Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 1039
Wrangell’s economy has been in decline since long before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted three years ago. But the economy — meaning jobs, businesses and families — would be a lot worse off if not for federal assistance. Oppose federal spending if you want, but the $30 million or so in pandemic relief aid that the U.S. Treasury poured into Wrangell the past few years for the borough, schools, businesses, individuals and the tribal government made a huge difference in people’s lives. Criticize the IRS and income taxes if it makes you feel better,...
The last time the Kake high school boys basketball team appeared in a state championship game was more than two decades ago. The team was competing in Division 2A and current head coach Anthony Ross, who went by Anthony Dolan at the time, was on the team that came up short in a 10-point loss to Angoon in the 2000 state title game. In its first trip back to big stage since the turn of the century, Kake ended a nearly four-decade title drought by blowing out the Aniak Halfbreeds 67-49 in Division 1A play on Saturday afternoon at the Alaska Airlin...
Due to an increase in respiratory disease rates —including COVID-19 — throughout Southeast and in Wrangell, the Wrangell Medical Center has re-implemented a mandatory masking policy for its visitors, patients and staff. “It was in response to what we were seeing as increased respiratory illnesses both in the community and in the region, COVID of course being one of those,” hospital administrator Carly Allen said last week. “We’ve also been following influenza A and B and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), as well as … other respiratory i...
The past three summers have been lean for Alaska cruise ship tourism, but Wrangell’s 2023 draft cruise schedule shows a substantial gain in traffic compared to the 2019 pre-pandemic season. There are 132 scheduled stops this summer, with a combined maximum passenger capacity of 28,830 — about a 40% increase from the 2022 capacity of 20,088 and a 35% jump from 2019. Before the pandemic shut down the industry, Wrangell’s cruise tourism numbers were on a steady climb, from 5,500 in 2011, 10,000 in 2015 and 15,000 in 2018, according to stati...
Pills laced with fentanyl are spreading through Southeast Alaska, and Wrangell authorities are doing what they can to address the health hazard and danger. “The buzzword right now is fentanyl,” said Police Chief Tom Radke. “The quantity that they’re recovering is exceeding what people thought was out there.” Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The Alaska Department of Health reports fentanyl was responsible for almost 75% of opioid-related deaths in the st...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s amended budget unveiled Feb. 15 attempts to address crisis areas in state public services, with the additional spending driving the anticipated budget deficit past $400 million. The proposed budget for the next fiscal year is updated from his initial proposed budget announced in December. At that time, Dunleavy’s largely flat spending proposal for services had a $322 million deficit. The largest single expense in the governor’s proposed budget is $2.5 billion for a Permanent Fund dividend at roughly $3,900 per person this...
Kiara Harrison is closing the chapter on her high school life by promoting literacy in the community. For her senior project, Harrison helped organize and run the book fair at Evergreen Elementary School gym from Oct. 25 to 27, a natural fit for the student who began reading even before starting kindergarten. At the beginning of the school year when Harrison was immersed in volleyball practice and trying to figure out what her senior project was going to be, her mother, Kaelene Harrison, was...
It's long been a challenge for travelers to find lodging in Wrangell, especially during the spring and summer months, but with the closure of three bed and breakfasts in the past six months, securing a place to stay has become even harder. With the loss of those short-term-stay establishments, other tourist-related businesses are having trouble attracting clients to the island. Little Bitty Getaway, Oceanside B&B and The Squawking Raven B&B have all closed since last August. The reasons are...
An ongoing shortage of crew is the “No. 1 risk factor” for the Alaska Marine Highway System, Transportation Department Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith told legislators. At a Feb. 2 presentation to the Senate Transportation Committee, the ferry system reported it was still short just over 100 crew for full staffing to efficiently operate the winter schedule, about a 20% vacancy factor for onboard employees. The ferry system, however, is able to run its schedule with crew members picking up extra shifts and overtime to cover the work, and...
Tribal citizens with new business ideas may be eligible for funds to help launch their small businesses through the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s start-up grant program. Tlingit and Haida has been operating pandemic relief programs for existing small businesses run by tribal citizens for three years. In 2021, they added the federally funded small business relief start-up grant program to their list of offerings to support citizens who do not yet have a small business, but would like to develop one. This year...
The vast majority of Alaska high school students eligible for college scholarships that require them to study in-state are choosing to go Outside, according to a new report from the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education. The Alaska Performance Scholarship was first established in 2011 to encourage high school students to excel and stay in Alaska. Roughly $100 million in scholarships have been distributed since then to a little more than 29,000 students. The merit-based program has three tiers, the highest paying $4,755 per year to the...
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...
