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Nov. 17, 1921 According to the Alaska Directory published in the General Federation News, the official organ of the club women of the country, Mrs. I.C. Bjorge, of Wrangell, has been appointed chair of the Alaska Federation. Other chair are: Art and Music, Mrs. Frank LeNoir, Douglas; Civics, Mrs. Russel Herman, Chickaloon; Legislation, Mrs. Vara E. Kaser, Juneau; Library Extension, Mrs. F. Rader, Matanuska; Home Economics, Sanitation and Health, Mrs. G. Borgen, Seward: History (appointment to be made later). Nov. 15, 1946 Stream surveys of...
Wrangell has set a pandemic record for the community for the number of COVID-19 cases in a month, reporting on Thursday its 50th and 51st infections in the first 18 days of November. The old record of 48 was set in August. Amid the surge in new cases in town, the borough assembly had called a special meeting for Thursday to consider an emergency ordinance requiring face masks to help limit further spread of the highly infectious disease. “Wrangell is experiencing unprecedented levels of positive COVID-19 cases,” the borough reported Monday eve...
Monday, Nov. 8 Fire alarm. Dog complaint. Tuesday, Nov. 9 Agency assist: U.S. Forest Service. Vacation check. Wednesday, Nov. 10 Traffic stop: Citation issued for speeding in school zone. Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Traffic stop: Citation issued for speeding. Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for headlight out. Thursday, Nov. 11 Traffic stop: Citation issued to provide proof of insurance. Proof of insurance shown and citation was voided. Citizen assist: Unlock vehicle. Fraud. Friday, Nov. 12...
A for-profit detox and recovery center business interested in purchasing the former hospital building planned a site visit for this week, and a former Wrangell resident who now works as a company representative led them to it. Casey Odell, the representative from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Regard Recovery Centers, called in to the borough assembly meeting on Nov. 9 to discuss the possibility. She said she worked for Alaska Island Community Services as a therapist and health counselor in 2013 in Wrangell, before SEARHC took over the...
The port and harbors department is Marie Kondo-ing the boatyard. But when tossing out what doesn't bring joy consists of 10 derelict vessels that include steel, wood and fiberglass boats, the scrapping is a multi-step process. The Island Belle, Bonnie Jean, Tres Suertes and Parakeet have been through a vetting process that consists of trying to find the original owner to claim the vessel, followed by a borough auction. No one claimed the vessels. The Parakeet is already gone. It's an old seiner...
Nicole Hammer is faced with a child care conundrum that has no easy solutions. As her unemployment benefits run out, she needs to find a job. But finding someone to watch her son is proving to be difficult. Without a day care center and with few home-based child care providers, Wrangell parents have had to get creative when it comes to finding someone to watch their children while they work. In some cases, they've had to quit working. Or, in Hammer's case, she can't accept a job offer until she...
The borough assembly last Friday approved submitting an application for $1.8 million in pandemic relief aid to replace lost sales tax, port and harbors and other revenues in 2020. The funds, if granted, would come from the state’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief fund Congress approved in March. Cities and boroughs received a direct federal allocation under the act — Wrangell’s share was $485,000 — while the state is going to share some of its money with municipalities that got hurt above and beyond...
Wrangell's interim borough manager has been in the role for more than two weeks and would like to stay a lot longer. Jeff Good has applied for the full-time borough manager position, seeking to make his role more permanent. The assembly is continuing to accept applications for the job "until filled," with no deadline for a decision. Whether temporary or permanent, the retired Coast Guard officer, who served as base director in Kodiak from 2017 to 2020, said his job at the borough draws plenty...
The 58-year-old state ferry Matanuska will spend an additional two weeks in a Ketchikan shipyard so that workers can repair and replace corroded steel discovered below deck. The Kennicott will help cover Southeast during the vessel’s absence. The Matanuska is expected to resume its scheduled service on Dec. 20, running from Ketchikan to Bellingham, Washington, to pick up its generally weekly runs from Puget Sound through Southeast Alaska, said Sam Dapcevich, spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation. “During routine shipyard inspe...
The holiday season is generally a time of gathering and happiness. It can also be a time of great sadness, mourning those who are no longer present to celebrate. Since 2003, Hospice of Wrangell has offered the Dove Tree and Dove Tree ceremony as a way to remember lost loved ones. This year’s ceremony is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 28, in the Nolan Center lobby. The community is invited for readings, a homily by the Rev. Suellen Bahleda of Island of Faith Lutheran Church, and special music by Cindy Martin, Sarah Scambler, Bonnie Demerjian and Al...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in reelection campaign mode, which is sort of like pie á la mode — political apple pie with a big scoop of partisanship on top. The governor earlier this month issued an administrative order that he said was necessary to protect Alaskans from federal overreach. His examples of heinous federal overreach included vaccination requirements, improved IRS enforcement against tax cheats, and efforts to protect school board members from hostile crowds. In a fit of concern over personal liberties, the governor also ordered state ag...
I don’t celebrate my own birthday — gave that up when I grew up and mom stopped giving me money to take all my friends bowling at Dom DeVito’s Lanes, where the bar was off-limits but it still felt cool to put our pop bottles in the same holders meant for beer. Newspaper birthdays, however, are different, and they’re worth celebrating. Not only because the newspaper is still alive, despite the growth of Facebook, but because the paper’s age is a sign of strength and stamina, unlike my age, which is a sign that I talk more about arthritis...
