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All this talk about artificial intelligence is a bit unsettling. Sure, in time, it will bring a lot of good to the world, particularly in medicines, finding and treating cancers, improving weather forecasting, eliminating boring and repetitive work, answering questions and researching data faster than humanly possible. It also will make it easier to cheat on school homework and copy (and steal) someone else’s creative ideas, while adding to the loss of privacy, eliminating jobs and making people overly dependent on computers to manage their l...
A massive landslide 11 miles from town destroyed three homes on Nov. 20 - including one that housed a five-member family - and stranded more than 70 residents who lived south of the slide. Timothy Heller, 44, Beth Heller, 36, Mara Heller, 16, and Kara Heller, 11, have been confirmed dead. Derek Heller, 12, and Otto Florschutz, 65, were missing as of Monday night, Nov. 27. Christina Florschutz, a teachers aide at Evergreen Elementary School, survived. The slide occurred shortly before 9 p.m. and...
Southeast Alaska is known for rain, windstorms, mountainsides that loom above residential areas — and landslides that occur with increasing frequency. Sitka knows the risk, and the pain, losing three people in a 2015 landslide. Haines lost two people in a 2020 slide. And now Wrangell is added to the list. That list doesn’t include the multiple landslides over the years that caused damage and fear, but thankfully no deaths. After the 2015 slide, the Sitka Sound Science Center took the lead and worked with the community — and federal money — to...
Individuals and the borough are eligible for financial aid under the state’s disaster assistance programs. State grants to individuals are limited to no more than $21,250 for housing repairs and up to the same amount for other needs. That could include lost or damaged personal items such as clothing, furnishings and tools; energy costs; medical, transportation or temporary storage expenses. The grant limit is based on a federal standard, explained Jeremy Zidek, public information officer for the state Division of Homeland Security and E...
Nearly 80 Alaska tribes are calling on the Biden administration to retain decades-old protections for 28 million acres of land scattered across large swaths of Alaska. The administration is conducting an environmental review to weigh the impacts of potentially opening some or all of the land to future uses that include mining. The protections were created in the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, putting the lands off-limits to uses such as mineral, oil and gas extraction. The lands include vast swaths overseen by the Bureau of Land...
A coalition of hemp growers and manufacturers has sued the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, claiming that new limits on intoxicating hemp products are unconstitutional. The lawsuit, by the Alaska Industrial Hemp Association and four businesses, was filed Nov. 2 in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. Attorney Christopher Hoke, representing the plaintiffs, said the rules mean that virtually every hemp-derived product made in the state and for sale in Alaska — drinks, gummies, cookies and more — will become illegal. “We’re just harming...
Alaska Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom is running for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House, challenging Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in the 2024 election. In her campaign announcement on Nov. 14, Dahlstrom dubbed herself “a conservative Republican, law enforcement leader, military and veterans advocate.” Dahlstrom, 66, has served as lieutenant governor for less than a year. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy tapped her as his running mate in 2022. Before that, she served as commissioner of the Department of Corrections. Dahlstrom also served in the state...
A massive landslide 11 miles from town destroyed three homes on Nov. 20 — including one that housed a five-member family — and stranded more than 70 residents who lived south of the slide. Timothy Heller, 44, Beth Heller, 36, Mara Heller, 16, and Kara Heller, 11, have been confirmed dead. Derek Heller, 12, and Otto Florschutz, 65, were missing as of Monday night, Nov. 27. Christina Florschutz, a teachers aide at Evergreen Elementary School, survived. The slide occurred shortly before 9 p.m. and destroyed the Florschutz residence and an unoccupi...
Nearly every Alaskan received a $1,312 payment last month, their annual share from the earnings of the state’s nest-egg oil fund. Some use the money for extras like vacations but others — particularly in high-cost rural Alaska where jobs and housing are limited — rely on it for home heating fuel or snowmachines that are critical for transportation. The unique-to-Alaska payment has become a blessing and a curse in a state that for decades has ridden the boom-and-bust cycle of oil, and the annual Permanent Fund dividend now competes for fundi...
Vic Fischer, the last living signer of the Alaska Constitution and active in progressive state politics for seven decades, died Oct. 22 at age 99. His death came after several years of declining health and an extended stay in hospice care. Born May 4, 1924, in Berlin, Germany, to an American father and Latvian mother, his family rotated between the Soviet Union and Germany, leaving the latter country for good after Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. As Josef Stalin’s purges took hold in the Soviet Union, Fischer’s father, journalist Louis Fischer...
The state has approved new regulations on inexpensive cannabis-like products derived from hemp, sometimes referred to as “diet weed.” The new changes mean intoxicating hemp-derived products will have to be regulated by the state’s marijuana control board, an act that will see them removed from vape shops and other unregulated stores across the state. Some nonintoxicating products will also be affected by the changes. So-called “full-spectrum” hemp products intended to help with epilepsy and pain include a variety of cannabinoids, including...
Unconscionable. Indefensible. There are many words to describe the disrespect for the public and disregard for honest government by the actions of the governor’s office to block publication of a factual report on teacher salaries in Alaska. Even for the administration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, this is a low point in putting politics ahead of good government. And that’s saying a lot for an administration that has been criticized by the court for firing state employees who refused to pledge political loyalty to the governor. State government should...
