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Legislation to impose a state tax on e-cigarettes and vaping devices appears headed to next year’s legislative work list. Lawmakers raised multiple questions about the bills at two committee hearings last week, and the Legislature faces a May 17 adjournment deadline. Bills not acted on by then return for consideration next year. The legislation was heard in the Senate Finance Committee and House Health and Social Services Committee, both on May 4, with bill sponsors fielding multiple questions about penalties for underage use, the tax burden o...
Levi Foster of Anchorage said it’s taken him decades to recover from the “emotional abuse and manipulation” he experienced while he was subjected to conversion therapy, the largely discredited practice that attempts to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation. He said that experience is what led him, and other survivors and advocates, to speak in front of the state House Health and Social Services committee on March 16 in support of a bill sponsored by Juneau Rep. Sara Hannan that would ban licensed physicians, psychia...
A month after a major backlog in Alaska’s food stamp application processing surfaced publicly, state officials are scrambling to hire emergency workers to address delays reaching crisis levels for Alaskans who depend on the federal program to feed their families. Public frustrations have become so high that the state is hiring security guards to protect existing workers, officials with the state’s Department of Health said. Meanwhile, another hurdle for the understaffed and overwhelmed Alaska Division of Public Assistance lurks around the cor...
Ten Alaskans are suing the state, saying it failed to provide food stamps within the time frames required by federal law. The complaint, filed Jan. 20 in Superior Court in Anchorage, said the state had failed to provide needed services and “has subjected thousands of Alaskans to ongoing hunger and continues to do so.” Some families have waited four months to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, the complaint alleged. “We’ve got people who are relying on family members. We’ve got people wh...
As the Alaska Legislature’s 2023 session approaches, a state Senate leader last Thursday highlighted the potential benefits of that body’s newly formed bipartisan majority coalition. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel said the nine Democrats and eight Republicans in the coalition have shared values. “This coalition formed with a goal, and that is working together to keep Alaska a producing state – not a consuming state, but a producing state,” the Anchorage Republican told the Resource Development Council for Alaska at a breakfast...
WASHINGTON — The $1.7 trillion federal spending package includes hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriations for projects specific to Alaska and enacts legislation that will directly affect the state. “There is literally no part of our state that this legislation doesn’t benefit,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee that helped negotiate the legislation. Congress passed the bill on its last day of work Dec. 23, funding the government through September 2023. President Joe Biden signed the...
It's safe to assume that people can avoid bear encounters if they stay out of a bear's natural habitat. Since that's likely not to happen in Southeast, a BearFest safety course offered advice on staying as safe as possible when enjoying the outdoors. Last Wednesday at the gun range, Robert Johnson used his 32 years of experience at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to instruct six people on how to negotiate their way out of a face-to-face occurrence with a bear, and when pepper (bear) spray...
More than 100 Wrangell households will see their food stamp payments reduced beginning in September as a result of the official rescinding of the state’s public health emergency order on July 1. As of May, 125 Wrangell households were participating in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), with an average benefit of $469, up 88% from March 2020, the last pre-pandemic month. SNAP, which traditionally assists low-income families with food purchases, began issuing emergency allotments in April 2020 as part of the federal g...
Following the death of her son to an opioid overdose in January, Sitka state public health nurse Denise Ewing and her husband, Gary Johnston, sought to prevent others from suffering the same loss. Named after her son, Gabe Johnston, Project Gabe seeks to place opioid overdose kits at seafood processors across Southeast, aiming to protect the high-risk population from avoidable deaths. “Gabe … had struggled with opioids for many years,” Ewing said in an interview. “When he passed, we said, ‘We have to stop this. This is stoppable...
The state’s COVID-19 public health emergency order put in place 15 months ago will be rescinded on July 1, announced Alaska Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum. “The COVID situation has mellowed out to where our systems are in place, our hospitals know how to deal with this, our health care providers have tools they need, because a lot of the treatments are actually commercially available or they’re able to order themselves directly,” Crum said at a press conference on June 6. “And so, because of that, I am going to...
A new report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides the most comprehensive look so far at the disproportionate toll COVID-19 is taking on Alaska Native and American Indian people living in Alaska. Overall, Alaska Native and American Indian people have made up just about a fifth of the state’s population but nearly a third of all deaths, the report found. Between the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and last December, Indigenous Alaskans were hospitalized with the virus and died from it at rates three times t...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Nearly 40 law enforcement officials, tribal leaders, social workers and survivors of violence have been named to a federal commission tasked with helping improve how the federal government addresses a decades-long crisis of missing and murdered Native Americans and Alaska Natives, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced last Thursday. The committee's creation means that for the first time, the voices guiding the Interior and Justice departments in the effort will...
The commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Revenue was called into a special meeting last month to discuss a problem: The Permanent Fund Dividend Division was under cyberattack. In a short period of time, more than 800,000 attempts were made to get into the division’s systems, which are in charge of paying the annual dividend to Alaskans. The division shut down its computers, the department’s firewalls held, and “no Alaskans’ data was accessed,” said Anna MacKinnon, director of the division. “Our system repelled, as it should, the assault o...
