Sorted by date Results 2260 - 2284 of 7954
With the start of the school year just around the corner, staff members at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka are scrambling to find housing for new teachers. The search has consumed much of the summer for Miranda Bacha, who took over as principal this summer. Housing was still needed last week for four incoming teachers — 15% of the teaching staff. “This is how I’m spending all my time now,” Bacha said. “That’s basically all I’m focusing on, getting them housing. If we were four short, you’re talking 16 classes, 16 core classes. I’m ta...
SEATTLE (AP) — A federal court ruling last week has thrown into doubt the future of a valuable commercial king salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska, after a conservation group challenged the government’s approval of the harvest as a threat to protected fish and the endangered killer whales that eat them. The ruling, issued Aug. 8 by U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle, said NOAA Fisheries violated the Endangered Species Act and other environmental law when it approved the troll fishery. The ruling means the federal agency will have to...
A group of conservative Alaskans, headed by a leading member of the Alaska Republican Party, has formed a new campaign organization intended to encourage Alaskans to call a constitutional convention and allow sweeping changes in the way Alaska runs its government, sets its budget and regulates the lives of its residents. Jim Minnery, president of the anti-abortion Alaska Family Council, announced the creation of ConventionYes on Aug. 8. Minnery is a member of the new group’s steering committee. The group’s chair is Craig Campbell, national com...
A committee of the Alaska Legislature voted unanimously on Aug. 10 to spend an additional $50,000 on its investigation into the firing of Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. director Angela Rodell, bringing the investigation’s total budget to $150,000. Anchorage Sen. Natasha von Imhof, chair of the House-Senate Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, said the money is needed to get the investigation “to the finish line,” and she expects a full report in October. Members of the committee hired a special investigator in January to determine wheth...
After several years of research, Sitka’s new online landslide-warning system is now live. But the site — which uses data from the National Weather Service alongside historical data to determine the level of landslide risk in Sitka — is only a start to the landslide research that remains to be done, said a scientist on the project. “It’s a conclusion but it’s also kind of a beginning,” said Jacyn Schmidt, geoscience coordinator at the Sitka Sound Science Center. Educating Sitkans on how to react to the possibility of landslides, and building...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government is conducting a review of four hydroelectric dams on a Maine river that could result in a lifeline for the last wild Atlantic salmon in the United States. The last of the wild salmon live in a group of rivers in Maine and have been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 2000. One of the rivers is the Kennebec River, where Brookfield Renewable U.S. owns four dams. Brookfield wants to amend its federal licenses for the four dams and receive a new 40-year operating license for one of them. T...
Several landslides have closed the cruise ship dock in Skagway for the rest of the summer, causing what’s expected to be at least three dozen vessels to skip the tourism-dependent port by the end of summer. The municipality issued an emergency declaration on Aug. 4, citing the need to shore up the slide-damaged areas and the loss of more than 100,000 cruise passengers to cancellations and rescheduling. A mid-July report from a geotechnical and environmental consulting firm showed “significant risk” of “catastrophic failure” of the mountains...
The Skagway Borough Assembly has directed the borough manager to pursue negotiations for the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium to take over management of the community health clinic and lease the municipally owned building. In the meantime, the Dahl Memorial Clinic, which costs the municipality about $1 million per year to operate, will get a temporary executive director at the price of about $150,000 for three months through a company that also sells training and restructuring services to health centers. The company has prepared a...
More than 6,700 passengers a year boarded a state ferry in Wrangell 2010 through 2015, and more than 6,900 a year walked or drove off the ships during that six-year period. In calendar 2021, those numbers were down to 690 passengers boarding a ferry and 771 getting off a ship, a drop of about 90%. Those 2021 passenger counts are up from the pandemic-worst travel year of calendar 2020, when just 264 boarded in Wrangell and 274 arrived, but the decline in ridership has been constant since 2014, according to statistics provided by the Alaska...
With the first classes just over two weeks away, students are getting ready to return to their education-filled days. Before that can happen, administrative and teaching staff are prepping classrooms, curriculum and registrations to welcome back students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said based on the number of kindergartners and graduated seniors from last year, the district is anticipating about 263 children in the student body this year, similar to last year’s number. Online registration will begin M...
Uncovering historical items can have its ups and downs. In some cases, that's the literal truth. Somewhere around 1915, a set of stairs was built that saw a lot of use over the next 80 years. But they began to fade like an old photograph until suddenly they disappeared. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that the stairs were found, leading to a conversation about their place in Wrangell's history. Peter Karras, of Sitka, was in town on a visit in mid-July. Not one to be idle, he was cutting...
For the first time in a decade, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., source of more than half of Alaska’s general-purpose state revenue, posted negative investment returns for an entire fiscal year. As of June 30, the last day of the just-ended fiscal year 2022, the fund reported having earned minus-1.32% over the preceding 12 months. The decline will not have an immediate effect on state finances, but continued losses over multiple years would reduce the amount of money available each year for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend. B...
As students start school on Aug. 25, two new administrators will be joining them. Ann Hilburn is the new principal for Evergreen Elementary and Bob Burkhart is new the principal for Wrangell High and Stikine Middle school. Hilburn was previously the special education teacher at the high school and middle school, while Burkhart was working as a principal in Missoula, Montana, after having been retired. Leadership positions at the schools opened after Bob Davis retired from the high school and...
