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With lower enrollment creating ongoing revenue shortfalls, the school district is seeking solutions and resources to close the persistent gap — particularly as one-time federal pandemic aid money will run out in two years. On March 7, members of the school board and district employees met with the borough assembly to present what district Business Manager Tammy Stromberg referred to as Version 1.5 of the budget. The work session lasted nearly two hours and consisted of an exchange of ideas and positive remarks as the process moves forward. ...
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...
Federal help for Wrangell’s ailing water delivery system will soon be flowing down the pipeline. Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced on Friday that the borough would be among the communities sharing in $230 million directed to Alaska projects in the $1.5 trillion federal budget bill sent to the president for signature into law. Wrangell will be receiving $2.08 million to build a pipeline connection between the upper reservoir and water treatment plant. “Currently, we can only draw water off the lower reservoir,” said Tom Wetor, public works direc...
A process that has dragged on for years for the borough to receive full ownership of about 9,000 acres of state land has reached another step. The borough, which has already received the patent for its state lands selection of 2,000 acres on Zarembo Island, Zoning Administrator Carol Rushmore said March 7, has received from the state “survey status” of all the other entitlement parcels. Only the 2,500-acre Sunny Bay parcel south of Deer Island has been surveyed by the Department of Natural Resources. Final transfer of the lands from the sta...
March 16, 1922 So rapid has been the growth of the city library, established only a few months ago, that additional bookshelves were requested by the Library Board at the March meeting of the Civic Improvement Club. A box of fine reference books was received recently from the Washington State Library and new books are being purchased by the club each month. The last to be ordered are “The Empty Sack,” by Basil King, and “The Profiteers,” by Oppenheim. During January, seven new cards, 36 magazines and 15 books were issued. The receipts were $11....
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....
Raven learned the hard way that you don't mess with women. High school and middle school students performed a shadowbox play of "Koodigwási Shaawát (Fogwoman)" on March 8 in honor of Women's History Month and Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, illustrating stories of strength and resolve. By the end of the play, the character Raven was alone and hungry due to the treatment of the woman he loved. "The moral of the story was, don't hit your wife," said Xwaanlein, Virginia Oliver, Tlingit language t...
There really isn’t a strong reason for the state to keep the proposals confidential until it closes a deal to sell — or give away — the state ferry Malaspina. The Department of Transportation promised exactly that when it advertised for offers on the ship, promising in writing that any responses would be held confidential until the state seals the sale. Talk about running open government aground. The department, in its letter soliciting interest in the unused, elderly 450-passenger vessel, asked a lot of potential new owners. The state said...
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 House Finance Committee has released its proposed state budget, which includes funds for an energy relief check for every eligible Alaskan. The proposal comes from high and continuously rising energy costs, a concern that I have heard from you. Alaskans are paying significantly more at the gas pump and for home utility costs. The state has been in a dire fiscal situation for multiple years, and our restrictive budget has reflected this. However, with the sudden increase in the price of oil, there is a bump to state revenue. The Legislature...
Spring is in the air. The last little mounds of snow are melting. Packets of seeds are on my shopping list. Small birds have begun to appear at my feeder. We are breaking out of our cocoons. For Baha’is worldwide, March 21 coincides with the vernal equinox of the Northern Hemisphere and is celebrated as our New Year. An event planned in Wrangell for March 2020 was abruptly cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID. In-person events were respectfully put on hold due to many unknowns. This year’s celebration, open to all, will be held from 6 to 8 p...
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...
Black, Hispanic and American Indian residents were missed at higher rates than a decade ago during the 2020 census, according to a report released last Thursday that evaluated how well the once-a-decade head count tallied every U.S. resident. Even though the 2020 census missed an unexpectedly small percentage of the total U.S. population given the unprecedented challenges it faced, the increase in undercounts among some minority groups prompted an outcry from civil rights leaders who blamed political interference by the Trump administration,...
It's hard to pin down senior Jake Eastaugh. Between a full schedule of work and school, the 18-year-old found time to complete his senior project by combining it with something he loves: Wrestling. "I was putting my project off for too long," he said. Head wrestling coach Jef Rooney asked Eastaugh if he'd be interest in coaching the Wolfpack Wrestling program for his project. "I took his offer, been doing it and it's actually a lot of fun." Eastaugh was having so much fun, in fact, that he kept...
Sunlight streamed in through the windows of the Wrangell Senior Center where a handful of elders gathered after lunch last Wednesday to play bingo until "blackout" - the second such gathering since the center reopened to group activities after pandemic safety measures eased in light of declining case counts. Lunch wrapped up early, so the game began at about 12:30, with Solvay Gillen, site manager, calling out letter and number combinations. The bingo cards were well-loved, American Legion Auxil...
