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Filling in more area along the waterfront in front of the Nolan Center could create new opportunities for economic development, and the borough assembly has directed staff to explore financing options for such work. It could cost several million dollars to create new fill that would be stabilized and protected from erosion by riprap along the waterfront. The newly created dry land could be used for expansion of the Marine Service Center, while also making more land available for tourism-related businesses, a public pier and other amenities....
The borough will get all of the land it owns at the 6-Mile mill site cleaned up, cleared out and leveled for future development in exchange for giving close to 10 acres of the property to Juneau-based Tideline Construction, which plans to move its base of operations to the site. The borough estimates the value of the work at $880,000. The work will include removing concrete footings, foundations and a building left over from the mill operations; clearing out a large pile of wood chips; removing railcars that were used as bulkheads at the...
Borough assembly members voted without objection to sell six lots totaling 1.3 acres behind the old hospital building to a Wasilla developer who wants to build 16 rental units on the property. The sale will include the requirement that the developer construct the housing units within three years. In addition, the property will need to be rezoned for multi-family residential - which will require public hearings - and the developer will need to submit detailed plans to the borough before any...
Trident Seafoods — Wrangell’s largest employer during the summer — plans to open its salmon processing plant next month after its usual winter closure. “We’re looking forward to opening our Wrangell plant on June 15, and anticipate running through the end of August,” Alexis Telfer, vice president for global communications and marketing at the Seattle-based company, said in an email last week. “At peak, we’re projecting 220 employees on-site.” Telfer confirmed Trident would handle pink and chum salmon at the Wrangell plant but declined further...
May 21, 1925 Col. Jas. G. Steese of the War Department held a public hearing in the town hall Monday afternoon on the matter of the survey for the extension of the Wrangell breakwater, harbor lines and other related matters authorized by the last river and harbor congressional appropriations bill. The hearing was well attended. The matter of extending the Wrangell breakwater was taken up first. It was the general consensus of opinion that the present breakwater is inadequate to give the needed protection. The matter of dredging the harbor was...
ROUND-TABLE MENTAL HEALTH DISCUSSION 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 21, at the Nolan Center. Visiting speaker Krizz Kaliko and Wrangell elders will be discussing mental health. Presented by the Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Bouncing Back program; open to the public. STAR OF BENGAL DIVE TEAM PRESENTATION 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 29, at the Nolan Center. The team has been diving on the 1908 wreckage in Southeast waters, and will present on what they have learned. Sponsored by Friends of the Museum. Appetizers will be provided; the public is asked t...
The school board has invited to town the finalists for superintendent to meet with the community, answer questions and sit down for interviews with board members. The community meeting, which is open to the public, is scheduled to run from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 22, at the high school commons. The finalists are Joshua Garrett, currently the director of a private, nonprofit school in Kazakhstan; Frank Oakes, a former principal who now works as a high school physics teacher in Texas; and Casey Robinson, a former principal at Schoenbar Middle...
Wrangell is a waterfront community. So what better way to help the economy than to improve the waterfront. Among the changes under consideration is a proposal — initiated by American Cruise Lines — to build a new floating dock and ramp between the barge landing and the Nolan Center. The company, which operates a pair of 170-passenger ships in Southeast Alaska, is discussing with the borough putting its signature to a 40-year lease to use the dock. American Cruise Lines runs its Southeast summer cruises entirely in Alaska waters, no long trip to...
Alaskans who want a larger Permanent Fund dividend, more state funding for K-12 education and the university, more money for child care services, highway maintenance or harbor improvements, more state aid for water and sewer projects, the state ferries or mental health services, or additional tax incentives to encourage business investment have a limited number of choices. They can cut from one area to divert money somewhere else. They can take more money out of the Permanent Fund, spending today but having a poorer tomorrow when the available...
Among my favorite community events are school music concerts. The arc of musicianship is breathtaking. The fifth graders have to learn everything about their instrument — how to hold it, how to breathe into it, how the keys or valves or mallets work — that alone is a challenge. But then they also have to learn how to read music. The clefs and notes and rests and time signatures and sharps and flats and tempos and repeats are a completely different language. As they practice, the random squeaks and blarts can be so frustrating. When, they mus...
American Cruise Lines, which operates a pair of 170-passenger ships in Southeast Alaska, is talking with the borough about a long-term lease on a new dock to better accommodate its overnight stays. The borough will hold a public work session on the plan at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 29, at City Hall. Members of the assembly, port commission, planning and zoning commission, economic development board, and the convention and visitor bureau have been invited to the meeting where the cruise company will present its ideas. “The City Dock doesn’t fit...
A public hearing will be held Tuesday, May 27, at City Hall on a proposed ordinance that could raise an estimated $200,000 a year in total from collecting more sales tax on work performed at the Marine Service Center, on big-ticket purchases in town, and from sales aboard cruise ships. The ordinance would raise the taxable cap on a single purchase of goods or services in town. Under the current limit, sales taxes shut off when an invoice exceeds $3,000; the ordinance would raise that maximum to $5,000. That would mean, for example, a $350...