After a mid-July surge to 1,021 COVID-19 infections among tourists at sea in a single week, the state Health Department reports the case count the past two weeks fell to an average of 550 per week. The record number of infections among non-residents, which the state refers to as “at-sea, purpose tourism,” was reported July 20. The July 27 count was down to 517, then 583 on Aug. 3. The state reports COVID statistics once a week, every Wednesday. At-sea cases averaged less than 450 a week from the start of the cruise ship season to mid-July. In...
The school board Aug. 1 held a special meeting to take care of a few last-minute items before the start of classes on Aug. 25. Board members approved the hiring of four staff members for vacant positions. The district hired Krysta Gillen as a paraprofessional, Peter Parks as a custodian, Alyssa Howell as a second grade teacher and Holly Padilla as a long-term substitute at the elementary school level. Only two vacancies in the district remained at the time of the board meeting, but both have since been filled. The board will need to officially...
Alaska voters will go to the polls next Tuesday to mark their ballots in a couple of firsts: The first election under the state’s new ranked-choice voting system, and the election of Alaska’s first new member of the U.S. House in 49 years. The three finalists for Congress selected in the July special primary election are Republicans Nick Begich, a Chugiak businessman, and former Gov. Sarah Palin, and former Bethel state legislator Democrat Mary Peltola. At a recent candidate forum in Juneau, Begich noted that Alaska is the second most fed...
There are three weeks remaining for candidates to file for election to the borough assembly, school board and port commission, and as of Monday no one had submitted their paperwork to run for office, with most incumbents reporting they were still undecided. The deadline to file is 4 p.m. Aug. 31 at City Hall for a spot on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot. Mayor Steve Prysunka has announced he is not seeking a third term. In addition to the mayor’s job, two borough assembly seats, three school board seats and two port commission slots w...
The candidates to represent Wrangell in the state Legislature have filed their first campaign finance reports for the Aug. 16 primary election. Not surprisingly, House and Senate incumbents have the lead in fundraising. Rep. Dan Ortiz is looking to keep his seat in the newly redrawn District 1, which includes his hometown of Ketchikan, along with Wrangell, Metlakatla, Hyder, Saxman and the Prince of Wales Island communities of Coffman Cove and Whale Pass. Ortiz reported to Alaska’s campaign finance monitor, the Alaska Public Offices C...
One of the three U.S. House candidates was missing at a candidates forum in Kenai on Aug. 3: Former Gov. Sarah Palin instead held a fundraiser in Minneapolis, according to photos she posted on her Instagram account. The next day, she was in Dallas for a 20-minute onstage interview titled “She’s Back!” Her Texas appearance was at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which draws notable Republican and conservative politicians, including former President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Her opponents to fill the se...
At 8 a.m. on July 30, Andrew Simmonds, 60, entered the chilling waters of Sandy Beach in Petersburg, setting out to prove that age has not slowed him down. His goal was to swim across Frederick Sound to the mainland, more than six miles away. His journey started months earlier. Soon after arriving in Petersburg in November, Simmonds, who is a physical therapist at Petersburg Medical Center, visited Sandy Beach to gaze out over Frederick Sound. He admired the whales leaping above the water and cr...
While thousands danced and dined at the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines last weekend, Drew Robertson of Sedalia, Colorado, was rescuing a half dozen puppies that might be part wolf. The state suspects at least 10 dogs born at 35 Mile Haines Highway in February could be wolf hybrids, which are illegal to breed or possess in Alaska. The owner of the litter - "Seandog" Brownell - said he suspects the mother, Inja, a lab, could have mated with a wild wolf last December on or near his...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska is burning this year in ways rarely or ever seen, from the largest wildfire in a typically mainly fireproof southwest region to a pair of blazes that ripped through forests and produced smoke that blew hundreds of miles to the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the normally crystal clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category. As of late July, more than 530 wildfires had burned an area the size of Connecticut — and the usual worst of the fire season is ahead. While little property has burned, some res...
Students return to school soon, and Alaska’s larger districts are facing a shortage of school bus drivers. The Anchorage School District was short 75 bus drivers less than two weeks before classes begin on Aug. 18. The shortage could lead to some bus routes being suspended, the superintendent said. The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District contractor was short bus drivers last month to cover 115 routes, and as of last week was advertising: “We need bus drivers and attendants!” The district last week announced reduced service when class...
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Aug. 1 joined a bipartisan coalition to introduce a bill that would protect abortion and contraception access. The measure faces an uncertain future in a Senate that failed to pass a broader measure enshrining abortion rights in May. It also comes as Murkowski faces reelection this fall, with abortion emerging as a key issue in that campaign. Despite the bill’s bipartisan co-sponsors — Democrats Tim Kaine, of Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, and Republicans Susan Collins, of Maine, and Murko...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 4-1 on Aug. 1 to establish a new task force to address the community’s housing crisis. Assemblymember Jeff Meucci said the task force would work with the assembly’s backing to look at housing needs in the community. “Like child care, I think this is one of the most important issues facing Petersburg,” Meucci said. “Every person that we’ve hired within the borough over the past several months — police officers, up at the fire department, Mountain View Manor (senior citizen housing) — they were all lookin...
