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In what it says is an effort to limit fraudulent claims, the Social Security Administration will impose tighter identity-proofing measures — which will require millions of recipients and applicants to visit agency field offices rather than interact with the agency over the phone. The only field offices in Alaska are in Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks. More than 100,000 Alaskans receive Social Security benefits. Beginning March 31, people will no longer be able to verify their identity to the Social Security Administration over the phone to c...
A 2023 presidential executive order expanding sovereignty rights for the nation’s 574 federally recognized tribes was revoked March 14 by President Donald Trump, putting major tribal projects and policies in Alaska and elsewhere in question. Executive Order 14112, signed by President Joe Biden during the White House Tribal Nations Summit in early December 2023, sought to give Native Americans more access to federal funding and spending autonomy. The order was cited by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in recognizing expanded tribal i...
Troy Sauve, a Fairbanks resident, submitted his applications for food and heating assistance to the Alaska Division of Public Assistance on Oct. 24. His eligibility hearing was held more than four months later. Sauve, who works seasonally as a cook at a resort, relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to make ends meet. He is one of hundreds of Alaskans who have been waiting longer than three months for food assistance amid an ongoing backlog in the state office charged with processing aid applications. Sauve spent...
No one expects a totally life-changing event on any given day. That’s the reason the SEARHC transitional-care team wants people to know about their services before they need them. Marin Donovan, southern regional director of rehabilitation services for Craig, Wrangell and Sitka, explains that their program is the kind of thing people don’t know about until they need it, but when they need it, everything that is happening can be overwhelming. It’s about education and advocacy skills, providing information and resources, in anticipation of a futu...
Vacation rental: Historic six-bedroom, 10-bathroom mansion with eight fireplaces and ballroom. Vacant much of the year. Conveniently located in the heart of downtown Juneau, within easy walking distance of the Alaska State Capitol and other attractions. A bill introduced on March 17 by Fairbanks Rep. Will Stapp would turn the Alaska Governor’s House into a short-term rental. House Bill 139 would allow rentals at the three-story, 14,400-square-foot residence “when the legislature is not in session and the governor has not reserved the mansion in...
Confronted with an engineering report that cited “concern for potential failure of the ramp,” the borough on Thursday evening, March 13, notified freight haulers that the municipally owned barge ramp downtown was closed, immediately. The borough made arrangements for the weekly freight barge to use the old sawmill dock at the Marine Service Center as a temporary unloading and loading site, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said Friday, March 14. “This should have happened some time ago,” he said of shutting down the 47-year-old steel ramp which s...
The annual assessment of property values in town resulted in an overall increase of about 12% for taxable property, though an owner’s tax bill will depend on the tax rate set by the borough assembly in late May. State law requires municipalities to assess property —all land and buildings— at “full and true market value.” The borough’s contract assessor’s March 3 letter to the assembly said, “Our evaluations indicate that the overall market (value) … continues to grow despite the high cost of living and rising interest rates.” The annual assessm...
Citing concerns over heavy foot traffic and Front Street congestion, the borough assembly denied Brian Schwartz’s request to rent space facing Front Street for a food truck-style seafood trailer. Schwartz hoped to rent a small area in front of the public restrooms on the northern end of Front Street. Despite the planning and zoning commission recommending that the borough accept his request, the assembly voted 5-1 against the proposal on March 11. Phillip Mach, the newest assembly member, was the only yes vote. “That area gets very con...
The Alaska House passed a bill on March 12 intended to boost annual state funding for public schools by $275 million, starting with the 2025-2026 school year. If approved by the Alaska Senate and the governor, the legislation would increase state funding for the Wrangell school district next year by about $600,000, according to Kristy Andrew, the district’s business manager. The sizable increase in the state’s per-pupil funding formula approved by the House will face challenges winning approval from the Senate and the governor, however, as the...
Jeff and Kay Jabusch were named citizens of the year. The Wrangell Cooperative Association was named organization of the year. Alice Rooney took home volunteer of the year. Jack Carney won the award for educator of the year while his son, Jackson Carney, was awarded young leader of the year. And this year’s theme for the Fourth of July celebration? Small Town, Big Heart. The chamber of commerce’s annual dinner took place on Saturday, March 15, at the Nolan Center and was catered by Wrangell’s newest eatery: The Wolf Shack. For those famil...
A federal judge in California has ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate thousands of probationary federal workers fired as part of billionaire Elon Musk’s campaign to slash the government workforce. A federal judge in Maryland issued a similar ruling the same day, March 13. Two days before the judges’ orders, the Department of Agriculture on March 11 issued a temporary stay on the firings, which applies to U.S. Forest Service workers. The department’s job-reinstatement decision follows an order issued March 5 by the U.S....
Though a $5 million federal grant to help pay for expanding the generating capacity at the Tyee Lake hydroelectric station is “clearly frozen,” the head of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency hopes the funds will be released soon and the project can stay on schedule. The agency’s lobbyist in Washington, D.C., and others “feel fairly confident … that freeze will be thawed,” Robert Siedman, chief executive officer of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, or SEAPA, said earlier this month. The Tyee money is caught up in the nationwide spending fr...
