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Next year’s Fourth of July celebration, Wrangell’s most popular holiday, may be in jeopardy – the May 1 deadline to turn in paperwork yielded zero royalty candidates. It takes a village to put on the fireworks and countless other festivities for the Fourth every year. To offset costs, high school students or recent graduates run as royalty contestants – selling tens of thousands of $1 raffle tickets and running food booths downtown to raise money for the chamber of commerce, which organizes the celebration’s events. Royalty candidate...
The borough assembly and school board met April 23 in a joint work session to discuss local funding for the school district for the 2024-2025 school year. The school district has requested $1.75 million from the borough, which is the maximum local contribution allowed under state law and an increase from the $1.6 million that the borough contributed each of the past two years. The minimum local contribution required by the borough is $862,086. The state sets a minimum and a maximum in an effort to reduce budget and school program inequalities...
Assembly members expressed interest — but also caution — in what borough staff can come with to change the sales tax code to possibly raise more revenue without raising the actual tax rate. Raising more money from sales tax would allow the borough to continue funding the schools without raising property taxes, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said. There are options for increasing revenues other than raising the tax rate. Currently, Wrangell charges a 7% sales tax on goods and services up to $3,000 in value. There is no tax charged on pur...
The borough assembly has approved a longer-term lease with Channel Construction at the former 6-Mile mill site where the company plans to build two 3,200-square-foot shop buildings. Under terms of the agreement approved April 9, Channel would store equipment at the site. At its expense, the company will improve the access road off Zimovia Highway with crushed rock, improve the barge landing and expand the rock fill, and seek a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit for the fill. The construction and scrap metal recycling company will lease six acr...
The school district is requesting $1.75 million from the borough for the 2024-2025 school year budget, an increase from the $1.6 million contribution of the past two years. Even with the increase, the budget will draw down more than half of the school district’s reserves to balance revenues with expenses. The uncertainty of any increase in state funding is adding to the budget stress at Wrangell schools and districts across the state. The state funding formula has increased little more than a few dollars in the past seven years. The annual b...
The first small tour boat of the summer is due May 9, with the first large cruise ship scheduled for May 16, and it’s time for the borough’s annual pre-season informational meeting for businesses and anyone else involved in the tourism industry. The meeting is set for 9 a.m. Thursday, April 25, in the assembly chambers at City Hall. The agenda includes a review of the cruise ship schedule, along with staging and transportation logistics for business that pick up and drop off passengers. If all of the ships’ berths are full, Wrangell could...
The borough assembly on April 9 approved Mason Villarma’s contract as borough manager. The assembly vote was unanimous. Villarma went to work as finance director in September 2021 and has been serving as both finance director and interim borough manager since November 2023 when Jeff Good stepped down as manager to accept a federal job. Villarma’s four-year contract for borough manager goes into effect May 5. During his tenure as interim borough manager, he helped see the borough through the deadly landslide Nov 20 and recovery efforts. He spoke...
After more than a quarter-century, the nation’s largest national forest is getting a new management plan. On April 22, Wrangell community members will get a chance to learn about the proposed revisions to the forest plan and share their thoughts. A forest plan can be compared to zoning, Paul Robbins Jr., public affairs staff officer for the Tongass National Forest, explained. The plan helps guide management decisions, such as focusing on what areas are managed for recreation versus other activities, rather than looking at specific trails and c...
Mason Villarma, the interim borough manager since November, is no longer interim: The assembly has agreed to offer him the job. In an executive session March 19, the assembly interviewed three applicants - two from out of state - and ultimately decided to proceed with contract negotiations with Villarma. Mayor Patty Gilbert and Vice Mayor David Powell will negotiate a contract, which will likely come before the assembly for approval at the April 9 meeting. Villarma went to work as finance...
After last year’s comprehensive review of every piece of property in Wrangell pushed up the borough’s total taxable assessed valuation by more than 50%, this year’s assessment notices are tame. Property tax assessments were sent out March 20, and initial numbers are down slightly from last year, though the numbers are not final until approved by the borough assembly. This year the total assessed value of taxable property comes to $229 million, with non-taxable property at $158 million, which includes state, federal, borough, SEARHC and churc...
Alaska lawmakers fell one vote short Monday in an attempt to override the governor’s veto of a comprehensive school funding bill, which included a permanent increase in the state funding formula for K-12 education and which could have provided an additional $440,000 for the Wrangell school district. The additional funds would have covered about two-thirds of the deficit in the Wrangell district’s draft budget, reducing the amount of money it will need to pull out of reserves for the 2024-2025 school year. The vote in a joint session of the Hous...
The borough assembly narrowed down the field of seven applicants for the borough manager job; a special meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, March 19, to interview the three finalists. The finalists include current interim borough manager and finance director Mason Villarma and two Lower 48 candidates with city manager experience: Jack Harper of Texas and Alan Lanning of Colorado. Lanning has served as city manager in Cordova and interim city manager in Bethel. The applicants were to be interviewed over Zoom in an executive session at the March...
Illegal dumping of trash, appliances and whatever else people don’t want to take to the waste transfer station has long been a problem in town. “It’s not just a Wrangell issue,” Police Chief Tom Radke said last week. Radke, who spent almost 26 years in law enforcement in Minnesota before taking the Wrangell job in 2020, said he has seen it many times before. But just because it’s commonplace doesn’t mean it’s legal — it’s not. Illegal dumping of garbage in Wrangell is subject to a $150 fine. “It’s one of those issues we’re trying to get ahead o...
