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It was a full ballroom in the Nolan Center Friday for the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce's 26th Annual Fundraising Dinner. The theme for this year was "Good as Gold," highlighting the partnership the Chamber has with its community members. "It just stuck in my mind that Wrangell really needs to be proud of itself," explained Tracy Churchill, who had chaired the evening's planning committee. Despite its economic downturn following the closure of its mills, she said the community had made some wise...
The Nolan Center was the site of a four-day workshop on tribal transportation last week, held collaboratively by the Alaska Tribal Technical Assistance Program Center (AKTTAP) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The Transportation office of Wrangell Cooperative Association (WCAT) hosted the event, which drew state, federal, tribal and municipal personnel. "Each of them presented a different opportunity for collaborative work," said Bill Willard, WCAT manager. Held previously in Juneau...
The community’s dialogue on how it wants to proceed with regulated cannabis continued on April 14, with a public workshop held before the monthly Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. While members of the public were invited to attend and provide input, the commissioners themselves were encouraged to start deciding what they want to see from the nascent industry. Adopted by ballot initiative during the 2014 elections, Alaska’s marijuana legalization process began taking effect in February. Licenses to sell, cultivate, test and man...
Results from last summer's citizen science bat tracking program were presented at the Nolan Center on Monday. Since 2004 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) has been tracking the region's bat population. One component of this research has been the trapping and radiotagging of little brown bats, one of the state's seven identified species. The department also makes use of year-round acoustic monitoring stations and has begun to enlist volunteers to use acoustic driving transects. This...
The Nolan Center and Wrangell Ranger District wrapped up its Chautauqua season last week, a recurring talking circuit they have cosponsored for 11 years. Community members are invited to spend an hour sharing a valued hobby or favorite subject with their neighbors, blending education with entertainment. Speaking on March 31, Bonnie Demerjian laid out the history of local rock art, which includes paintings and petroglyphs. Having published a book on the subject last year, “Rock Art of Southeast Alaska,” she began with an overview of the art...
Wrangell will temporarily be without a residential nurse at its Public Health Center for the foreseeable future. Public health nurse Ty Esposito retired from her position last week, departing from Wrangell on March 22. In the interim, nurse manager Sue Bergmann from the Ketchikan PHC will be making visits a couple times each month. “Wrangell will be covered through Ketchikan as of right now,” Bergmann confirmed. Appointments can be scheduled in advance through either the Wrangell or Ketchikan offices, for testing, immunization or family plannin...
Visitors to the Wrangell Museum this year will have the chance to see its exhibits in a new light, after some 200 of the old four-foot fluorescent tubes were uninstalled and replaced with LED bulbs. One aspect of the replacement is efficiency, with the new bulbs lasting longer and consuming only a fraction of the power a traditional bulb does. Each bulb is expected to have 50,000 hours of life, or almost six years of continuous use. Aesthetically, the light shines brighter as well with a...
Wrangell Medical Center’s board of directors will be seeking some organizational changes. At its March 16 meeting the board moved to recommend that the Borough Assembly reduce its size from nine members to seven when terms end in October. Hospital head Robert Rang noted the board’s size was traditionally seven, and pointed out there have been challenges finding a quorum for meetings. The board has also had difficulty in filling out its positions, with an unexpired term currently open for appointment. Board treasurer Barb Conine opined it did...
Use of Wrangell's former Institute property continues to take shape after a pair of town meetings last week. Acquired by the city in 1995, the 134-acre property has potential for residential development, and the city last year commissioned a team of architects, statisticians and engineers to begin looking into a master plan. The public meetings on Feb. 29 and March 2 were the first step in that process, "I think they went really well," economic director Carol Rushmore said of the sessions. "Ther...
With a lot to learn about the state’s new marijuana regulations, residents met at the Nolan Center on Tuesday to hear what some of these entail from Cynthia Franklin, director of the Alcohol & Marijuana Control Office (AMCO). Because of a travel freeze at the state level, the city covered the costs for Franklin to come down. “I figured it would be good to have the person who knows the most to come down and explain it,” explained City Clerk Kim Lane, who invited her. Wrangell’s council had not formally formed a committee to approach the new leg...
Continuing the next step in its development of the former Wrangell Institute property, the city brought up the master plan design team for a series of town meetings this week. Originally built by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1932 as a boarding school, by 1978 the site was only intermittently used. The property was transferred to the City of Wrangell in 1995. The majority of the 134-acre property is undeveloped, forested wetlands, with potential for future residential use. The Borough Assembly...
The Borough Assembly received a disappointing update that plans to pave Evergreen Road this year have been delayed until at least 2017. The news came while the Assembly considered a proposal to amend the design contract for Wood Street improvements, which was previously expected to be bid ahead of the Alaska Department of Transportation’s Evergreen project. The city had hoped for efficiencies in equipment costs by having both projects undertaken at around the same time. First expected complete in 2013, the Evergreen paving project would r...
