Sorted by date Results 3107 - 3131 of 7954
JUNEAU (AP) — The federal government said Nov. 18 that it’s beginning the process of repealing a Trump-era rule that permitted road building and logging in the Tongass National Forest, home to about 60,000 people and habitat for wolves, bears and salmon. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that a proposed measure to repeal last year’s Forest Service rule will be published for public comment this week, beginning a 60-day process. The previous rule exempted more than 9 million acres in the Tongass from a 2001 nationwide rule that banne...
A representative for a substance abuse recovery business that is exploring purchasing the former hospital visited Wrangell last week, learning from borough department heads how the community's services and facilities might fit the needs of the for-profit inpatient and outpatient treatment center. Casey Odell, who used to live and work in Wrangell as a therapist and health counselor for Alaska Island Community Services in 2013, was in town Nov. 16-18. She has other work that limited her time...
For six and a half years, Megan Powell has helped others navigate through Wrangell High School as secretary. Now, she's moving on. On Dec. 17, Powell will say goodbye to the students and staff that have become like a second family. She'll go to work as a teller at First Bank. "I think it's just time for a change, and doing something different, trying something else out," she said. Powell came to the secretary position after leaving Crossings when she became pregnant with her first child and...
What began 56 years ago on Bainbridge Island, Washington, pingponged around the world, and landed on Wrangell's shores just a few years ago. Now, pickleball is becoming popular among local players of all abilities. The sport, played on a 20-foot by 44-foot court with a tennis-type net in the middle, was invented in 1965 by friends Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum. According to the official USA Pickleball website, the game was named "pickle ball" by Joel's wife, Joan, in reference...
Temporary jobs created by the borough last month remain unfilled — an airport greeter to familiarize travelers with COVID-19 rules and two tire shredder positions. The airport greeter position, approved by the borough assembly on Oct. 12, is a part-time, temporary position at $15.09 per hour and requires the worker to drive to the airport, ferry terminal, harbors or other locations to greet incoming travelers and inform them of the borough’s COVID travel testing mandates. The position, which requires a high school diploma or GED, would inv...
Tribes nationwide will receive an infusion of federal money from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to expand broadband coverage, fix roads and address water and sanitation needs. The measure does not allocate funds to individual tribes on a per-capita basis as did the 2020 CARES Act or 2021 American Rescue Plan. Much of the overall infrastructure funding will be distributed as competitive grants through federal agencies. Funds also will be directed to the states, with lawmakers making the decisions on which projects to undertake. The...
JUNEAU (AP) — A fast-growing area north of Anchorage known as a hotbed of conservatism gained the most population since the 2010 Census but will keep the same number of House seats in the Legislature under a new map of state political boundaries that some critics say shortchanges the area. Census data showed the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which is about the size of West Virginia and includes Palmer and former Gov. Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, had 18,086 more people last year than in 2010, the biggest jump for any borough or Census are...
The Petersburg borough assembly last week adopted a new emergency ordinance requiring face masks in indoor public places amid a surge of COVID-19 cases in the community the past couple of weeks. The assembly, however, deleted from the draft ordinance a proposed $50 non-compliance fine for individuals and $100 fine for business and property owners. The ordinance adopted by the assembly Nov. 17 replaced an emergency ordinance adopted Nov. 5, which also did not include any specific enforcement measures for non-compliance. The public health...
Hospice of Wrangell is doing its usual double duty this holiday season, with its annual Dove Tree ceremony to remember lost friends and family members and the Christmas Tree Lane fundraiser. Both events are at the Nolan Center. The Dove Tree ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday and will include readings, a homily by the Rev. Suellen Bahleda of Island of Faith Lutheran Church, and music by Cindy Martin, Sarah Scambler, Bonnie Demerjian and Alice Rooney. The tree, with paper doves in memory of people who have died, “has a place of honor” amo...
Unlike Fairbanks and the Kenai Peninsula which struggled to complete their traditional holiday food box menus — partially due to nationwide supply chain shortcomings — Wrangell’s organizers report 50 Thanksgiving boxes went out fully stuffed. The Salvation Army, which coordinates the holiday campaign for the Wrangell Ministerial Association, placed its Thanksgiving order in October with City Market and IGA to ensure everything would arrive on time. They turned in their Christmas food order on Nov. 1, and are still taking inventory of what...
The borough reported two new COVID-19 cases in Wrangell on Wednesday, adding to the four on Tuesday and pushing the November total to 60 -- by far the highest monthly count of the almost two-year-long pandemic. All but one of the 60 cases are Wrangell residents and most were close contacts of recent positive cases, including the two infections reported Wednesday. The previous record was 48 cases in August. Of the recent cases in town, the borough reported 15 were still active as of late Wednesday afternoon, down from last week as individuals...
Wrangell has set a pandemic record for the community for the number of COVID-19 cases in a month, reporting on Thursday its 50th and 51st infections in the first 18 days of November. The old record of 48 was set in August. Amid the surge in new cases in town, the borough assembly had called a special meeting for Thursday to consider an emergency ordinance requiring face masks to help limit further spread of the highly infectious disease. “Wrangell is experiencing unprecedented levels of positive COVID-19 cases,” the borough reported Monday eve...
