It’s a good time to take a break from distressing international conflicts and too many deaths, depressing national politics of too much dishonesty and too little compromise, and the difficult state politics of short-funded schools and public services.
The bad news will still be there next week. Meanwhile, for Wrangell, there is some good news to acknowledge.
The borough has organized a public information fair of lenders, financial advisers, builders, zoning and utility officials to help people who are interested in buying one of the 20 subdivision lots that will go on sale later this year. It’s likely the largest municipal land sale ever in the number of lots.
The event is planned for Saturday morning, Feb. 24, at the Nolan Center. It’s free to the public.
The borough wants the land sale to succeed — not just to sell all 20 lots, but for people to take ownership, build a home and stay in town. Wrangell has been losing population for years. The land sale and information fair are good news.
Besides for needing housing, residents need activities, and Georgianna and Richard Buhler and their TouchPoint Alaska Ministries have purchased the old Church of God property on Bennett Street and hope to reopen the community roller rink for the public by mid-April.
There’s still work to do and donations to raise, but the couple is looking forward to skate nights and special events, returning the rink back to the prominent role it held in the community starting in the 1980s.
The other piece of good news for Wrangell comes amid generally bad news for the Alaska seafood industry.
Too much seafood and not enough buyers made for terribly low prices and a lousy 2023 for commercial fishers and processors, with much of the same, or worse, expected this year.
“Last year we said we reached rock bottom,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said last week. But, he added, “we’ve scraped off more levels,” reaching even deeper to the bottom.
With Trident Seafoods putting several of its processing plants on the market, and Peter Pan Seafood keeping its huge processing plant in King Cove closed this winter due to weak markets, Wrangell is fortunate that Trident has decided not only to operate its processing plant in the community this summer, but to move more fish and hire more workers than last year.
The company said the Wrangell facility is a highly efficient plant that fits in well with its plans for more value-added products.
The good news for Wrangell cannot overcome the problems and sadness in the country and worldwide, but it’s at least a reminder that sometimes good things still happen.
-- Wrangell Sentinel
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