Sorted by date Results 476 - 500 of 1283
Looking around at all the boots, raingear and plastic tarps, it’s hard to imagine that Wrangell can’t handle a little water. The community can handle the rain alright. It’s collecting all that water, cleaning it and delivering it to our homes, offices and businesses that is a challenge. Wrangell’s 23-year-old filtration plant, which runs muskeg water through a variety of sand filters and other processes, struggles to efficiently provide all the water the community needs and often falls short of meeting state standards for safe drinking water. T...
The borough assembly on Tuesday approved spending about $42,000 to find out how much diesel and other contaminants may have leaked into the soil around Wrangell Municipal Light and Power’s generator building on Case Avenue. The site assessment will drill down and take samples from 14 different points around the facility and the property next door to help determine if any environmental cleanup will be necessary. The power plant houses the city’s diesel generators, which serve as backup to electricity from the Tyee Lake hydropower station. The...
Breanne Pearson pinned the sergeant bars on her husband, Nicholas Pearson, in a small ceremony at the June 22 borough assembly meeting. Pearson has nine years of experience in law enforcement, and has been with the Wrangell Police Department since 2018....
The borough is required to set the property tax rate for the next budget year that starts today, which it did. The rate will not change. And the borough is required to adopt a budget to guide its spending over the year, which it did, pretty much the same total for public services as this past year. But within that total, some of the individual numbers will change over the next 12 months, which is OK. There were too many unknowns, too many variables when the assembly approved the budget last month to expect that changes will not occur. The...
The borough is selling the unused National Guard armory at 101 Second Ave. The armory was built in 1982 on land leased from the city, and the building was turned over to the borough when the Guard shut down its Wrangell operations in 2017. The 30-by-40-foot, wood-frame metal-sided building on a 0.21-acre lot has been appraised at $110,000. The borough has set a minimum price for the sale at $99,000. The borough had planned to sell the property by outcry auction, but the decision was postponed at...
Wrangell’s municipal government will operate in the black for another fiscal year, under the budget adopted by the borough assembly Tuesday evening. However, the assembly is prepared to make amendments during the fiscal year, which starts July 1, as new information arises. The budget anticipates general fund revenues of about $6.4 million, which includes taxes, service fees, state and federal funding, and the annual conservative withdrawal of investment earnings from Wrangell’s own permanent fund. Of that total, about 60% is anticipated from sa...
The borough estimates its revenue loss due to the pandemic and its hit to economic activity in town could total almost $2.2 million by June 30, 2022. That total for lost revenue at the marine service center, port and harbors, utilities, the Nolan center and museum and other borough accounts does not include an estimate for any drop in sales tax revenues. The $2.2 million covers fiscal years 2020-2022. To help fill the pandemic-caused drop in borough revenues, Wrangell is scheduled to receive $485,000 in federal aid under the American Rescue...
A conditional-use permit for construction of a new cell tower at the north end of town was approved by the planning and zoning commission last Thursday, after a consulting health physicist working for the developer testified that the tower’s radio signals would not pose a health risk. “I’m a board-certified health physicist, I’ve been an expert in this area for a whole long time,” said Andrew Thatcher, of Lakewood, Washington, introducing himself to the commission June 10. “I was the expert for the state of Washington for about 20 years.” The...
With vibrant colors, an eye-catching logo and the goal of telling visitors what they can expect, Wrangell has launched its new tourism branding campaign. The "Travel Outside The Lines" slogan is meant to draw in tourists, said Brooke Leslie, with the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau, who presented on the new branding at the June 8 borough assembly meeting. "This is a project that we took up with (federal) CARES Act funding," she said. "In 2019, pre-COVID, there was a post-(tourist) season...
Budget season is here for the borough assembly, which will hold a public hearing on the budget at 6 p.m. today at city hall. The new fiscal year starts July 1. The assembly already has set the property tax rate for next year. The workshop, and final assembly action on the budget at its meeting next Tuesday, will mostly deal with spending plans for the year. The assembly June 8 set next year’s property tax levy at the same rate as this year, which is 12.75 mills, or $1,275 on $100,000 in property value in the borough’s service area. Pro...
The borough assembly on Tuesday evening approved a policy for use of body cameras by the Wrangell Police Department. Under the policy, “All sworn Wrangell law enforcement employees will be issued a BWC (body worn camera) and trained in the basic operation of the camera and upload procedures. The BWC is to be worn in plain view while performing uniformed law enforcement duties.” The policy describes situations when officers should or should not have their cameras turned on. For example, cameras must be on during arrests, traffic stops, in-...
The borough assembly on Tuesday night rescinded $70,000 in funding to cover COVID-19 tests for employees of Sea Level Seafoods, after rejecting an amendment to expand the funding to all seafood processors in Wrangell. The assembly originally approved a motion on May 25 to use $70,000 in federal funding to cover the costs of COVID-19 tests for Sea Level employees, which passed on a 4-3 vote. The borough used federal funds to pay for the tests last year. The item resurfaced Tuesday when Assemblymember Patty Gilbert offered an amendment to the...
It was 25 years ago last month that Wrangell received title to the former Institute property near Shoemaker Bay. The 134 acres have mostly been unused since the Bureau of Indian Affairs shut down the boarding school almost 50 years ago. There have been plans, proposals, wishes and dreams over the decades of turning the property into tourist lodging, senior citizen housing, a school or training center. And now the borough is moving closer to the latest plan - subdividing the land into lots for...
