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At 2:18 pm on Wednesday, following a search by the United States Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers, the body of an adult white male was located floating in Earl West Cove approximately 12 air miles southeast of Wrangell. The body was transported and positively identified as Kenneth Trammel by next of kin in Wrangell. The body will be transported to the State Medical Examiner's Office for autopsy. The vessel has not been located. Relatives of 53-year-old Kenneth Trammel reported him missing...
Wrangell will be getting a new Alaska Wildlife Trooper (AWT) shortly, the Department of Public Safety confirmed last week. Residents may recognize Trooper Scott Bjork, who was transferred to Juneau in January. AWT said Bjork will be posted here temporarily, both for the moose season and for transitioning in a new trooper. The office did not have details on who will be assigned to Wrangell but said the change could be expected within the next few weeks. During the Legislature’s budget battles in the spring, the Department of of Public Safety p...
As of Tuesday, the Alaska Legislature meeting in a special session in Anchorage had still not passed a budget for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1. On Sunday, the Senate Finance Committee rejected a compromise budget passed by the House the previous day, which included some small concessions to the minority such as reversing cuts to the ferry system and per-student funding. A conference committee between the two chambers was being organized to negotiate an amended budget as legislators posture around various funding priorities....
Alaskans will have to wait until fall to learn if salmon habitat prevails over a coal mine proposed at Upper Cook Inlet. A decision due earlier this month by the state Department of Natural Resources has been delayed until after a public hearing later this summer, said Ed Fogels, DNR Deputy Commissioner. At issue is competing water rights claims filed in 2009 by the Chuitna Citizens Coalition and PacRim Coal of Delaware and Texas. The Coalition wants to protect spawning tributaries of the salmon-rich Chuitna River, dubbed the Kenai of the West...
The community of Wrangell will be one step closer to having an Alaska Wildlife Trooper (AWT) again, following news that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) has reversed its January decision to cut the position. Citing budgetary constraints, the position was to be cut along with around 60 others across the state. “My understanding is the position itself is not going to be removed, but it’s going to be a vacant position,” explained Tim Despain, public information supervisor for DPS. “It could be some time before the actual position is filled....
As the Legislature was being summoned for special session, Wrangell's Borough Assembly continued to look at its own budget for the coming fiscal year at its Tuesday evening meeting. The regular meeting was preceded by a workshop on the FY16 budget. The budget Borough Manager Jeff Jabusch presented was balanced using the existing mil tax rate, with services maintained at much the same levels as at present. Some cuts include smaller items like travel expenses, supplies and subscriptions, and a reduction in contributions to radio station KSTK and...
As legislators in Juneau prepare a budget for the state's next fiscal year, Alaska residents have been urged to contribute their say as cuts are considered. Since the Legislative session began on Jan. 20, lawmakers have been weighted with the task of finding ways to address a more than $3.6 billion deficit. To that end, the State House was looking at making a nearly 10 percent, or about $240 million, cut from state spending over the previous fiscal year. Among areas affected by the cuts would be capital improvements, education, transportation,...
As the fisheries industry continues to expand and Wrangell's Marine Service Center's services demand increases, I believe Wrangell's economy has nowhere to go but up. However, to accommodate this growth, the state must maintain their services in Wrangell. I am particularly concerned about the conservation of state jobs in Wrangell. Several years ago, Wrangell lost its social worker and its fisheries biologist. Now, the loss of the Wrangell trooper and the potential of reduced funding to the city...
“It is going to be a difficult year,” Wrangell's borough manager Jeff Jabusch told Assembly members during their regular meeting Tuesday evening. He referred to impending cuts to the state revenue sharing and federal Secure Rural Schools programs, which both pose major concerns for the Borough. Jabusch reported the city is working with its new lobbyist to address various funding issues as they arise. In addition to meeting with the governor and with legislators about revenue sharing, letters have already been dispatched addressing proposed cut...
Convening for its last regular meeting of the year, the dozen members of Wrangell’s Fish and Game Advisory Committee recapped recent regulatory changes and looked ahead to future challenges. Advisory committees are locally-organized groups of resource users and other stakeholders that meet to discuss fishing and wildlife issues, providing recommendations to the Alaska boards of Fish and Game. On Wrangell’s horizon: moose brow tines, Canadian mining and getting another Alaska Wildlife Trooper assigned to the area. Scott McAuliffe had represented...
A number of concerned residents appeared Tuesday night at the public hearing for an ordinance amending Title 10 of the Municipal Code, specifically dealing with concealed-carry and weapons misconduct in the City and Borough of Wrangell. The Assembly had the proposal before them on its second reading, and during oral presentations at the hearing and later in their regular meeting itself, half a dozen people expressed their dissatisfaction with some provisions of the ordinance. Local resident Charles Hazel felt the rules omitted allowing the...
The Wrangell area will be without an Alaska Wildlife Trooper for the foreseeable future, according to the state agency’s Juneau office. The vacancy was created by the transfer of Trooper Scott Bjork to the Juneau area earlier this month. Citing budgetary constraints, head of Southeast Detachment Lieutenant Jon Streifel confirmed Monday the post will remain unfilled until the department knows what the upcoming budget will look like. “It’s a new transition,” he said. As the new legislative session convenes this week in Juneau, state legisla...
October 21, 1913: After being in the hands of the court for several years, owing to the death of the owners, Thomas Wilson and Rufas Sylvester, the Wrangell Mills are for the first time clear and when started in the spring it will be a purely local management. The mills were given over from the court to the Wilson and Sylvester Mill Company, Inc. on the first of October which company is composed of Mrs. M.A. Wilson, president, F. Matheson, secretary and H. Gartley, treasurer, who will operate the mill. T.C. McHugh has been appointed the...
A seventeen year-old girl was fatally injured when an ATV crashed on Thursday afternoon at Lab Bay, near Port Protection just before 5 p.m. An Alaska State Trooper dispatch released on Friday states that Paulette James of Port Protection was the victim in the incident and “had sustained fatal injuries while operating a 'dune buggy' style ATV.” Alaska State Troopers, Alaska Wildlife Troopers and Emergency Medical Services from Klawock responded to the scene and began an investigation. The ini...
Tuesday, January 29 Charlie Gadd, age 28 of Wrangell, pled no contest to one count of Commercial Fishing Closed Season-Dungeness Crab. The conviction was the result of an Alaska Wildlife Trooper investigation that showed Gadd negligently left 16 commercial Dungeness pots in fishing condition after the close of the commercial season. Gadd was fined $3000 with $1500 suspended and placed on probation for one year. Sunday, February 3: At 2000 hours, Alaska Wildlife Troopers Petersburg Post observed an unoccupied vehicle roll over near mile 10 of...
Tuesday, Nov. 27 Rex Versteeg, 19, of Petersburg, went before the Petersburg Court and pled guilty to three wildlife charges. The charges are a result of an Alaska Wildlife Trooper investigation that showed Versteeg and another subject took two deer during a closed season with the use of artificial light in an area closed to big game hunting. The conviction is the result of a plea deal where Wallace was sentenced to fines of $900, restitution of $400 for the loss of the animals, and loss of his hunting rifle. Tyler Wallace, 17, of Petersburg,...
In the Sentinel 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago. September 19, 1912: The delay in passing the appropriation bill has made it impossible for the U.S. Geological Survey to carry out all the field plans for Alaska that had been fromulated in 1912, but the funds that became available by emergency appropriations made it possible to dispatch several of the smaller parties for a full season's work. In southeastern Alaska, the survey proposes this year to study the gypsum and marble deposits. E.F. Blanchard, who sailed from Seattle about the first of...