Sorted by date Results 476 - 500 of 851
School enrollment is heading in the right direction, but just slightly. After counting 257 students during the state-mandated annual tally last year, this year’s Wrangell enrollment count was at 266 as of last week, said Schools Superintendent Bill Burr. The school district had estimated 263 students when it put together its budget for the 2022-2023 school year. State funding, which provides more than 60% of the district’s operating budget, is based on enrollment, with districts statewide required to submit their count every October. The hig...
Regardless whether you like harp music, it’s soothing, relaxing, even peaceful. Which leads me to apologize for continuing to harp on Alaska’s Permanent Fund dividend politics, which are anything but musical. They’re more akin to the wordless scream of a heavy-metal song, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But they sure get the audience fired up. Unless you believe in $100-plus oil prices or heavy taxes or large-scale budget cuts, the state treasury cannot afford endless years of $2,500 or $3,000 dividends, especially not the $4,00...
It’s not a headline I take lightly, but it’s scary that almost 300 Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, House and key statewide offices around the country have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election. Not on the basis of proven facts but based on contrived conspiracy theories and marching orders from the candidate who lost the election because 7 million more voters cast their ballots for the other guy. Almost 300 election deniers running for important offices is not an inconsequential or harmless number and many of...
“Not happy” was how Borough Manager Jeff Good described his mood last week when he received word that Wrangell was left off the list of Alaska communities sharing in $27 million in the final round of federal pandemic assistance funding. Wrangell was not alone in receiving nothing. Juneau, Sitka and Anchorage also came up empty. The funding formula was based on federal acreage within each borough, with population and economic conditions, such as poverty levels and unemployment, factoring into the formula. “I think Treasury got it wrong,” Nils An...
Wrangell is great at helping neighbors in need, at filling holiday food baskets and supporting student activities. The community excels at watching out for each other, watching over our elders and keeping watch over mariners. There are multiple examples just in last week’s and this week’s Sentinel and on the Wrangell Community Group Facebook page: Volunteers working to reopen the roller rink after a three-year shutdown; all the effort that has gone into growing the community garden; the dedication, labor and money that have gone into bui...
Wrangell has received $291,566 that it was owed by the state but never expected to receive, and could hold it as a cushion to soften the debt payments on bonds to repair school buildings and the Public Safety Building. Borough Finance Director Mason Villarma said last week he would recommend to the assembly that it move the money into the debt service fund, keeping it there if needed to help with payments on the proposed bonds, easing the pressure on property tax payers. Wrangell voters are being asked in the Oct. 4 municipal election to...
It’s been 12 years since Wrangell voters were asked to approve the borough taking on debt, and next Tuesday’s municipal election ballot will include two such proposals to repair worn-down public buildings. The Oct. 4 ballot also will include the election of a new mayor, two borough assembly members, two port commissioners and three school board members. In addition, the ballot asks voter permission for the borough to sell or lease the former sawmill property at 6-Mile. The borough bought the property this summer for $2.5 million, and is loo...
Workers, families and retirees are not the only Alaskans squeezed by inflation, rising interest rates and tumbling investments. The state is in the same tight spot. And it could get worse. The price for Alaska North Slope crude oil was down to $86.57 a barrel as of last Friday, dropping a third from almost $128 in early June. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate was even lower, at $78.74. The stock market, where the Alaska Permanent Fund invests much of its money, as of Friday was down 20% from the start of the year. Bond and real estate...
Officials believe the borough can cover the entire annual debt payment on $3.5 million in school maintenance bonds by taking advantage of strong sales tax revenues and higher federal aid payments — without turning to property taxes. State lease payments for the community’s jail and investment earnings from Wrangell’s $10 million permanent fund savings account could help reduce the tax cost of the other bond issue on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot — $8.5 million for rebuild and repair to the rot-damaged Public Safety Building — according...
I promise, this will be the first and only column I write that makes fun of how people behave in Washington, D.C. Well, maybe I’ll write another one someday if I see something that is so silly it’s worth sharing with readers. OK, I guess then it’s pretty likely there will be another, but I absolutely, positively promise this will be the last one that laughs at people and their addiction to so-called smartphones. I don’t know why we call them smartphones when they make people act so dumb. I arrived in Washington, D.C., last week to start m...
Starting this week, I will be working as a policy adviser to Mary Peltola, Alaska’s newly elected congresswoman. I hadn’t planned on it, but she asked and I accepted. Fortunately, I saved my suits from when I worked in Washington, D.C., for the state and federal governments a decade ago. I’ll be advising Peltola on oil and gas and other energy issues, natural resources, tax, fiscal, transportation, federal agency issues and whatever else is on the work list for Alaska as she fills out the rest of the late Rep. Don Young’s House term until J...
It’s been more than 60 years since “The Sound of Music” debuted on Broadway and more than 20 years since Wrangell staged a community play, and organizers hope that the years have not diminished the appeal of either. Auditions for a community production of the famous musical will be held at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 20 and 21 at the Nolan Center. The performance is planned for the first weekend of December, said Cyni Crary, Nolan Center director. She and Tom Jenkins are the organizers of the theatrical production. “We’ve had a huge interest,” Crary said...
A statewide coalition of fisheries and economic development organizations, led by the Southeast Conference, has won a $49 million federal grant to help build up Alaska’s mariculture industry. “This is a moon shot,” Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, said of the challenges ahead and the potential rewards of growing the industry to raise and harvest shellfish and seaweed in larger commercial quantities. “It’s a big deal,” said Wrangell’s Julie Decker, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development F...
