The borough has been looking for a developer or long-term tenant after paying $2.5 million for the former 6-Mile sawmill property in June 2022, but now is turning its attention to short-term leases to generate income and jobs until something bigger...

The governor’s growing obsession with charter schools is frightening for the future of public education in Alaska. He talks as if charter schools are by far the best answer to the state’s low student test scores. He has told Alaskans he would not...

The Get REAL Financial Reality Fair for high school students isn’t just about learning to balance a checkbook, manage money and handle credit cards. It’s also about learning what their parents deal with in managing the family’s finances, said Maris...

Borough officials are concerned that Wrangell continues to lose population, while those who stay in town grow older and leave the workforce. As a whole, the state has lost more residents than it has gained in new arrivals every year since 2013, with...

A majority of the borough assembly supports changing municipal law to pay the mayor and assembly a few thousand dollars a year for their work, but it would require a change in the municipal charter to adopt such a compensation plan. “If this would g...

The borough assembly has voted to proceed with an application for $25 million in federal funding to rebuild the Inner Harbor, Reliance and Standard Oil floats, including a commitment that Wrangell would come up with $5 million needed to fully fund...

Assembly members agreed that a port commission proposal to require boat owners to carry marine insurance — or pay a monthly fee in addition to their stall rental — needs a lot more work. The port commission has been discussing since 2022 the fin...

The advice for Las Vegas gamblers is don’t bet more than you can afford to lose. It’s generally the same advice for investors: Don’t take more risk than you can afford, even when the riskier bets look like they could pay off the same as 21 at the b...

Site prep work is finished and concrete foundation work has started on a new multimillion-dollar treatment plant to improve water quality and quantity for Wrangell. “We’re actually pouring our first footings,” Amber Al-Haddad, the borough’s capital...

I’ve never seen market conditions as bad as they are now,” Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told a conference of Southeast business, community and municipal government leaders last week. “Last year we said...

Crew shortages continue to plague the Alaska Marine Highway, the ferry system’s director told a gathering of Southeast officials last week. “Our biggest shortage is in the engineering department,” where the 54 ship engineers on the payroll as of Ja...

State geologists were able to more accurately measure the movement and damage from massive landslides that poured across roads in the middle of the island in November because just a few months earlier the state and U.S. Forest Service had collected...

“At least once a week I get a call from someone who is interested” in the upcoming borough subdivision land sale of 20 lots, said Kate Thomas, Wrangell’s economic development director. To help those callers, and everyone else who might be interested...

Think of the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund as the rich uncle or rich aunt you can go to when you’re short of cash to pay bills and need a loan. But even that wealthy relative has a bottom to their pocket. Take too much out and that poc...

The dumpsters at Wrangell’s public harbors are for boat owners only and for their household trash only — but that hasn’t stopped people from tossing in waste oil, fishing nets, appliances and even a Volkswagen Beetle cut into pieces. “It’s been bad f...

The Tlingit & Haida Community Council and Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp No. 1 are co-hosting an event to commemorate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on Friday, Feb. 16, at the Nolan Center. It’s been several years since a communitywide event was held in Wr...

Though the initial estimates have come in higher than the maximum grant amount, the borough will proceed with seeking $25 million in federal money to rebuild the Inner Harbor, Reliance and Standard Oil floats. The cost estimates for the entire...

The U.S.-Mexico border is a humanitarian disaster, with U.S. Border Patrol agents taking custody of upwards of 200,000 people a month trying to cross a line in the sand, river, desert shrubs or razor wire in search of a better life. The numbers are...

The National Forest Foundation, working with the U.S. Forest Service, has issued a contract to rebuild the popular Anan Bay cabin, which was taken out by a fallen tree in a February 2023 storm. “It is conceivable that we will have a cabin again t...

The borough assembly has declared as “hazardous” and assigned a property value of zero to the two lots owned by victims of the deadly Nov. 20 landslide at 11-Mile Zimovia Highway, making the owners eligible to possibly receive state land as rep...

After coming up with no viable candidates in the first round of applications, the borough assembly has decided to readvertise to fill the manager job. The borough received seven applications after posting the job last fall, but the only applicant...

John Florschutz was surprised to learn that his parents’ homeowner’s insurance policy did not cover the loss from the Nov. 20 landslide that destroyed their home and killed his father, Otto Florschutz. “I think it’s a shock to everyone I talk to...

Some of the items donated this week at Petersburg’s seventh-annual Project Connect Resource Fair will make it to Wrangell for a community clothing and household goods distribution. “It’s nice to have a change of clothes from another town,” Joan Sa...

Just because few to none of Alaska’s elected officials are talking about bringing back the personal income tax is no reason to ignore its anniversary. OK, maybe it’s weird to celebrate your anniversary with an ex, but it’s different with the state in...

To ensure that potential buyers know as much as possible before putting in their bids for any of the 20 lots at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision, the borough is putting together an information fair for people to talk with builders...