It only takes a fraction of a second for a school, health care center, municipality or others to be the victim of a cyberattack. It could take months or even years to recover, if at all. Brittani Robbins, executive director of the chamber of commerce, and Matt Gore, an educational technology leader and former IT director for the borough and Wrangell School District, are working together to educate Alaska communities about the threats to cybersecurity and how to mitigate them. They are also advocating for strategic partnerships to develop disast...
For the first time in more than a decade, Wrangell has a state child protection services caseworker. Jennifer Ridgeway was the Office of Children's Services worker in Petersburg from October 2021 until February, when she transferred to Wrangell. She first visited Wrangell from Tennessee in July 2018 to officiate and attend her daughter's wedding, according to a release from the state. She had no plans to move but loved the area and moved to Wrangell that fall. "Southeast Alaska offers so much...
JUNEAU (AP) — A proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration to split in half the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services — the state’s largest department — appears likely to take effect later this year. House and Senate leaders said it does not appear there are enough votes to block the move. Reorganization of the department, with more than 3,200 positions, has been billed as a way to improve operations and delivery of services. The proposal came through an executive order from the governor, and rejection of the order would req...
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium is providing free COVID-19 at-home test kits on a first come, first served basis. A Feb. 7 post on SEARHC's Facebook page said it is providing two boxes per household, but the Wrangell Medical Center pharmacy, where the test kits are being handed out, is not tracking who is asking or how many times. "We're just asking people to be respectful so there's more for the community," Carly Allen, hospital administrator, said last Thursday. After a...
For the third year in a row, lawmakers are considering legislation that would impose a tax on e-cigarettes, such as vaping devices, intended to make it more expensive and harder on young people to buy the products. “This bill is about protecting our children from becoming addicted to nicotine,” the bill’s sponsor, Kodiak Sen. Gary Stevens, said in presenting his legislation to the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 2. In addition to imposing a tax on vaping devices and liquids and other e-cigarette products, the bill, if approved by legislators a...
COVID-19 cases in Wrangell are surging at their fastest rate of the nearly 2-year-old pandemic, with 67 new infections since Christmas weekend, as of Tuesday evening’s borough report. Of those, 37 cases were recorded between Friday and Tuesday. The post-holidays surge is certain to break Wrangell’s single-month record, when the community tallied 66 infections in November. The borough’s Tuesday COVID update made particular note of New Year’s Eve parties, advising anyone who attended a social gathering and is experiencing any symptoms to contact...
The state has decided to stop offering walk-up COVID-19 testing at Alaska’s larger airports, and to stop paying for similar free testing operations in communities statewide, including Wrangell, effective Jan. 31. The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium will shut down its walk-up, no-appointment-needed free testing operation in Wrangell on Jan. 31 but will continue offering testing by appointment. The change in testing comes as Wrangell is seeing the start of a post-holidays surge in infections, with 14 new cases among residents reported...
Greater access to COVID-19 home testing kits, changes to the state statistics dashboard, and the arrival of the Omicron variant in Alaska were among the topics covered by Dr. Anne Zink in a report to the Sitka Assembly on Dec. 14. “I know the last thing we want is COVID,” said Zink, the state’s chief medical officer. “Man, we are all done with it. Unfortunately, it’s just not done with us.” She said the state’s role is “to provide tools for Alaskans to keep themselves, their families and their communities healthy.” Zink attended the meet...
The first known case of the Omicron variant in Alaska was reported on Monday, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. The variant case was identified in an Anchorage resident. “The case was identified today through genomic sequencing performed at the Alaska State Public Health Laboratory from a person who recently tested positive in Anchorage following international travel in November,” the statement read. “Alaska now joins at least 30 other states and more than 60 countries that have already identified the varia...
Wrangell Medical Center this week welcomed eight temporary out-of-state health care workers assigned to the hospital under a state-financed program to bring as many as 473 professionals to help relieve staffing pressures across Alaska. The state is spending $87 million in federal money to bring in the workers, allocating them to 14 hospitals and care centers around the state, as many of the facilities are at or near capacity amid a surge in COVID-19 patients the past month. Some school districts also are included in the program for nurses. The...
The first 100 out-of-state health care workers have started arriving in Alaska to help at medical facilities overwhelmed with record patient counts due to surging COVID-19 infections. The state health department has contracted to bring on 470 health care workers, including about 300 nurses, to help the strained workforce. Alaska is using $87 million in federal funds to cover the costs. The first health care personnel reported to the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage for orientation on Tuesday. The contractor said the remaining nurses,...
It's a familiar storefront sight throughout Wrangell: "Help Wanted" signs placed in business windows. For various reasons, employers are having trouble filling positions. "We couldn't find someone to hire, even if we wanted to," said Jennifer Ludwigsen at the Totem Bar & Liquor Store, which is looking for extra workers. The business is currently down to three staff members, but finding new employees has been challenging. It isn't unique. "A lot, especially the larger businesses, the grocery stor...
