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After a dismal 2020 and cautiously optimistic 2021, the economic outlook in Wrangell is improving, according to survey data collected by the Southeast Conference. Economic director Carol Rushmore presented the data at the chamber of commerce’s economic forum last Friday. The event was intended to bring Wrangell business leaders, state and municipal government officials, and concerned citizens into conversation about economic problems facing the community. Rushmore said her presentation offered a “30,000-foot summary of the economics of Wra...
Winston Davies is running for an uncontested three-year term on the port commission to give back to his community and support Wrangell's commercial fishing industry. He has no previous experience in public office, but when he heard KSTK's plea for candidates to fill the empty port commission seats, he decided to "step up to the plate." Davies is a teacher during the school year and a commercial fisherman in the summer. He has taught a variety of subjects in his 18 years in education, including...
John Yeager, sport fishing guide and commercial halibut fisherman, plans to keep promoting sustainable growth in Wrangell during his upcoming three-year term on the port commission. "Fortunately, I have been on the port commission to see a lot of our projects started, like the Marine Service Center and a lot of our harbors," he said. "I want to stay on and see Wrangell's continued growth." Yeager has served on the commission for six terms already, totaling 12 years. He believes that the...
Young Alaskans seeking to break into commercial fishing face a lot of the same barriers that confront young farmers in the Lower 48 states, but they have far fewer resources to help overcome those barriers, according to newly published research. A study by Alaska experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration argues that the fishing industry and the communities that depend on fishing should have support similar to that offered to young farmers. "The sheer scale, depth, and...
It only took one week in mid-August to demolish five vessels that were impounded by the harbormaster over the course of 10 years. Typically, the number of impounded vessels to be destroyed and shipped out isn’t so high, but the demolition funds weren’t in the budget and the vessels had to wait, said Harbormaster Steve Miller. Since taking the helm two years ago, Miller has “been adding more and more money into our derelict vessel fund because also that money isn’t used for crushing boats and shipping them out,” he said. “It’s also in case...
Over a five-year period, 867 Alaska sea lions, seals, whales and small marine mammals like dolphins died or were gravely injured from interactions with humans, according to a report newly released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report, required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, lists documented cases of human-inflicted harm from 2016 to 2020 to mammal species managed by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. The vast majority of cases involve entanglements in fishing gear or marine debris, and Steller sea l...
August is a time for fishing, the last of any gardening work and the enjoyment of harvesting the fruits (and vegetables) of that effort. It’s a time for home repairs, while there is still a plausible chance of dry weather to patch the roof, refinish the deck or scrape and repaint the siding. It’s also a time to consider serving in public office. Probably you’re thinking you’d rather pick garden slugs or clean the gutters than serve on the borough assembly, school board or port commission. At least no one criticizes you for those other pursuit...
A proposal to build a boat haul-out facility in Sitka with the money the city received from selling its community hospital property will be on the Oct. 4 city election ballot. On a 6-0 vote July 26, the assembly gave final approval to an ordinance on the ballot question. If passed by the voters, up to $8.18 million from the 2021 sale of the hospital building and property to SEARHC would go toward construction of a haul-out and boatyard at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. Sitka has not had a boat haul-out — an important piece of i...
The plan is to have surveillance cameras in operation at City Dock and the harbors sometime next year. The borough assembly last week approved a $90,983 design contract with Juneau-based RESPEC to prepare plans for the cameras, wiring and server system to store the images. “We’ll get a good percentage of the system up next year,” Steve Miller, port and harbors director, said last Thursday. The total project is estimated at $983,000, Miller said, with $409,000 already in hand from a pair of federal Department of Homeland Security grants. The b...
Alaska was the only U.S. coastal region to have an increase in the confirmed cases of large whales entangled in fishing gear in 2020, a contrast to a national trend of declining cases over the past six to eight years, according to a report issued June 28 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of the 53 cases of large whales entangled in fishing gear nationally in 2020, 11 occurred in Alaska, according to the report, from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. The previous year, there were 75 confirmed cases of whale e...
An order for cashless machines for the public to pay for use of the four dock hoists at the Port and Harbors Department is delayed — the manufacturer is still waiting on parts. Port Director Steve Miller said they ordered four credit card readers for $11,000 from El Dorado, Arkansas-based manufacturer IDX this winter and were going to work with electricians in Wrangell for installation before the start of the summer season, but it’s looking like the order won’t arrive until June. And there could be further delays because local electricians are...
Port Director Steve Miller pulls newly repaired float tanks from the Marine Service Center to the barge ramp near the City Dock on the morning of May 10. Workers at Dave's Welding and Repair patched and rebuilt the tanks after port staff found a hole in one of the tanks last fall. After the repaired tanks were fully installed, the borough put the ramp back into service last Sunday, allowing the weekly Alaska Marine Lines barge to return to its usual berth instead of temporary unloading quarters...
A developer has notified Sitka that high construction costs have caused the partnership to withdraw its proposal to build a new boatyard and haul-out. Sitka's last haul-out operator, Halibut Point Marine, in March pulled up its last boat after it had converted the area into a cruise ship terminal. The decision by Sitka Community Boatyard to abandon its plans leaves no prospect in sight for a replacement operation in Sitka. Wrangell's Port and Harbors Department has reported an increase in calls...
