Sorted by date Results 176 - 200 of 202
To the Editor: Being relatively new to Wrangell, it has been my pleasure to begin to know and understand this portion of Alaska. However reflecting upon this great and new to me area I must ask, why is there a web site called Work Place Alaska, when no employer seems to use it? Several jobs that I have applied to stated this lack of usage to the point of ignoring it altogether. We finally have a school that is warming up food in it's own kitchen to serve our students, hurrah for them, is it more then just defrosting and opening cans? I ask...
A new mayor, renovations to the Shakes Island Tribal House and Marine Service Center, and the ongoing Wrangell Medical Center debate – all of these stories were newsmakers in 2012. Let’s take a look back at some of the biggest stories in Wrangell over the past year. JANUARY A late night blaze destroyed a trailer and sent a woman to Wrangell Medical Center with severe burns on Dec. 22. The fire, which began at 10:30 p.m. in a small pull-behind trailer near the top of the park, severely inj...
To the Editor: To the people of S.E. Alaska that are served by SEAPA organization, seems that the $400,000.00 dollars they have saved from not hiring workers, is now slated to be spent on propaganda. And an as of yet unnamed PR company will be quite glad to come get these dollars (you paid them in your electric bill) to come up here and put a spin on what they are attempting to do for your own good. It is just another smack in the face by what is known in the South as a Carpetbagger. Look it up, the term was used after the civil war when it was...
In addition to approving a bevy of capital projects that will likely come to fruition in 2013, the Borough Assembly added two new members to the Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board of Directors this week during their last regular session meeting of 2012 on Tuesday, Dec. 11. Before beginning the meeting in earnest, however, Desiré Shepler of Alaska Island Community Services made a community presentation to the Assembly on her speaking tour of Wrangell and Petersburg regarding the State of...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board of Directors voted on Tuesday, Dec. 11 to hold off on accepting an operations and management proposal from D. Hittle and Associates which recommends the streamlining of operations and management at the Tyee and Swan hydroelectric projects under a single operator. SEAPA commissioned the report, which was released in September, as an alternative to current staffing and risk management solutions at both locations. According to the agency’s chief executive officer, Trey Acteson, the change in operating s...
Discussion of a possible divestiture of Wrangell from the Southeast Alaska Power Agency by 2015 eclipsed a rescission and new vote on a motion by the Borough Assembly related to operations at the Tyee hydroelectric plant on Friday, Nov. 30. The meeting was called after the Assembly passed a motion in error on Tuesday, Nov. 27 that originally called for a letter of non-support to be issued against a report by D. Hittle and Associates – a report which calls for the operations and management of T...
To the Editor: I have been an electrician for over 30 years in the lower 48. I have also been a witness in the decline of America, by experts. Some of these experts claimed that ENRON was too big to fail. Others thought it was a good idea to ignore Bernie Madoff’s claims of near instant wealth, just trust your money to him. Now we have SEAPA, an organization of experts (just wait they will tell you), trying to save you money. Let me tell you how they intend to do this. $500,000 of employment from this community gone. Ignoring OSHA laws like 1...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board of Directors is set to vote next week on accepting a report that recommends a single operator at Thomas Bay Power Authority and Ketchikan Public Utility sites in Southeast. SEAPA commissioned the report, which was released in September and will be discussed at their Dec. 11 meeting in Ketchikan, as an alternative to current staffing and risk management solutions at Swan Lake and Tyee Lake hydroelectric plants. According to SEAPA chief executive officer Trey Acteson, the change in operating structures at...
The progression of a court case against former Wrangell Medical Center administrator Noel Rea and six former members of the WMC Board of Directors was a main topic discussed this week during the regularly scheduled Borough Assembly meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 27. After coming out of executive session, Mayor Don McConachie informed the public that the Assembly had directed Borough Manager Tim Rooney and Borough Attorney Bob Blasco to continue in negotiations to settle the matter. The offer would...
After a two-and-a-half hour special Thursday meeting that grew testy at times, the Ketchikan City Council voted unanimously to defer consideration of Southeast Alaska Power Agency’s proposed change to its operations and maintenance structure. SEAPA is an independent nonprofit energy corporation made up of the municipalities of Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. The meeting, which saw City Mayor Lew Williams III and Council members DeAnn Karlson and K.J. Harris absent, was overseen by Council Member and Vice-Mayor Robert Sivertsen. The C...
The City and Borough of Wrangell held a workshop on Monday, Nov. 5 to deal with a number of issues related to the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, Thomas Bay Power Authority, and a report by an engineering and consultancy group that is recommending a change in the way Tyee Lake’s hydropower facility, among others, is operated. A report by D. Hittle and Associates, which was commissioned by SEAPA, is calling for the cancellation of the partnership agreement between TBPA and SEAPA for the o...
An internal email from Thomas Bay Power Authority is revealing a power struggle between an employee and administrator Paul Southland over staffing and hiring practices at the agency. The email, which was sent from operations foreman Mick Nicholls to Southland and members of the board, directly challenged a decision to hire Wrangell resident Brian Ashton as a maintenance and operator at the Tyee facility – and called into question the decision to hire Ashton, who also sits as a member of the b...