Among the revenue-raising measures before the assembly is an ordinance to boost the lease rate on borough-owned tidelands and other parcels. Several lots around town are borough-owned tidelands and upland properties, leased to private businesses or individuals. The current annual lease rate is 6% of the property’s market value. If the assembly approves the ordinance, the annual lease rate would increase to 10% of the parcel’s market value “or a negotiated rate, whichever is greater,” according to the ordinance. For example, the annual lease o...
The borough assembly has advanced a proposed ordinance to regulate and set a minimum age to ride an e-bike or e-scooter in town, scheduling a public hearing for Tuesday, May 27, on the possible new rules. A separate ordinance would set fines for violations of any of the rules, such as a $150 fine for violating a traffic law. “I was definitely shocked when I saw these,” Assembly Member Phillip Mach said of the list of fines. “I think these are pretty steep,” he added, suggesting that perhaps a better idea would be no fine for the first offense...
The borough assembly has approved a $2.296 million contract to construct gravel streets and install buried utility lines at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision near Shoemaker Bay, almost $400,000 more than the engineers estimate of $1.9 million. The contract with Petersburg-based Rock-N-Road Construction, which was the only bidder on the job, will push total development costs for the 20 residential lots to about $4.1 million, more than double what the borough hopes to recover from the land sale. The borough will put the lots u...
The Nolan Center has a new summer exhibit to engage both locals and cruise ship visitors: The display celebrates the legendary sporting goods entrepreneur George Herter. Herter's sporting goods catalogs were the Sears Christmas Wish Book, Field and Stream and the ads on the back of comics books all rolled into one. The cover of the 1965 catalog claims to be the "authentic world source for hunters, fisherman, guides, gunsmiths, law enforcement officers, tackle makers, forest rangers, commercial...
There will be no extra money for the University of Alaska’s sports teams, its effort to become a top-tier research university or its attempts to hire and keep staff. On May 16, the legislative committee assigned to write the final version of Alaska’s state operating budget axed all of those items — and many more — from its latest draft. Alaska is facing a severe budget crunch, thanks to low oil prices and reduced federal spending, and lawmakers are eliminating almost every previously considered addition, even before Gov. Mike Dunleavy gets a...
Almost 20 years after eliminating Alaska’s public employee pension program, the House of Representatives has voted to open a new pension system for municipal and state workers. With proponents saying the state’s existing, 401(k)-like retirement system is ineffective and a deterrent for hiring and retention, the House voted 21-19 on May 12 to approve House Bill 78. If enacted, it would create a new pension plan and allow current employees to opt into the program. The bill advanced to the Senate, which is expected to take up the measure when the...
A major elections reform bill, a priority of House and Senate leaders, is dead in the Alaska Legislature. Wednesday, May 21, is the last day of the regular legislative session, and members of the House’s multipartisan majority said on May 17 that they lack the support needed to overcome the opposition of the House Republican minority in the time left. Bills don’t expire at the end of the first year of the two-year legislative session, but Senate Bill 64 needed to become law this year in order to be implemented in time for the 2026 ele...
The Alaska House of Representatives, following in the path of the Senate, has approved a small construction and renovation budget for the state fiscal year that starts July 1. The House vote on Senate Bill 57, the annual infrastructure bill — formally known as the capital budget — was 21-19, along caucus lines, with the Democratic-led majority in charge. When oil prices and production are high, the Legislature pours hundreds of millions of dollars into new construction and maintenance projects across Alaska, much of it going to com...
Monday, May 5 Sexual assault. Tuesday, May 6 Agency assist: Harbor Department. Trespass. Negligent driving. Agency assist: FBI. Agency assist: Public Works. Wednesday, May 7 Nothing to report. Thursday, May 8 Drug investigation. Citizen assist. Motor vehicle accident. Burglary. Bar check. Friday, May 9 Agency assist: Petersburg Police Department. Summons service. Report of suspicion of driving under the influence. Welfare check. Saturday, May 10 Agency assist: U.S. Forest Service. Stalking: Police responded and investigated a report that a...
A group of Alaska’s rural school districts — including Wrangell — are asking for help after the federal government failed to renew a program that sends grant money to previously logging-dependent areas. On May 12, the Alaska Legislature joined the call for help by passing House Joint Resolution 5, which asks Congress to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act of 2000. That program sent $12.6 million to Alaska schools in federal fiscal year 2023, Congress failed to reauthorize the program last year when the legislation passed the Senate but d...
Smoking has steadily declined in Alaska over the past decades, evidence that coordinated health campaigns mounted over several years have been effective, a new report from the state Department of Health said. Adult cigarette smoking rates fell to 16% in 2023 from 28% in the 1990s, according to the Alaska Tobacco Prevention and Control Program’s annual report, released last month. Among Alaska Native adults, who have long had higher rates of smoking use than the state average, the declines were notable: down to 29% in 2022 from 41% in 2013. H...