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Early last January, our weekly papers included very nice Mark Kelley 2021 calendars as we welcomed Larry Persily’s return as the Sentinel’s owner and editor. I have enjoyed my calendar all year, along with our improved, expanded local paper. Thanks for a great first year, and for the calendar! Alice Rooney...
I admit it, I’ve gotten old. Never thought it would happen to me. Certainly not in the ‘60s, when I was in college. Not when my wife and I moved from Chicago to Wrangell in 1976 and thought we’d never run out of energy working seven days a week at the Sentinel. Not even when I broke a leg playing softball in 1999 or shattered a kneecap in 2001. It’s not that I believe in eternity. Rather, I knew I would age, but never expected I would get cranky about “the way things used to be,” much like how your favorite uncle makes everyone listen to h...
Letting politics influence management decisions of the Alaska Permanent Fund is like inviting an acquaintance with COVID-19 to dinner. You may get lucky and nothing bad happens, but the possibilities for misery are real. One of the tenets of an endowment fund is to minimize risk, or at least measure the risks against the potential gains. It’s unclear whether the Permanent Fund’s board of trustees were thinking about that when they voted 5-1 last week to fire Angela Rodell, who has served as executive director the past six years. During her ten...
For the sake of this holiday political fable, let’s assume there is a Santa Claus and the all-knowing gift giver tracks your behavior 365 days a year, not just the month or so before Christmas — much like your phone, your web browsing history, Alexa, front-door camera or whatever other electronic tracking device that watches over you. Santa knows who has been naughty or nice long before anyone starts wrapping December presents. And let’s hope that Santa — and coastal Alaska voters — have been making the list and checking it twice for the past...
The state of Alaska has spent decades trying to predict, forecast and even guesstimate the price of oil in an ongoing effort to help the governor and legislators draft an annual spending plan. If state officials truly could know the price of crude a month, a year, two years out, budget-building work would be much easier. Or at least more accurate. And while Alaska’s budget health, public services, education funding and road maintenance is much more dependent these years on Permanent Fund earnings than on oil revenues, any periods of high oil p...
In fourth grade, my daughter, Dawson, said she wanted to be a doctor and I thought, “Oh, isn’t that cute.” She said it again when she was in eighth grade, and I thought, “Oh, that’s weird, she still thinks she wants to be a doctor.” Then she told me again when she was in 10th grade, and it drove me to my knees. I went to bible study that week, and with a broken spirit and tears rolling down my cheeks, I told the people at bible study that my daughter wants to be a doctor and there is no way I can afford schooling for her to be a doctor. And...
The Wrangell Institute was a big part of history — for the Native students who went to school there, for the community and the state. The Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, which operated at the site above Shoemaker Bay from 1932 to 1975, was among several federal- and church-run schools common across Alaska for much of the 20th century. Many of the schools, including the Wrangell Institute, graduated a generation of leaders who served important roles as Alaska Natives gained recognition and rights long denied. But, sadly, many of the s...
Sometimes, connecting the dots is the best way to learn. The first set of dots cost $87 million in federal pandemic aid money. That’s the price of the contract the state signed with an Atlanta-based for-profit health care staffing firm to provide up to 470 medical professionals to help out at 15 Alaska hospitals and medical clinics, schools too, for 90 days. The travelers helped relieve the strain during the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak this fall, when Alaska was in record territory for new cases and hospitalizations. The Wrangell Medical C...
We just wanted to thank everyone who helped out with Lester Schultz’s memorial on Nov. 14. A big thank you to Jake Harris for letting us use the Stikine Inn for the services last minute, Spenser Stavee with Breakaway Adventures for taking us to Olive Cove to spread his ashes, and to all who brought food, helped set up and helped clean up. We really appreciated the help throughout the day. Krystal and Shayna Schultz...
There is an inescapable irony to the fact that Alaska joined with a dozen other states in suing the federal government over their right to cut taxes. This from a state that has no property tax on homes or businesses, only on the oil industry. No state sales tax. No personal income tax since 1979. The lowest motor fuel tax in the nation, by a long shot. There were few federal strings attached to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, which handed states hundreds of billions of dollars earlier this year to help pay the bills of the...
I am not an economist, though I like learning and thinking about economic problems. Nor am I a statistician, human resources manager or director of hiring at a business. But I do think a lot about why so many employers in Wrangell, around the state and across the country are finding it so hard recruiting people to fill vacant jobs. As of October, while there were 7,300 fewer jobs in Alaska than a year ago, there were three times as many people unemployed, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics. Yet, it seems some days there are more...
Congratulations on the 100th anniversary of the Irene Ingle Public Library. Bringing the joy of reading and love of learning to the people of Wrangell for a century is certainly worthy of celebration. The Wrangell library holds a special place in my heart as it was there that I was first introduced to the magic that a library holds. As a young child, I remember sitting on the floor of the library on rainy days, flipping through picture books. My first library card ever was from the Irene Ingle Public Library and was likely issued by Irene...
Regarding the opinion column “From The Publisher” in the Nov. 10 Sentinel, “Accuracy and fairness count in headlines, too,” the author, Larry Persily, only presents us with one side of how headlines can be biased. Yes, the headline, “CDC says go ahead and shoot the kids with Pfizer Covid vaccine,” from the Must Read Alaska website, was slanted, but how about also showing us one with a different perspective. For instance, there was a headline from the New York Times, dated Oct. 10, 2021, “FDA says Pfizer vaccine’s benefits outweigh risks...
