Sorted by date Results 3732 - 3756 of 7954
Wrangell is getting a machine to cut, mash and bundle up its trash into compact bales for the ride out of town. The borough assembly on April 13 approved spending more than $600,000 to buy and install a solid waste baler so that the garbage will no longer head south as loose trash, which presents a fire risk. Public Works Director Tom Wetor told the assembly that Republic Services, which collects trash for Wrangell, reported in 2018 that the city had until 2023 to begin shipping its trash in...
The Wrangell Community Cleanup, a longtime tradition, is set for Saturday. Volunteers are invited to meet at the covered basketball court by Evergreen Elementary at 8:30 a.m. to help clean up Wrangell. The cleanup occurs every spring, except last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the public spending half the day picking up as much trash around the city as possible. The Wrangell Cooperative Association has been assisting with the cleanup organization for about four years, said Kim Wickman,...
The Nolan Center, Wrangell's movie theater, museum and community center, is understaffed. Leaving the facility manager position vacant this fiscal year has been too much of a strain on the remaining staff, the administration told borough assembly members, who unanimously approved a full-time coordinator position at the center. The change, however, still will be a money-saver for the city, as the coordinator will be at a lower pay scale than the facility manager position. The Nolan Center general...
JUNEAU (AP) - Juneau residents have filed paperwork for citizens initiatives that would impose limits on cruise ships in Alaska’s capital city. The proposed measures submitted April 12 would ban large cruise ships at certain times and over a specific size from Juneau. Filing paperwork is the first step in getting on the ballot. The city clerk has until May 3 to certify or deny the paperwork. If supporters are allowed to go forward, they would need to collect signatures from nearly 3,000 registered Juneau voters for each of the three measures t...
Free COVID-19 vaccinations will be made available at four airports in the state starting June 1, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said April 16 as he unveiled plans aimed at bolstering the state’s pandemic-battered tourist industry. Dunleavy also outlined plans for a national marketing campaign aimed at luring tourists using federal aid money and said the airport vaccination offering is “probably another good reason to come to the state of Alaska in the summer.” The state plans to offer vaccines at airports in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan, the...
Alaska’s economy isn’t getting worse, but it could also be a long way from substantial improvement. University of Alaska Anchorage Institute for Social and Economic Research economist Mouchine Guettabi said many of the indicators showing improvements in recent months are more tied to the normal seasonality of the state’s economy and less about a recovery from the forces of the pandemic. “Our losses ballooned over the summer and then shrunk back down in fall and the winter. That doesn’t mean things are getting better; it just means that we’r...
JUNEAU (AP) - Alaska state Sen. Lora Reinbold was removed as Senate Judiciary Committee chair on April 19, the 91st day of a legislative session in which she has often clashed with fellow Republicans, including other Senate majority members and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and frequently ignored and protested legislative rules to wear a face mask and undergo regular testing for COVID-19. The committee change was approved by the Senate 17-1, with Reinbold the lone no. The Eagle River Republican, in her ninth year in the Legislature, was replaced as...
John Waghiyi remembers rushing his cousin to the clinic in the Bering Sea city of Savoonga in December, worried he was having a possible heart attack while out butchering a bowhead whale. Waghiyi arrived to see elders waiting in the lobby for a COVID-19 vaccine. Waghiyi, 66, said he joined them and got a shot before returning to the coast to help finish the whale harvest. Elders, he said, have set the tone in the Alaska Native community of 735 on the coast of isolated St. Lawrence Island....
Alaska discriminated against some same-sex spouses for years in wrongfully denying them benefits by claiming their unions were not recognized even after courts struck down same-sex marriage bans, court documents obtained by The Associated Press show. The agency that determines eligibility for the annual Alaska Permanent Fund dividend denied payments for same-sex spouses or dependents of military members stationed in other states for five years after a federal court invalidated Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage in 2014 and the U.S. Supreme Court...
BETHEL (AP) - A coastal village about 70 miles southwest of Bethel has mandated that only fully vaccinated people will be allowed into the community’s stores and businesses. Kongiganak, with a population of less than 500, had 50% of its eligible residents vaccinated against COVID-19 with at least one dose as of April 9, KYUK-AM reported April 14, citing the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. Sheila Phillip, the Kongiganak Traditional Council secretary, said that people who are fully vaccinated can go inside the village’s two stores if they wear mas...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Some Alaska agencies that work with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault are expecting large federal funding cuts to take effect when the fiscal year starts on July 1 — so they are asking the Legislature for help. Suzi Pearson, director of Anchorage-based Abused Women’s Aid in Crisis, said she was surprised by the extent of the cuts announced by the State Council on Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault. “When we were told 30 to 33%, I think we all kind of stopped breathing,” Pearson said. The reductions are the result o...
SEATTLE (AP) - The Biden administration has reversed a decision by its predecessor to sell the federal archives building in Seattle, following months of opposition in Alaska, Washington and Oregon - and a lawsuit. The federal Office of Management and Budget has withdrawn its approval for the sale, which would have forced the transfer of millions of Pacific Northwest records to facilities in Kansas City, Missouri, and Riverside, California. A federal judge already had blocked the sale in response to a lawsuit by the states of Washington and...
