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A Pacific Northwest seafood business owner, whose family has been active in commercial fishing in Alaska since 1981, plans to buy and expand the operations of Fathom Seafoods in Wrangell. Peninsula Seafoods has applied to the borough for transfer of the lease on a small dockside parcel at the Marine Service Center. The port commission has recommended approval of the transfer, sending the issue to the borough assembly. As soon as the assembly signs off on the transfer, which could come at its Jan. 23 meeting, Jeff Grannum, general manager of Pen...
Cruise ship operators that lighter their passengers to shore will pay higher port fees starting this summer in Wrangell. The borough assembly unanimously approved the new rate structure Jan. 9, following a port commission recommendation. The rates had been set at 40% of the cost of tying up to the dock, with the new fee structure raising that to 60%. The increase in lightering fees is intended to encourage more ships to tie up at the dock rather than anchor offshore, Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma told the assembly. Wrangell should be...
Almost 110,000 Alaskans applied for the fall 2024 Permanent Fund dividend in the first eight days after the application period opened on Jan. 1. Applications close in 11 weeks, on March 31. Last year’s dividend was $1,312. This year’s amount will be determined as part of annual state budget deliberations, which will begin next week when legislators reconvene in Juneau. The annual dividend is paid from the state general fund, which gets most of its money from investment earnings generated by the $78 billion Alaska Permanent Fund and from oil...
Middle Ridge Road, heavily damaged and blocked in several places by a 3,400-foot-long landslide Nov. 20, will be out of service until the U.S. Forest Service can come up with a repair plan and funding for the project. "It is closed for the foreseeable future. ... We're talking a major project," said Austin O'Brien, interim district ranger for the Forest Service in Wrangell. Several stretches of the road are covered in mud, trees and debris, cutting off access to the Forest Service's Middle Ridge...
The port commission has recommended to the borough assembly approval of an ordinance that would require owners who moor their vessels at a reserved spot in Wrangell harbors to either provide proof of marine insurance or pay a monthly surcharge on their moorage fee. Officials have been considering since 2022 adding the new requirement to municipal code to help shield the borough from the cost of raising and disposing of boats that sink in the harbors. “The cost of recovering sunken vessels has significantly increased, and the community can no l...
The Alaska Department of Transportation is seeking bids for rockfall-prevention work just past 6-Mile Zimovia Highway in an area known as The Bluffs and prone to rocks breaking off from the hillside and landing in the right of way. The work is scheduled for this summer. Bids were due Jan. 9. The work will include drilling and installing into the rock face more than 300 linear feet of bolts, each at least 25 feet long and grouted in place. The job also will include clearing work at the top of the slope. An engineer’s estimate puts the e...
The intent is to promote Wrangell’s unique attractions, its wildlife, culture and history, aiming to attract more independent travelers to town. “Our goal is to establish a steady stream of visitors,” Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director, said of the town’s new Travel Wrangell marketing plan. “It’s bringing in that independent traveler,” she explained in an interview last month. The objective is to have visitors “spend more money and more time” in town. The marketing plan has been under development since last May, a month a...
There is at least one big similarity between artificial intelligence and teenagers. They both think they know everything. And now, an AI applications provider is promoting in its marketing material that it is just like a teenager. But first, a bit of the history that underlies my commentary. And, no, AI did not assist in writing this column or augment my memory or provide data scraped from the internet. Though I do enjoy the crispy pieces scraped from a good mac-and-cheese casserole. Several years ago, actually three decades ago, I was dating...
This fall’s energy relief payment, which would go out along with the annual Permanent Fund dividend, is looking smaller than expected several months ago. The “bonus” on the 2024 dividend would come from state revenues in excess of what is needed to cover the spending plan approved by lawmakers and the governor last spring. The Legislature included a provision in the state budget that said half of any surplus would go into savings and half into an energy relief payment to Alaskans. The latest projection for the fall payment is about $175, Alexe...
It’s been eight years since the state last increased its per-student funding formula for public schools — a 0.5% nudge that year — and years of stagnant funding have caught up with districts statewide, including Wrangell. “We have to count on funding this year,” Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said. An increase in the state formula “is essential to us.” The state’s K-12 foundation funding covers almost 60% of the Wrangell district’s $5.3 million operating budget for the 2023-2024 school year, with borough funds filling about 30% and mostly fe...
After sitting vacant for almost three years — spending about half that time on the market — the borough is finally seeing interest from private parties in buying the former hospital property on Bennett Street. Three parties have expressed interest, said Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma, adding he anticipated at least one offer by the start of the new year. Hopefully, the borough could sell off the 1.94-acre parcel by February, he said. “The value is getting rid of the property,” Villarma said in an interview before Christmas. The borough...
Wrangell is No. 16 on the statewide priority list and unlikely to receive any school repair money this year from the state’s Major Maintenance Grant Fund. The list, prepared each year by the Alaska Department of Education after reviewing engineering and condition reports on school buildings, determines which districts receive state funding for their priority repair and rebuilding projects. The Wrangell School District had requested $6.5 million in state money that it would use with $3.5 million approved by voters in 2022 to make $10 million o...