The Wrangell community garden has seen better days. Its board members believe it can see those days - plus a little more - again. A survey was recently posted online to gauge interest from the community in revitalizing the garden. So far, 40 people have responded, and three have said they want to be on the board. According to Kim Wickman, one of two board members, a great deal of work has already been done to make the plot workable. It's located on Zimovia Highway just south of Heritage Harbor,...
Wrangell Cooperative Association members are eligible for a second round of pandemic assistance grants for food and utility expenses, with applications due by Nov. 30. The assistance payments will be $1,000 per household for groceries and $1,000 for utilities, the same amount as the first round administered by WCA with funds from last year’s federal CARES Act. Tribal members must fill out a certification form “to verify the tribal household applying needs assistance due to the COVID-19 pandemic and there have been no changes to household inf...
The borough assembly has denied the school district’s request for an exemption from Wrangell’s testing and isolation requirements for unvaccinated students who travel. In October, the district had requested students and staff traveling for extracurricular activities, such as sports, be exempt from the borough’s COVID-19 emergency ordinance testing and isolation requirements since it wouldn’t allow students and staff to attend events on back-to-back weekends. The assembly denied the request at its Nov. 9 meeting. “We believed, based on the la...
The Wrangell High School wrestling and volleyball teams stayed in town last weekend instead of traveling for matches, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns. A wrestler tested positive for COVID-19 last week after returning from a match in Anchorage with eight other athletes from the squad. The team was scheduled to compete in Ketchikan last weekend but ended up canceling due to the close-contact exposure. The tournament in Ketchikan was still held. The volleyball team was scheduled to compete in Petersburg for a second weekend in a row, and for a se...
School board member Laura Ballou has resigned her position, citing the personal responsibilities of her full-time nurse practitioner job and her farm, Oceanview Gardens. The school board accepted the resignation at its Nov. 15 meeting and began the process of filling Ballou’s seat. “I would like to thank Laura Ballou for her service on the board,” board president David Wilson said. “I appreciate all that she does, especially on the board. Working with her was a joy.” In her letter of resignation, Ballou wrote, “It is with a heavy heart that...
It will be spring before the city barge ramp is back in operation, with repairs taking several months longer than expected. Until then, the weekly Alaska Marine Lines freight barges will have to continue to side-tie at the former sawmill dock at the Marine Service Center. The borough assembly at its Nov. 9 meeting authorized $115,000 for the project to fix the damaged barge ramp flotation tank. Workers last month pulled the tank off the end of the barge ramp for repairs of a leak that had reduced its buoyancy. A local contractor, Tim Heller,...
La Niña climate conditions could yield lower-than-normal temperatures in Wrangell and the rest of Southeast this winter. The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center last month released its 2021 winter outlook for December through February. La Niña climate conditions have emerged for the second winter in a row, according to the National Weather Service. That means there’s a good chance Southeast could receive above-average snowfall and below-average temperatures again this year, said Cody Moore, meteorologist at the Weather Ser...
An all-day boating safety class, Alaska Water Wise, will be offered Saturday at the Nolan Center, presented by the state Office of Boating Safety and volunteers who are working to organize a Wrangell detachment of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. The free class will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a lunch break, and will cover boat operations, emergencies, cold water survival, navigation rules and boating laws. “It’s a lot of different safety topics,” said Liz Buness, one of the organizers. “Hopefully, we’ll have more programs like this in t...
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A coalition of 10 states, including Alaska, sued the federal government on Nov. 10 to block a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for health care workers, adding to resistance by Republican-led states against the pandemic policies of President Joe Biden’s administration. It’s the third such lawsuit Alaska has joined against vaccination rules. The latest lawsuit filed in a federal court in Missouri contends that the vaccine requirement threatens the jobs of millions of health care workers and could “exacerbate an alarming sho...
A divided Alaska Redistricting Board voted last week on a final map that could give one of the more conservative areas of the state, Eagle River, a second seat in the state Senate. All three board members appointed by Republican elected officials supported the map. The two who were not appointed by Republicans opposed the map. In addition to redrawing the boundaries for the state’s 40 House seats, the board had to decide the pairings of two House districts each to create 20 Senate seats. It was those Senate district boundaries that prompted l...
Loose trash goes in and comes out in compact, 50-cubic-foot bales, strapped up and ready to ship out of state. The combination masher and baler has been at work at Wrangell’s trash transfer station since late October. Rather than shipping out loose garbage in open-top containers, Wrangell can now load the bales into closed containers. Alaska Marine Lines, which hauls trash out of Wrangell and several other Southeast communities, had told the towns that it needed everyone to switch to closed containers after a couple of fires in open containers...
The Ketchikan city council has decided to use the community’s $2 million gift from Norwegian Cruise Line to help cover lost revenue in the town’s ailing port fund. The city finance director reported to the council that port revenues fell by more than 99% when cruise ships stopped calling in 2020 — from more than $10 million in 2019 to roughly $82,000 in 2020. And it wasn’t much better this year: Revenue is expected to come in at about $1.35 million, as a limited number of ships operated in the shortened visitor season. Without an immediate cash...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska doctors plan to ask the State Medical Board to investigate concerns about the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments by other physicians. Merijeanne Moore, a private practice psychiatrist, said she drafted the letter out of concern over an event about COVID-19 treatments that featured prominent vaccine skeptics in Anchorage last month. Moore said last Saturday that nearly 100 doctors had signed the letter and more could before she plans to submit the letter this week. “We are writing out of con...