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A federal workers union expects a total of at least 1,378 federal employees in Alaska with probationary status to be fired by the Trump administration. David Owens, a national representative with the American Federation of Government Employees, said the union did not have current numbers of those already fired as of Thursday, Feb. 20, but expects the Trump administration to fire all probationary employees. Out of the 1,378 employees, 331 are veterans, he said. He cited an Office of Personnel Management database in giving the following... Full story
The school district has a separate savings account of nearly $1.2 million, which would more than cover its expected revenue shortfall of $767,016 for the upcoming school year. The fund is reserved for capital improvement projects, but it is within the school board’s purview to reallocate the funds if needed. The district has been building the fund since 1998, with only small withdrawals in recent years. Without major new revenues or spending cuts, the district’s operating budget reserve fund — a separate account from the building impro...
Warren Hill spent more than two decades working at the Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, which spans 4 million acres of coastline, forests, lakes and glaciers in Southeast Alaska. Last summer, he was promoted to serve as maintenance supervisor, in addition to his roles as carpenter and mechanic. But because Hill was starting a new role, he was on probationary status when President Donald Trump ’s administration began firing thousands of federal workers who had less civil service protection. “I’m furious,” he said. “I am just a few years...
After just under two years in business, Island Tire Repair closed down its operations last week. “Hate to say it but the business is shut down as of today at 3 p.m.,” according to the company’s Feb. 17 post on the Wrangell Community Facebook page. “Going to have a sale at the shop tomorrow starting at 10 a.m.” Business owner John Hurst did not respond to messages from the Sentinel asking for more information. “Everything is for sale,” the Facebook post said. “I want to say thank you to all my customers for being with us for these last two...
In a telephonic town hall Feb. 19, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the recent mass firing of probationary federal employees violated the law and lacked “respect and dignity” toward the workers who lost their jobs, which in Alaska include more than 100 employees of the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and other agencies. In a call that drew more than 1,000 Alaskans, Murkowski also said that President Donald Trump’s efforts to withhold federal funding that had already been approved by Congress “cannot be allowed to stand.” “If we in...
For her senior project, Clara Waddington hopes to cement the Tlingit language and culture at the forefront of the Wrangell educational experience. She is engraving metal signs with the Tlingit translations for different English-language signs across the school. The Tlingit language signs will be hung beside the other signs, similar to the style of the Tlingit words in Wrangell IGA displayed beneath the English tags. So far, Waddington has found direct translations for "Wrangell High School,"...
Seven employees of the U.S. Forest Service Wrangell Ranger District were fired last week - more than one-quarter of the district's permanent staffing - as the Trump administration continues to slash the federal workforce. Further terminations in Wrangell are anticipated. In response to the terminations and uncertainty over who's next, community members organized a walk in solidarity with Forest Service employees last Friday. About 30 to 40 people showed up to support the fired workers. They...
The Alaska Marine Highway System has decided to cancel plans to replace the controllable-pitch propellers aboard the state ferry Columbia next year, opting to keep the 52-year-old ship in service until a replacement vessel is built. The propulsion system project was estimated in 2022 to cost as much as $20 million. The Columbia, the largest vessel in the fleet, serves the ferry system’s longest and most heavily traveled route between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. It had been scheduled to head into a shipyard for much of next y...
Tidal Network is scheduled to break ground for construction of its first permanent wireless internet tower on Feb. 19. Tidal Network is the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida’s broadband internet service company. After receiving a $50 million federal grant to construct 20 towers across Southeast, the company pinpointed Wrangell as the host site for its first tower. The ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the 3-Mile location where the tower will be constructed. The “groundbreaking” ceremony will be mostly symbolic: Tidal Network offic...
The Wrangell Sentinel has a new front-page masthead and logo, honoring the history and culture of the Tlingit people. The new logo incorporates a representation of the Bear Up The Mountain Totem, with permission of the Naanya.aayi' clan. The new artwork replaces a different totem that had been part of the Sentinel for more than 50 years until last fall when it was deleted from the newspaper logo at the request of the clan. Bear Up The Mountain tells the story of how a bear led villagers up a...
In a series of hearings last week, members of the Alaska Legislature heard emotional testimony about the need for more education funding. As lawmakers consider the idea, it’s becoming increasingly clear within the Capitol that more funding for public schools will come at the expense of the Permanent Fund dividend. “The state of Alaska is probably facing its largest fiscal problem … in 30 years,” said Bethel Sen. Lyman Hoffman, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, on Feb. 11. Hoffman has been a legislator since 1987. Under the governo... Full story
Dozens of Alaska students, parents and school board members from across the state visited the Legislature on Feb. 10, painting a picture of crowded classrooms, teacher shortages, agonizing school closures, loss of learning opportunities and uncertainty about the future. "We have cut and cut and cut, year after year after year, due to stagnant funding from the state," said Bobby Burgess, a school board member from Fairbanks. "We have trimmed the fat. We have cut into the flesh, and we are... Full story
Almost one-quarter of the jobs in the state ferry system are unfilled, and the vacancy rate is highest among the positions that require the most training, Alaska Marine Highway System Director Craig Tornga told state lawmakers last week. Among wheelhouse positions, the vacancy rate is above 30%, he said at a House committee hearing on Feb. 11. The ferry system has been short crew for the past few years, limiting the number of vessels it can put into service and further eroding its passenger revenues. To operate the cross-gulf route between...