Ketchikan Daily News Two crew members aboard the state ferry Matanuska have tested positive for COVID-19, the Alaska Marine Highway System reported Monday. A member of the Matanuska’s engineering crew began showing symptoms while the ferry was sailing northbound to Ketchikan from Bellingham, Washington, according to the AMHS statement. “The ship’s captain followed the AMHS COVID-19 mitigation plan and quarantined the crew member in their cabin with the ventilation system turned off,” the state said. When the ship arrived in Ketchikan on Sund...
The latest Wrangell School District draft budget for the next school year includes an estimated $700,000 in additional federal relief aid, but board members expressed concern that the money, while welcome, may only stave off spending cuts to a later date. Several board members express skepticism at Monday evening's budget workshop that student enrollment would not pick up much as the pandemic subsides. State funding, the largest portion of school district revenues, is based almost entirely on...
City officials reported a new COVID-19 case Tuesday afternoon, bringing to 17 the number of positive cases since April 8. The case "is due to community spread," the city's 5:30 p.m. announcement said. "This is the only information about the case at this time," the city reported. Of the 17 cases over the past 12 days, eight people have recovered and nine cases were still active as of Tuesday. Wrangell is under a face mask requirement for indoor public spaces. The borough assembly approved the ordinance at an emergency meeting Saturday amid the...
To ensure the city qualifies for federal and state disaster relief funding, the borough assembly has voted to extend Wrangell's emergency declaration for the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same meeting Tuesday night, the assembly voted to update Wrangell's COVID-19 testing measures for interstate and intrastate travelers on the advice of the local emergency operations center. The city first issued an emergency declaration on March 17, 2020. That ordinance, which has been periodically extended...
After no season last year, Wrangell started 2021 with hopes of as many as 20,000 tourists coming to town this summer aboard cruise ships of varying sizes, with capacity of between 40 and 700 passengers. With the loss of larger vessels, and some smaller ones, however, the maximum ship capacity into town has fallen to under 2,000 this summer. "The actual number of cruise visitors to Wrangell will likely be much smaller than capacity due to protocols and restrictions for COVID-19 safety...
After a long and strange pandemic year, Wrangell's graduating seniors are preparing for the end of their high school education in May. Plans for a different, but in-person, graduation ceremony are underway, while seniors are planning for their next moves in life. While last year's graduation ceremony was held virtually because of the pandemic, high school secretary Megan Powell said they are working on plans for an in-person ceremony for the class of 2021 on May 21. "The kids, they actually...
Wrangell tallied nine COVID-19 cases between last Thursday and late Tuesday afternoon, as the community is dealing with a spike in infections. "Health officials have found evidence of community transmission of COVID-19 in Wrangell,"the city reported Tuesday. The latest case "is a household member/close contact"to another case reported earlier in the day, the city reported Tuesday afternoon. "The individual is a local resident and is in isolation." Three cases were reported by the city last...
Repair work to the city's barge ramp will be necessary in the near future, according to Harbormaster Steve Miller, though a timeline and budget for renovations are still being drawn up. Miller reported to the borough assembly and port commission that a March 4 inspection of the barge ramp found several areas needing repair. The last assessment by an engineering firm was done in 2011. An area in most immediate need of work is the floats that allow the ramp to move up and down with the tide to mat...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he wants to use federal pandemic relief dollars for a national advertising campaign to support Alaska's tourism industry, though he provided no details or budget for the marketing campaign in the April 9 announcement. The governor's office also said tourism businesses will soon receive relief grants from the state, with details to come this week. Legislative approval is required to appropriate state funds. Dunleavy said he has put Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer in charge of...
The borough assembly adopted changes Tuesday night to the harbor's liveaboard fee policy to make it easier for collection. The assembly earlier had backed away from a plan to increase the liveaboard fee, from $85 a month to about $117 a month. Instead, the assembly decided to rework the fee schedule and definitions of who needs to pay the fee. Under the ordinance, which passed unanimously, a liveaboard vessel is defined as "any vessel utilizing the harbor as a primary residence for one or more p...
Legislators are trying again this year to tax "electronic smoking products"- e-cigarettes and vaping devices - the same as tobacco products. Bills to extend the state's tobacco tax to electronic smoking products died last March as lawmakers rushed to close down the session amid the start of the pandemic. Kodiak Sen. Gary Stevens and Juneau Rep. Sara Hannan are trying again this year. Their bills have each cleared their first committee and are both waiting for a hearing in their respective Financ...
Leatha Merculieff, who has served both as SEARHC vice president and as Wrangell hospital administrator since SEARHC took over the facility in 2019, has been promoted to the consortium's senior vice president and chief of operations. In her place, Wrangell resident Carly Allen will take over as hospital administrator. Allen is a third-generation Wrangell resident, according to the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium news release on Monday. She has been with SEARHC since 2017, after a...
JUNEAU (AP) - The state health department said Tuesday upcoming appointments for the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in Alaska are being canceled or delayed after federal agencies recommended a “pause”to review reports of rare but potentially dangerous blood clots. State health officials said the federal recommendation shows that safety checks are working and they hope it will bolster rather than hinder public confidence in the vaccine rollout. Dr. Joe McLaughlin, the state epidemiologist, said people with appointments for the...
