Sorted by date Results 2023 - 2047 of 7954
At first glance, the water therapy class in the Parks and Recreation swimming pool might look like a group of people just standing around in the water. But, like ducks on a pond, there's much more going on beneath the surface. Every joint from head to toe is being exercised during the class, offering a low-impact workout for participants and providing relief from the effects of arthritis. Around 32.5 million adults in the United States suffer from some form of osteoarthritis, the most common...
The Salvation Army and its companions in the Wrangell Ministerial Association are preparing to roll out their annual holiday programs, providing meals, clothes and gifts to members of the community. For Jon Tollerud, a Salvation Army Corps officer, the church’s holiday programs are a way to care for the community during a season that can be as financially burdensome as it is festive. “We’ve been helped in that same way,” Tollerud said of his family, and he hopes that the community will take advantage of what the Salvation Army has to offer....
After two months of book work, lectures and practice with plastic replicas, Winston Davies' sixth grade Alaska Skills class headed to the shooting range last week to continue their training in hunter safety. "This is a state curriculum," explained Davies, who has been drilling safety rules with his students "almost every day" to prepare them to shoot live firearms at the range. "The kids walk around the shop (with dummy firearms) and they practice carrying them, working the actions on them."...
Restoration of Inter-Island Ferry Authority service from Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island to Wrangell and Petersburg would take money. The service ended in 2008, and the two communities will talk about what it would take to bring back the run, how much it would cost and who would pay. The Petersburg borough assembly last month voted unanimously to send a letter to the Wrangell assembly to start talks on possibly restoring the route. Wrangell assembly members at their Oct. 25 meeting directed Borough Manager Jeff Good to talk with his...
The wheels on the bus go round and round, but you might not hear them. Wrangell was the only school district in Alaska to be awarded with a $395,000 grant last month to purchase an electric school bus through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program. The awards are the first year of a five-year program totaling $5 billion created by the Infrastructure Act signed into law a year ago. John Taylor, co-owner of Taylor Transportation, had been approached by a school bus manufacturer in Anchorage about the grant. Taylor T...
When Matthew Gore arrived in Wrangell on the evening of Oct. 21, he took his dogs for a walk in the park before getting on his boat, the Andromeda, which he had been storing at the Reliance Float since late June 2021. Immediately, something “felt off.” As he walked down the stairs, he tripped over objects that he didn’t remember placing there. After inspecting the entire vessel, he discovered that it had been stripped. The generator, charger, batteries, fans, power cable, laminate flooring and more had all been removed and the anchor had been...
The coronavirus led to many business closures in 2020. Of those that were able to adapt and weather the financial storm caused by the pandemic, many are still struggling to recover. To that end, the Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska has reopened its federally funded small business relief grant program to help small businesses owned by tribal citizens. The council also has introduced a grant program for 2022 start-ups. The relief grants have been awarded since 2021, with $200,000 total being awarded to 40 businesses in...
Since 2018, an ongoing insect outbreak has been killing the foliage of hemlock and Stika spruce in the Tongass. The Wrangell area is among the most affected. Though residents have expressed concern at the island's gray and red-spotted hillsides, state entomologist Elizabeth Graham shared reassuring news with the Wrangell and Petersburg communities at an online forum last Wednesday. The hemlock sawfly and western blackheaded budworm populations have likely reached their peak, and though the...
Dozens of hands small and large held a firm grip on the 30-foot-long dugout canoe they pushed down Angoon's Front Street despite their shoes slipping on the rain-soaked road. Neither the potholes on the road nor the rain on Oct. 26 seemed to discourage the more than 50 Chatham School District students and Angoon residents from pushing what was the first dugout canoe made in Angoon since the U.S. Navy bombardment 140 years ago. The 1882 bombardment destroyed all but one of its fleet of dugout...
Backers of a proposed copper and gold mine in Southwest Alaska “tried to trick regulators by pretending to pursue a smaller project with the intention of expanding” after the project was approved, a report released Oct. 28 by a U.S. House panel said. The report makes several recommendations, including environmental review process changes to ensure a more inclusive review “of cumulative impacts of projects.” Mike Heatwole, a spokesperson for the Pebble Limited Partnership, which is seeking to develop the Pebble Mine, said the company has not...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has requested a federal disaster declaration and U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has requested $250 million in relief funding after the failure of this year’s Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries. Last week, Peltola asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee to include relief funding for crab fishermen and the crabbing industry in Congress’ year-end appropriation bill. Disaster relief funding could be available if Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo declares a f...
Alaska’s minimum wage will rise 51 cents, to $10.85 per hour, starting next year. The adjustment, announced last month by the Alaska Department of Labor, is intended to compensate for a 5% rise in the cost of living in Anchorage. Alaska law requires the minimum wage to be adjusted each year for inflation. Despite the increase, the minimum wage remains well below a widely used measure of a living wage in Alaska. In Anchorage, the median apartment rental cost is $1,339 per month, according to a survey conducted this year by the Alaska Housing F...
With Election Day less than a week away, the leading group encouraging Alaskans to vote no on a constitutional convention has raised much more money than its opponents after attracting a broad bipartisan group of supporters and a growing list of influential organizations backing its cause. Dwarfed in spending, the leading yes group is fighting on two fronts: In secular public forums, supporters are staying focused on a convention as a way to resolve Permanent Fund dividend debates. Meanwhile, some of the same conservative supporters are also...
