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This year’s switch to ranked-choice voting in Alaska is something new, maybe even surprisingly new for those who missed or forgot about the 2020 statewide ballot initiative that put forth the change. But new, while exciting for some people, can be scary and disconcerting and disruptive for others. This coming from a 70-year-old who is stuck so deep in his own comfort zone that I wear the same button-down cotton shirts (never white), same two-tone saddle shoes, use the same hair shampoo and same original flavor Crest toothpaste. Hey, nothing w...
Alaska Airlines will use a larger aircraft on southbound Flight 64 for a couple of months this summer, adding about three dozen more seats to the capacity of the daily flight that goes from Anchorage to Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and Seattle. While the additional seat availability will help Wrangell travelers book a ticket on the day they want to fly, the need to bring in the larger aircraft was triggered by all the flyers from Prince of Wales Island communities who board in Ketchikan, said Scott Habberstad, the airline’s A...
A state Department of Transportation official told legislators that the ferry system is “burning out our crew” with lots of overtime amid staff shortages, and that the problem jeopardizes tentative plans to bring back the Columbia to service in Southeast for the first time since fall 2019. The Alaska Marine Highway System as of March 16 was down 125 employees from the minimum needed to staff its full online summer schedule plus the addition of the Columbia, according to a department presentation to the Senate Finance Committee. Deputy Commissio...
No, this column is not directed at oil producers. They are not the guilty party in this tale of cost escalation. Nor is this column about the many businesses around the world stressed by energy prices that have shot up faster and higher than fireworks on the Fourth of July. As crude oil has jumped, surged and spiked from just over $65 a barrel on Dec. 1 to painfully over $100 a barrel this month, consumers have been paying more at the pump — whether the corner gas station for a dozen or more gallons to fill up a car or pickup, a couple h...
The state has started negotiations to sell the Malaspina to a company owned by a business that operates a new multimillion-dollar cruise ship terminal at Ward Cove in Ketchikan. M/V Malaspina LLC and the Alaska Department of Transportation “have agreed to negotiate in good faith on the sale of the 59-year-old vessel,” the state announced Monday. “MVM’s letter of interest outlines a plan to use the Malaspina to showcase Alaska’s maritime history and support a Ketchikan-based tourism business,” the state said. “Among other uses, they propose...
After a 30-month absence due to a new federal requirement for armed customs agents and the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of Canadian waters, the Alaska Marine Highway System is scheduled to resume limited service this summer to Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The Matanuska is scheduled for two stops each month in June, July and August, and one visit in September before the ferry system switches over to its more limited fall/winter schedule, which is still being developed. The first sailing from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert is set for June 20....
Many Alaskans will be hurting under $5-a-gallon gasoline, and rural residents who pay even higher prices will hurt even more. The state treasury, meanwhile, is flush with higher oil production tax and royalty checks, depositing tens of millions of dollars more each month than expected at the start of the year. Oil at $100-plus a barrel is guilty on both counts — making people poorer and making the Alaska checkbook richer. To use one to help the other, many Alaska lawmakers seem to be nervously coalescing around the idea of using much of the a...
The U.S. Census Bureau and Alaska Department of Labor both say Wrangell has lost population, though the numbers don’t match other statistics. The Census Bureau last year said the community lost 242 residents, about 11%, between the 2010 and 2020 counts, going from 2,369 to 2,127 residents. The state Labor Department said Wrangell’s population loss was even steeper, down 14% from July 2011 to July 2021 estimates, falling from 2,412 to 2,096, according to this month’s issue of Alaska Economic Trends magazine. Census numbers and state estim...
State ferry system and Transportation Department officials plan to gather this week in Ketchikan to consider options for fulfilling the advertised summer schedule amid a continuing shortage of onboard crew. The department failed to meet its self-imposed timeline of hiring enough workers by March 1 to ensure that the Columbia on May 1 would return to service for the first time since fall 2019. The Alaska Marine Highway System had said it needed to hire at least 166 new employees to staff up its fleet — a gap of about one-quarter of its total aut...
The state of Alaska, Congress and the president, individual companies and people do not all have the same capabilities and authority to show their disgust and dismay at Russia’s unprovoked, murderous attack on Ukraine, a sovereign nation at war with no one until Russian President Vladimir Putin decided he had to prove that he is the toughest, meanest kid on the planet. But everyone needs to do something. The world has suffered far too many deaths, ruined countries, poverty and famine due to wars over the centuries to sit by and watch more of t...
First a trade war, then a battle against an infectious virus and now a real war are all affecting Alaska seafood exports. Shipments to China fell from as high as 30% of Alaska’s total seafood export value in the 2010s to 20% in 2020. “The U.S.-China trade war has displaced $500 million of Alaska seafood,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, told legislators last week. And though people bought more seafood to prepare at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, sales to restaurants and food services fell by 70...
Sitka will be the next Southeast airport to make the switch from free to paid parking. Petersburg made the move in December, when a private operator leased state airport property that had been used for free parking and converted it to a paid long-term lot. The Alaska Department of Transportation said parking management at the Sitka airport “has become an increasing challenge” for its crew. The department plans this month to advertise “to find a professional parking management company” to manage the lot in front of the terminal. The effort...