The borough’s economic development board voted unanimously March 5 to recommend the assembly approve the sale of the former hospital property for $200,000 to Wayne Johnson, a Georgia-based real estate developer. Johnson is planning to demolish the building and construct up to 48 units of condo-style housing, with covered parking. He also wants to purchase six borough-owned vacant lots behind the hospital property, which the borough manager has said would be sold at their appraised value. Regardless of some concerns, economic development b...
A Georgia-based developer who has taken a liking to Wrangell has offered the borough $200,000 for the former hospital property, with plans to tear down the building and construct as many as 48 new housing units. Wayne Johnson’s offer on the 2-acre property is contingent on striking a deal to purchase six smaller borough-owned lots behind the hospital building, adding an additional 1.3 acres to the development site. The purchase price for the hospital property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved into its new Wrangell Medical Center t...
The Wrangell school district is proposing to draw down about half of its reserves to balance the upcoming year’s budget, and Schools Superintendent Bill Burr warns that the solution is not sustainable for the long term. The school board at its Feb. 26 meeting reviewed with district business manager Kristy Andrew the first draft of the budget for the 2024-2025 school year. The budget shows general fund revenues of approximately $5.2 million — of which about 60% is from the state foundation funding formula — and expenses of more than $5.8 milli...
For Dorthea Rooney, her appeal to the borough assembly was born out of a personal tragedy. She requested some form of animal control that could provide euthanasia for pets in cases of illness or injury. Her sister's large, 13-year-old dog Lilly, who served as their mother's emotional support animal, had become unable to move her back legs. "She was basically paralyzed," she said. The house where Rooney's sister and mother lived had 40 stairs, and with Lilly's size and 100-pound weight, it was im...
While it’s uncertain if the state could transfer funds to the borough for maintenance work at Petroglyph Beach, the more immediate concern is that neither the borough nor the state have any idea how many visitors commercial tour operators bring to the site each year. The state this year is requiring tour operators to buy a license and pay a per-visitor fee, which had been required under state law for more than 20 years. But the fee was never enforced for Petroglyph Beach because the Alaska Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation essentially l...
The state, which administers the federally funded Community Development Block Grant program, has awarded Wrangell $695,000 toward a new roof at the middle school. The borough assembly designated the school roof — most of which is almost 30 years old — as its top priority for the grant program this year. The project is estimated at about $1.4 million. “We would have to provide the balance to make it a whole project,” Amber Al-Haddad, the borough’s capital facilities director, said Feb. 28. “It’s possible we can get the (middle school) roof done...
Don’t think of it as selling the borough-owned former hospital building and it’s almost two acres of land for a steep discount to its appraised value. Think of it as potentially getting an immense amount of future value from an unused liability that is costing the borough about $100,000 a year to heat and insure. When you look at the math that way, a developer’s offer to pay the borough $200,000 for the hospital property looks pretty reasonable. Borough code allows the municipality to sell property at less than its appraised value if the sale w...
As of last week, anyone caught throwing trash into a harbor dumpster, other than household garbage by a boat owner, could face a $150 fine. The borough assembly on Feb. 27 adopted two ordinances: One which specifies in municipal code that the port and harbor dumpsters are for use by vessel owners only, and a second ordinance that imposes the $150 fine. Assembly members voted unanimously to adopt the new rules. No one from the public testified on either ordinance. The port commission had recommended the new provisions in borough code in hopes...
Wrangell has lost three cruise ship stopovers this summer to Klawock, where a partnership of three Native corporations is developing a tourist destination with facilities, shore excursions and other activities for passengers. The 746-passenger Seven Seas Explorer has crossed Wrangell off its schedule for a May visit, with the 670-passenger Regatta canceling a stop in June and one in September but retaining a Wrangell stop earlier in September, according to the schedule posted by the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau earlier this month. The...
The borough is waiting on a federal disaster declaration to cover the expense of power line repairs and other immediate and near-term costs from the Nov. 20 landslide at 11.2-Mile Zimovia Highway. The Wrangell Cooperative Association is seeking federal funding for the longer-term expense of cleaning up the tidelands of debris and toxic material. Under federal law, only the governor can request a federal disaster declaration, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency reviews before sending it to the president for signature. The state has...
The borough has been looking for a developer or long-term tenant after paying $2.5 million for the former 6-Mile sawmill property in June 2022, but now is turning its attention to short-term leases to generate income and jobs until something bigger and more permanent comes along. “The borough would like to consider making the mill property as productive as possible in the short term,” Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma told the assembly earlier this month, asking for direction on negotiating leases for the waterfront property. His pre...
It’s nothing personal, just business. But it still hurts. Wrangell has lost three cruise ship stops this summer to Klawock, where a partnership of Native corporations is developing a visitor destination complete with a deepwater dock, retail shops, shore excursions, walking trails and more. Two of the corporations, Huna Totem and Fairbanks-based Doyon, are already active in the tourism industry. The third, Klawock Heenya, wants to get into the business to provide jobs and income for its tribal shareholders in the Prince of Wales Island c...