Less frequent service and the loss of about 6,000 ferry travelers a year over the past decade has cut deeply into Wrangell’s visitor industry. “People view Wrangell as hard to get to,” and the significant cuts to state ferry service perpetuate that image, said Marjy Wood, owner of Tyee Travel. After ferry service dropped from several port calls a week 10 years ago to one a week and developed dependability issues, travelers have booked ferries less frequently, she said. “It’s hard to schedule (trips) very far in advance and feel comfortab...
Two of the races on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot are contested: There are two candidates for mayor and three candidates to fill two three-year terms on the borough assembly. The other three races on the ballot — for port commission, a one-year school board term and two three-year school board seats — are all uncontested. Absent a surprising write-in turnout, the candidates on the ballot will win those elections. Patty Gilbert and Terry Courson are competing to succeed Mayor Steve Prysunka, who decided not to seek reelection to a thi...
Normally, I do not respond to anonymous questions. Most all newspapers, the Sentinel included, will not print anonymous letters. To do otherwise would allow people to take free shots at anyone they want, hiding from view and protecting their own identity while they criticize or question others. However, sometimes the questions raised in an anonymous letter are worth sharing with the community. Such as the case of an unsigned letter mailed to the Sentinel, raising multiple questions about the proposed bond issues to pay for repairs to the...
The borough followed through on discussions from earlier this summer and the assembly last week approved a contract for reassessment of the value of all commercial and residential properties in the community. The intent is not to raise revenue — that is determined by the property tax rate the assembly sets every spring as part of the budget process. The reassessment is to ensure that valuations are “equitable across the board,” explained Borough Manager Jeff Good. After the assembly adopts its annual budget, it considers available reven...
Given my aversion to long planning sessions, whiteboards with erasable markers and consensus building exercises, I can’t believe I am saying this: The town needs a plan for its economic future. A forum to start making that plan is a good beginning. Wrangell’s economic future is as cloudy as a fall day in Southeast, as uncertain as the state ferry schedule, and as chancy as winning a raffle. Improving those dreary odds can’t be based on hope. Wrangell needs a realistic plan. The chamber of commerce is sponsoring an economic forum on Sept. 30 at...
After opening its successful Icy Strait Point development to cruise ships 18 years ago, the village corporation for Hoonah is expanding its interests in tourism, particularly new cruise ship terminals. Huna Totem Corp. last week said it will work to develop a new cruise terminal in Juneau, following announcements earlier this summer that it will develop a cruise ship destination in Klawock, on Prince of Wales Island, and one in Whittier, on Prince William Sound, which is just a short train ride or drive to Anchorage. The corporation’s first d...
Wrangell would get pretty much the same service it has in recent years under the draft fall/winter state ferry schedule released last week — one stop in each direction per week, October through April. Fortunately, unlike the past two years, when the community endured almost a two-month span each fall without any ferry service, the draft schedule shows no interruptions in service. That assumes ships return to service from winter overhaul on schedule, which has been inconsistent, particularly as supply-chain issues delay the delivery of needed p...
Faced with a $474,000 reduction in state funding from last year, the Wrangell School District found several ways to cut the budget for the 2022-2023 school year. State funding is based on enrollment, and Wrangell’s count is down about 50 students — more than 15% — from before the pandemic. The district lost students to homeschooling and enrollment in correspondence schools in 2020. The district this year did not fill a vacant teaching position at the middle school, in addition to adopting a budget that assumes less spending on substitute teache...
People vote their pocketbook, or so the old adage says. And certainly more so in this year of high inflation, painful gas prices at the pump and fears of a global recession. It’s understandable that Wrangell voters will think about their household finances when they select which candidates they support. In Alaska, particularly in the past few years, that support has gone to the candidates that promote loudly, promise passionately and pledge sincerely that they will deliver the largest Permanent Fund dividend to voters. OK, I get it. This y...
Hopeful that the borough will be able to strike a deal for private development of the former sawmill property at 6 Mile Zimovia Highway, the assembly will hold a public hearing Aug. 23 on an ordinance that would ask voter approval to sell or lease the 32 acres of uplands. The borough charter and code require voter approval for the sale or lease of any municipally owned property worth more than $1 million. The borough in June purchased the waterfront property for $2.5 million, looking to preserve the parcel intact and hoping it can attract priva...
The borough assembly has set a public hearing for its Aug. 23 meeting to consider two ordinances that would seek voter approval to borrow $3.5 million for repairs to school buildings and $8.5 million for rebuild and repairs to the Public Safety Building. The numbers are down from $4.5 million and $10.5 million in an earlier work plan considered by the assembly, as the borough dropped some items from the repair lists to hold down costs. Voter approval is required for the borough to issue general obligation bonds to raise money for the work. The...
Lust for a supersize Alaska Permanent Fund dividend and giving the government a larger role in dictating personal choices are about as miserable a pair of reasons for rewriting the state constitution as imaginable. Problem is, they are not imagined, they are real. Alaskans will vote in 12 weeks whether they want to convene a constitutional convention to embark on rewriting the state’s founding document. The constitution requires that voters get a chance every 10 years to decide if they want a do-over on the 1950s’ guiding principles of law...
