Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 225
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met Tuesday, Feb. 25, to have a follow-up work session on staffing issues at the Irene Ingle Public Library and the Nolan Center. As covered in a Feb. 13 article of the Sentinel, the assembly has been considering how best to resolve staffing questions at both facilities while also keeping everything as affordable as possible. During their last workshop, the assembly considered a number of options for an empty assistant position at the library. The Nolan Center has...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met last Tuesday evening, Feb. 11, for a work session on the borough's future goals. The discussion was meant to ensure that all city employees understood what Wrangell's priorities are, and what they are all working towards. According to the meeting's agenda packet, the borough had a wide variety of goals to consider. Some of the goals laid out in the agenda packet included development of the old Institute and Byford junkyard properties, and cleaning up abandoned...
The evening of Saturday, Jan. 18, a pipe in the public safety building's sprinkler system broke and caused some flooding. Amber Al-Haddad, capital facilities director, explained that the building, which houses Wrangell's court, police department, fire department, and other entities, has two sprinkler systems: A wet system and a dry system. Somehow, she said that water got into the dry sprinkler system and froze during the cold weather Wrangell experienced this past month. This broke one of the...
The borough assembly and other city officials met Saturday morning, Jan. 11, to workshop future priorities for the city and to look at the upcoming budget process. A long list of state and federal legislative priorities was laid out for attendees to review and talk about. For state priorities for Wrangell, the first and foremost was the reinstatement of several state positions to the city. Over the past decade, according to the priority list, Wrangell has seen several state jobs taken away that...
The federal government’s plan to raze more roads through the Tongass National Forest is facing strong headwinds from fishermen, Native groups and coastal communities throughout Southeast Alaska. Over 220 Southeast Alaskan fishermen signed a letter to the Trump Administration last week opposing the abrupt push to exempt the Tongass National Forest from a roadless rule in place for over a decade. The exemption would release more than 9 million acres from protection and open nearly 200,000 acres to logging. The U.S. Forest Service made the a...
The City and Borough Assembly: Three Year Tearm Julie Decker is seeking re-election to the Wrangell Borough Assembly for a three-year term. There are several reasons she wants to sit for another term on the assembly. The current borough assembly has been making some good decisions on behalf of the city, she said, and she would like to see that continue. As a member of the assembly, she said that she has tried to stay informed and lead in a way that benefits the city as a whole. She added that...
Community members may have noticed an oddly-shaped shipping container sitting outside the public safety building last weekend. DeeDee Blatchley, with the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department, said that this is a flashover burn trailer that they usually keep housed by the airport. They received the trailer back in 2001 thanks to a grant, she said. The trailer is designed to let firefighters see how a fire behaves inside an enclosed space and gives them practice putting out structure fires. The...
To the Editor: Hello people of Wrangell; this is the latest update on my lawsuit against the hiring managers and some members of the city council. This week I have been inundated with several bundles of filed information from their lawyer in Anchorage. These I have filed answers to, however the city of Wrangell has insisted upon joining the defendants. So it is my question to we the people, the taxpayers of Wrangell, is this wise? The best use of our tax dollars. They bought a boatlift from the EU ignoring a competitive bid from an American...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly sat down for a continuation of their ongoing series of budget workshops on Tuesday, May 14. The assembly has been putting together their FY 2019-2020 budget for the past month, and are getting closer to final approval of it. Each workshop has covered a different portion of Wrangell's facilities and their financial needs. Last week's meeting took a look at capital facilities maintenance and improvements. The capital facilities department is looking at a budget of...
The Wrangell School Board reviewed the school district's "report card to the public" in their recent meeting on Monday, April 15. The report card, released by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, collected and presented data on the performance of school districts across the state for the 2017-2018 school year. The report card examined items such as attendance and graduation rates, academic progress, teacher quality, and many other factors. According to the report card. Everg...
The Wrangell Rod and Gun Club hosted a shooting event at the indoor range at the public safety building last Sunday. The "Pig Plunk," as it was called, was designed as a fundraiser, membership drive, and a fun way to spend the afternoon for club members and visitors. At 16, the turnout was smaller than the club's previous shooting event, the Turkey Shoot last December. Club member Terrell Courson attributed this to the nice weather Wrangell saw on Sunday. The rules of the competition were...
The past year has been a busy one for the community of Wrangell, and also one full of changes. Elections have come and gone, the school district saw a new superintendent and two new principals, a high school swimming and diving team was organized, and a new reporter came to town. A new organization was formed, BRAVE, to help bring people together to enhance life in the community for Wrangell’s younger population. Other organizations like the Senior Center and Nolan Center saw new faces, as well. There were lots of physical changes to W...
It was a long meeting for the Wrangell Borough Assembly on the evening of Oct. 23. Nearly reaching two hours long, a large portion of the meeting was devoted to a proposed amendment to the municipal code, which would remove the invocation as a mandatory part of assembly meetings. Mayor Steven Prysunka explained that this has been brought up because of a recent ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court, when they found that the invocation policy of the Borough of Kenai Peninsula was unconstitutional. The court recently ruled that an assembly cannot...