It’s not often you hear political debates that invoke religion and booze but have nothing to do with temperance, the social ills of alcohol or strict adherence to church teachings. In Alaska, those points are being offered in the context of the state budget and oil prices — both of which are similar to alcohol and religion in the 49th state. They can be intoxicating, debatable and divisive. High oil prices of recent months — and even higher in recent days after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — have made Alaska rich again, for now....
A 45-page bill to restructure the Alaska Marine Highway System as a state-owned corporation, run by an appointed board of directors, similar to the Alaska Railroad, is going to take longer than one legislative session to review, amend and adopt — if even then. “This is going to take a big lift,” said Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, an economic and community development nonprofit for the region that supports the concept of a ferry corporation. “This is aspirational,” he said Feb. 23, a day after the Senate Tr...
The Alaska Department of Transportation is asking anyone interested in taking ownership of the nearly 60-year-old Malaspina to speak up by March 7. The state has been spending about $75,000 a month to keep the unused ferry moored and insured at Ward Cove in Ketchikan for more than two years. The ship has not carried passengers or vehicles since late 2019, and requires tens of millions of dollars of repairs, steel replacement work and new engines to go back into service, according to the Transportation Department. “Holy crap, why don’t we sel...
Look at the post office package shelves, the boxes left at people’s doors and the empties stuffed into the trash and it’s clear that Wrangell — just like the rest of the country — is primed to shop from Amazon. Free shipping is the biggest incentive to sign up for Amazon Prime. That, and the website sells everything anyone could ever want or need, plus millions of items we never knew we wanted or needed. And maybe don’t need, but free shipping is such an enticement. No minimum purchase, no hassles, just click and wait for delivery. Let Amazo...
State Transportation Department officials last week told legislators the ferry system needed to quickly hire at least 166 new crew in order to meet minimum staffing levels for this summer’s schedule starting in May. “Staffing goals for the summer season will not be met at current recruitment rates,” the department reported in its presentation to the House Transportation Committee on Feb. 15. Insufficient staffing could result in scaling back ferry service plans. About 350 new hires would be even better, covering vacancies due to sick leave and...
Almost three years after pulling pollution monitors — called Ocean Rangers — from large cruise ships, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has proposed legislation to replace the onboard state personnel with regular inspections by shoreside staff while ships are in port and underway. The Ocean Rangers program was written into state law when voters approved a citizen’s initiative in 2006 to step up oversight of the cruise ship industry. However, start-of-season and random inspections during the summer “are a more effective use of available funds,” Emma Pokon, dep...
Alaska’s state housing agency has distributed more than $243 million in financial aid the past year to help renters hurt economically by the pandemic and will soon embark on a $50 million federally funded program to help homeowners, too. The aid can go toward eligible homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments, and may also be applied to current and past-due property taxes, insurance premiums and utility bills, the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. announced Friday. Preregistration for Alaska Housing Homeowner Assistance opens Monday at Ala...
Unless the Alaska Marine Highway System can recruit enough workers by March 1 to restaff the unused Columbia, officials said the largest vessel in the fleet would remain tied to the dock for a third summer in a row. “Management is doing everything we can” to recruit and staff up, Katherine Keith, the ferry system’s newly hired change management director, told legislators last week. As of the first week of January, the state ferry system was short more than 350 workers — about half of the staffing level necessary — to operate the full summer sc...
State ferry management said they are working to be more responsive to community and passenger concerns, including reconsidering the use of “dynamic pricing,” where fares increase as ships fill up on popular sailings. No one likes dynamic pricing, Katherine Keith, the Transportation Department’s change management director, told legislators last week. The pricing structure is similar to airlines, hotels and rental cars, where bookings on popular routes and travel days can cost significantly more, especially as availability tightens closer to th...
If at first you don’t succeed, it’s not always better that you try, try again. But try, try again is what we do well in Alaska. Well, not so successfully, but we are consistent in trying the patience of common sense and fiscal restraint. For Alaskans, that could apply to the long-proposed, longingly dreamy North Slope natural gas pipeline project — a $39 billion quest in search of customers, partners, investors and lenders. Other than that, it has all the free political support it needs. The state has poured about $1.5 billion into vario...
After not having a state Office of Children’s Services caseworker in town for more than a decade, Wrangell could have a staffer here by spring. The Legislature last year added funding for the position to the budget and, unlike 2020, Gov. Mike Dunleavy did not veto the money for the Wrangell caseworker. The borough helped the deal last year by offering to pick up half of the expenses for the staff position, along with donating office space. The borough offered the same deal in 2020 when the governor vetoed the spending along with other a...
An Alaska state ferry hasn’t stopped in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, since fall 2019, but officials “remain hopeful” they can add back the Canadian port to Southeast Alaska runs on May 1. “The Alaska Marine Highway System continues to work closely with both U.S. and Canadian customs regarding a return to service in Prince Rupert,” Sam Dapcevich, state Transportation Department spokesman, said in a Feb. 1 email. The department and ferry system management “have multiple tasks to complete before we will be approved to re-commence service,” t...
I don’t propose anyone take away the former president’s phones, his internet access, his rights to call outrageous press conferences or give loud speeches. I don’t suggest denying him the privilege to fleece supporters who want to click on his fundraising websites, or his prerogative to endorse outlandish candidates for public office. And I would never propose challenging his First Amendment rights to call anyone who disagrees with him a litany of names that only a child would appreciate. Just last week Donald Trump called the former head...