As commercial fishermen traveling to and from the fishing grounds, we saw an increase in air and water pollution by the cruise industry — the summer of 2019 was very concerning. The mixing zone between Chatham Strait and Frederick Sound where it is legal for the cruise ships to dump their gray water was streaked with blackish, foamy water pollution miles long and hundreds of feet wide. The hillsides were lined with blue smoke from their exhaust scrubbers that clung to the trees all summer long. The Department of Environmental Conservation o...
On Saturday, Baha’is and their friends in Wrangell will commemorate with millions in communities across the world, the 100th anniversary of the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the eldest son of Bahá’u’lláh, prophet-founder of the Bahá’i faith. He is regarded as the Perfect Exemplar and living embodiment of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings, which impressed upon society that religion is a cause for well-being through balanced spiritual and material advancement. He announced that the long-awaited time for humanity to unite had arrived. As a 9-yea...
The holiday season is generally a time of gathering and happiness. It can also be a time of great sadness, mourning those who are no longer present to celebrate. Since 2003, Hospice of Wrangell has offered the Dove Tree and Dove Tree ceremony as a way to remember lost loved ones. This year’s ceremony is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 28, in the Nolan Center lobby. The community is invited for readings, a homily by the Rev. Suellen Bahleda of Island of Faith Lutheran Church, and special music by Cindy Martin, Sarah Scambler, Bonnie Demerjian and Al...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in reelection campaign mode, which is sort of like pie á la mode — political apple pie with a big scoop of partisanship on top. The governor earlier this month issued an administrative order that he said was necessary to protect Alaskans from federal overreach. His examples of heinous federal overreach included vaccination requirements, improved IRS enforcement against tax cheats, and efforts to protect school board members from hostile crowds. In a fit of concern over personal liberties, the governor also ordered state ag...
I don’t celebrate my own birthday — gave that up when I grew up and mom stopped giving me money to take all my friends bowling at Dom DeVito’s Lanes, where the bar was off-limits but it still felt cool to put our pop bottles in the same holders meant for beer. Newspaper birthdays, however, are different, and they’re worth celebrating. Not only because the newspaper is still alive, despite the growth of Facebook, but because the paper’s age is a sign of strength and stamina, unlike my age, which is a sign that I talk more about arthritis...
The Alaska Constitution requires that every 10 years voters consider whether it’s time to elect and convene a group of several dozen Alaskans to rewrite all, some or none of the state’s guiding principles, the laws that govern all other laws. That would be the polite way of referring to a constitutional convention. Another way, a more honest description would be to call the convention a political free-for-all, dominated by special-interest groups and campaign contributions, excessively influenced by social media postings of questionable acc...
About 40 years ago, the Sentinel published a news story about how the U.S. Forest Service was going to start moving against illegal squatter cabins on the Stikine River. Seemed reasonable that the agency would enforce the law and evict people who had no legal right to build or park their float on public land. The Forest Service announced its effort and we published under a headline something like, “Forest Service to evict illegal cabins.” The agency’s overly sensitive central Southeast spokesperson at the district offices in Petersburg calle...
By Frank Murkowski There has been a concentrated effort the past few years to develop a long-term solution to the many problems of our ferry system. The effort has been led by the Alaska Department of Transportation. The department has hired several consulting firms over the years including the Spaulding Group, McDowell Group, Northern Economics and the governor's "reshaping work group," at a cost to the state of several hundred thousand dollars. These reports have done a good job identifying problems, yet very few of their proposed solutions...
The Wrangell borough assembly recently passed a resolution calling for a pause in mine development in the British Columbia/Alaska transboundary region until a binding international agreement on watershed protections is developed that would ensure upstream mining operations in British Columbia do not harm fisheries or water quality in the Taku, Unuk and Stikine rivers. But there is one mining-related activity that B.C. should be aggressively pursuing — shutting down and cleaning up the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine in the Taku watershed. The B...
As the state’s largest city, Anchorage should be a leader, a role model for the rest of Alaska. The city of almost 290,000 people, about 40% of the state’s population, should be a wise, steadying influence — much like a big brother or big sister. And yet, Anchorage is an unruly sibling of late, more prone to tantrums than solving problems. The political behavior is appalling. The bickering and nastiness are shameful. The intolerance promoted by some community leaders is a role model of the worst kind. Anchorage is divided between those who w...
It’s OK with me if there are few cars to buy. My VW Beetle is more than 15 years old, but only has 72,000 miles on it, so I’m in no hurry. Besides, I like the stick shift and the CD player. And I am particularly fond of the “check engine” light that stays lit longer than the car radio holds a station. Pandemic-induced shortages of building materials, appliances and electronics are not my immediate concern. Sure, my refrigerator is louder than someone who sings opera in the shower, and my clothes dryer takes as much as an hour and a half to...
The internet is first and foremost a business platform. Content (books, videos, articles) is now created only AFTER it can be verified that people are searching for it. “Monetization” drives a person or business to create content, making it available for free and receiving a payment for each view of an advertisement. The battle for clicks/views directly influences how content creators operate by analyzing search keywords and trends. This method is perfect for entertainment and technical information. A validation process is built in — the more...