Beyond giving students as good an education as possible, one of the highest priorities for many schools is safety. This is especially true at the Wrangell Public School District, where a new crisis strategy is being prepared for implementation. According to Superintendent Debbe Lancaster, preparing students and teachers for an emergency is the best way to keep everyone safe. "The committee has gone over the crisis plan that's in place and made some changes," she said. The school district's...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met Tuesday night for its regularly scheduled meeting. A public hearing was held to discuss the city’s application for funding through the Community Development Block Grant program. Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore said that the grant program was a difficult one to successfully apply for, as there is only $2.6 million dollars to go around the entire state of Alaska each year. The purpose of the CDBG program, she said, is to give low-to-moderate income communities funds to help enhance life in their a...
The hunt is on for a whole crop of high-level management positions in different city departments. The City and Borough of Wrangell is in the early stages of finding replacements for the heads of the Nolan Center, Wrangell Municipal Light and Power and Public Works, plus the city’s top accountant and a newly-created maintenance lead position. The tidal wave of turnover started on April 16, when WMLP superintendent Clay Hammer stepped down in order to head projects for Southeast Alaska Power Agency. City manager Lisa Von Bargen reported the s...
After 30 years on the bench, Wrangell's district magistrate will conclude her legal career today. Chris Ellis has served as a magistrate judge for First District Court in Wrangell for 14 of those years, with most of her preceding tenure spent in Craig. When she graduated with her bachelor's degree in 1973, law hadn't been on her mind, but Alaska was. "Basically I studied anthropology with a specialty in archaeology, and my goal was to come to Alaska," she said. Ellis found herself drawn to the V...
Following an estimated 14 hours of discussion over three separate workshops, members of the Wrangell City and Borough Assembly approved a budget for the 2019 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Getting there has not been an easy process, mulling over among other things a restructuring of how public facilities maintenance and the Public Works Department are arranged, proposed by the city manager as a cost saving measure. Under this proposal, Lisa Von Bargen envisioned a separate division within public works tasked with public maintenance and equip...
After a series of meetings and public presentations last week, a proposed acquisition of Wrangell Medical Center by a regional health group looks more probable. Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium has expressed interest in administering the municipal hospital, which has been in a prolonged state of financial difficulty. At the Wrangell Assembly's most recent meeting last Tuesday, WMC chief executive officer Robert Rang reported having only 13 days' cash on hand with which to cover...
Wrangell’s courthouse was not selected for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding, the city has learned. Located inside the Public Safety Building, Alaska Court System’s office and courtroom area shares the building with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and Wrangell’s police and emergency services. The imposing building has for some years been in a delicate state, with extensive repair work to its southern side undertaken in 2008. On its north side, pervasive water damage has ruined much of its siding and underlying framework, and r...
Wrangell appears to be closing in on a solution to its water filtration worries after a workshop held between the City and Borough Assembly, city staff and consultants on Monday. Since its construction in 1999 Wrangell's water treatment plant has had a number of problems with its production. The plant's operation involves ozonation of water sourced from two open reservoirs, which then passes through a roughing filter and four slow-sand filtration bays before disinfection. From the start the...
After two months of suspended activity, Alaska Court System has worked out an arrangement with the City of Wrangell so that its staff can resume local legal services. The courtroom and adjoining offices are housed on the second floor of the Public Safety Building, which houses Wrangell’s police and fire services, Department of Motor Vehicles and the emergency responder switchboard. Water seepage problems over the years have been a continued problem with the facility, and replacement of the building’s roof and siding has this year made it the...
The city will be trying to return court services to the Public Safety Building as quickly as possible. The Alaska Court System curtailed its courtroom and legal services in Wrangell just before Thanksgiving, citing air quality concerns with the space it rents from the borough. The building, which is home to the majority of the city’s emergency services, has experienced long-term leakage issues with its roof and siding. The problem at the court offices came to a head in September after the discovery of carpenter ants in an exterior wall, and i...
Another year begins this week, and 2018 both holds promise and poses challenges to Wrangell residents. Economic trials will perhaps be of the greatest concern as state coffers seem set to dry up and fishing forecasts continue to disappoint. Limits to funding sources will be of particular bother as the borough continues to address an aging infrastructure, though securing state funding for the Shoemaker Bay Harbor refurbishment and an expected start to the belated Evergreen Road repaving should...
Now that the holidays are over, those looking to put the feasting and festivities behind them can challenge themselves with a workout regimen. Wrangell Parks and Recreation launched its third annual Winter Workout Challenge on Monday, welcoming the new year with some healthy competition. “It’s an eight-week, progressively building workout challenge,” explained Kate Thomas, the department director. The department overhauled some of its activities for this year’s competition, and while tailored mainly to entry-level activity, beginne...