Sorted by date Results 936 - 960 of 8063
Throughout her high school years, senior Mia Wiederspohn has been very invested in "everything Tlingit," learning Indigenous studies and its history in Wrangell. She worked with mentor and teacher Xwaanlein Virginia Oliver to learn the language, then assisted Oliver to create the radio show "The Application of Learning Tlingit Language," 41 three- to five-minute episodes teaching words and phrases. She also created and hosted her own five-episode radio program called "Mia's Gift," sharing her...
Wrangell’s public library has two birthdays: It celebrated its 100th birthday with an open house in 2021, and this year the current building will turn 50 years old. Originally opened in October 1921 by the Wrangell Civic Improvement Club in their club room, then moving a decade later to share space in the old City Hall, the city sold $157,000 in bonds to help construct a building specifically designed as a library in 1974. The construction had its beginnings in 1959 when a building fund was created — the occasion was marked by showing of the...
The Alaska Legislature failed on Jan. 18 to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of $87 million in one-time additional state funding for the 2024-2025 school year. The vote was 33-26 and did not fall along party or political caucus lines. Forty-five votes were needed to override. The failed override capped days of legislative maneuvering and months of unsuccessful lobbying by public-education advocates. Attention now switches to a bill that would permanently increase the state’s funding formula for public schools. Unable to agree last year on...
As the Alaska Legislature gets back to work in Juneau, the state population is on the minds of lawmakers. For the 11th consecutive year, more people moved out of Alaska than moved into it, according to new estimates published last week by the Alaska Department of Labor. Though new births over the past year counterbalanced the losses, the state’s population growth was a meager 0.04%, demographers estimate. The state’s new estimated population, 736,812, is below what it was in 2012. While the trend has been building for more than a decade, the...
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium is offering people the chance to win Alaska Airlines miles for responding to a community health needs assessment survey. The survey is aimed at gathering information about the overall well-being of communities and individuals across Southeast. “Share your thoughts with us on daily living, nutrition, exercise habits and health care access,” the regional health care provider said in its Facebook postings. “The Community Wellness Health Needs Assessment was developed to evaluate the health statu...
Zoey Grace Clark has the honor of being the first baby born this year to a Wrangell couple. She was born Jan. 7 at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, weighing in at 7 pounds, 11 ounces and measuring 21.5 inches for the happy parents, Jason and Michelle Clark. The dad works as a station agent at Alaska Airlines. Mom is a kindergarten teacher and has been with the school district about 10 years. The family returned to Wrangell on Jan. 12, Jason Clark said. "We just beat the weather,"...
Hoonah has submitted a petition to the Alaska Local Boundary Commission to create the state’s 20th organized borough, which would include the city and some lightly populated outlying communities. The Xunaa Borough would include Hoonah, as well as Game Creek, Elfin Cove and Funter Bay — and most of Glacier Bay. The potential borough’s name is a closer match to the Tlingit language word for the community. “Voluntary incorporation is preferable to the potential alternative of either having a different borough government imposed upon residen...
The Juneau school board has approved a series of immediate cost-cutting measures including a hiring freeze, plus exploring the longer-term option of a loan to help deal with an unexpected $9.5 million budget deficit. Members at the Jan. 16 meeting were also presented with large-scale future cuts to consider, including school consolidations, closing the district during the summer and going to a four-day school week. Board members, after learning earlier this month about the substantial deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30, asked Schools...
The Biden administration has taken action to conserve groves of old-growth trees on national forests across the U.S. and limit logging as climate change amplifies the threats they face from wildfires, insects and disease. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the agency was adopting an “ecologically driven” approach to older forests — an arena where timber industry interests have historically predominated. That will include the first nationwide amendment to U.S. Forest Service management plans in the agency’s 118-year history, he said in a De...
Alaskans trying to quit their tobacco habits made some significant progress over the past year, according to the annual report released last week by the state’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. The program, which includes the Tobacco Quit Line, helped 1,753 Alaskans stop smoking or using smokeless tobacco or electronic cigarettes in the 12 months ending June 30, the report said. The program gave support to 21 community organizations around the state. The program also produced and distributed an anti-vaping toolkit to the state’s school d...
A Washington state-based environmental group says it’s filing a petition asking the Biden administration to list southern Alaska king salmon as an endangered species — following through on notice of intent it filed last year. The Wild Fish Conservancy’s 68-page petition says the king salmon, also known as chinook, are threatened by climate change and competition from hatchery-raised fish, and that state and federal management plans are failing to stem their decline. The petition targets all populations that use the Gulf of Alaska, inclu...
State lawmakers went back to work this week in Juneau, with two familiar topics likely to dominate the budget-writing work. “The real question is what are we going to do for the Permanent Fund dividend … and what are we going to do for education,” Rep. Dan Ortiz told the Wrangell borough assembly Jan. 9. “That’s what the argument is going to be about.” Ortiz, a retired schoolteacher in Ketchikan, also represents Wrangell and Metlakatla. He’s been in the state House since January 2015 and serves on the Finance Committee, which is in charge of...
The borough will spend about $80,000 for an engineering report, cost estimates and conceptual drawings in hopes of winning a $25 million federal grant to rebuild the Inner Harbor, Reliance and Standard Oil floats. The grant application is due by Feb. 28, pushing the borough and its contractor, PND Engineers, with offices in Juneau and Anchorage, into an accelerated schedule to meet the deadline. If the federal grant comes through, the work will include new floats, ramps, pilings, electrical service and dredging, explained Interim Borough...
