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The 18-year-old Marine Service Center, a mainstay of Wrangell’s waterfront economy, collects enough money in fees to cover its expenses — but there is nothing set aside to replace equipment, such as the boatlifts and hydraulic trailer that are essential to the operation. A 2022 economic analysis pointed out that if equipment replacement and other capital expenses were included in the math, the borough loses money on the service center. The port commission has started discussing possible rate increases to ensure there is sufficient money in a r...
A Washington state-based bioenergy company is exploring potential development of the borough’s 6-Mile mill property. Next week, Dale Borgford and other members of Borgford BioEnergy will fly to Wrangell ahead of a Wednesday, Dec. 18, public workshop with borough officials. The workshop will explore whether Borgford is a good fit for the property and vice versa. The meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at City Hall. Since purchasing the mill site for $2.5 million in 2022, the borough has wanted to cater the property toward economic development. Bo...
A Washington state developer with ideas of turning organic waste into new products is coming to town to look over the former mill property near 6-Mile, lay out his ideas and answer questions from community officials. The borough plans to assemble most everyone from City Hall with an interest in development of the property, including members of the assembly, planning and zoning commission, port commission and economic development board. Officials will hear from Borgford BioEnergy, which set up a new company this year, Alaska BioEnergy. The...
The borough assembly has taken the first step toward assisting WCA’s purchase of land just south of the Wrangell Medical Center, where the tribal council plans to build a cultural center. Though Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese said any ribbon-cutting ceremony would be at least a few years away, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said the borough and WCA hope to have the rezoning and borough land sale finalized by the end of the year. The new cultural center will be built behind the WCA offices on Zimovia Highway, and Reese said the ca...
Jeremy Bynum is transitioning from being a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly to his new job as state representative for Ketchikan, Metlakatla, Wrangell and Coffman Cove. He has a lot to do in the seven weeks before he is sworn in as a member of the state House when the Legislature convenes in Juneau on Jan. 21. He is looking for housing and for office staff; there will be orientation and training sessions for new lawmakers; there are legislative rules and procedures to learn; and...
It took three rounds of bidding but the borough is on its way to installing a new, 300-foot-long float system at Meyers Chuck. The assembly last month awarded a $445,000 contract to Bellingham Marine Industries for the Washington state contractor to construct the 10-foot-wide wooden-decked floats, gangway and connection to the existing seaplane float in Meyers Chuck. The work includes building and shipping everything to Wrangell, where the 50-foot-long sections will be stored at the Marine Service Center until a separate contract is issued...
For about half the average price of a home in Seattle, you could buy Wrangell’s former hospital property. The borough assembly passed a resolution on Nov. 18, dropping the price of the property from its appraised value of $830,000 to a new asking price of $498,000, pretty close to the reduced price of $470,000 the borough advertised in 2022. The property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved out in 2021, currently sits empty. It costs the borough several tens of thousands of dollars a year to insure and maintain the building against d...
The Wrangell school district is running out of money — literally. If state and borough funding continue at the current levels, the schools will empty their reserves within two years. To help counteract the funding woes, the school board and superintendent met with the borough manager, mayor and borough assembly to workshop potential solutions on Nov. 19. The conversation lasted nearly two hours and began with slide deck presentations from Borough Manager Mason Villarma and school district Business Manager Kristy Andrew. Villarma was blunt. “We...
No question about it, the state is delinquent in funding public schools in Alaska. It has failed to do its homework, turn in assignments, come to class prepared and whatever other analogy you want to use. The mathematical fact is that the state’s per-pupil funding formula hasn’t had a permanent raise of any significance since the Chicago Cubs broke a 108-year drought and won the baseball World Series in 2016. And while 2016 was a good year for Cubs’ fans, that shouldn’t also be remembered as the last year the Alaska Legislature and governor agr...
In a unanimous decision, the borough assembly took the first step toward increasing flexibility for the number of annual tax-free days, allowing for anywhere between zero and two days in a year. Currently, there are two sales tax-free days per year, often bookending the summer season so that full-time residents (rather than tourists) can enjoy the town-wide discounts in the spring and fall. On tax-free days, Wrangell’s 7% sales tax is removed for 24 hours. Local businesses tend to run additional sales on these days, with the hope of increasing...
The sale of 20 borough-owned residential lots at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision near Shoemaker Harbor is on track for summer 2025. The sale — half of the lots by auction and half by lottery — had been planned for this past summer, but site work pushed that back to the fall and then a nationwide shortage of electrical transformers delayed it even further. However, the borough assembly at its Nov. 18 meeting approved a contract with a South Dakota-based company for a dozen electrical transformers for the subdivision. The b...
The Petersburg borough assembly is considering an ordinance that would impose requirements — including storage fees, a marine condition survey and proof of insurance — on vessels that don’t leave their moorage stall in the harbor for 12 consecutive months. The ordinance aims to discourage using stalls for vessel storage, especially for boats that may be inoperable. An inactive or inoperable boat may deteriorate as its condition worsens; removing derelict vessels is expensive and historically burdensome for the borough, officials said. The o...
A 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision on sales taxes and a 2020 statewide initiative started by the Alaska Municipal League are benefitting Wrangell’s public treasury. The borough in the past fiscal year collected about $440,000 in sales taxes from purchases made online, by phone or mail and delivered to Wrangell households and businesses. That is up about 10% from the prior year and up substantially from $180,000 in revenues in 2021, the first year of the program. Before the court ruling, states and municipalities were blocked from collecting s...
