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It’s been 12 years since Wrangell voters were asked to approve the borough taking on debt, and next Tuesday’s municipal election ballot will include two such proposals to repair worn-down public buildings. The Oct. 4 ballot also will include the election of a new mayor, two borough assembly members, two port commissioners and three school board members. In addition, the ballot asks voter permission for the borough to sell or lease the former sawmill property at 6-Mile. The borough bought the property this summer for $2.5 million, and is loo...
Time may heal all wounds — but that doesn’t apply to old buildings. Time just makes them worse and more expensive. That’s the case with Wrangell’s school buildings and Public Safety Building, which are all three or four decades old. All are showing the signs of rot, mildew, ventilation, roof and siding problems, in addition to boilers, fire alarm panels and other safety features that need a contractor’s care. The only thing that lasts forever in a rain forest without maintenance is the muskeg. After years of dodging the costly building...
Voters will go to the polls next week with only two contested races on the ballot — mayor and two borough assembly seats. Choosing elected officials is an important decision for the community, and voters deserve to know where candidates stand on key issues. In Wrangell, do the candidates support or oppose the bond issues for repairs to the Public Safety Building and school buildings? And why? What are their priorities for the borough budget? What past spending did they like or not like? Declining newspaper and radio interviews is not fair of c...
After nine years in public service across four different councils, commissions and committees, Patty Gilbert is running for Wrangell's highest elected office. Gilbert is a retired math and science teacher who left the Wrangell School District in 2018 after 23 years. The mayoral candidate has since served in a wide variety of government organizations, including the borough assembly, where she is vice mayor, and the school board, where she served a two-year term as vice president. She also sits...
Terry Courson, a firearms instructor and retired police officer, is running for borough mayor. Though he declined interviews with KSTK and the Sentinel, he has posted flyers around Wrangell outlining his stances and experience. Courson served on the borough assembly from 2020 to 2021. He is a fiscal conservative and plans to vote no on the bond issues on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot, which would finance repairs at the schools and Public Safety Building. Officials believe that the borough can cover the annual debt payment on the $3.5...
Officials believe the borough can cover the entire annual debt payment on $3.5 million in school maintenance bonds by taking advantage of strong sales tax revenues and higher federal aid payments — without turning to property taxes. State lease payments for the community’s jail and investment earnings from Wrangell’s $10 million permanent fund savings account could help reduce the tax cost of the other bond issue on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot — $8.5 million for rebuild and repair to the rot-damaged Public Safety Building — according...
Alex Angerman, CARES Act coordinator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association, is running for borough assembly to improve community outreach and foster youth engagement in municipal government. "The community oftentimes feels like they aren't heard," she said, and she hopes to use her assembly seat to provide a voice for the rising generation. She believes that the borough should increase its social media presence to better connect with the community, and has been actively fielding questions...
Brittani Robbins is running for borough assembly to bolster Wrangell's economic development and stem the out-migration of families and youth from the island. Robbins, 37, is executive director of the chamber of commerce. She has one year of experience in public office as a member of the school board. She was elected to the board last October and intends to keep her seat if elected to the assembly. As a school board member, Robbins said she advocates for students and for non-certified staff,...
After seven years on the borough assembly, Bay Co. manager David Powell is running for another three-year term. Powell's desire to get land out of the borough's hands was what first motivated him to pursue an assembly seat, and he is running again in hopes of seeing his goals completed. If elected, his primary focuses will be selling or leasing the 6-Mile mill property, which the borough purchased this summer, and the former Wrangell Institute property, which was the site of a federally...
Two of the races on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot are contested: There are two candidates for mayor and three candidates to fill two three-year terms on the borough assembly. The other three races on the ballot — for port commission, a one-year school board term and two three-year school board seats — are all uncontested. Absent a surprising write-in turnout, the candidates on the ballot will win those elections. Patty Gilbert and Terry Courson are competing to succeed Mayor Steve Prysunka, who decided not to seek reelection to a thi...
Normally, I do not respond to anonymous questions. Most all newspapers, the Sentinel included, will not print anonymous letters. To do otherwise would allow people to take free shots at anyone they want, hiding from view and protecting their own identity while they criticize or question others. However, sometimes the questions raised in an anonymous letter are worth sharing with the community. Such as the case of an unsigned letter mailed to the Sentinel, raising multiple questions about the proposed bond issues to pay for repairs to the...
In less than five weeks, voters will decide whether the borough should borrow $12 million to repair the schools and Public Safety Building. On Aug. 23, the borough assembly unanimously approved placing two questions on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot that will ask voter approval to cover the renovation costs. One of the ballot issues would approve borrowing $8.5 million to repair the water-damaged Public Safety Building, while the other would approve borrowing $3.5 million to help fund repairs at the elementary, middle and high schools....
The borough assembly has set a public hearing for its Aug. 23 meeting to consider two ordinances that would seek voter approval to borrow $3.5 million for repairs to school buildings and $8.5 million for rebuild and repairs to the Public Safety Building. The numbers are down from $4.5 million and $10.5 million in an earlier work plan considered by the assembly, as the borough dropped some items from the repair lists to hold down costs. Voter approval is required for the borough to issue general obligation bonds to raise money for the work. The...