Supporters of a ballot initiative that would increase Alaska’s minimum wage, mandate paid sick leave and provide other worker protections submitted more than 40,000 petition signatures to the Alaska Division of Elections on Jan. 9, bringing their cause one step closer to a decision by voters. The group, called Better Jobs for Alaska, brought boxes of signed petitions to a Division of Elections office in Anchorage. The initiative proposes to hike the state’s minimum wage, currently at $11.73 an hour, to $13 an hour next year, $14 an hour in 202...
Since Artha DeRuyter arrived in town three years ago with her husband, clinical psychologist and current school board member John DeRuyter, she has provided flowers and floral arrangements for residents from their floating home in the harbor, in addition to selling her wares at other venues like the monthly community market at the Nolan Center, prompting her to name her blooming business OnTheWater Floral. Originally hailing from Fairbanks, DeRuyter has been involved with flowers, whether as a...
A year and a half ago, Colette Czarnecki, the new news director at public radio KSTK, had been a trainee in NPR's Next Gen Radio, a five-day, audio-focused journalism project which finds, coaches and trains journalists for public media. Her mentor on the project advised her to try looking for jobs in Alaska. As Czarnecki checked out public radio jobs in places like Petersburg, Ketchikan and finally Wrangell, she said, "The people that interviewed me, they kept on contacting me and constantly tol...
Typically, at this time of year, The Salvation Army food pantry, the only regular food pantry in Wrangell, is running low on items coming out of the holiday crush. Last year, the food pantry gave out 130 baskets for Thanksgiving and 200 for Christmas. Often, that leaves the pantry with fewer offerings for people in need immediately after the holidays. This year is different. Capt. Chase Tomberlin-Green explained The Salvation Army received loads of donations following November’s landslide — and they are still well stocked. Donations came fro...
A Pacific Northwest seafood business owner, whose family has been active in commercial fishing in Alaska since 1981, plans to buy and expand the operations of Fathom Seafoods in Wrangell. Peninsula Seafoods has applied to the borough for transfer of the lease on a small dockside parcel at the Marine Service Center. The port commission has recommended approval of the transfer, sending the issue to the borough assembly. As soon as the assembly signs off on the transfer, which could come at its Jan. 23 meeting, Jeff Grannum, general manager of Pen...
Cruise ship operators that lighter their passengers to shore will pay higher port fees starting this summer in Wrangell. The borough assembly unanimously approved the new rate structure Jan. 9, following a port commission recommendation. The rates had been set at 40% of the cost of tying up to the dock, with the new fee structure raising that to 60%. The increase in lightering fees is intended to encourage more ships to tie up at the dock rather than anchor offshore, Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma told the assembly. Wrangell should be...
The borough assembly on Jan. 9 unanimously adopted an ordinance to institute a $300 fine for illegally cutting down trees on borough land. No one from the public spoke on the ordinance at the public hearing held before the assembly vote. In addition to the ordinance setting the amount of the fine, the assembly also unanimously approved an ordinance adding trespass to the borough code, which prohibits “cutting down, injury or removal of trees or timber from borough property without written permission.” Borough officials drafted the ord...
When Lillian "Jing" O'Brien graduated from Wrangell High School in 2020, COVID-19 had taken over the nation and she had enrolled in Loyola University in Chicago with tentative plans to study pre-law and perhaps later corporate law. "I was fully planning to go, but then last minute around July, they sent out a message saying, unfortunately, due to the COVID restrictions, they were going to close down campus and move classes online." That unexpected complication pushed O'Brien to explore...
Juneau school administrators are facing a severe budget shortfall partly related to flat state funding and declining enrollment. But much of the crisis comes from accounting errors that “drastically” undercounted staffing costs. The city’s school board learned Jan. 9 that the district is projected to be $7.6 million in deficit for the current fiscal year and carrying over a $1.9 million shortfall from the prior fiscal year. The combined $9.5 million deficit equates to roughly 10% of the district’s total budget, and it’s expected to keep ball...
The commercial tanner crab and golden king crab season in Southeast opens at noon Feb 17. A change this year will require golden king crab fishermen to call in to the Department of Fish and Game every day to report which management area they plan to fish, to help fisheries staff better anticipate and manage the harvest. The department announced the golden king crab guideline harvest level in southern Southeast, Registration Area A, at 272,500 pounds, with specific areas seeing notable changes. The number is almost three times the size of last...
Boeing told employees Monday that it plans to increase quality inspections of its 737 Max 9 aircraft, following the failure of an emergency exit door panel on an Alaska Airlines flight Jan. 5. The inspections come after federal regulators grounded the 737 Max, and after Boeing said it is “clear that we are not where we need to be” on quality assurance and controls. Alaska Airlines and United Airlines are the only U.S. carriers with the Max 9 aircraft. As of Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration had not said when it would allow the airline...
Using an unmanned underwater drone to search a boat that had overturned near Chichagof Island, searchers on Jan. 10 located the bodies of two people who were missing after three others were rescued from the Jan. 9 accident. The three who survived were hoisted from the water within about an hour from the time Sitka Police Department received a digital GPS distress alert at 4:35 p.m. Jan. 9. Police immediately notified Coast Guard Air Station Sitka, and within 14 minutes a rescue helicopter was on the way to the accident site, in waters off the...