Though the state Department of Transportation had hoped and planned to pave the rebuilt section of Zimovia Highway in the landslide area by early this month, the weather did not cooperate and the concrete work has been postponed to at least March. “It isn’t working out in our favor,” Chris Goins, the department's regional director for Southeast, said of the gusty winds that blew through town before and after Christmas, forcing the rescheduling. Until it warms up and winter storms are past, drivers will see a crushed-rock surface for sever...
Partisan politics itself is not evil. Disruptive, yes. Phony, certainly. Shortsighted, no doubt about it. On its own, partisanship is a childish game played by adults who care more about headlines, fundraising and winning elections than anything else. But in recent years, partisanship has devolved into something much worse than a political shouting match. Stoked by social media, half-truths and everything but the truth, partisanship has grown into a divisive force that threatens the country by threatening our elections. Far too many Americans...
The Economic Development Board has recommended to the borough assembly that it put up half of the 20 lots at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision in an online auction to the highest bidders, with the other half going on sale by lottery. There would be no limit on how many lots an individual could purchase in the auction, but the board decided to recommend limiting the lottery to one lot per individual. The five-member advisory board voted unanimously Dec. 20 to forward its recommendations to the assembly, which has final say o...
People have been driving out the Spur Road and illegally cutting down trees on borough land and hauling away the logs, likely for firewood, Wrangell Police Chief Tom Radke said. In a move to combat the theft and damage to public property, the borough assembly will hold a public hearing at its meeting Tuesday, Jan. 9, on a proposed ordinance that would institute a $300 fine for illegally cutting down trees on borough land. The ordinance would add a new section to municipal code, defining trespass to include “the cutting down, injury or r...
The school district is advancing funds to cover student travel to state competition this school year, with the account at an estimated $52,000 deficit. The district is looking to the community and the newly created Wrangell Athletic Club to repay the costs before the budget year closes out on June 30. “That is our hope,” Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said in late December. Student travel to state competition cost about $46,000 in the 2022-2023 school year, which the school board voted in November to cover on a one-time basis out of reserves...
Seattle-based Trident Seafoods will scale back its operations in an economically challenging global market and wants to sell several of its facilities in Alaska, including processing plants in Petersburg and Ketchikan, but the company plans to keep its Wrangell operation. "Wrangell is a highly efficient plant that makes products that feed our value-added salmon operations," Alexis Telfer, vice president for global communications at Trident, reported in an email Dec. 12. "Petersburg is a...
The cost of clearing landslide debris, digging up the roadbed to install three large culverts to carry runoff from the mountainside, building up a new base and shoulders, and then paving the rebuilt section of Zimovia Highway with concrete will exceed $1.2 million. It could be another couple weeks before the work is finished and the highway restored to two-lane traffic, said a state official. Fortunately, the Alaska Department of Transportation had enough sections of 36-inch-diameter culvert on...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed state budget for legislative consideration starting in January includes $5 million to strengthen the century-old earthen dams that contain Wrangell’s water reservoirs. The state grant would pay to “reinforce both these dams with buttresses,” likely concrete, Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma said Dec. 15. The governor released his version of the budget on Dec. 14. Lawmakers will reconvene in Juneau on Jan. 16, with the state spending plan likely to dominate the 121-day session. Villarma and other borough...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is starting his sixth year as the state’s top elected leader. Sadly, he’s not providing much fiscal leadership, other than beating the drums for his perpetual political bandwagon that trumpets the Permanent Fund dividend at the front of the parade, with public schools playing second fiddle. It’s off-key and off-base. The governor unveiled his proposed state budget last week, setting out a spending plan for the fiscal year that will start July 1 and which legislators will start working through when they reconvene in Junea...
The borough has gone out to the public for a second time to survey their opinions on how to sell the first 20 lots of the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision, in advance of a decision by the Economic Development Board at its meeting set for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 20, at City Hall. The board is scheduled to make a recommendation to the assembly for how the lots should be sold, with the assembly expected to take up the issue in January. According to the Economic Development Department’s proposed schedule, the borough would hol...
A dozen Wrangell households had applied as of Dec. 7 for state financial aid to help them recover from the Nov. 20 landslide. The deadline to apply is not until Jan. 27, and an official with the state emergency management agency is encouraging anyone who believes they were directed affected by the slide to fill out an application. “We want people to apply,” said Jeremy Zidek, with the state’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The division will review the applications and give priority to people who have the greatest needs...
Elon Musk brought Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink to the world, which has mostly been good. He certainly is creative and extremely wealthy — gotta give him credit for that. Musk is brash and boastful, which has been obnoxious but mostly harmless. He also is rude and insensitive, which can be hurtful. But he doesn’t understand his responsibilities to society, and that’s dangerous. Really dangerous. The guy who renamed Twitter as X needs to relearn his ABCs of civic responsibility. Especially after earning a big fat F for Fail after he restored the X...
With the rusty Matanuska out of service pending repairs, the Kennicott scheduled for tie-up due to lack of crew and the Tazlina in the shipyard to add crew quarters, the state ferry system’s draft summer 2024 schedule is limited by the number of vessels in service and looks about the same as this past summer. The Columbia would make a weekly northbound stop in Wrangell on Sundays and a weekly southbound visit on Wednesdays on its run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. The marine highway system released its draft schedule D...
