Sorted by date Results 1961 - 1985 of 7954
JUNEAU (AP) — U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has been elected to a full term in the House, months after the Alaska Democrat won a special election to the seat following the death earlier this year of longtime Republican Rep. Don Young. Peltola defeated Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, as well as Libertarian Chris Bye in the Nov. 8 election. Results of the ranked-choice election were announced Nov. 23. “It’s a two-year contract,” Peltola told the Anchorage Daily News after her victory — a 55%-45% margin over Palin in the final tabulatio...
A woman accused of voting illegally in both Alaska and Florida during the 2020 elections will face charges in a Florida court on Dec. 8, according to online court records. When Cheryl-Ann Leslie is arraigned on felony counts of casting more than one ballot, she will become just the second person charged with voter fraud related to Alaska’s 2020 election. Despite claims by some Alaskans that fraudulent voting changed the state’s election results two years ago, no evidence of fraud on that scale has been uncovered by investigators. After the 202...
School districts statewide, including Wrangell, will be looking to the Legislature next year for an increase in state funding, but any boost in the state’s per-pupil formula likely will depend in large part on oil revenues and also Permanent Fund earnings. And neither looks good this month, less than eight weeks before lawmakers are scheduled to convene in Juneau. The state funding formula for K-12 education hadn’t moved in about five years before this year’s 0.5% mini-nudge upward. Meanwhile, districts statewide are facing budget defic...
Next year, Wrangell will be home to a hot new tourist attraction — public restrooms. Portable facilities will appear downtown in the late spring to meet tourist demand and to reduce the strain on area businesses. “We’re looking at doing some sort of mobile trailer type of restroom,” said Tom Wetor, director of the Public Works Department. The trailers will sit at the intersection of Campbell Drive and Front Street, near 56º North and Angerman’s. Facilities will include four private stalls, complete with sinks. Two of the stalls will be wheelch...
For the past seven years, the Alaska economy has performed “at or near the bottom” nationally in four key measures of economic health, according to a report released Nov. 17 by the University of Alaska Center for Economic Development. Taken together, the state’s poor performance between 2015 and 2021 — in employment growth, unemployment, net migration and gross domestic product — place Alaska’s economic health at the bottom of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, said Nolan Klouda, the center’s executive director and lead author of the...
In the Oct. 4 municipal election, Wrangell voters authorized the borough to sell or lease the 6-Mile mill site, a 39-acre parcel of land on Zimovia Highway. As they explore options for developing the land, borough officials will seek community feedback at an upcoming public forum. The forum represents an effort to “look at what the community would like to see out there,” said Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore. How does the community think the property can best be utilized for its benefit, she asked. At the Oct. 19 meeting of the bor...
Soon after Carol Rushmore stepped into her role as economic development director in 1993, Wrangell’s economic landscape changed forever. The sawmill, which had been the borough’s economic mainstay since the mid-1950s, shut down, setting off a chain reaction of job losses and business closures that affected the entire community. “We lost 20% of our workforce overnight,” Rushmore said. “It was extremely bad for a good 10 years.” But 29 years and countless grant applications, public forums and infrastructure projects later, Rushmore is planning...
On Dec. 17, a downtown shop will turn off the open sign for good. Silver Liningz Boutique is closing after nearly six years in business, leaving customers to find their sassy fashions somewhere else. A myriad of reasons led to the decision, said owner Terie Loomis, who will be entering her second retirement. "I've already retired once from corporate America back in 2012. Then we moved here and decided to open the boutique," Loomis said. "I've retired twice now and (my husband is) jealous." Her...
Renewable energy advocates will try again at next year’s legislative session to win approval for extending the life of the state’s Renewable Energy Fund and creating a “green bank” to help finance clean-energy projects. The Renewable Energy Fund (REF) provides grants for renewable energy projects via a competitive process. The fund was established in 2008 with an initial investment of $100 million, plus additional deposits over the years. The program ends in 2023, unless extended by lawmakers. Legislators convene in Juneau on Jan. 17. Over 10...
Alaska’s economy shows signs of prosperity. But it’s also facing an emerging crisis. A veteran economist described these contradictory forces in a presentation Nov. 16 at an industry conference in Anchorage. “We have the strangest and weirdest economy that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been following the economy for a long, long time,” Neal Fried of the Alaska Department of Labor told the Resource Development Council for Alaska. By many measures, Alaska’s economy is in good shape, said Fried, whose economic presentations have become a staple at the...
Though you might not find four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree in the rainforest ecosystems of the Tongass, there can be no doubt that counting birds is a quintessential Christmas activity. On Dec. 17, Wrangell’s avian enthusiasts will participate in Audubon’s 123rd annual Christmas Bird Count. Over 20 countries and thousands of volunteers contribute to this early-winter bird census, which runs from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5 yearly. Each community’s bird count is conducted on a single calendar day w...
All three incumbents likely clinched victory in Alaska’s statewide elections when the Alaska Division of Elections updated vote count results on Friday with thousands of additional absentee, questioned and early ballots from this fall’s general election. Final unofficial results will not be available until 4 p.m. Wednesday, when the division implements the state’s new ranked-choice sorting system, but voting trends have made the results clear in most races. With 264,994 votes counted, incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy had 50.3% of the v...