A for-profit detox and recovery center business interested in purchasing the former hospital building planned a site visit for this week, and a former Wrangell resident who now works as a company representative led them to it. Casey Odell, the representative from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Regard Recovery Centers, called in to the borough assembly meeting on Nov. 9 to discuss the possibility. She said she worked for Alaska Island Community Services as a therapist and health counselor in 2013 in Wrangell, before SEARHC took over the...
The port and harbors department is Marie Kondo-ing the boatyard. But when tossing out what doesn't bring joy consists of 10 derelict vessels that include steel, wood and fiberglass boats, the scrapping is a multi-step process. The Island Belle, Bonnie Jean, Tres Suertes and Parakeet have been through a vetting process that consists of trying to find the original owner to claim the vessel, followed by a borough auction. No one claimed the vessels. The Parakeet is already gone. It's an old seiner...
Nicole Hammer is faced with a child care conundrum that has no easy solutions. As her unemployment benefits run out, she needs to find a job. But finding someone to watch her son is proving to be difficult. Without a day care center and with few home-based child care providers, Wrangell parents have had to get creative when it comes to finding someone to watch their children while they work. In some cases, they've had to quit working. Or, in Hammer's case, she can't accept a job offer until she...
The borough assembly last Friday approved submitting an application for $1.8 million in pandemic relief aid to replace lost sales tax, port and harbors and other revenues in 2020. The funds, if granted, would come from the state’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief fund Congress approved in March. Cities and boroughs received a direct federal allocation under the act — Wrangell’s share was $485,000 — while the state is going to share some of its money with municipalities that got hurt above and beyond...
Wrangell's interim borough manager has been in the role for more than two weeks and would like to stay a lot longer. Jeff Good has applied for the full-time borough manager position, seeking to make his role more permanent. The assembly is continuing to accept applications for the job "until filled," with no deadline for a decision. Whether temporary or permanent, the retired Coast Guard officer, who served as base director in Kodiak from 2017 to 2020, said his job at the borough draws plenty...
The 58-year-old state ferry Matanuska will spend an additional two weeks in a Ketchikan shipyard so that workers can repair and replace corroded steel discovered below deck. The Kennicott will help cover Southeast during the vessel’s absence. The Matanuska is expected to resume its scheduled service on Dec. 20, running from Ketchikan to Bellingham, Washington, to pick up its generally weekly runs from Puget Sound through Southeast Alaska, said Sam Dapcevich, spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation. “During routine shipyard inspe...
The Wrangell community garden has seen better days. Its board members believe it can see those days - plus a little more - again. A survey was recently posted online to gauge interest from the community in revitalizing the garden. So far, 40 people have responded, and three have said they want to be on the board. According to Kim Wickman, one of two board members, a great deal of work has already been done to make the plot workable. It's located on Zimovia Highway just south of Heritage Harbor,...
Wrangell Cooperative Association members are eligible for a second round of pandemic assistance grants for food and utility expenses, with applications due by Nov. 30. The assistance payments will be $1,000 per household for groceries and $1,000 for utilities, the same amount as the first round administered by WCA with funds from last year’s federal CARES Act. Tribal members must fill out a certification form “to verify the tribal household applying needs assistance due to the COVID-19 pandemic and there have been no changes to household inf...
The borough assembly has denied the school district’s request for an exemption from Wrangell’s testing and isolation requirements for unvaccinated students who travel. In October, the district had requested students and staff traveling for extracurricular activities, such as sports, be exempt from the borough’s COVID-19 emergency ordinance testing and isolation requirements since it wouldn’t allow students and staff to attend events on back-to-back weekends. The assembly denied the request at its Nov. 9 meeting. “We believed, based on the la...
School board member Laura Ballou has resigned her position, citing the personal responsibilities of her full-time nurse practitioner job and her farm, Oceanview Gardens. The school board accepted the resignation at its Nov. 15 meeting and began the process of filling Ballou’s seat. “I would like to thank Laura Ballou for her service on the board,” board president David Wilson said. “I appreciate all that she does, especially on the board. Working with her was a joy.” In her letter of resignation, Ballou wrote, “It is with a heavy heart that...
It will be spring before the city barge ramp is back in operation, with repairs taking several months longer than expected. Until then, the weekly Alaska Marine Lines freight barges will have to continue to side-tie at the former sawmill dock at the Marine Service Center. The borough assembly at its Nov. 9 meeting authorized $115,000 for the project to fix the damaged barge ramp flotation tank. Workers last month pulled the tank off the end of the barge ramp for repairs of a leak that had reduced its buoyancy. A local contractor, Tim Heller,...
La Niña climate conditions could yield lower-than-normal temperatures in Wrangell and the rest of Southeast this winter. The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center last month released its 2021 winter outlook for December through February. La Niña climate conditions have emerged for the second winter in a row, according to the National Weather Service. That means there’s a good chance Southeast could receive above-average snowfall and below-average temperatures again this year, said Cody Moore, meteorologist at the Weather Ser...
An all-day boating safety class, Alaska Water Wise, will be offered Saturday at the Nolan Center, presented by the state Office of Boating Safety and volunteers who are working to organize a Wrangell detachment of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. The free class will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a lunch break, and will cover boat operations, emergencies, cold water survival, navigation rules and boating laws. “It’s a lot of different safety topics,” said Liz Buness, one of the organizers. “Hopefully, we’ll have more programs like this in t...