Just as other communities, Wrangell is enduring a springtime bloom of COVID-19 cases. As of April 20, the state health department reported 79 new cases in the community in the past 30 days. Most of those were reported to the state in late March and early April, with new infections declining in the past week. The spread of the highly infectious disease is of particular concern at the schools. “We have had an increase in COVID and other illnesses during the past month and the schools have been struggling to find ways to stay open,” Sup...
Wrangell’s Marine Service Center has seen a 20% to 30% increase in haul-out requests after Sitka’s boatyard closed April 1. “We’ve been getting overflow from Sitka since February,” Port Director Steve Miller said April 13. Normally the busy time starts April, May and June, “but we’ve been going hard since the first of March.” Like most people in need of a haul-out, a lot of the Sitka boat owners are looking for a fresh set of zincs on the bottom of their vessels to prevent corrosion and a pressure wash. “We call it a shave and a haircut,” M...
The borough assembly has rejected a staff proposal to remove the cap on sales taxes payable on individual purchases. Dropping the limitation, which shuts off Wrangell’s 7% sales tax on the purchase price above $3,000, could have generated an estimated $500,000 a year in additional revenue for the borough. The assembly April 12 accepted moving to second reading the other provisions of the ordinance that would make some administrative changes to the sales tax code, but deleted the change to the tax cap. The ordinance is scheduled for a public hea...
The state has started negotiations to sell the Malaspina to a company owned by a business that operates a new multimillion-dollar cruise ship terminal at Ward Cove in Ketchikan. M/V Malaspina LLC and the Alaska Department of Transportation “have agreed to negotiate in good faith on the sale of the 59-year-old vessel,” the state announced Monday. “MVM’s letter of interest outlines a plan to use the Malaspina to showcase Alaska’s maritime history and support a Ketchikan-based tourism business,” the state said. “Among other uses, they propose...
The cost to cap a hole and rebuild the flotation tanks at the barge ramp has escalated since the problem was discovered last fall. The borough assembly on Feb. 22 approved a $211,220 contract with the only bidder for the job — Dave Miller, of Dave’s Welding & Repair. “The repair work includes sandblasting and recoating the inside and outside of both tank sections and their uprights and welding 3/8-inch-thick double plates to the bottom of the larger tank,” staff reported to the assembly. The assembly at its Nov. 9 meeting authorized $115,00...
The port commission has voted to increase most of Wrangell’s port and harbors rates, generally about 2% per year for the next five years, sending the new fee schedule to the borough assembly for consideration. The new rates would take effect this July and apply to most port and harbors services, including long- and short-term storage and haul-out rates at the Marine Service Center, transient and reserved moorage in the harbors, electricity hookups, use of the gridiron and hoists. The borough had generally been raising port and harbor rates a...
The port and harbors department will purchase and install cashless meters that accept credit cards at dock hoists in Wrangell that will allow people to use them around-the-clock. The department is buying four credit card readers at a total cost of $11,000 from El Dorado, Arkansas-based manufacturer IDX, and will work with electricians in Wrangell for installation, Port Director Steve Miller said Friday. Two will be installed at Reliance Harbor in front of the harbor master office, one in the boatyard at the Marine Service Center and one at...
The state is working through a couple of challenges in its plan to distribute tens of millions of dollars of federal relief funds to municipalities and businesses. Applications for grants to local governments far exceeded the available funds, while grant applications from eligible tourism-related businesses and others fell far short. The Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development is looking for answers to both questions: How to decide which cities and boroughs will receive how much of the limited money to replace their lost tax...
Finance Director Mason Villarma has been on the job for about five months and is proposing changes to the borough assembly that he believes could bolster Wrangell’s financial health. At a work session Jan. 25, Villarma said the borough’s assets totaled $39.7 million as of Dec. 31, a mixture of cash, cash equivalents, money market funds, investments and other accounts. Some can be spent, some is in long-term savings, and some is reserved for self-sufficient funds such as the electric utility and port and harbors. Almost one-quarter of that mon...
The state appears to be in prime position to capture well more than $1 billion in federal funding for its ferries that many Alaskans hope is the catalyst for long-sought change in the Alaska Marine Highway System. The $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed in November by President Joe Biden establishes new national programs and boosts existing funding to collectively offer nearly $1.6 billion in ferry-specific funding, according to information from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was among a bipartisan group of 10 senators wh...
Based on the current rate structure, Wrangell’s Marine Service Center could operate at a loss over the next five, 15 and 30 years. That’s according to a newly finished Marine Service Center business plan the port and harbors department will present to the port commission. Port Director Steve Miller will present the plan to the port commission at its Thursday night meeting. Any rate hikes — which would maintain future revenues in line with potential expenses — would require port commission and borough assembly approval. There are no operati...
The out-of-commission barge ramp where Wrangell usually unloads its freight needs to be replaced. Until that happens, repairs will suffice. A 2011 condition assessment of the barge ramp estimated it had another 10 to 15 years of useful life remaining before reaching a point where it would have degraded enough that it may no longer be considered safe to use, Port Director Steve Miller wrote in his report to the port commission’s Dec. 16 meeting. Miller estimates replacing the ramp could cost $2 million. A timeline will be dependent on f...