A new group has announced it will attempt to do away with ranked-choice voting in Alaska by ballot initiative, and former Gov. Sarah Palin was the first to sign the petition — before the outcome of her failed congressional bid ws final. Alaskans for Honest Government, a political action committee that formed last month, hosted an event Nov. 17 where group organizers launched their effort to collect signatures to put the question of reinstating the state’s former voting system to voters on the 2024 ballot. Ranked-choice voting was adopted in...
A tiny parking lot on a little-traveled downtown side street is now a landmark achievement for Alaska Natives in Juneau, with the federal government approving a “land-into-trust” application last Thursday that paves the way for a range of self-determination, economic and other benefits for the tribal owners. The application by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska is only the second approved in the state, following one in Craig five years ago. In addition to making Tlingit and Haida eligible for more federal ser...
SEATTLE (AP) — The Washington state Department of Natural Resources said Nov. 14 it will not renew a fish-farming company’s last remaining leases on net pens in Puget Sound. Department officials said Cooke Aquaculture has until Dec. 14 to finish steelhead farming and start deconstructing its equipment, The Seattle Times reported. Cooke’s pens are located in Rich Passage near Bainbridge Island and Hope Island in Skagit Bay. Letters sent from the Department of Natural Resources to the Canada-based company on Nov. 14 indicate Cooke had a histo...
JUNEAU (AP) — A black bear cub in Southeast Alaska was euthanized after it became ill with avian influenza, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said. It is believed that the cub, which was located in Bartlett Cove in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve west of Juneau, is the second bear diagnosed with the highly pathogenic bird flu, the Juneau Empire reported. Bird flu “passes really easily to poultry, but mammals aren’t really susceptible to it,” said Dr. Kimberlee Beckmen, a wildlife veterinarian for the department. “It’s difficult t...
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court appears likely to leave in place most of a federal law that gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings of Native children. The justices heard more than three hours of arguments on Nov. 9 in a broad challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, enacted in 1978 to address concerns that American Indian and Alaska Native children were being separated from their families and, too frequently, placed in non-Native homes. The...
PHOENIX (AP) - The Indian Health Service announced last Thursday that all tribal members covered by the federal agency will be offered a vaccine at every appointment when appropriate, under a new vaccine strategy. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, American Indians and Alaska Natives have had some of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates across the country. But Indigenous people are especially vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illness, and IHS officials recently noticed fewer patients have be...
Leaders in the Western Alaska community of Kipnuk say the principal of nearly a decade bullied Native school staff members, put residents in jeopardy by ignoring COVID-19 restrictions and oversaw a decline in education quality. That’s why in October, according to documents obtained through a public records request, they voted to banish her from the community. School officials and tribal leaders involved in the banishment order and subsequent search by tribal police officers at the Chief Paul Memorial School at the end of last month have largely...
A top official with ConocoPhillips said the company expects to start working early next year on the $8 billion Willow oil prospect in Alaska, an effort that could lead to more than 2,000 construction jobs in the coming years. The project is located in the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the North Slope. The reserve is home to migratory birds, polar bears and calving grounds for the Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd. Willow could potentially produce 600 million barrels of oil over a 30-year life, according to estimates. Peak produ...
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Environmental groups have hailed a decision by the Biden administration to resume studying whether grizzly bears should be restored to the remote North Cascades mountains in Washington state. The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they would jointly prepare an environmental impact statement on restoring the endangered bears to the North Cascades ecosystem. Humans killed the bears off from the ecosystem long ago and restoration there will contribute to the general recovery of the endangered a...
After Wrangell voters chose not to take on debt to finance repairs to the Public Safety Building last month, the facility’s future is uncertain. Borough officials are racing against time to identify alternative sources of funding before the building, which houses essential government services, becomes unsafe for workers. At the Oct. 4 municipal election, the community approved $3.5 million in bonds for school repairs but voted down the ballot issue that would have approved $8.5 million to repair the Public Safety Building, which would have b...
Ethel Aanwoogex' Lund, a pioneer of tribal health care, died in the early morning last Friday at the age of 91. She was instrumental in improving the quality of care for Alaska Native people and received national recognition for her contributions. Lund was born in Wrangell in 1931, where she witnessed firsthand the challenges that rural and Native Alaskans faced when trying to access health care. After tuberculosis devastated her community - and put her in the hospital for two and a half years...
X'atshaawditee Tammi Meissner has found a career that allows her to go home at the end of the day with a full heart. Since June, Meissner has worked for Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska as a community navigator in Wrangell. The position is essentially a reboot of the community liaison program that existed years ago. There are 20 community navigators in communities across Alaska and outside the state in cities such as Seattle and San Francisco. The navigators are there to h...
Alaskans may have decided to re-elect Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola to Congress, but the final outcome will not be known until the last ballots are tallied next week and, in one or both races, ranked-choice voting is factored into the decision. Murkowski, a Republican who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, has been the target of ire from Trump and from hard-liner conservatives. She trailed conservative Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka by a small margin, 91,205 to 94,138, as of Monday (42.84% to 44.22%). But the...
