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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...
Wrangell should vote yes on Oct. 4, giving the borough permission to sell or lease the former 6-Mile sawmill property — if a private developer steps forward. This isn’t a final vote on a development plan, and any sale or lease would require borough assembly approval, a public hearing and a lot of public information. This is a let’s-be-prepared vote to save time in case the borough receives an offer. It would allow borough officials to negotiate a sale or lease and present it to the assembly for a public hearing and consideration without havin...
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...
One of the foundational wooden beams under the Senior Center is rotting and will have to be repaired, according to Borough Manager Jeff Good. “There is no immediate threat to life and safety,” Good explained, but he hopes to address the problem quickly. “The more you wait with rot, especially with wood, the worse it gets.” He plans to hire an engineer to assess the damage and design a solution, but he does not yet have details about how soon this assessment will take place. “We typically work with a couple of engineers,” said Good, but since n...
Starting this week, I will be working as a policy adviser to Mary Peltola, Alaska’s newly elected congresswoman. I hadn’t planned on it, but she asked and I accepted. Fortunately, I saved my suits from when I worked in Washington, D.C., for the state and federal governments a decade ago. I’ll be advising Peltola on oil and gas and other energy issues, natural resources, tax, fiscal, transportation, federal agency issues and whatever else is on the work list for Alaska as she fills out the rest of the late Rep. Don Young’s House term until J...
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...
The borough’s Sunny Bay property, a parcel of land on the Cleveland Peninsula about 37 miles southeast of Wrangell, is a potential candidate for a helicopter logging sale someday, though no definitive plans have been made to harvest timber at the site. On a trip to Sunny Bay with the U.S. Forest Service in late July, Borough Manager Jeff Good learned there are valuable red and yellow cedar trees on the property. However, these trees are sparsely distributed. Helicopter logging, also known as aerial timber harvesting, entails attaching cables t...
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...
Incumbent Ketchikan Rep. Dan Ortiz, who also represents Wrangell, grew his lead over Republican challenger Jeremy Bynum, also of Ketchikan, with the final batch of state primary results released Aug. 31. Ortiz leads Bynum 2,174 to 1,812. The latest results include 890 absentee, early and questioned ballots that state election officials had not tallied on the night of the Aug. 16 primary. Ortiz, an independent, is seeking his fifth term representing southern Southeast in the state House. The two will face off in the Nov. 8 general election for...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly, which is creating a task force to look for solutions to the housing shortage in the community, held a work session Aug. 29 to get a better understanding of the challenges in developing or purchasing homes. Assembly Member Dave Kensinger spoke on changing the zoning codes to make building affordable houses possible, and shared his concern that people cannot move to Petersburg if they do not have a place to live. Some of the potential changes to the zoning codes discussed included allowing the development of more...
The borough followed through on discussions from earlier this summer and the assembly last week approved a contract for reassessment of the value of all commercial and residential properties in the community. The intent is not to raise revenue — that is determined by the property tax rate the assembly sets every spring as part of the budget process. The reassessment is to ensure that valuations are “equitable across the board,” explained Borough Manager Jeff Good. After the assembly adopts its annual budget, it considers available reven...
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 and staff spent a fair amount of time at last week’s assembly meeting, explaining the intent of a contract with an appraisal firm to reassess the value of all the property in town. Homes, businesses, industrial properties, empty lots — they will all get a new look to make sure the borough’s valuation is fair. This is about treating property owners equitably. It’s also about following state law, which requires that cities and boroughs assess property “at its full and true value.” This is not about raising taxes, though seve...
On election day in five weeks, Wrangell will vote whether to give the borough permission to sell or lease all or part of the former 6-Mile sawmill property, which the borough purchased earlier this summer in hopes of spurring economic development in town. Sale or lease of borough property valued at over $1 million requires approval from a majority of voters. The borough paid $2.5 million for the 32-acre parcel. The assembly Aug. 23 voted unanimously to put the question on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot. Assemblymember David Powell...
At the start of the final week to file for borough assembly, school board or port commission, Wrangell was still short of candidates to fill half of the open seats. The deadline to file for the Oct. 4 municipal election is 4 p.m. Wednesday. As of Monday afternoon, candidates had filed paperwork for four of the eight races on the ballot. Patty Gilbert, who serves on the borough assembly and previously served on the school board, has filed to run for mayor. Steve Prysunka, in his sixth year as mayor, has decided not to seek another term....
Faced with a $474,000 reduction in state funding from last year, the Wrangell School District found several ways to cut the budget for the 2022-2023 school year. State funding is based on enrollment, and Wrangell’s count is down about 50 students — more than 15% — from before the pandemic. The district lost students to homeschooling and enrollment in correspondence schools in 2020. The district this year did not fill a vacant teaching position at the middle school, in addition to adopting a budget that assumes less spending on substitute teache...
Patty Gilbert, who serves on the borough assembly and previously served on the school board, has filed her candidacy papers to run for mayor in the Oct. 4 municipal election. Steve Prysunka, in his sixth year as Wrangell mayor, has decided not to seek another term. Gilbert currently serves as vice-mayor on the assembly. Her term ends in October. She served on the school board 2019-2021, and served on the borough assembly 2016-2019. The deadline to file for municipal office is 4 p.m. Aug. 31 at City Hall. In addition to the mayor’s job, two b...
Wrangell’s two state legislators both received more votes than their challengers in last week’s primary election. With only two candidates in each race, the Aug. 16 primary was a preview of the Nov. 8 general election, when voters again will choose between the same two candidates for the House and Senate seats. Under Alaska’s new elections system, the top vote-getters in the primary, regardless of political party, advance to the general election. Republican Sen. Bert Stedman, of Sitka, in his 19th year in the Legislature, outpolled his Repub...
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...
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...
Alaska voters will go to the polls next Tuesday to mark their ballots in a couple of firsts: The first election under the state’s new ranked-choice voting system, and the election of Alaska’s first new member of the U.S. House in 49 years. The three finalists for Congress selected in the July special primary election are Republicans Nick Begich, a Chugiak businessman, and former Gov. Sarah Palin, and former Bethel state legislator Democrat Mary Peltola. At a recent candidate forum in Juneau, Begich noted that Alaska is the second most fed...
The candidates to represent Wrangell in the state Legislature have filed their first campaign finance reports for the Aug. 16 primary election. Not surprisingly, House and Senate incumbents have the lead in fundraising. Rep. Dan Ortiz is looking to keep his seat in the newly redrawn District 1, which includes his hometown of Ketchikan, along with Wrangell, Metlakatla, Hyder, Saxman and the Prince of Wales Island communities of Coffman Cove and Whale Pass. Ortiz reported to Alaska’s campaign finance monitor, the Alaska Public Offices C...