If not for drawing on its fund balance, the Wrangell School District’s 2023-2024 budget would come up short. However, by drawing $112,000 from its general fund balance, the first draft of the budget matches revenues with expenditures. Tammy Stromberg, the district’s business manager, presented the draft to the school board in a work session on Jan. 16. In the draft budget, total expected revenues for the 2023-2024 school year are $5,036,098, whereas expenditures total $5,148,136, a difference of $112,038. Drawing on savings covers the gap. “We...
When podcaster and historian Ronan Rooney came home from college in the summer, he got a job guiding tourists around Wrangell, showing them the island's sights and sharing its stories. When they'd pass Deadmans Island, a small tree-covered piece of land a half mile offshore from the airport, he'd tell his audience about the Chinese cannery workers who were supposedly buried there in the 19th and 20th centuries. According to Wrangell lore, workers' bodies were preserved in barrels of salt brine...
It’s past time for Southeast and coastal Alaska communities to be heard regarding the collapse of our ferry system. It’s time to more forcefully make our needs known by energizing the Southeast Conference, the Southeast Conference of Mayors and other organizations. Southeast and coastal Alaska are entitled to have a highway functioning just like our roaded neighbors to the north. The newly passed federal infrastructure bill provides the federal funding to make this happen, if we don’t let it slip away The Alaska Marine Highway System was create...
From impressive athletic successes and community celebrations to business closures and painful losses, Wrangell's 2022 was full of engaging stories, both triumphant and tragic. Last January was a month of new beginnings. Issabella and Tawney Crowley welcomed Wrangell's first baby of the year, Ryleigh Rowan Crowley, into the world on Jan. 4 at the Ketchikan Medical Center. The Decker family established a memorial scholarship fund to honor Sig and Helen Decker, two former Wrangell residents who di...
As part of its ongoing review and update of the schools’ mitigation plan, the Wrangell School District has dropped the COVID-19 testing requirement for athletes traveling for games. The requirement was dropped at the start of the year. Schools Superintendent Bill Burr announced the decision at the December school board meeting, during review of the plan. Though student-athletes no longer need to test before going out of town for games, the district still encourages it. “We are still doing optional testing at all schools on a request bas...
Health care services for Native Americans and Alaska Natives will be bolstered by a provision included in the government spending bill approved by Congress in the final hours of the 2022 session. The measure provides more certainty for a federal agency that delivers health care to more than 2.5 million people. A coalition of lawmakers from Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Alaska and elsewhere fought to include advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service in the bill, marking a first for the chronically underfunded agency as a...
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... Full story
Alaska’s population rose in 2022 according to new estimates released Jan. 5 by the Alaska Department of Labor, marking a second consecutive year of increases after four years of declines. The new Alaska population estimate, 736,556, is the highest since 2018, but the state continues to see more people moving out than moving in, and 2022 marked the 10th consecutive year of negative net migration, said state demographer David Howell. The state gained about 450 people despite that migration loss because the number of births was greater than the n... Full story
Southeast Alaska saw a “stronger than expected” 6.5% increase in jobs in 2022 compared to the previous year, due to ongoing recovery from being one of the state’s hardest-hit regions during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Alaska Department of Labor. A slower 2.5% increase in jobs is forecast for 2023, with a record cruise ship season plus growth in several industries including construction and a partial rebound of seafood processing. Tourism-related industries and transportation had the highest rates of growth in Southeast Alaska as the r...
Alaska has violated state and federal law by failing to process Medicaid applications in a timely manner, according to an Anchorage-based civil rights law firm that settled a class-action lawsuit in federal court with the state three years ago. The Alaska Department of Health’s figures last week showed that there are 8,987 outstanding Medicaid recertifications and applications to be processed by the state Division of Public Assistance, which is contending with a major backlog in application processing that officials attributed to a staffing sho...
A months-long backlog of food stamp applications has denied aid to thousands of Alaskans. And although the state plans to add additional employees during the next few weeks to process the applications, the director of the statewide program said Dec. 27 it likely will be months more before all the issues are resolved. At least 8,000 households applying for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits since September have faced delays of 90 to 120 days in processing, far exceeding the 30-day statutory requirement, due to an employee...
Though the combined impacts of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza have burdened medical facilities nationwide, seasonal flu cases appear to be plateauing in Alaska, though activity remains high. Wrangell has largely managed to avoid the effects of the “tripledemic” predicted by White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. Cases in Alaska started to rise steadily in October and hit pre-pandemic peaks in late November — months before the usual February peak for flu. As of the Dec. 24, the flu activity “is s...
It’s been almost 40 years since I read “The Good War,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning history as told by more than 120 participants in World War II. They remembered the fighting, the injuries and deaths, the personal sacrifices at home and even the moments of hope and kindness. They told the author, Chicago journalist Studs Terkel, of their lives and what the war did to them and what it meant to them. Though I was born after the war (1951), I’ve often thought about how strongly America came together to fight its enemies. Many volunteered for military...