The meeting of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board of Directors on Sept. 19-20 in Petersburg discussed an agenda item that may signal the end of the Thomas Bay Power Authority, as we know it. A decision by the board to consolidate TBPA and Ketchikan Public Utilities in SEAPA, based on the finding of an internal agency report, will have to wait, however, for input from the Borough Assembly, Petersburg’s City Council and the Ketchikan Borough Assembly. John Heberling of the consulting firm D. Hittle and Associates performed the study of t...
In what was Mayor Jeremy Maxand’s last regular meeting as an elected official in Wrangell, the Borough Assembly met in open session on Tuesday, Sept. 25. In his biweekly report to the Assembly, Borough Manager Tim Rooney updated the group on the lawsuit between the borough and former Wrangell Medical Center CEO Noel Rea. “On Monday, September 17, 2012 the City and Borough of Wrangell filed a motion and memorandum for order for return of laptop computer and iPad to (allow) for forensic examination,” the report stated. The motion and memor...
A $10,000 reward is being offered by The Southeast Alaska Power Agency (‘SEAPA’) for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the vandal, or vandals, responsible for causing an hour-long, region-wide power outage on Sunday, August 19, 2012, in both the City and Borough of Wrangell and the City of Petersburg. It is suspected that multiple rifle shots into an insulator core on one of the main power delivery towers on Wrangell’s Back Channel were caused by a vandal or vandals. Although power was restored quickly utilizing diesel gener...
The hour-long, borough-wide power outage experienced Sunday, Aug. 19 in both Wrangell and Petersburg was due to rifle shots into an insulator on one of the main power delivery towers on Wrangell’s backchannel. According to Thomas Bay Power Authority General Manager Paul Southland, the rifle shots into the insulator core were no accident. “The SEAPA helicopter crew found the fault early Monday morning,” Southland said. “The insulator on the tower had been shot multiple times, so it wasn’t...
A bevy of capital improvement projects are underway in Wrangell, with the city dock undergoing rehabilitation, the Marine Service Center seeing a lot of pavement work, and underground electrical work on the Front Street redesign in full swing. In a July 24 supplemental report to the Borough Assembly, Borough Manager Tim Rooney brought the group up to date on those projects and others underway on the island. According to Rooney, while working on the city dock, crews found a number of improperly installed piling. “Several piles were discovered t...
A report issued by the Alaska Energy Association, in cooperation with the research group Black and Veitch, has named eight potential locations in the Wrangell area that could be used for hydroelectric generation. The Southeast Alaska Integrated Resource Plan report states that Anita (Kunk) Lake, Lake Shelokum, Sunrise Lake, Thoms Lake and Virginia Lake could be looked to for future development of sustainable hydropower. The creation of a new dam at Tyee, or construction of a third Tyee turbine...
A former manager at Chugach Electric Association in Anchorage has been tapped as the new head of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency. SEAPA’s Board of Directors hired Trey Acteson as their new Chief Executive Officer at the agency, which provides hydroelectric power to the communities of Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan. Acteson joins the organization after 11 years with Chugach and will start his new position on August 20. He will be based in Ketchikan. Jeremy Maxand, the chairman of SEAPA’s board said he is confident Acteson is the rig...
During Wrangell’s cold snap in mid-January when temperatures dipped to zero degrees, residents were cranking up their heat. As a result of that jump in electrical power usage, the Tyee Hydroelectric Plant near Wrangell maxed out, forcing the town to turn on diesel generators to continue to provide energy. Members of the Borough Assembly and Thomas Bay Power Authority, which operates Tyee, held an informal meeting Feb. 21 to discuss how to avoid that “crisis” situation in the future. “That was the key that tripped the switch that says we have...
The Borough Assembly set a deadline for assembly members to turn in documentation of concerns or recommendations for issues surrounding the budgetary spending methods of departments within the city. The issue arose after assembly member David Jack brought up his concerns over spending of capital reserves at Wrangell Medical Center in relation to the WMC Renovation project. Before the meeting, Jack went into detail about his concerns. “Several assembly members have expressed concern over the s...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency announced rebates for its Southeast power customers in the amount of $1.65 million last month after a Dec. 13 vote by the agency’s Board of Directors. The rebate is equivalent to a little more than a full cent reduction in the wholesale power rate, which is currently set at 6.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. With the rebate in place, customers will pay a little less than 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. The rebate to Wrangell will total $326,189.30, while Petersburg w...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) held their board meeting for audit review and 2012 plans a little later than planned when the board member's plane overheaded Petersburg. Scheduled to begin at noon the meeting actually began shortly after their plane landed at 3:30 on Dec. 13. SEAPA started their meeting with the financial statement for September 2011 which was affected by the record rainfalls for the month. “Regarding the September financial statements, revenues were under budget,” CEO Dave Carlson said. “Here today, we're actua...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency is smarting over a letter recently delivered to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking an investigation into claims SEAPA’s involvement in the Sunrise Lake Hydroelectric Project is forbidden by the Alaska Constitution. Former Wrangell City Council and Borough Assembly member Warren Edgley submitted the letter on Oct. 30 asking FERC to “investigate the likely misuse and potential abuse of the municipal power claim,” regarding the Sunrise project on Wo...
With the construction of a new hydroelectric project and transmission line near the Canadian border, officials from the Alaska Canada Energy Coalition say they are excited at the prospect of seeing Southeast Alaska communities linked to the North American power grid. The Northwest Transmission Line (NTL), a 287 kV power project that is currently under construction, will carry power from Terrace, B.C. north to a planned substation at Bob Quinn Lake. A second project currently underway on the...