Coffman Cove commercial fisherman Dugan Paul Daniels, 55, was sentenced on March 10 to six months in prison for illegally “taking” an endangered sperm whale and falsifying fishing records while catching sablefish in 2020. The term “take” legally means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct. According to research by the prosecution in preparation for Daniels’ case, this appears to be the first Endangered Species Act charge to result from a sperm whale take in t...
A new service for dogs - and their owners - opened this week. Muddy Paws Pet Grooming owner and operator Destiny Becker is ready to give the town's dogs the glow-up treatment. Becker's story is a familiar one: She and her husband left Minnesota for a six-month stint in Wrangell but decided to stay. She wanted to find a way to get more rooted in the community, and to find her niche. She grew up around dogs and loved taking care of her family and friends' dogs, especially big dogs. She currently...
She loves its water, its plants, its people. She loves the community she's cultivated here, and she loves the personal history of which it reminds her. From tight matches on the wrestling mat to even tighter bonds connecting her with loved ones, Churchill is certain: After college, she's coming home to Wrangell. But before she does that, she needs to graduate high school - and to do that, she needs a senior project. For that, Churchill helped coach the middle school wrestling team alongside her...
The Alaska Department of Revenue forecast on March 12 that the state will see a bigger budget deficit in the next fiscal year due to lower oil prices. Oil prices have dropped about $10 a barrel since early January as the market reacts to risks of U.S.-instigated trade wars, a weakened global economy and new oil supplies exceeding demand. Oil taxes and royalties are the second-largest source of general fund revenue for the state budget, behind only Permanent Fund earnings. The Alaska Legislature is facing a combined $650 million shortfall over...
Vigor Alaska, the private operator of the state-owned Ketchikan Shipyard, has been notified that the state will not extend the shipyard operating agreement with the company when the current contract expires in November. Citing less-than-full utilization of the shipyard and increasing unfunded maintenance at the facility under Vigor's management, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), which owns the facility, said in a Feb. 28 letter that it would give the company until...
Increased state investment in marketing would help the battered Alaska seafood industry seize an opportunity to improve sales within the United States, the head of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute told state lawmakers. Jeremy Woodrow, ASMI’s executive director, attempted to make his organization’s case to the state Senate Finance Committee for $10 million in state funding. The money could be put to work to promote Alaska seafood at a time when there is no competition in the domestic market from Russian seafood, which was banned from the...
“There’s nothing off the list,” Superintendent Bill Burr said about potential cuts to the school district’s 2025-2026 budget. From exploring what life would be like as a satellite site of the Petersburg school district to eliminating teacher positions, Burr said the district is exploring everything and anything. The draft budget presented to the school board last month showed a $1 million shortfall between projected revenue ($5.05 million) and proposed expenses ($6.1 million). Covering that gap — without a significant boost in state funding ...
Kevin Gadsey, 49, allegedly engaged in inappropriate behavior around elementary-aged children in the swimming pool locker room, prompting at least two parents to complain to the Parks and Recreation Department and bring their concerns to the Sentinel. After Parks and Rec launched an investigation into the allegations, the borough served Gadsey with a no-trespassing order on Jan. 9, banning him from the facility during "kid-specific activities." "After careful consideration" the letter read, "we...
What motivates a man to wake up and start his day with the same habit for 40 years? Bill Messmer doesn't know. Messmer started collecting rainfall data from his house in town in 1984. Four decades later, he is calling it quits. The reason? Well - there isn't really one. He just shrugged and said, "It's been 40 years." Messmer's first month of collecting data was January 1984. If you're curious, precipitation - rain and melted snow - totaled 16.04 inches that month. Every morning he woke up,...
President Donald Trump has issued several executive orders in recent weeks to expand logging in the nation’s forests, but stakeholders say the recent mass firings of U.S. Forest Service employees could hinder the administration’s plans in Alaska. Trump’s actions are the latest chapter in a decades-long tug-of-war between conservation and development in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest — by far the largest of the nation’s forests. On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order to boost development...
A proposed 20-year plan seeking to restore the ailing Alaska Marine Highway System to a more reliable and sustainable operation calls for a major increase in funding for operations and building several new ships. The six new ferries and shoreside improvements could cost $3 billion. The draft plan also envisions an ambitious increase in service to smaller communities, including Wrangell, while shrinking the total fleet from nine ships to eight. The draft plan published Feb. 28 seeks about $3 billion in vessel and infrastructure spending, plus...
After Spicy Lady, a Petersburg-based crabbing vessel, caught fire on March 6, the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene to cool things down. The fire department received a distress call at 2:32 p.m. informing them of the boat fire. At the time of the call, the 58-foot steel hulled Spicy Lady was near Point Gardner at the southern tip of Admiralty Island. After a 100-mile floatplane trip, Wrangell firefighters met up with the Spicy Lady a few miles from Point Gardner, in Warm...
The House Finance Committee is scheduled to take public testimony on the state operating budget over three days this week, with several Southeast communities, including Wrangell, on the calendar for Friday afternoon, March 14. The time slot for Southeast residents to testify is set for 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Friday. Individuals will be limited to two minutes each to give the committee their opinions on the state spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Anyone in Wrangell who wants to testify is asked to come to the Legislative...