Staff for Gov. Mike Dunleavy quashed the publication of a new Department of Labor report examining the competitiveness of teacher pay in Alaska, an act that current and former staff say could damage the apolitical reputation of the division that publishes state economic data. “This is data that typically is available to the public, and it’s never good to suppress good, objective data,” said Neal Fried, who retired in July after almost 45 years as an economist with the department. The report, which had been the cover article in this month’s edit...
Alaska’s industrial development agency has sued the Biden administration in an attempt to revive its Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas leases. The lawsuit filed Oct. 18 by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority alleges that the Department of the Interior violated federal laws and its own regulations when it canceled the leases last month. Interior’s actions were politically motivated and illegally deprived AIDEA and the state of the economic benefits that would come from drilling in the refuge’s coastal plain, an area...
The city of Whale Pass in Southeast Alaska doesn’t have much: a few dozen residents, a road, a school and a few lodges, among other businesses. But what it does have is a lot of trees. The town, nestled in a cove on the north end of Prince of Wales Island, about 40 air miles southwest of Wrangell, has been the site of logging camps since the 1960s. Like the rest of Southeast, it’s within the Tongass National Forest, the United States’ largest national forest. Now, Whale Pass residents are fighting a pending state timber sale in their town,...
With high oil prices driving up state revenues, Southeast legislators say to expect a larger capital budget next year for public works projects, more money for deferred maintenance and another attempt to boost state funding for public schools. That’s assuming oil prices stay elevated as the state works its way through the fiscal year that will end on June 30 and remain high in the forecast for the next year. Lawmakers will return to work at the Capitol on Jan. 16. With oil prices last week 30% higher than assumed in this year’s spending pla...
The state of Alaska, a coalition of business groups and a pair of electric-power organizations have opened a new round in the generation-long fight over environmental protections in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. On Sept. 8, the state and two other groups of plaintiffs filed three separate federal lawsuits to challenge a Biden administration rule restricting new roads in parts of the forest, which is home to some of America’s last stands of old-growth trees. Each lawsuit asks U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason to ove...
In an unusual offseason hearing, a committee of the Alaska Legislature considered a proposal on Friday, Sept. 15, that could lower the state tax on marijuana sold in the state. House Bill 119, considered by the House Labor and Commerce Committee, would shift the state’s marijuana tax system from a tax per ounce to a sales tax. The state’s marijuana industry says the change is desperately needed to help marijuana businesses compete with the state’s black market. “This is a very desperate situation that we’re in,” said Lacy Wilcox, legislative...
The community already does a good job of pitching in, helping out and coming up with money for school sports activities. But rather than just doing it one sport, one event at a time, there is a proposal to reestablish a booster club for all school sports. It’s been about 20 years since a booster club coordinated fundraising for youth athletics in Wrangell, and there are a lot of reasons why this is a good time to restart the effort. State funding for education in Alaska is inadequate, made even worse when Gov. Mike Dunleavy this year vetoed h...
The Biden administration on Sept. 6 announced it is canceling the last remaining oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Those seven leases, all held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and sold in a controversial auction held in the final days of former President Donald Trump’s administration, have been in limbo ever since President Joe Biden was sworn into office. On his first day, Biden issued an order requiring a hold on Arctic refuge development to allow for further scrutiny o...
The school district has submitted its application for a spot on the Alaska Department of Education’s list of schools in need of major repair and rebuilding grants. The department reviews and lists projects from across Alaska in order of priority, and then each year the Legislature and governor decide how much state money to commit — which has been only enough in recent years to cover less than 10% of the projects. The district is hoping for $6.5 million from the state to go along with $3.5 million from a bond issue approved by Wrangell vot...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has vetoed a bill that aimed to minimize the use of harmful refrigerant chemicals that exacerbate climate change and also reduce the risk of spills of a different chemical that can pollute drinking water. The legislation would have banned most firefighting departments from using a type of firefighting foam that has contaminated drinking water in dozens of places across Alaska and many more in the Lower 48. The bill, originally introduced by Anchorage Rep. Stanley Wright would have allowed newly constructed buildings in...
A board appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy has decided in favor of a new state regulation that would ban transgender girls from participation in high school girls sports. The decision by the state board of education on Thursday, Aug. 31, came less than six months after the board passed a resolution indicating its members were interested in such a policy. All seven Dunleavy-appointed board members voted in favor of the new policy, which says that only girls whose sex assigned at birth is female will be able to participate in girls sports. The only...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy spoke publicly Thursday, Aug. 31, for the first time about his decision to endorse Republican former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race. In a Fox Business interview, Dunleavy said Trump has been “the best president for this state in its short history,” citing Trump’s actions in issuing oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and removing roadbuilding restrictions for logging in the Tongass National Forest. Dunleavy’s endorsement of Trump was first reported by Politico on Aug. 22, but he di...
Staffing problems at the payroll division are causing many of Alaska’s 14,000 state employees to be paid late or for the wrong amounts and have caused the state to temporarily stop using one of its main tools for hiring and retaining workers. In an August letter to the commissioners in charge of state departments, Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s chief of staff told them that the problems “are primarily due to excessively high vacancy rates at payroll (over 40%).” Thirty-one of 67 budgeted positions are vacant, said officials at the Department of Adminis...
