Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 859
It’s just a short block but it’s long been a challenge for drivers and the borough public works crew. Relief is in sight, with new underground water and sewage pipes, a new crushed-rock subbase and, most noticeably, new concrete pavement coming for the one-block stretch of St. Michaels Street from Church to Front streets. Borough staff expect to receive 100% complete drawings from the engineers by the end of this week, the last step to bidding out the project, Capital Projects Director Amber Al-Haddad reported to the assembly for its mee...
The Presbyterian Church, which has had an interest in the Garnet Ledge on the mainland across from Wrangell for 63 years, has turned over ownership to the Wrangell Cooperative Association. The rules will not change, only the owner. The 39-acre property has been reserved since 1962 for “the children of Wrangell” to collect garnets, which they sell to tourists and at shops around town. “If anyone goes up there to get garnets, they have to have kids,” said Sandy Churchill, a member of the WCA tribal council. The church, which managed the propert...
President Donald Trump’s budget proposal would cut funding by more than half for the Essential Air Service program, which has ensured daily jet service to Wrangell, Petersburg, Yakutat and Cordova for almost 50 years. The program covers 65 small communities in Alaska — which includes 11 in Southeast — and 112 communities in the Lower 48, Hawaii and Puerto Rico as of late last year. Congress created the Essential Air Service subsidy in 1978 to ensure a minimum level of service for communities that otherwise might receive no regularly scheduled f...
After 13 years with the Wrangell Cooperative Association, the past seven as tribal administrator, Esther Aaltséen Reese will leave in June to start her new job as chief operating officer for the Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority. "Housing is the No. 1 need" across Southeast Alaska, Reese said in an interview on May 8. The nonprofit tribal agency's mission "is to connect Southeast Alaskans with sustainable housing opportunities and innovative financial solutions," particularly aimed at...
After losing more than $500,000 in federal funding, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska has put on hold this year’s community food distribution of herring roe and salmon. The Southeast tribal nonprofit’s Traditional Foods Security Department had planned to use the money to continue the program, which over the past three years has distributed more than 52,000 pounds of herring roe on kelp, 120,000 pounds of salmon and 31,000 pounds of black cod to the tribe’s 21 recognized communities. Wrangell is among the commu...
The school board has narrowed down its search for a replacement for outgoing Superintendent Bill Burr to three finalists. The board scheduled a special meeting for Monday, May 12, “to act on the superintendent finalists and discuss interview dates,” according to the meeting announcement. The board approved the list of three finalists after a five-hour, closed-door session Wednesday, May 7: Joshua Garrett, Mark Lee and Frank Oakes. As of Monday afternoon, May 12, the board had not released any information on the finalists — such as the appli...
The Alaska Legislature last week approved a resolution supporting Canada’s independence, a body check on President Donald Trump’s unsportsmanlike conduct toward our neighbor. The resolution says the Legislature opposes “restrictive trade measures or tolls” between the U.S. and Canada, playing defense against the president’s slap-shot attacks on our friends. Legislative resolutions have no force of law. They are merely a way for lawmakers to express frustration, or support, without spending money, changing state law or risking too much poli...
Every year is different for Wrangell High School students in the nationwide Close Up program, and this year had a couple of new high-tech highlights. Since the 1970s, the program has provided an opportunity for students to visit the nation's capital to learn about history, government, people and places. New York City was added to the itinerary for Wrangell students in 2008. Five high schoolers the last week of April toured Washington, D.C., including The People's House, which uses interactive...
The school board has adopted a budget for the next school year that relies heavily on funds from two different reserve accounts to balance revenue with expenses. By withdrawing $976,000 from its operating reserves — just about emptying the longstanding account — and transferring $250,000 from its capital improvement projects reserves, the school district is able to cover its $5.98 million operating budget. The 2025-2026 spending plan includes two fewer full-time teaching positions than this year. Any increase in state funding for schools would...
The borough’s continuing work on its downtown waterfront master plan is ramping up after the community’s nearly 50-year-old freight barge landing was shut down. The assembly will hold a work session on the master plan at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 13, at the Nolan Center. The barge ramp, next to the City Dock, was closed down in mid-March after an engineering report detailed structural and safety concerns about the steel bridge and other components. The closure has prompted the borough to accelerate its quest for a permanent solution. The freight comp...
The chamber still needs volunteers - and sponsors - to run events at the town's multiday Fourth of July celebration. And there's just one big, bright, sparkly unknown. "The only worry is the fireworks," said Tracey Martin, executive director of the chamber of commerce, which organizes the holiday extravaganza. Wrangell no longer has a certified pyrotechnician to take charge of the fireworks. "Someone in the fire department is working on passing their state-proctored test so that they can do the...
Starting July 1, residents and businesses will be charged higher rates for water and sewer services and trash pickup. Moorage fees and other rates at the port and harbors also will go up. The utility rate increases will be small, adding up to just under $10 a month for a residential account at the minimum level of water use and garbage pickup. The borough assembly adopted the annual rate and fee schedule unanimously at its April 22 meeting. The monthly base rate for residential or commercial metered water service will increase 10%, from $45.61...
In poker, four of a kind beats just about everything. But this isn’t about gambling with chips or betting on cards, it’s about gambling with the country’s future. It’s about how four-of-a-kind senators could beat President Donald Trump at the dangerous game he is playing with the nation’s economy and people’s lives. No surprise, it’s just like Trump to gamble with everyone else’s money, livelihood and families but his own. The guy’s been dealing from the bottom, making up new rules as he plays the game from the Oval Office, and it’s time tha...
