Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 29
“Not happy” was how Borough Manager Jeff Good described his mood last week when he received word that Wrangell was left off the list of Alaska communities sharing in $27 million in the final round of federal pandemic assistance funding. Wrangell was not alone in receiving nothing. Juneau, Sitka and Anchorage also came up empty. The funding formula was based on federal acreage within each borough, with population and economic conditions, such as poverty levels and unemployment, factoring into the formula. “I think Treasury got it wrong,” Nils An...
No less than 100 people turned out on Sept. 26 right before sunset for the dedication of the Wrangell Mariners' Memorial at Heritage Harbor. What some said has been in the works for decades has finally been completed, honoring those who have lost their lives at sea and those who made their lives from the sea. "It's amazing (that it's finished)," said Jenn Miller-Yancey, president of the memorial board. "We stand out here and can't believe it sometimes." Miller-Yancey, who's late husband Ryan...
It is tempting to imagine that kitchen sinks, shower drains and toilets are domesticated black holes, transporting our waste to some mysterious nether region outside space and time, where it ceases to exist the moment it is out of sight. However, Public Works Director Tom Wetor knows better than anyone in Wrangell that the spoiled milk, blackened cooking oil and remnants of last night’s dinner that are flushed into the sewer do not disappear. Pouring oil, grease and fat down the drain can damage essential infrastructure, strain the public w...
Josh Fish would like to see kids win at the game of life across the board rather than be pawns, so he took a gambit with a classic game. The first chess club will start after school next Monday at Evergreen Elementary, with Fish and helpers teaching students the rules of the game, with the hope of developing social skills and critical-thinking skills in the young players. Fish, 25, learned to play chess in Fayetteville, North Carolina, when he was a freshman in high school. The game turned his...
Oct. 5, 1922 Better Homes Week is to be observed throughout America Oct. 9-14. Twenty-two governors are taking part in the movement. Gov. Scott C. Bone, who early gave his support to the movement, made the following statement today: “Alaska has approximately 55,000 homemakers. It has less than 10,000 homeowners. The Better Homes in America Movement was inaugurated for the avowed purpose of strengthening in the mind of people the desire to own their own homes and spread knowledge of how to improve them. This purpose is so lofty and manifestly i...
The borough assembly has granted Manager Jeff Good the authority to negotiate a short-term lease with Channel Construction to use a portion of the 6-Mile mill site for a scrap metal recycling operation. Juneau-based Channel Construction has been running a regional metal recycling operation at the property, which the borough purchased for $2.5 million this summer. Owner William “Shorty” Tonsgard Jr. initially applied for a long-term lease that would allow him to continue operating at the site after the borough took over the land. The port com...
The borough assembly unanimously approved the sale of 29,274 square feet of public lands to Helen and Robert Molinek for $45,000 at its meeting last Tuesday. The sale of a portion of the former Byford junkyard property is part of a longstanding effort by the borough to move public lands into private ownership, where they can be taxed. The parcel at 4-Mile Zimovia Highway used to be part of the junkyard, which the state Department of Environmental Conservation finished cleaning up in 2018. Since then, the borough has negotiated with nearby...
After a dismal 2020 and cautiously optimistic 2021, the economic outlook in Wrangell is improving, according to survey data collected by the Southeast Conference. Economic director Carol Rushmore presented the data at the chamber of commerce’s economic forum last Friday. The event was intended to bring Wrangell business leaders, state and municipal government officials, and concerned citizens into conversation about economic problems facing the community. Rushmore said her presentation offered a “30,000-foot summary of the economics of Wra...
It’s been almost three years since SEARHC started its move out of the borough-owned hospital building on Bennett Street into new quarters. It’s been almost five months since the borough embarked on multiple efforts to sell the unused property. Since then, there have been no buyers, no serious expressions of interest, not even a prescription to ease the financial pain of maintaining the empty facility. The $830,000 asking price for a decades-old building with a lot of problems is about as attractive as an old pickup truck that needs new tires, a...
Wrangell is great at helping neighbors in need, at filling holiday food baskets and supporting student activities. The community excels at watching out for each other, watching over our elders and keeping watch over mariners. There are multiple examples just in last week’s and this week’s Sentinel and on the Wrangell Community Group Facebook page: Volunteers working to reopen the roller rink after a three-year shutdown; all the effort that has gone into growing the community garden; the dedication, labor and money that have gone into bui...
Last Saturday, Sept. 24, I had the pleasure of helping work the finish line at the Capital City Invitational cross-country meet in Juneau. The previous night’s monsoon had passed, and the cool, damp air at the running field throbbed with the pent-up energy of about 225 young runners from all parts of Southeast Alaska. It was high school athletics at its finest. I must say I was one of many people who were impressed by the grit and toughness of the Wrangell boys team. They’ve clearly been working hard, and they run like a pack of red hungry wol...
I urge your newspaper to raise hell about the fact that the new Alaska Marine Highway System winter ferry schedule provides no service between Juneau and Haines between Jan. 4 and Feb. 4. How are legislators to get their cars and trucks to Juneau from Haines for the January legislative session? How are Greens Creek and Kensington miners who live in Haines to get back and forth? Don't blame the commissioner of the Department of Transportation — he inherited this mess when the governor started getting rid of vessels. As a result, Southeast A...
A U.S. Forest Service project to build new public-use cabins and refurbish some existing cabins is moving into the next round of public comment. The agency expects to listen to the public in the coming weeks to find out which areas would be best for new structures and which would be best to fix up within the Tongass and Chugach National Forests, it announced in a press release on Sept. 23. “As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s investment in the nation’s recreation infrastructure, the (U.S. Department of Agriculture) is inves...
