored by radio station KSTK, the toss will offer prizes for unusual tosses, not necessarily the longest toss or last to drop the dog, said Brittani Robbins, executive director of the chamber of commerce. “It’s throwing raw hot dogs at each other,”she said. While the long holiday weekend is just a week away and plans are set for most events, the chamber, which organizes...
Coastal lawmakers say they made progress this year toward at least halting the deterioration of the state ferry system, with the intent of maintaining reliable service in the years ahead. Their hopes, however, will have to wait on the governor’s decisions on the budget and also on legislation that would restructure the public advisory board for Alaska Marine Highway System operations. “It’s all got to get across the finish line,”past the possibility of any gubernatorial vetoes, said Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chair of the budget-...
June 23, 1921 Three tons of garnets in the rough from the garnet ledge near Wrangell were shipped to the Western Abrasive Paper Company, Victoria, British Columbia, Friday evening on the Royal. It will be used for the manufacture of abrasive paper. The garnet ledge has been leased through Miss Durkee to the Western Abrasive Paper Company, and a considerable amount of garnets will be shipped during the summer. R. J. Frizell is in charge of the work at the ledge. June 21, 1946 Air travel between Seattle and Alaska hit an all-time record last...
Kevin Stutz works the grill at the Elks Father's Day Picnic at Muskeg Meadows last Sunday, assisted by Kathy St. Clair (left) and Frank Roppel (background). The Elks sponsor a 9-hole best-ball golf tournament on Father's Day and hold a picnic after the tournament for members and guests. First place in the tournament went to the team of Brett Woodbury, Frank Roppel, Jeff Good and Jerry Bakeburg; second place went to Joe Delebrue, Ron Sowle, Ed Rilatos and Emily Mason. Delebrue also won the...
It’s been more than 15 months since Wrangell’s seniors sat down and enjoyed lunch together at the senior center, but that’s about to end. The building will reopen for in-person lunches on Monday, though only for fully vaccinated individuals. The pandemic-induced switch to exclusively delivered meals started last March. With the high rate of seniors who are fully vaccinated, and low COVID-19 case counts in town, the center is reopening for lunches, while still offering the option of delivered meals. Either way, the staff asks that people call...
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...
Landless Natives deserve support of communities The folks who are working on legislation in regard to the landless Natives need the support of our city councils and residents to allow the acquisition to occur. I am 80 years old and was born in Petersburg, as was my mother. Thirty years ago, Spencer Israelson, who spent his youth at Point Agassiz, took me to the mainland and showed me petroglyphs he and his friend had found as they grew up in the area. He also showed me evidence of a Native fish trap at Muddy River. My grandfather, Carroll Claus...
Blame legislators for overspending and underachieving at the underlying need for a long-term fiscal plan for the state - if it makes you feel better. They certainly have made some poor decisions. But Alaskans need to look at their own reflection in the mud puddle of politics and realize we share in the blame for electing and encouraging bad decisions by many of those same lawmakers. We're just as guilty for decades of irresponsible requests for state funding, unreasonable expectations that the...
"Since I was a kid, a 12-year-old kid, I just started hunting myself,"Trooper Chadd Yoder said. "My parents didn't hunt, so to start legally hunting I took my mom with me. I educated myself about hunting and got out there and did it. That started my love for the outdoors." Yoder, 33, said he is enjoying his dream job as Wrangell's new state wildlife trooper. He and his wife and three kids moved to Wrangell mid-April from Wasilla. He has been a trooper since 2019. Before that, he worked as a...
Wrangell’s municipal government will operate in the black for another fiscal year, under the budget adopted by the borough assembly Tuesday evening. However, the assembly is prepared to make amendments during the fiscal year, which starts July 1, as new information arises. The budget anticipates general fund revenues of about $6.4 million, which includes taxes, service fees, state and federal funding, and the annual conservative withdrawal of investment earnings from Wrangell’s own permanent fund. Of that total, about 60% is anticipated from sa...
Melissa Stolley brought in the biggest fish on Sunday, taking home the Wrangell King Salmon Derby Father's Day prize of $250 to go along with her 28.9-pound king. The derby runs through next Wednesday....
After the Juneau city and borough assembly declined to accept a $2 million donation from Norwegian Cruise Line — saying it could look improper to accept money from an industry it regulates — the company opted to give the money to the Juneau Community Foundation, which invests and manages funding for multiple nonprofits in town. The cruise line in May announced it would donate $10 million to six Alaska port cities most damaged economically by the loss of cruise ship travelers last year and again this summer due to the pandemic: Juneau, Ket...