A preliminary plat for the first phase of developing the former Wrangell Institute property into residential and commercial lots, known as Shoemaker Bay Subdivision II, was approved by the planning and zoning commission Tuesday afternoon. There is still a lot of work to do, but this is a significant step in the development process, said Wrangell Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore. It may be optimistic, she said, but site work could begin sometime next year. Final plat approval by the commission could be several months away, Rushmore...
The borough assembly has rezoned several lots adjacent to Wrangell’s solid waste transfer site, allowing installation of a cell phone tower on the city-owned land if the developer can obtain a conditional-use permit for such use of the property. A public hearing and further consideration by the Planning and Zoning Commission is required for a conditional-use permit. The assembly, in two unanimous votes May 25, approved rezoning the seven parcels to open space / public zoning, and allowing communication facilities, including cell towers, as a c...
The borough again this summer will use federal funds to cover the cost of COVID-19 testing for Sea Level Seafoods employees. The borough assembly voted 4-3 at its May 25 meeting to appropriate up to $70,000 in federal funds to pay for testing this year. Testing last year cost the borough about $22,000. “Administration is requesting an amount more than triple last year’s expenditure because it is our understanding Sea Level would like to institute a far more robust testing regime than last year,” Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen briefed the assem...
For the third year in a row, the borough will provide $1.3 million in funding for Wrangell schools, the largest spending category in the municipal budget. About $700,000 of the local contribution to next year’s school district budget will come from Wrangell’s general fund revenues of sales and property taxes, with about $600,000 in federal financial assistance directed to Wrangell under a U.S. Forest Service nationwide program of payments to rural communities. The borough assembly approved the $1.3 million appropriation without opposition May...
Wrangell’s marijuana shop can now stay open to 10 p.m., a change from 6 p.m. The borough assembly amended the closing-time law at its May 25 meeting, effective the next day. The change in municipal code passed unanimously, and there was no public testimony against the ordinance. Kelsey Martinsen, owner of Happy Cannabis, said he may move to an 8 p.m. closing in June, then later extend to 10 p.m., though staying open later will depend on finding an employee to help at the shop. The 6 p.m. closing was imposed by the assembly in 2017, soon a...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency plans to begin an eight-day process July 1 of removing a damaged submarine electrical cable and replacing it with a new line between Woronkofski and Vank islands, SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson told the Petersburg borough assembly May 17. Crews will lay about 3.5 miles of new cable. The manufacturing and installation of the cable is estimated to cost about $13.4 million, Acteson said SEAPA board member Bob Lynn told the assembly at an earlier meeting that the regional power agency would likely need to raise its rates t...
Concerned with increasing cost estimates to repair and renovate the water-damaged 34-year-old public safety building, the borough assembly wants to explore a new option to see if it would be less expensive: Permanently move as many tenants as possible into the old hospital instead. “I’ve been driving this,” Mayor Steve Prysunka told the borough assembly at a workshop Tuesday evening. He said the borough needs to figure out what it would cost to remodel the hospital into space for the police and fire departments, state courts, jail, feder...
Zoom is a thing of the past for Wrangell borough assembly meetings. The next meeting June 8 will be in person, no more freeze frames, no more digital hassles. The assembly voted unanimously Tuesday evening to repeal the resolution directing online meetings during the pandemic. “Conducting meetings with the Zoom stuff is exhausting,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said. Borough Clerk Kim Lane recommended the assembly approve the return to in-person meetings. “Since we are trying to move forward and climb out of this pandemic,” she said, it would be approp...
Congressional action exempting large cruise ships from having to stop in Canada on their summer voyages to Alaska will provide a boost to heavily tourism-dependent Southeast communities. Although Wrangell was never on the itineraries of the largest ships, it’s possible the town may see some additional visitors with the change in U.S. law. Without the temporary exemption from a century-old U.S. maritime law, the foreign-registered ships would have been required to stop in Canada, which has not been possible since the country shut down its p...
Following new federal guidelines, the Wrangell borough has decided that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are no longer required to wear face masks in borough facilities, programs and activities. Individual businesses can set their own policy. The borough issued the change in guidelines on May 18. As of last week, almost 60% of Wrangell residents age 16 and older had received at least one dose of a vaccine. “It’s the honor system,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said last Friday of the mask-free policy that applies only to vacci...
Wrangell is one of four Southeast communities selected for a joint U.S. Forest Service and University of Alaska Southeast project to learn more about how the pandemic has affected the tourism industry in the region and what it means for the economy longer term. The other communities selected for the survey and report are Skagway, Hoonah and Angoon. “Each one is very unique,” said Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, which is helping to publicize the online survey. “Take a look at Skagway, the biggest small port...
For not much more money - less than $10,000 - the city is able to add 411 acres at the north end of the island to an aerial imaging project that already covers 957 acres of downtown, Wrangell's water reservoirs, and land south and east of Heritage Harbor. It has been almost 20 years since aerial photography of the community. In addition, the project includes LiDAR, an airborne pulsed laser signal that "sees," measures and produces detailed three-dimensional images of the terrain, ground cover an...