A tree and landslide debris lie across Gastineau Avenue after falling between two homes and crushing a vehicle in downtown Juneau on Sept. 26. "It looks as though it's predominantly a tree fall, a giant tree came out, took the roots out and as it came down the hill it took mud with it, but it's far more tree debris than mud debris," said Juneau emergency program manager Tom Mattice. "We're digging into it now but it was definitely a big tree fall and not our typical mudslide event." No one was...
Despite a global COVID-19 pandemic the past two and a half years, influenza — the flu — is still among us. To that end, the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium will hold a flu clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 22 at the Wrangell Medical Center SEARHC is asking people to call and schedule a time slot to reduce wait time, however walk-ins are still welcome. The clinic was originally scheduled for Oct. 8 but was rescheduled due to a delay in the shipment of vaccines. Between 2010 and 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Pre...
WASHINGTON — Alaska’s U.S. senators want to rename an active volcano in the Aleutian Islands after the late U.S. Rep. Don Young. The longtime congressman’s former peers, Republican U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, say Young is a fitting namesake for a volcano. The one they hope to rename Mount Young is currently called Mount Cerberus. “My goal is that we not only pay tribute to a great man who did so much for our state, but that it ensures that what he has done for Alaskans is not forgotten,” Murkowski said in a statement. “Don Youn...
The Wrangell High School boys cross country team came home from an eventful weekend in Sitka, taking many top spots at Southeast regionals. Once again, sophomore Daniel Harrison led his team, only this time he powered through to take first place out of 56 runners with a time of 16:50, nine seconds faster than senior Luke Davis of Haines. “Daniel had an incredible race,” said head coach Kayla Rooney. “He did exactly what we have been working on this season, pacing himself with other runners that we’ve been competing with every weekend and pus...
The Wrangell High School swim team dove into the competition in Petersburg last Friday and Saturday, with junior Jack Roberts winning the top spot in the 100-yard freestyle event. Four of the swimmers had nine top 10 finishes at the meet, and three had six personal bests. Roberts finished first in the 100-yard freestyle, third in the 200-yard individual medley and third in the 100-yard butterfly. Sophomore Max Lloyd finished fourth in the 50-yard freestyle, while junior Alisha Armstrong finished eighth in the 50-yard freestyle, 10th in the...
The borough assembly unanimously approved a motion to write off delinquent harbor and utilities accounts and forward them to a collection agency. The write-off includes a combined $8,197 in utilities fees from 30 different accounts and $50,048 in harbor fees from four different accounts, for a total of $58,246. At the assembly meeting Sept. 27, Finance Director Mason Villarma acknowledged that the amount appeared significant, but assured the assembly that the sum was a small percentage of total billing. Writing off “bad debts” like these — d...
William Gregory Aalbertsberg dies at 74 William "Will" Gregory Aalbertsberg, 74, passed away on July 30. He had lived in Wrangell since 2009. William was born on July 29, 1948, in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. As a young man, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps as soon as he could. "He loved telling the tale of how he celebrated his 17th birthday in boot camp," his family wrote. Will was proud of his service, and a lifelong love of the shooting sports and weaponry took hold as he earned his M14...
A Republican Ketchikan Gateway Borough assembly member is challenging the four-term incumbent to represent Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Coffman Cove and other communities of southern Southeast Alaska in the state House. In Jeremy Bynum's first time running for state office, he got 44% percent of the votes in the August primary to Rep. Dan Ortiz's 52%. Both live in Ketchikan. About 4% of voters chose Wrangell resident Shevaun Meggitt, who has since withdrawn and will not appear on the...
If Alaska’s state legislators remove constituents’ comments or block them on social media, they may forfeit state-paid legal protection, according to a new social media policy adopted last Friday. A House-Senate panel voted 8-3 in favor of adopting the new policy on behalf of the entire Legislature. Anchorage Rep. Matt Claman said the new policy means “that the Legislature is not going to be put in a position of always having to represent representatives who may or may not handle their social media properly.” Over the past year, three state l...
JUNEAU — The Alaska Permanent Fund’s board of trustees used a “deficient” performance evaluation process to justify firing CEO Angela Rodell, who said her removal was “political retribution” for opposing Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget plan to overdraw the fund, but an eight-month independent investigation found no credible evidence that Dunleavy was involved in Rodell’s ouster. Rodell, who served as the corporation’s CEO from 2015 until 2021 and led it to years of strong returns, was abruptly fired during a board meeting last December. There w...
Monday, Sept. 26 Dog attack. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for driving habits. Paper service. Tuesday, Sept. 27 Harassment. Citizen assist. Welfare check. Sprinkler alarm. Subpoena service. Wednesday, Sept. 28 Citizen assist. Suspicious circumstance. Thursday, Sept. 29 Traffic stop. Traffic stop. Agency assist: Harbor Department. Agency assist: U.S. Forest Service. Agency assist: Ambulance. Suspicious circumstance. Friday, Sept. 30 Welfare check. Agency assist: Harbor Department. Agency assist: Ambulance. Traffic stop. Disorderly conduct....
As part of an effort to push Sitka’s fishing fleet away from carbon-emitting propulsion, a Sitka troller has received a $40,000 grant to add electric power to augment the diesel power of his classic wooden boat. The award came through the Sitka-based Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, one of three organizations chosen by the New York-based Acme Smoked Fish Corp. for grants to mitigate the effects of climate change. The other two projects are in Maine. Eric Jordan said his goal is to reduce his boat’s fuel consumption and carbon signa...