A fun tradition for Wrangell’s grown-ups is returning this Saturday, with the 2021 Adult Prom. The party will start at 8 p.m. at Muskeg Meadows Golf Course. The prom is an opportunity for locals to get out, dress up and dance the night away, said Lucy Moline-Robinson, with KSTK, which is sponsoring the event as a fundraiser for the radio station. “I felt there was a need for that, Wrangell doesn’t have a lot of adult-type dances,”she said. The prom was not held last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Robinson said. In 2019, it was held at the...
Higher-than-expected sportfishing catch rates for Southeast king salmon have prompted the state to cut back on the catch limit for residents and non-residents. Without the reduction, the Southeast sport fishery was expected to have exceeded its allocation of 37,120 fish for the year by 3,460 to 12,650 kings, the Department of Fish and Game reported last Thursday. “This is basically what we’ve been doing the past few years,”Patrick Fowler, Petersburg/Wrangell fisheries biologist, said Monday. The department usually has enough of an indic...
Alaska Power & Telephone has begun preparations for a 214-mile fiber optic cable that will run from Juneau down to Coffman Cove. The SEALink submarine cable project will bring faster broadband internet access to communities like Coffman Cove and Kasaan on Prince of Wales Island. While the project is not expected to affect Wrangell, AP&T Business Development Vice President Jason Custer said Wrangell could be the target of future improvements in the company’s Southeast network. “It’s a major investment in the region, and we’re glad to see it happ...
Crab has been one of the hottest commodities since the COVID-19 pandemic forced people in 2020 to buy and cook seafood at home — and demand is even higher this year. Crab is now perceived as being more affordable when compared to the cost enjoying it at restaurants, said global seafood supplier Tradex, and prices continue to soar. That’s how it’s playing out for Dungeness crab in Kodiak and, hopefully, in Southeast Alaska, where the summer fishery started on June 15. Kodiak’s fishery opened on May 1 and 76,499 pounds were landed by last Friday...
Daniel Titus, 55 of Oregon, on June 16 plead no contest to a charge of unlawful harvest of a black bear on Kupreanof Island on June 6. The court hearing was held in Wrangell because the city’s new state wildlife trooper, Chadd Yoder, had issued the citation. Yoder explained that the defendant did not have the required permit to hunt black bear on Kupreanof. However, he said it was an innocent mistake and that Titus didn’t know he had made a mistake until he reported where he had harvested the bear. “You need a drawing permit to harvest bear...
Mark Armstrong (right) and Tom Gillen (left), along with other city employees, helped position the Nolan Center's new signpost into place Tuesday afternoon. Wrangell artist Denny Leak carved the museum sign out of a 20-foot-long cedar log. He started with a chainsaw in April, switching to hand tools as he refined the lettering, and sculpted the eagle and raven at the top of the post....
Making good on previous threats, former President Donald Trump has endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, a former official in the Gov. Mike Dunleavy administration, in her challenge against Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. “Lisa Murkowski is bad for Alaska,”Trump said in a statement last Friday. “Murkowski has got to go!” The Republican senator, whose term expires next year, has not announced her reelection decision. Murkowski angered Trump when she voted for the Senate to convict him of inciting the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Tshibak...
TORONTO (AP) – Canadian border restrictions on nonessential travel to and from the United States will be extended until at least July 21, officials said last Friday, as Canada works to get a higher percentage of its residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the move has been made in coordination with U.S. officials. There are growing calls in the U.S. to open the Canada-U.S. border for tourism and other travel considered nonessential, but less than 20% of Canadians are fully vaccinated. The yearlong b...
MIAMI (AP) - Royal Caribbean International is postponing for nearly a month one of the highly anticipated first sailings from the U.S. since the pandemic began because eight crew members tested positive for COVID-19, the company's CEO said. The brand new Odyssey of the Seas was to set sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on July 3, but is now postponed to July 31. Royal Caribbean International's CEO Michael Bayley said June 15 on Facebook that the decision had been made "out of an abundance of...
Monday, June 14 Health and safety call. Theft from vehicle. Citation for dog at large. Agency assist: State troopers traffic stop. Agency assist: Ambulance. Citation for dog at large and license required. Agency assist: State troopers traffic stop. Welfare check. Tuesday, June 15 Citizen assist: Vehicle unlocked. Wednesday, June 16 Citizen assist. Theft: Theft in the second degree. Dog complaint. Agency assist: Ambulance. Hazardous play. Traffic stop. Thursday, June 17 Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Driving under the influence:...
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge on June 18 ruled for Florida in the state’s lawsuit challenging a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pandemic order imposing standards before cruise ships can resume sailing. U.S. District Court Judge Steven Merryday wrote in a 124-page decision that Florida would be harmed if the CDC order — which the state said effectively blocked most cruises — were to continue. The CDC order said ship operators can choose between running a test cruise to show they can effectively stop the spread...