The borough assembly has taken the first step toward seeking voter approval for borrowing up to $15 million to pay for long-needed repairs at the Public Safety Building and school buildings. The assembly last week voted to hold a special meeting Aug. 8 to introduce an ordinance placing the question on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot. A public hearing on the ordinance would be held Aug. 23. If approved by voters, work could start in 2024, after the bonds are sold, engineering plans put together, the jobs bid out and contractors selected....
The process will stretch over the next couple of months, with a public hearing and a lot of public information, but it looks like the borough assembly will ask voters in the Oct. 4 municipal election to approve borrowing as much as $15 million for long-needed repairs to all of the school buildings and the Public Safety Building. Selling bonds to finance the work will mean promising to repay those bonds, which will mean higher property taxes until the debt is repaid. Anyone who has driven by and looked at any of the buildings can see they need a...
The borough assembly is considering whether to seek voter approval to sell $10.5 million in bonds for the first phase of rehab work at the rot-damaged 35-year-old Public Safety Building, and $4.5 million in bonds to help pay for roof, siding and boiler work at school buildings that range in age from 35 to 53 years old. Repayment of the bonds would come from municipal revenues, particularly property taxes. The assembly was scheduled to meet in a work session Tuesday evening to discuss the proposal, followed by the regular meeting where members w...
The final inspection took place on June 16. An entirely new observation deck and shelter are still fresh with the smell of sealant. Anan Wildlife Observatory is almost ready for visitors at the start of the permit season on July 5. Even though the observatory is ready, plans are not flush to open the popular bear-viewing site, U.S. Forest Service staffers say. One thing blocks the way before people can arrive. The public toilets. "We are having complications with getting our toilets pumped,"...
By Nolan Klouda Executive director University of Alaska Center for Economic Development Anchorage Your favorite restaurant has an hour wait, even though you see empty tables. Operating hours for small businesses are reduced despite long lines. “Help wanted” signs seem to adorn every doorway. You don’t have to spend a lot of time looking at data to know that there’s a labor shortage. Workers of every stripe are just hard to find. Some employers, understandably grouchy about being short-staffed, blame widespread laziness. “Nobody wants to work f...
The borough is making progress on its long and expensive to-do list. The decisions are not easy and several are costly. Many have been around a long time. That’s not because anyone did anything wrong. Rather, it takes time to confront hard decisions to resolve long-standing problems. And, in many cases, it takes time to find money to pay for the solutions. But the decisions are necessary and deserve the community’s support. After wrangling over multiple options, the Wrangell assembly has put up for sale the former hospital building. The borough...
Garbage trucks are no different than all the other things consumers order but have to wait an extra-long time to arrive. The borough is spending almost $300,000 on a new garbage can and dumpster picker-upper and trash-hauling truck. The company told the borough it could be a year before arrival. “They can’t even get the chassis from the manufacturer to make the truck,” Borough Public Works Director Tom Wetor said last week. A 16-cubic-yard, automated side-loader will be installed on a Freightliner chassis. It’s basically the same as the bor...
A mass casualty exercise June 7 was the first one held at the Wrangell Medical Center in its 16-month-old facility. The drill, which simulated a plane crash, was used to see where improvements could be made in the emergency operations plan. It involved about 70 staff members from the hospital, EMTs and volunteer firefighters. Eleven community volunteers of various ages were made up to resemble victims with head wounds, lacerations and other traumas requiring stabilization, medevac or blood...
The recent news that the longtime Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Malaspina will be officially retired and will remain in Ketchikan's Ward Cove as a privately owned and operated museum and a training vessel is good news to its fans who had feared that the "Mal" would suffer the same fate as its sistership, the Taku, which was sold in 2018 and scrapped in India. The Malaspina, along with the Taku and the Matanuska, were the first mainline ferries in the fleet, all going online in 1963. They...
The borough assembly is looking at updated cost estimates and options to repair or replace the ailing Public Safety Building. If the assembly settles on a plan, it could go to voters this fall to seek approval to issue bonds to pay for the work. Assembly members were scheduled Tuesday evening to review three options presented by the Capital Facilities Department on what to do with the beleaguered, 34-year-old structure that houses the borough’s police department, jail, fire department, indoor shooting range and motor vehicle department, the fed...
The borough assembly on May 10 approved a resolution to put the former hospital building up for auction, with the borough running the sale rather than turning it over to an online surplus property vendor and paying a 5% commission. Assemblymember Jim DeBord voted no; everyone else voted yes. The borough has been spending almost $100,000 a year on insurance and heat since SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium moved out of the 30,596-square-foot building and into a new facility on Wood Street more than a year ago. The property reverted...
JUNEAU (AP) — The state Senate passed legislation last Friday to formally recognize tribes in Alaska, which supporters say is an overdue step that would create opportunities for the state and tribes to work together. The measure passed 15-0 and will return to the House, which passed a similar version last year. If the House agrees to the Senate version before the Legislature’s scheduled adjournment this week, the bill will go to the governor. If the bill is enacted, its passage would likely bump from this year’s ballot a similar tribal recog...