It’s looking like April for archeological field work to start at the former Institute property — or so the borough hopes — as it awaits a response from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State Historic Preservation Office on a draft plan submitted March 3. The borough last September tasked Ketchikan-based R&M Engineering to help it figure out a plan for searching the former Native boarding school site for any human remains or cultural artifacts. The Bureau of Indian Affairs operated the school 1932 to 1975. The federal government in Ju...
Regard Recovery Centers, a Fort Lauderdale-based for-profit substance abuse treatment chain that has expressed interest in the former Wrangell hospital, has been waiting on a commercial appraisal of the building — and last week the borough said it’s found a company to do the work. The borough is paying Anchorage-based Reliant $42,000 to appraise the value of the former hospital building as well as the former sawmill site at 6.5 Mile Zimovia Highway, Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore said last Thursday. “The hospital appraisal quote...
Wrangell once again has a deputy magistrate for the first time in just over a year. The post hasn't been filled since Leanna Nash retired in January 2021 after 22 years. Sheri LaDawn Ridgeway was sworn in via Zoom last Friday by state Superior Court Judge Amy Mead, of Juneau, the presiding judge for Southeast, and she will handle a mix of duties from ruling on minor traffic offenses to acting as justice of the peace. Ridgeway, the state's lone court employee in Wrangell, has worked as a clerk in...
The parks and recreation department wants to hire and retain lifeguards at the pool, and is asking the borough assembly to amend the current wage classification so as to offer more competitive salaries. People shy away, Director Kate Thomas said, because the pay is low compared to the rest of Southeast, or anywhere else in Alaska, to do what is potentially a liability-incurring job — monitor the pool and dive in to help if someone is in danger. The jobs are part time. The current starting wage for lifeguards and recreation assistants is $...
The borough released its updated cruise ship calendar on March 9, with ships reflecting a capacity for 18,777 passengers this summer, up from 17,170 in a Jan. 19 draft calendar. That’s an increase of 1,607 in berth capacity for potential visitors aboard cruise ships, or 9% since January. The bump reflects the addition of the Alaska Dream Cruises array of vessels heading to Wrangell — the 40-passenger Alaska Dream, 49-passenger Baranof Dream, 54-passenger Admiralty Dream, 74-passenger Chichagof Dream and 12-passenger Kruzof Explorer. Eco...
Canada’s Minister of Transport has announced that cruise ships are again welcome at the nation’s ports, starting April 6. The COVID-19 pandemic stopped all cruise ship traffic in 2020 as Canada closed its waters, and the revenue hit was substantial for Alaska businesses and municipalities that rely on summer travelers. Even when cruise ships resumed limited operations in 2021, they had to bypass Canadian ports and traffic to Alaska was a fraction of past summers. A major barrier to the ability of ships to sail between the Lower 48 and Ala...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska state senators said Friday they support legislation to temporarily suspend the state’s 8-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and also taxes marine and aviation fuels for one year, in an attempt to reduce the hit of rising fuel prices on Alaskans. No such legislation had been introduced, but Dunleavy, who is running for reelection this year, called for a suspension of the taxes to be added to a bill sitting in the House Finance Committee since last year. That bill would raise the state’s tax on gasoline by 8 cents a gal...
Applications are now being accepted for a federally funded financial assistance program for Alaska homeowners. Applications will be accepted through April 4 by the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., which is administering the $50 million program to help homeowners hurt by income loss the past two years due to the pandemic. As of last Friday, 13 Wrangell homeowners had preregistered for the program, out of almost 5,400 people statewide, according to Stacy Barnes, public affairs director at the agency. The aid can go toward eligible homeowners’ m...
KENAI (AP) — Republican Charlie Pierce, Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor, has picked the chair of the Alaska Parole Board, Edie Grunwald, of the Matanuska Valley, to be his running mate as he campaigns for the governor’s job. Grunwald previously ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, finishing second in that year’s Republican primary to Kevin Meyer, the current office holder. Under a new voter-approved election system, which will be used for the first time in Alaska this year, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor will run as a team from...
In perhaps their toughest competition this season, the Lady Wolves high school basketball squad proved why they're the top Division 2A team in Southeast by beating both Haines and Metlakatla last week to win the regional championship, sending them to Anchorage for the state tournament this week. It was a repeat crown for the Lady Wolves, who went to state in 2019 as Southeast champions, their first time in about 25 years. The boys team didn't fare as well at the regional tournament in Ketchikan,...
