Sorted by date Results 492 - 516 of 8149
A ballot measure that could repeal Alaska’s ranked-choice election system is headed to a vote in November, the Alaska Supreme Court confirmed Thursday, Aug. 22. In a brief order, the court’s five members upheld a lower court decision that certified Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal the laws that created the state’s ranked-choice general election and open primary election system. The order came shortly after justices heard oral arguments in an appeal claiming that the Alaska Division of Elections improperly certified the measure. “Toda...
Saxman, a community of about 400 people just south of the city of Ketchikan, will build 14 affordable housing units over the next year. In partnership with the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Saxman will use $4.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds distributed through the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. to develop four apartment buildings — three fourplexes and one duplex — containing a total of 14 two-bedroom dwellings for low-income tenants. The units could be open for occupancy by the end of 2025. AHFC, a public corporation and independent sta...
Alaska Airlines is one step closer to acquiring Hawaiian Airlines after the U.S. Department of Justice chose not to challenge the $1 billion deal that the carriers say will create a company better able to serve travelers. The brands of both airlines would be preserved after the merger, which is rare in an industry where decades of acquisitions have left only four big carriers dominating the U.S. market. Alaska and Hawaiian say they have few overlapping routes and the intent of a tie-up is to allow the new airline to better compete with the...
The Petersburg Indian Association is now in the hospitality business with its purchase of the 45-room Tides Inn hotel and Highliner Car Rental from a longtime Petersburg family. “My sisters and I are very pleased with the conclusion of the sale of the Tides Inn and Highliner Car Rental to the Petersburg Indian Association,” Dave Ohmer said in a written statement. “The Ohmer family started doing business in Petersburg in 1916, and it is wonderful to now be selling the Tides Inn and Highliner to an organization whose families were here long...
Alaska communications and aviation entities, together with federal and state officials, convened in a summit in Yakutat led by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to collaborate on solutions to reduce weather-related travel delays and boost aviation safety in the state. “We have 130 weather recording stations in Alaska and at any given time 50% are partially or entirely out of service,” Murkowski said on Aug. 15. The senator, a third-generation Alaskan born and raised in Ketchikan, and later Wrangell, is out to resolve this issue, which has resulted in...
At the height of the food stamp backlog last November, pro bono attorneys and other volunteers at Alaska Legal Services got more than 600 requests in one month from Alaskans seeking a fair hearing to get their overdue food benefits. So the 97 requests that came in this July didn’t feel like anything the group couldn’t handle, said Leigh Dickey, the nonprofit’s advocacy director. But the number is still alarming, she said, and it’s double the past month’s requests. Dickey said the state’s Division of Public Assistance is still dogged by t...
When Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola visited Wrangell on Aug. 9 on a reelection campaign stop, she did more than just meet with supporters at the Marine Bar. In a private meeting with borough officials, Peltola received multiple community project funding requests. As a member of the U.S. House, she is permitted to submit 15 requests every appropriation cycle, and Borough Manager Mason Villarma hopes she will consider Wrangell’s requests during this process. The borough proposed two items. The first, and largest of the two, is $5.5 million to build a...
While finding the money to fix everything wrong with the rot-damaged Public Safety Building is far outside the budget, the borough hopes that it can replace the deteriorated roof, siding, windows and doors. At an Aug. 12 meeting, the assembly unanimously approved moving to the next step — a public hearing — toward putting a $3 million bond issue before voters on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot. This funding, if Wrangell also receives the $2.4 million it has requested in federal assistance, would provide the borough with enough money to com...
The Wrangell Search and Rescue team has received a statewide honor for its days of tireless work after a massive landslide flowed down the mountain at 12-Mile last November, taking out two homes, killing six people and cutting off power and highway access for dozens more. The Wrangell team received the Mel Nading Search and Rescue Award for 2023. The award was established to honor Alaska State Trooper Pilot Mel Nading, who died in a crash during a mission to rescue an injured snow machine operator in the Talkeetna Mountains in 2013. Alaska...
Amid the sizzle of halibut in the deep fryer, the methodical pounding of James George's knife against the cutting board and the fervent chatter of the Zak's Cafe lunch rush, there was one noise that eclipsed all others: Norman Greenbaum's 1969 hit "Spirit in the Sky." Katherine and James opened Zak's Cafe in the summer of 2001, a year after getting married. James handles the back of the house and Katherine the front. As for everything else - such as dishes, cleaning and any tasks required to...
Where there's smoke there's fire, and on Woronkofski Island, there's both. The fire began near Circle Bay on Friday, Aug. 16, and as of Monday was less than an acre in size. While the fire has grown at roughly 0.1 acres per day, the U.S. Forest Service - which is monitoring the fire - is not concerned about the risk of widespread damages. Circle Bay is about 6 miles southwest of Wrangell, with smoke from the fire visible in town. The closest infrastructure that could be at risk is a power line...
With a little over a week left before the filing deadline, six of seven incumbents on the assembly, school board and port commission have submitted paperwork or announced plans to seek another term in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Candidates have until 4 p.m. Aug. 30 to complete and turn in the declaration form, which is available at the borough clerk’s office in City Hall. Mayor Patty Gilbert was the first incumbent to file for reelection. She will seek a second two-year term. Assembly Members Jim DeBord and Bob Dalrymple both have filed f...
