Wrangell Police Chief Dough McCloskey was
honored by the borough
assembly last Tuesday night, in recognition of his upcoming retirement. McCloskey came to Wrangell in 1992, after a career as a police officer and as a
Merchant Marine with the Coast Guard. He joined the local police department in 1992 as a police officer, and was
appointed chief of police in 2003. He has served as chief since then, for the past 16 years. As he has announced his intention to retire, the assembly made a proclamation to recognize him for all his hard work, and for the time he has volunteered around the community.
"I'd like to also add that Doug is responsible, people may not remember this, but Doug was responsible for bringing to our community the police boat, the vehicles, literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants," Mayor Steve Prysunka said. "We appreciate everything he's done."
After recognizing McCloskey, the assembly got involved in a discussion about the city's water situation. Lisa Von Bargen provided the assembly a summary of events from the SEAPA meetings that took place in Wrangell last week. In short: A reimbursement package was approved for Wrangell and Petersburg, the wholesale power rate was set at 6.8 cents per kilowatt hour, and no future power sales to Ketchikan are anticipated this year. Locally, Von Bargen said that Wrangell's water reservoirs are currently well supplied. However, she said that the forecast is calling for several days of hot, sunny weather. This hot weather is also coming in the middle of crab season, and the city's seafood processors are requiring large amounts of water for their businesses. She encouraged everyone to be water-wise and try to conserve wherever possible for the near future.
Prysunka asked about the city's water treatment plant, and its efficiency levels. He said that the treatment process requires 175 gallons of water to produce about 306 gallons of water for public use. He wanted to know if that was a common rate, and if there was anything that could be done to increase efficiency. Rolland Howell, public works director, said that it was not very likely.
"We've pretty much done as much efficiency upgrades as we can, we just waste a lot of water, it's just a bad design," he said. "I think on a normal day we waste 200,000 gallons to make town consumption ... We can tinker around with stuff, but I don't think anything significant."
Assembly member Jim DeBord asked if there had been any headway on gaining grant funding for a new treatment plant, something that Wrangell has been working on for quite some time now. Prysunka said that even if grant money was approved immediately by the federal government, it would still be several years before a new plant was operational. In his opinion, focusing on making the current plant as efficient as possible was a high priority. Lisa Von Bargen added, at the end of this discussion, that a town hall meeting to discuss Wrangell's water situation would be rescheduled in the near future.
Other items covered in the meeting include approval of a contract with Meridian Systems for temperature control upgrades in the Nolan Center for $32,523, approval of an insurance policy renewal with APEI in the amount of $300,517.86, and approval of a contractor with SECON for water main improvements along Bennett Street in the amount of $97,243, plus an additional 10 percent contingency fee that was added in an amendment to the motion.
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