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With the loss of several cruise ship stops this summer, Wrangell may not exceed last year’s cruise visitor count as had been originally projected. Wrangell recently lost 14 stops from the cruise line American Queen Voyages, which filed for bankruptcy last month, canceling its 186-passenger Ocean Victory to Southeast Alaska. This translates to a loss of $33,000 in port fees and as many as 2,600 summer visitors for Wrangell. The town also lost the stops of three mid-size cruise ships which are now going to Klawock, taking about 2,200 berths o...
Leading Alaska legislators said there is little appetite for spending from savings to pay a super-sized Permanent Fund dividend this year, likely killing a proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy. In December, the governor proposed spending almost $2.3 billion on a dividend of roughly $3,500 per recipient this fall under an unused formula in state law. That would result in a $1 billion deficit in the state budget and require spending from the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve, but as a draft spending plan takes shape in the House, top members of b... Full story
After the borough assembly agreed last month that a port commission proposal to require boat owners to carry marine insurance needed a lot more work, the two elected bodies got together last week to workshop changes. The assembly and port commission were generally in consensus over details to be added to the original proposal, like a minimum required coverage, a maneuverability assessment of vessels, a minimum vessel size to require insurance, increased management rights to keep out unseaworthy boats, exemptions for transient vessels and the co...
After filling the job in the past in a temporary capacity, Tory Houser officially accepted the position as U.S. Forest Service Wrangell District ranger on March 4. "It feels great, and a lot of responsibility," she said. Houser has spent 21 years with the Forest Service, including eight years in Wrangell, mostly as recreation officer, although she has filled in before from time to time as acting district ranger. She said that while those previous experiences prepared her in some ways, "I'll need...
Wrangell will go without state ferry service for the last week of March and first week of April as the ships are scheduled to meet other needs across coastal communities. There will be no northbound service to Wrangell between March 22 and April 10, and no southbound stops in town between March 25 and April 12. The schedule will return to normal later in April, with a weekly northbound sailing on Fridays and a weekly southbound stop on Mondays. That will switch to southbound on Wednesdays and northbound on Sundays with the start of the summer s...
There’s a new solution in the works to deal with the large pile of tires at the solid waste transfer station, often referred to as “Mount Tires.” This new solution would include moving the tires to the former 6-Mile sawmill property and then shipping them out of town as part of a deal with the tenant at the borough-owned waterfront site. The borough manager is negotiating on a longer-term lease or rental agreement at the former mill site with Channel Construction. If they can reach a deal, ideally Channel Construction would remove the tires...
Russian fish flooding global markets and other economic forces beyond the state’s border have created dire conditions for Alaska’s seafood industry. Now key state legislators are seeking to establish a task force to come up with responses to the low prices, lost market share, lost jobs and lost income being suffered by fishers, fishing companies and fishing communities. The measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, was introduced on March 1 and is sponsored by the Senate Finance Committee. “Alaska’s seafood industry is in a tailspin from fa... Full story
High school senior Sean McDonald has a lot of history with the Wrangell IGA supermarket. "I've worked at the store since October of 2022," he said. "I'm really closely related with the owners. They grew up as a big part of my life, and I've known them for a long time. And then, before they owned it, my grandpa also worked in the store for over 30 years, so I really grew up with the store and I'm familiar with it." It was that familiarity that led to McDonald's decision for his senior project to...
Trident Seafoods reported last week it was “entering the final stages of closing deals for three of its Alaska shoreside plants,” including its operations in Ketchikan and Petersburg. The Seattle-based company — the largest seafood harvesting and processing company in the United States — announced in December it planned to sell four of its Alaska plants as it restructures its operations amid weak markets. In addition to Petersburg and Ketchikan, Trident said it wanted to sell its processing operations in Kodiak and at False Pass in the Aleutia...
Just as soon as its indoor Winter Workout Challenge ended, the Parks and Recreation Department moved outdoors - literally. The Outdoor Challenge, which started March 1, is similar to the indoor event. Participants keep track of their activities, and the runners, walkers, bikers - or whatever their exercise - with the most points win prizes. "We are just encouraging people to get outside and move their bodies," said Devyn Johnson, recreation coordinator for the department. The goal is completing...
Participants in last year’s Toughman Triathlon in Wrangell will have to step up their game if they want to join the challenge of running a 100-mile ultramarathon at the end of June. Former resident Nicholas Howell posted on the Wrangell Community Group’s Facebook page last month that they “will be changing it up this year” for the annual Tongass Toughman by presenting a new challenge: a 100-mile run around Wrangell Island. According to his Facebook post, he announced the news “so individuals have something to train for.” Howell also stated in h...
A new analysis of nearly 25,000 fish scales offers more evidence that the millions of pink salmon churned out by Alaska fish hatcheries could be harming wild sockeye salmon populations when they meet in the ocean, according to the scientists who authored the study. The new peer-reviewed paper, published last month in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, produced for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, analyzed growth rates that could be deduced from the fish scales, similar to yearly growth rings on a tree. The paper was... Full story
Alaska law enforcement officers now must obtain a warrant before using aircraft to scope the area around a person’s home with binoculars or cameras with zoom lenses, the state’s highest court ruled in a decision released March 8. The Alaska Supreme Court ruling comes in a case that dates to 2012, when Alaska State Troopers received a tip from an informant that John William McKelvey III was growing marijuana on his property in a sparsely populated area north of Fairbanks. According to the ruling, McKelvey’s property was heavily wooded, with...