There's not much on the walls of Mason Villarma's borough manger office. There is a minimalist whiteboard (purchased with his own money, he noted), a couple vintage maps of downtown, and some photos of fishing boats Villarma trolled on growing up. But one decoration stands out: a blown-up black and white image of an older man with a smile so infectious that even if Villarma's office's walls were decorated like Paris' Louvre, the image of the elder gentleman would stand out. "Who's that," I...
Wrangell’s strong support for Republican Jeremy Bynum helped push him over the 50% threshold as the apparent winner for the state House seat to represent Wrangell, Ketchikan and Metlakatla. As of early Wednesday morning, across the district, Bynum had 3,153 votes, 51.57%, to Agnes Moran’s 1,503 votes, 24.58%, and Grant EchoHawk’s 1,448, 23.68%. Though there are still more absentee and early votes left to count, it does not appear they would change the outcome of the race. In Wrangell, Bynum had 424 to EchoHawk’s 144 and Moran’s 89. Bynum, a...
The assembly unanimously voted to raise annual boat launch fees for Wrangell’s harbors at the Oct. 22 meeting. The fees — which have remained stagnant for years — now mirror other Southeast towns’ equivalent fees. The annual launch permit for those with a boat stall will increase from $28 to $35. For those without a stall, the fee will increase from $55 to $70. Per the borough’s figures, the average annual Southeast launch fee for those without a stall is just over $74. The borough is also eliminating the commercial launch permit category...
Jeremy Bynum, Grant EchoHawk and Agnes Moran are running to fill the state House seat vacated by 10-year incumbent Dan Ortiz, who decided not to seek a sixth term. The election is Tuesday, Nov. 5. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the votes in the first count, the third-place finisher will be eliminated and voters who picked that candidate as their top choice will have their votes recounted using their second choice. Whoever has the most votes in that second count will win the seat...
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) officials hear that processors have mostly cleared out their overflowing inventories of Alaska salmon from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, but the problem remains that Americans don’t buy enough seafood to sustain consistently profitable sales, particularly in years of strong salmon runs. And while last year’s problem was an oversupplied market, which pushed prices paid to fishermen to as low as 20 cents a pound for pink and chum salmon, this year’s harvest may come up short of a robust supply, Greg Smith...
The borough is planning to move the senior center from its longtime but aging location at Church and McKinnon streets to the community center’s multipurpose room. The new space, directly across the hallway from the community gym, will receive several upgrades to accommodate its new use, including a full kitchen remodel and new furniture, according to Borough Manager Mason Villarma. The borough also plans on reserving parking at the community center for the senior center bus, which is used for taking seniors to medical appointments, the post off...
The borough wants a data center to plug into Wrangell. Better yet, it could even move into the unused formal hospital property. Data centers are large hosting sites for multiple servers that provide computing power and storage for cloud-based service providers. While at Southeast Conference, held in Ketchikan last month, borough representatives spoke with Sam Enoka, founder and CEO of Greensparc — a San Francisco-based technology company that specializes in setting up modular, small-scale data centers for cloud computing. Enoka grew up a...
The coffee will be free and the borough wants the information and questions to flow just as freely at the first of its “Our Town, Our Future” informal community sessions. The listening-and-sharing session is set for 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 18, at the Stikine Inn. The borough has carved out two hours for the meeting, but people don’t have to stay that long, explained Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director. The sessions will be held the third Friday of every month through March as part of the borough’s effort to provide more info...
Voters approved a $3 million bond issue for repairs to the water-damaged Public Safety Building by a 3-1 margin on Oct. 1. Residents re-elected Patty Gilbert as mayor over challenger David Powell; re-elected incumbent school board member Angela Allen and elected newcomer Dan Powers over incumbent board member Brittani Robbins; and re-elected Chris Buness to the port commission along with newcomer Eric Yancey over challengers Antonio Silva and Tony Guggenbickler. In a close 36-ballot margin, voters rejected a proposition to amend the municipal...
In House District 1, which includes Ketchikan and Wrangell, there is a three-way race to replace Rep. Dan Ortiz who served as the district's House member for a decade. The race is between Republican Jeremy Bynum and independents Grant EchoHawk and Agnes Moran. All three candidates are Ketchikan residents, as is Ortiz. A Wrangell resident has not held the House seat since Peggy Wilson a decade ago. Ortiz is not seeking reelection, citing health reasons. The former educator caucused with the...
Voters by almost a 3-to-1 margin Tuesday approved a $3 million bond issue for repairs to the water-damaged Public Safety Building. Residents re-elected Patty Gilbert as mayor over challenger David Powell; re-elected incumbent school board member Angela Allen and elected newcomer Dan Powers over incumbent board member Brittani Robbins; and re-elected Chris Buness to the port commission along with newcomer Eric Yancey over challengers Antonio Silva and Tony Guggenbickler. Voters rejected a ballot proposition to amend the municipal charter, which...
Registered voters in Wrangell have several decisions to make in this year’s municipal election — not just deciding their choices for seven elected offices and two ballot propositions, but when they want to vote. The polls will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 1, at the Nolan Center. But for people who like the convenience of voting early, or will be out of town Oct. 1, they can choose to stop by City Hall weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. though Monday, Sept. 30, to cast an early ballot. All of the ballots will be tabulated at the sam...