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Below is the second half of The Wrangell Sentinel's review of 2019, covering the months of July to December: July July 4 - Wrangell Police Chief Doug McCloskey was recognized for his service to the community at last week's borough assembly meeting. With his retirement at the end of June, McCloskey has closed out 38 years of police work. July 11 - The Fourth of July was a hot and sunny day in Wrangell, but that did not stop many people from getting out and having a good time. Like all previous...
The borough assembly met Tuesday night, Nov. 12, for their only scheduled meeting this month. The meeting opened with a work session on Wrangell's local contractor policy. The policy was established in 2015, according to the meeting's information packet, and the borough wanted to start the process of seeing what needed to be clarified, updated, and changed. After the work session, the assembly got into their regular meeting to cover a wide range of topics. Three that stood out were a memorandum...
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...
They are certainly cute but the voracious appetites of sea otters continue to cause horrendous damage to some of Southeast Alaska’s most lucrative fisheries. How best to curtail those impacts will be the focus of a day long stakeholders meeting set for November 6 in Juneau. “All of the people who have anything to do with the otters hopefully will all be in the same room at the same time,” said Phil Doherty, co-director of the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association (SARDFA) based in Ketchikan. A 2011 report by the McDowell Group...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly held an emergency meeting last Thursday night to adopt a "surplus property agreement" with the Nome Joint Utility System. The surplus property in question is a pair of diesel generators currently sitting in storage in Nome. Power has been a topic of concern around Wrangell, and amongst the assembly, thanks in part to the recent hydropower shortages at Tyee and Swan Lake. Wrangell currently has four diesel generators which it can use for power in the event of an...
Push that pasta aside. Noodles made from Alaska pollock are poised to become a center of the plate favorite. Alaska Pollock Protein Noodles from Trident Seafoods swept the awards at the 26th annual Alaska Symphony of Seafood new products competition in Juneau. The low carb, "flavor neutral" noodles contain 1O grams of protein per serving and can be swapped with any pasta favorites. The ready to eat item drew raves from judges and samplers from Seattle to Southeast who gave the noodles quadruple...
Guardian Flight has resumed their air medical transport service in six base locations across Alaska following a 63-hour search for an overdue Guardian King Air 200 medical life flight near Kake. While services have resumed in Anchorage, Deadhorse, Dillingham, Fairbanks, Ketchikan and Sitka, Guardian Flight base locations in Kotzebue and Juneau will reopen sometime in the future, according Guardian Flight senior vice president of operations Randy Lyman in a prepared statement. "Guardian Flight...
April The Department of Transportation is finally able to get started on a major Wrangell road repaving project. Perforated by potholes, the borough’s Evergreen Avenue will be resurfaced and repaired, with pedestrian improvements and other fixes. The major project has been on hold for half a decade, surviving rounds of budget cuts to capital funding elsewhere in the state along the way. Two local right of way issues which had lately been holding up the project were wrapped up in February, allowing the project to move along. Speaking at a p...
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...
events next week, the ninth Wrangell has hosted. The five-day series of events has been organized each year by Sylvia Ettefagh, an outfitter with Alaska Vistas whose work frequently conveys visitors southward to the Anan Wildlife Observatory, a mainland enclosure overlooking the Anan Creek lower falls and its robust bear population. As Alaskan a sight as the salmon they come to feed upon, the festival highlights these black and brown bears inhabiting the area surrounding Wrangell. Chock full of...
On Monday organizers of the regional business development competition Path to Prosperity announced their 12 finalists for 2018, three of which come from Petersburg and Wrangell. Focused on encouraging entrepreneurship in Southeast Alaska communities, P2P is a programming partnership between Spruce Root Inc. and The Nature Conservancy. The latter is an environmental organization centered in Arlington, Virginia, while the former is a rebranding of Haa Aaní Economic Development and its associated...
A shuffle in some funding leaves Alaska’s commercial fisheries division in good shape to manage the resources and target important projects across the state. At first glance, the $69 million operating budget for FY19 appears to be down slightly from last year’s $72.3 million but that’s not the case. “Most of that difference is a sort of ‘cleanup’ in authority we no longer had funding for, such as the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund, test fishing and some interagency items. The rest is due to $1.1 million shortfall in Commercial Fisheries E...
Wrangell’s annual birding festival is gearing up for a week of activities late next week. This year’s Stikine River Birding Festival will be the 21st, put on cooperatively each year by Wrangell’s Convention and Visitor Bureau and the United States Forest Service. Highlighting birding opportunities on the Stikine River, the event also encourages wildlife conservation and is an opportunity to hone new skills. “This year we’ve brought back more of the art and photo aspects of the festival,” said Corree Delabrue, an interpreter with the USFS Wr...