Passenger and vehicle traffic aboard the Alaska Marine Highway System moved slightly higher in 2024 from 2023, but still is less than half its peak from the early 1990s. The state ferries carried just over 185,000 passengers and about 65,000 vehicles last year on its routes stretching from Southeast to Prince William Sound and into several Gulf of Alaska coastal communities. That’s down from more than 400,000 passengers and 110,000 vehicles 1990-1992. And it’s down from more than 325,000 passengers as recently as the early 2010s. Marine Dir...
Mass layoffs in the federal workforce ordered by President Donald Trump began to hit Alaska employees last week, with workers losing jobs at multiple agencies across the state. The scale of the Alaska layoffs wasn’t fully clear, but by Friday, Feb. 14, included around 30 Alaska employees at the U.S. Forest Service and 30 with the National Park Service, according to employees and union representatives. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said late Friday that “dozens of Alaskans — potentially over 100 in total” had lost their jobs, criticizing what sh...
Southeast Alaska residents are used to choppy waters, so while they may be getting seasick over the waves of uncertainty in federal programs and funding stirred up by Donald Trump’s return to the White House, smoother sailing is on the horizon, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told a conference of regional business and community leaders Feb. 11. A mix of uncertainty, optimism and concern about the Trump administration’s impacts on the region was expressed by other federal, state and industry officials participating in the opening day of Southeast Con...
In a 5-2 vote, the Alaska Board of Fisheries rejected a proposal to cut by 25% the allowable egg harvest for Southeast salmon hatcheries. The proposal, submitted by former board member and North Pole resident Virgil Umphenour, sought to “reduce the permitted egg take of pink and chum salmon of each applicable Southeast hatchery … by 25%.” The board voted Feb. 8, the next-to-last day of its 13-day meeting in Ketchikan. Similar proposals to significantly cut the egg harvest at Southeast hatcheries have come before the board at least four previ...
Wrangell Elks Lodge No. 1595 received $19,000 in state and national Elks funds which the lodge has distributed to four separate community programs. The grant funds were distributed to the school wrestling program, Senior Center, Parks and Recreation’s youth swim program, and for grocery gift cards for veterans and their families. The checks — and burgers — were presented at the Elks Club weekly burger night Thursday, Feb. 13. “The Wrangell Elks Lodge is proud to support these programs and more in our community,” said Dawn Angerman, a lodge trus...
Maylee Martin is working to line up financing to buy Tiny’s Taxi and its vehicle, but until that comes though she is offering to give people rides for a donation. Tiny’s Taxi closed down last month, and Martin stepped in to provide donation-only rides when and where she can, while working toward setting up her own business. Tiny’s was the only taxi service in Wrangell. “I’m just doing this until … I get the loan I need,” she said last week of her work with a financial institution under a state loan program. She plans to call her new business...
The borough assembly on Feb. 11 appointed Phillip Mach and Antonio Silva to fill vacancies on the assembly and port commission, respectively. Both terms will expire in October, when Mach and Silva will have the option to run in the municipal elections. Anne Morrison (assembly) and Gary Morrison (port commission) vacated the seats in January after announcing they plan on leaving town. Candidates needed to submit a letter of interest to City Hall to be eligible for the appointments. While Borough...
The borough assembly on Feb. 11 unanimously approved an ordinance to eliminate the need for the public to approve the sale of borough-owned assets valued at more than $1 million. The decision came after borough attorneys suggested the clause in Wrangell’s charter violated the state constitution, as it allowed the public to usurp the assembly’s appropriations powers. “From a legal standpoint,” borough attorney Rob Luce said, “it’s not good practice to leave … charter sections on the books that aren’t legal or aren’t constitutional. A...
Vaccinations successfully guarded children from pertussis, a respiratory disease also known as whooping cough, during last year’s spike in cases of the disease in Alaska, a new state report says. Unvaccinated children were more than 13 times as likely as vaccinated children to get the disease during the outbreak, according to a bulletin released by the Alaska Division of Public Health’s epidemiology section. There were more confirmed cases of pertussis in Alaska last year — over 500 — than in all the years from 2016 to 2023 combined, accordi... Full story
The number of nonresidents working in Alaska hit a new record in 2023 and all major industries are relying more heavily on workers who do not live in the state, according to the state Department of Labor. Nonresident workers in Alaska totaled 92,664 in 2023 and comprised 23.5% of the workforce, the highest percentage since 1995, according to an annual report published by the department that is mandated by state law. Typically, about one in five workers in Alaska is not a resident of the state, and certain seasonal industries, such as seafood...
Federal fishery managers took steps on Feb. 11 to impose new rules to prevent Alaska chum salmon from being scooped into nets that go after Bering Sea pollock, an industrial-scale fishery that produces the nation’s largest single-species commercial seafood harvest. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council advanced a suite of new protections intended to combat the pollock trawlers’ salmon bycatch, the term for the incidental catch of unintended species. Proposed steps in the package include numeric caps on total chum salmon bycatch, wit... Full story
After seven years of planning and almost 18 months of construction, Wrangell's state-of-the-art water treatment plant is in the final phases. The $23 million project not only modernizes Wrangell's system but ensures the town is better prepared for future dry spells. The plant will likely go fully online this spring. The current plant started operations in 1999, and many of its pieces are being repurposed into the new plant just next door. While the current plant initially relies on an electrical...