For the next month and a half the United States Forest Service is coordinating with the Nolan Center to put on their annual community Chautauqua presentations. Named after the town in New York where the practice originated, the Chautauqua harkens back to a brand of entertainment widely popular in rural America through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. How the Chautauqua is presented can vary, but generally it emphasizes community building through education and entertainment. The Wrangell Ranger District and museum have sponsored theirs...
Between Midnight Madness in December and the King Salmon Derby in April, Wrangell's annual Tent City Days celebration gives residents a reason to shake away the winter blues and have a little fun on the town. Put on by volunteers and area businesses, the four-day series of events will try to feature activities fit for kids and adults alike. The celebration kicks off tonight at the Elks Lodge with its second-ever chowder cook off, starting at 5 p.m. Whether corn, crab, clam or something else...
Wrangell residents gave their input about what they would like to see happen to the former Silver Bay Logging Company mill site, which the City and Borough is interested in acquiring and eventually developing for maritime and industrial use. One of the borough's first steps was to initiate a feasibility study of the 110-acre site, with a bid going to Maul Foster & Alongi of Bellingham, Wash. The bid was approved by the Borough Assembly in early November, funded through a $90,000 Department of Co...
In the Sentinel 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago. February 16, 1916: That Dry Straits will be surveyed this summer is practically assured from a telegram received by the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce last Saturday from Cavanaugh Engineers of the War Department in Seattle. The cable reads: Can stern wheel river steamer be chartered by thirty days next summer for Survey of Dry Straits, if so wire collect, probable cost including fuel and crew, also what accommodations for housing and feeding survey party on available vessel. The matter was taken up...
This year's planned expansion of one of its primary hydropower facilities weighed high on the list of priorities for Southeast Alaska Power Agency's governing board when it met in Wrangell late last week. SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson reported most of the major bids had been awarded for components of the Swan Lake dam expansion, a $10 million project which will increase active storage by 25 percent and yield between 6,000 and 12,000 Megawatt hours annually. A civil, mechanical and electrical engineerin...
Alaskan fans of cannabis are another step closer to being able to pick up the drug from their own neighborhood dispensaries. Earlier this month, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott filed marijuana establishment regulations in accordance with state statute. The regulations filing comes after the Marijuana Control Board (MCB) adopted the regulations package in November, which was subsequently approved by the Alaska Department of Law. A year prior, 57 percent of Wrangellites had joined other Alaska voters in allowing the regulated cultivation and sale of...
After a public hearing and much discussion Tuesday evening, the Wrangell City and Borough Assembly approved a contract zone for light industrial use for a transportation office, storage and maintenance area requested by Wrangell Cooperative Association. The item had been approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission in December with several stipulations, including its review of a final site plan, the addition of unobtrusive lighting, exclusively indoor storage on site, and a 50-foot buffer along shared boundary lines. The property, the...
The year 2015 was largely a good one for Wrangell, with the appearance of several new businesses, large infrastructural developments undertaken by businesses, the formal opening of the Tribe's cultural center, and a balanced financial outlook for the city despite tumultuous budget negotiations in Juneau. The state deficit will remain the largest issue moving ahead into 2016, as will continued mining developments in Canada along shared waters. January On Jan. 12 and 14 the first of three sets of...
Shortly before children and parents began lining up to see Saturday’s matinee showing of “The Peanuts Movie,” Wrangell’s theater program passed its ten-year milestone. The Castle Mountain Theater is a city department that runs current films at the Nolan Center. “It was also part of the reason the Nolan Center was built,” explained Kris Reed, who has managed the theater since its inception. Up to that point, Wrangell had lacked a movie theater since the last had closed down during the mid-1970s. “‘Jaws was the last movie shown, if I remember c...
To me, government by the people and for the people is more than just a theoretical concept. I believe this famous phrase from President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address must be put into practice for government to work. That’s why I’ve been going door to door in Wrangell, mailing out surveys and hosted a town meeting at the Nolan Center in October. The revenue options survey results showed our district supports restructuring our oil tax program to maximize profit. There is also majority support for a state lottery. A common suggestion was to creat...
With the advent of December, Wrangell's streets and storefronts have begun taking on a more festive appearance ahead of the Christmas season. The tree which serves as the centerpiece of the community's Midnight Madness celebration tomorrow evening was cut down, moved and re-raised at the Elks Club by Wrangell Municipal Light and Power on Monday. Despite gusts of up to 31 miles per hour, the work crew managed to trim and place the 54-foot Sitka spruce, which was harvested from federal forest at t...
An interpreter with the United States Forest Service has received an award recognizing her work in the Wrangell Ranger District. Corree Delabrue was last month presented the Hakala Award, an agency award which recognizes sustained excellence in interpretive and conservation education for Alaska. She is the 24th winner of the prize, named after Bob Hakala, the first regional interpreter of the USFS Alaska Region. USFS Tongass interpretation program manager Faith Duncan explained award winners...