The Borough Assembly revisited its policy on nepotism during Tuesday evening’s regular meeting, at the behest of a resident who had lost his new position because of it. Max Dalton took the lectern to make his case. He had last month begun work as a part-time custodian with the Parks Department. During the hiring process he had been one of several candidates for the post, and after interviews had been selected as the top candidate. Dalton is the son-in-law to Mayor David Jack, he explained, and is related by marriage to another city employee. D...
The organizing committee for a planned mariners’ memorial will be holding a winter fundraiser this weekend. A monument dedicated to Wrangell’s lost mariners has been in the making for over a decade. The Port Commission took off with it in 2009, and helped shepherd the concept through the drafting stages, which were completed in 2015. An independent steering committee was subsequently organized, and after receiving tax-exempt status last fall has begun raising money from individuals and businesses to construct the memorial. Committee member Bre...
At its regular meeting Tuesday, the Borough Assembly approved moving ahead with seeking a consultant on the hospital’s future, while members also learned city computers had been targeted by a hacking attack. A letter recommending hiring a consultant had been submitted to the city by the Wrangell Medical Center governing board last month. Currently the hospital is a municipal service, but recent cash flow troubles and sizable costs for a replacement facility have had administrators and elected officials alike considering other alternatives. A...
Every year Southeast Conference presents a number of awards to municipalities, businesses and individuals for their contributions to the region. At this year's annual meeting in Haines last month, Wrangell was among the recipients, being named the organization's "Community of the Year" for 2017. "I think that was absolutely fantastic, that's very exciting," said Carol Rushmore, Wrangell's longtime director for economic development. "I think it's a great honor that SEC recognized Wrangell."...
A growing cluster of entrepreneurs is seeding prospects for Alaska’s new “blue economy” and it is attracting interest from around the world. Marine technology experts are meeting at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage this week as part of the Oceans ’17 conference and the conversations and a competition will continue into October. It’s a first visit to Alaska for the global event that is hosted by the Marine Technology Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Founded in 1884 by the likes of Thomas Edison and Alexander G...
The local American Legion unit held a day of service and remembrance over the weekend, dedicated to the September 11 attacks. The American Legion Auxiliary of Alaska Unit #6 was awarded a $1,000 grant this summer from the national organization, one of 50 such awards provided by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The funds would go toward projects across the country, held between September 8 and 13 in memory of those involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Nineteen men...
At a rescheduled meeting of the Port Commission last Friday, members approved a request for an extension by a lease holder at the boatyard. Contractor Don Sorric requested the addition of three years to his current lease, which at the moment is due to expire July 31, 2019. He requires the extension for a bank loan, which would finance the addition of new concrete pads at his Superior Marine Services. "The bank has asked for more time on his loan than he has on his lease," commission chair Clay...
As the fisheries industry continues to expand and Wrangell’s Marine Service Center’s services demand increases, I believe Wrangell’s economy has nowhere to go but up. However, to accommodate this growth, the state must maintain their services in Wrangell. I am particularly concerned about the conservation of state jobs in Wrangell. Several years ago, Wrangell lost its social worker and its fisheries biologist. Now, the loss of the Wrangell trooper and the potential of reduced funding to the city jail weigh heavily, as Wrangell’s state jobs sl...
With its abundance of mountains, seascape, wildlife and local color, Wrangell is no stranger to television. For instance, contractors at the Marine Service Center were featured on National Geographic Channel's series "The Yard," with episodes first being aired in 2016. Another show has shined a spotlight on the island this month, with BBC Two exploring the fish-out-of-water theme in "The Life Swap Adventure." The premise of the six-episode series takes residents from around the United Kingdom...
At Tuesday evening’s meeting of the City and Borough Assembly, the operating budget for the new year was adopted. The fiscal year begins July 1, and for the coming year will use about $457,311 in previous-year surpluses to cover the difference between revenues and expenditures. A number of critical capital expense items have made the borough's list of priorities this year, including exterior repairs to the Public Safety Building and swimming pool, and acquisition of a new excavator for the waste transfer facility. Property tax rates will r...
The sounds of a couple dozen projects can be heard coming from Wrangell's Marine Service Center, as commercial fishermen, pleasure boaters and other mariners finish work ahead of the busy summer season. Activity at the yard has heightened over the past six weeks, harbormaster Greg Meissner reported, following a steady but comparatively slower winter. The uptick is normal, however, with a little fewer than half of the boats lifted at the yard through the year moved during this final fiscal quarte...