When Gene Meek started as police chief last month, he probably didn’t expect such a lively first month on the job. Around the time of his arrival, police officers voted to unionize, a decision that will see the department’s staff join employees of other borough departments as members of IBEW Local 1547. Additionally, the borough budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 reduced full-year funding for two police officer positions. The money-saving cutback, proposed by the borough manager, would have trimmed back 24-hour staffing due to lig...
More than 130 cases of whooping cough — also known as pertussis — were reported across Alaska in the first seven months of the year, with seven confirmed cases in Southeast in June and July. The statewide case count is five times higher than the number of infections reported in all of 2023, according to an Aug. 5 alert issued by the Alaska Division of Public Health. “Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory disease that can cause severe coughing fits and difficulty breathing, particularly dangerous for infants, the elderly and those with...
On Thursday, Aug. 15, Wrangell police officers detained William Nakamura, 43, after he assaulted two officers and violently resisted arrest. The following day, Nakamura pleaded not guilty in state court to three charges of third-degree assault, two charges of fourth-degree assault, two charges of harassment and one charge of resisting arrest. The court set Nakamura’s bail at $25,000, and he will likely be held at the state Department of Corrections facility in Ketchikan, with his next court appearance scheduled for Aug. 26, according to P...
Former Wrangell resident Sarah Aslam spoke Aug. 16 to a community gathering at Island of Faith Lutheran Church on her relationship to her Islamic faith. Rather than a theological or an “Intro-to-Islam” presentation, she said she wanted to share what living day by day in her faith tradition means to her. “I’m not an expert,” she said, “just a messy, imperfect human who wants to share the beauty of my faith.” She began by noting that depictions of Muslims in movies, television and even news stories often use daily prayers as a formative ima...
Alaska teens are more likely to be depressed and have suicidal thoughts than were teens a decade ago, and some mental health problems have increased notably among girls, according to results from the state’s most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Administered in 2023 to nearly 1,200 high school students around the state, the survey found numerous negative trends. Of the respondents, 19% reported attempting suicide at least once over the past year, compared to 8.7% in the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The number who reported they had c...
As summer comes to an end and the school year begins, Wrangell youth will have the opportunity to brush up on their basketball skills during the first weekend in September. Team Wrangell of the Amateur Athletic Union is sponsoring a three-day basketball skills development clinic for grades 8 through 12, Friday through Sunday, Sept. 6-8, at the high school. Walk-in registration is set for 3:45 to 5 p.m. on Sept. 6 at the high school gym. Coaches and parents are invited to attend. Athletic clothing, water bottle and clean gym shoes are required....
Alaska’s congressional delegation is making a renewed pitch to the Biden administration for binding protections against potential environmental damage from British Columbia mines near Canadian headwaters of Southeast Alaska rivers. Their concerns were heightened after the June 24 heap leach pad failure at the Eagle Gold Mine near the village of Mayo in the Yukon, the delegation said in a prepared statement Aug. 16. “Without unified action from the executive branch, Canadian mining activity in this region will increasingly endanger U.S. com...
By James Brooks Alaska Beacon A three-judge panel at 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower-court decision that could have temporarily halted troll fishing for salmon in Southeast Alaska. The appellate court decision, announced Aug. 16, clears the way for the region’s troll fishery to continue. It had been threatened by a lawsuit from the Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy, an environmental group. The group filed suit in 2020, arguing that National Marine Fisheries Service rules applied to the fishery were inadequate w...
Two humpback whales found dead in Southeast Alaska in July showed evidence of being struck by ships, according to a federal fisheries agency. The whales were found in Icy Strait, a popular destination for fishermen, sightseeing and cruise ship tourists that surrounds the communities of Hoonah, Gustavus and Elfin Cove. The National Marine Fisheries Services, also known as NOAA Fisheries, said a young, male humpback whale was reported floating on July 3. After it washed ashore near Elfin Cove, a necropsy found injuries consistent with a ship stri...
Formline carved paddles, beaded slippers, and a small totem were among the items returned to Kake in early August by a Quaker woman whose ancestor taught in the mission school there in the early 1900s. Joel Jackson, the tribal council president for the Organized Village of Kake, said it is nice to have the objects home. “That wasn’t meant for somebody else to display in their home as an artform or whatever. That’s sacred to us.” He said the village is working on repatriating other objects that are held privately or in museums across the cou...
A commercial icebreaker being purchased by the U.S. Coast Guard will be officially homeported in Juneau, the culmination of a years-long effort to acquire and homeport such a vessel in Alaska waters, officials announced Aug. 14. The Aiviq, a 360-foot-long U.S.-registered vessel launched in 2012 for offshore oil field work — which has been eyed by Alaska’s congressional delegation for many years since it was pulled out of Arctic waters — is expected to “reach initial operational capability in two years,” according to a press release issued by...
SEATTLE - The U.S. government has acknowledged, for the first time, the harmful role it has played over the past century in building and operating dams in the Pacific Northwest - dams that devastated Native American tribes by inundating their villages and decimating salmon runs while bringing electricity, irrigation and jobs to nearby communities. In a new report, the Biden administration said those cultural, spiritual and economic damages continue to pain the tribes, which consider salmon part...
All but seven of the 56 books the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District removed from school libraries must be reshelved, pending a trial next year, ruled U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason on Aug. 6. The banned books, including well-known titles like Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner,” were removed from schools last year without individual consideration of their content after parents and community members complained of “LGBTQ themes” or sexually explicit con...