Republican governor candidate Charlie Pierce confirmed on Oct. 26 that he will continue his campaign despite a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing a Kenai Peninsula Borough employee while he served as borough mayor. “We’re in this race to the very end,” he said during a broadcast of KSRM-AM radio’s “Sound Off” program. Pierce, at 6.6% of the vote in the August primary, is far behind the other three candidates in the Nov. 8 general election for governor. “I think the honorable thing to do is finish what you start, and that’s what I...
Nick Begich, who is running against fellow Republican Sarah Palin and Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola for Alaska’s single U.S. House seat, will be in Wrangell on Friday. He is the only one of the three leading candidates to schedule a visit to the community. His conservative platform includes deregulating Alaska minerals development and bolstering the state’s role in supplying resources to the nation. Peltola won the House seat in August to fill out the unexpired term of the late Rep. Don Young until January. The Nov. 8 general election wil...
In the final debate of Alaska's U.S. Senate election, incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her principal challenger, Republican Kelly Tshibaka, argued about contentious issues including abortion and gun control, but their biggest difference was one of strategy and bipartisanship. During a fast-moving hour Oct. 27, Tshibaka criticized Murkowski for working with Democrats and the administration of President Joe Biden during her latest term in Congress, while Murkowski defended her choices...
Republican lieutenant governor candidate Edie Grunwald is withdrawing from the Nov. 8 election after her running mate, former Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, was sued over allegations he sexually harassed a former borough employee. Grunwald encouraged Alaskans to vote for fellow Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy. She said "recent circumstances" surrounding Pierce had led her to make the decision to step aside. "I support and advocate for the respectful treatment of women in politics, t...
Alaska's four candidates for governor sparred over crime, education, abortion access and the state budget on Oct. 19 in the only live televised debate ahead of the November election. Independent former Gov. Bill Walker and Democratic former state legislator Les Gara devoted much of their responses to attacking Republican incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy for his record. Meanwhile, Dunleavy and fellow Republican candidate Charlie Pierce, former mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, appeared to agree...
The cost of preschool child care is a growing problem in Alaska, one of 33 states where the annual cost of day care exceeds the cost of college tuition. The University of Alaska Fairbanks charges $9,870 per year; the latest available estimates of child care costs predate the COVID-19 pandemic and range between $10,000 and $14,000 per year. In forums, debates and questionnaires, Alaska’s four candidates for governor have been asked what they would do to address the problem: In the past two years of incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s ter...
In unprecedented move tailor-made for Alaska’s new voting system, two different campaigns for governor on Oct. 28 released a joint ad urging voters to rank them either first or second — regardless of the order. It’s not a new message for independent candidate former Gov. Bill Walker and Democratic candidate former state Rep. Les Gara. Both Walker and Gara for months have indicated that they would vote for the other candidate second. But it’s the first time their campaigns have indicated as much in an ad jointly produced by the two campaig...
Alaska U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in a televised debate Oct. 26 called partisanship a threat to the country as the Democrat sought to make the case for reelection to the seat she’s held since September against challengers including Republican Sarah Palin. Peltola beat Palin and Republican Nick Begich in a ranked-choice August special election to fill the remainder of the late Republican Rep. Don Young’s term. Those three, along with Libertarian Chris Bye, are running in the Nov. 8 election for a full two-year term that starts in January. This ele...
The Alaska Supreme Court issued a full opinion on Oct. 21, explaining why it upheld the state’s new ranked-choice voting and open-primary system as constitutional in January. The five justices issued a brief order at the time in favor of the new system that was narrowly approved by voters in a 2020 ballot measure. It was issued quickly to confirm to the Alaska Division of Elections that the new voting system would be used this year. Alaska is the second state after Maine to implement ranked-choice voting, in which voters are asked to rank f...
At East Ohmer Creek, 22 miles south of Petersburg, is a tree believed to be the largest left on Mitkof Island. U.S. Forest Service Fish Biologist Eric Castro said foresters estimate the tree, which grew on a once-rich floodplain, is around 600 years old. "Those giant pumpkins are what used to grow in this type of environment," Castro said. That tree stands in contrast to those that have grown around it over the past 60 years, which have reached four to eight inches in diameter - about a tenth...
Years of flat state funding create budget stress for schools across Alaska By James Brooks and Lisa Phu Alaska Beacon The Anchorage School District, which is considering the closure of six elementary schools amid a projected $68 million budget shortfall, isn’t the only district facing a major fiscal problem. At the end of the last school year, Fairbanks closed three schools. In Juneau, the school board is considering whether to fire specialists intended to help students recover reading skills lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. In rural A...
As the state ferry system ages, the Alaska Department of Transportation is turning to new technologies to update its fleet. The department is implementing diesel-electric hybrid power on its upcoming Tustumena replacement vessel, which is slated to set sail in 2027. By then, the Tustumena will be 62 years old. In addition to its diesel engines, the new ferry will feature a “room for housing batteries” that could cut fuel consumption by 1%, according to a Juneau KTOO radio report. At an Oct. 14 meeting, Brian Jennings, a projects staffer wit...