A $9.7 million bailout package to ensure that the Juneau School District can cover a nearly $8 million deficit this year and help toward resolving a projected deficit of nearly $10 million next year was approved March 4 by the Juneau borough assembly. The package, consisting of a loan and taking over some “non-instructional costs” from the school district, won final approval after several weeks of consideration by city and school leaders. The Juneau assembly voted to provide the district with an interest-free loan of up to $4.1 million dol...
Money in a state account that grew out of efforts to aid victims of violent crimes has been going predominantly to the Department of Corrections instead, to cover inmate health care. Meanwhile, the state’s victim services programs are scrambling for money as a major federal funding source diminishes. An Anchorage legislator wants to correct what she sees as an imbalance. Of the $25 million in the state’s Restorative Justice Account, nearly $20 million went to the Department of Corrections. Only about $500,000 went to nonprofits that serve crime... Full story
A Georgia-based developer who has taken a liking to Wrangell has offered the borough $200,000 for the former hospital property, with plans to tear down the building and construct as many as 48 new housing units. Wayne Johnson’s offer on the 2-acre property is contingent on striking a deal to purchase six smaller borough-owned lots behind the hospital building, adding an additional 1.3 acres to the development site. The purchase price for the hospital property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved into its new Wrangell Medical Center t...
The Wrangell school district is proposing to draw down about half of its reserves to balance the upcoming year’s budget, and Schools Superintendent Bill Burr warns that the solution is not sustainable for the long term. The school board at its Feb. 26 meeting reviewed with district business manager Kristy Andrew the first draft of the budget for the 2024-2025 school year. The budget shows general fund revenues of approximately $5.2 million — of which about 60% is from the state foundation funding formula — and expenses of more than $5.8 milli...
The state is working toward a possible timber sale at Earl West Cove in 2025 or 2026, with the borough hoping it could piggyback on the effort and put up its own acreage in the area to increase the logging work and generate revenue for the municipality. A state timber sale of approximately 160 acres is part of the state’s five-year plan covering 2023-2027. But there is work to do before the state timber could go out for bid. The Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Fire Protection hired a consultant two or three years a...
For Dorthea Rooney, her appeal to the borough assembly was born out of a personal tragedy. She requested some form of animal control that could provide euthanasia for pets in cases of illness or injury. Her sister's large, 13-year-old dog Lilly, who served as their mother's emotional support animal, had become unable to move her back legs. "She was basically paralyzed," she said. The house where Rooney's sister and mother lived had 40 stairs, and with Lilly's size and 100-pound weight, it was im...
While it’s uncertain if the state could transfer funds to the borough for maintenance work at Petroglyph Beach, the more immediate concern is that neither the borough nor the state have any idea how many visitors commercial tour operators bring to the site each year. The state this year is requiring tour operators to buy a license and pay a per-visitor fee, which had been required under state law for more than 20 years. But the fee was never enforced for Petroglyph Beach because the Alaska Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation essentially l...
The state, which administers the federally funded Community Development Block Grant program, has awarded Wrangell $695,000 toward a new roof at the middle school. The borough assembly designated the school roof — most of which is almost 30 years old — as its top priority for the grant program this year. The project is estimated at about $1.4 million. “We would have to provide the balance to make it a whole project,” Amber Al-Haddad, the borough’s capital facilities director, said Feb. 28. “It’s possible we can get the (middle school) roof done...
As Ken Hoyt prepares for the Tlingit canoe paddle making workshop at the high school shop room Friday through Sunday, March 8-10, he explained how there are two different types, depending on its intended use. "Real canoe paddles ... never have relief carving," he said. "They don't have inlays. They don't have anything ornate. They're utilitarian. People will sometimes be disappointed when they see old canoe paddles have a lot of geometric designs, straight lines, way different from the...
High school wrestler Keegan Hanson, a state champion in the Division II tournament this past December, chose for his senior project to help grade school kids in the Wolfpack Wrestling program with Parks and Recreation as an assistant coach. "Basically, just helping the kids out with their technique and break down the moves, step by step," he said. He's been volunteering, coaching elementary school and middle school students in wrestling throughout his high school years. "In Craig, my freshman an...
State senators heard last week that based on current revenue forecasts, legislators will struggle to balance the budget with several big-spending items still to be considered. The nonpartisan Legislative Finance Division explained that items currently pending, like benefits for low-income seniors, funding needed to start upgrading the Railbelt’s electrical grid and a large increase in state money for public education, were not included in the governor’s proposed budget. Other spending, such as Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s insistence on $55 milli...
A pair of citizen-backed initiatives will likely appear on the general election ballot in November, including one seeking to repeal Alaska’s voting system, state election officials said Feb. 27. After a monthlong review, the state Division of Elections made the initial assessment that separate groups had gathered enough signatures to place the two questions on the ballot. Voters will be asked if they want to overturn Alaska’s ranked-choice voting and open-primary system; and whether they support increasing the minimum wage and amending sta...