Whether by land or by sea, everyone is invited to participate in the annual blessing of the fleet, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Monday, May 12, at the Wrangell Mariners’ Memorial at Heritage Harbor. For those who arrive by sea, “we will broadcast the event on VHF,” said memorial board president Jenn Miller-Yancey. “Having those vessels out there makes the whole experience more meaningful,” she said of the boats that drift in front of the memorial during the ceremony. Wrangell has held a springtime blessing of the fleet for decades, moving to the He...
Wrangell may see a return of track and field for high school athletes. The effort is starting small. Wrangell junior Boomchain Loucks, a standout cross-country runner, competed Saturday, May 3, at the South Sound Classic at Puyallup High School east of Tacoma, Washington. Loucks, who had started practicing in mid-April, was the only Wrangell athlete with enough practices under his feet to qualify for the meet, explained Mason Villarma, who is volunteering as track and field coach this year. “My goal for this year is to get it off the ground,” s...
A Wasilla-based rental property owner wants to build 16 units on 1.3 acres of borough-owned land behind the old hospital building. The developer, Jiaying Lu, has applied to purchase the six vacant lots, which were last appraised at $316,000. The assembly will hold a public hearing on the land sale during its May 13 meeting at City Hall. The planning and zoning commission on April 10 unanimously recommended approval of the sale. Lu proposes to build four fourplexes on the property. She said she does not yet have a construction estimate for the...
As recommended by the borough manager, the assembly voted on April 22 to sell the first 20 lots of the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision by auction to the highest bidder, dropping plans of the past 18 months to sell half of the parcels by lottery. The intent of an auction is to raise more money than in a fixed-price lottery to help cover a larger share of the development costs for the borough-owned land just past Shoemaker Bay. “It would be imprudent of us to use public dollars to subsidize a lottery,” Borough Manager Mason...
Alaska Airlines has been flying the “milk run” for decades, serving the string of Southeast communities between Ketchikan and Juneau, but this weekend will be the first flight for the Milk Run Music Festival in Wrangell. Two days of music, food booths, corn hole competition, kids events and more are planned for Friday and Saturday, May 2-3, in front of the City Dock. The Nolan Center is the backup plan if the rain gets to be too much. “We’re hoping for great weather,” said Reme Privett, one of the organizers. “We’re doing a sun dance.” The e...
The third annual plant swap and seed potato sale will sprout from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, May 3, in a yard on St. Michaels Street, near the bottom of the hill. “It’s kind of been building each year,” said Mya DeLong, one of the organizers. Sponsored by the Wrangell Community Garden and Wrangell Cooperative Association, the event provides gardeners with an opportunity to swap out their excess plants and starters for something they may want to add to their greenery. “You can swap your Brussels sprouts for celery,” DeLong said, or any other...
I didn’t like the freshmen dress code for the dining room at college. We had to wear these stupid beanies on our heads at the start of the first semester if we wanted dinner. No blue jeans were allowed. Shirts with collars were mandatory. Socks, too. And this was at a public university. But it was 1968 in Indiana, which seemed more like living in the 1950s. I also remember something about having to sing the school song to gain admission to the dining room in the dorm. I was 16 years old and the only songs I knew were not ones that would get m...
A Juneau-based contractor and scrap metal recycler wants to expand its operations in Wrangell. It has offered the borough about $700,000 in site work in exchange for almost 10 acres of land at the former 6-Mile mill site. Tideline Construction, a sister company of Channel Construction, in January offered the borough $250,000 for the acreage, but submitted a new proposal last month for an extensive cleanup of the mill property in exchange for the acreage it wants at the southern end of the site....
Facing a gap of several hundred thousand dollars between available funds and its draft spending plan, the school board will hold a special meeting Wednesday, April 30, to adopt a final budget — which could include spending cuts. The latest draft budget presented to the board at its regular monthly meeting on April 14 showed about $6 million in spending versus just $4.7 million in projected revenue from state, municipal and federal sources for the 2025-2026 school year. The district expects to start the next school year with $990,000 left in its...
School Board President Dave Wilson on April 14 named 10 people to a special committee to assist the board in developing a long-term budget plan. The district has been drawing on its dwindling savings the past few years to cover spending, and it doesn’t look likely that any combination of state, municipal or federal money is going to rescue the district from spending cuts. “The budget situation is extremely dire,” Ryan Howe, a 16-year teacher in the district, said at the school board’s April 14 meeting. “There’s no calvary coming.” Wi...
More than five dozen high school students from around Southeast, along with their art teachers, will be busy painting, inking, printing, beading, knitting and more during Artfest, a four-day series of workshops in Wrangell this week. Artfest will run Thursday through Sunday, April 24-27, at the high school, with an art show open to the public from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sunday, said Tawney Crowley, the Wrangell School District’s art teacher. The festival for Southeast students started in 1997 when Wrangell art teacher Kirk Garbisch helped organize t...
The borough is seeking bids from contractors to complete road and utility work at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision, in anticipation of putting 20 residential lots up for sale this summer. The estimate for the work is $1.9 million, which would include surveying, clearing and grubbing the land, constructing a gravel roadway to the lots, installing water and sewage lines, and trenching for buried electrical, cable and phone lines, according to the bid notice. Bids are due May 7 for the land development work just south of the Sh...