Sorted by date Results 901 - 925 of 1040
Members of Wrangell's Unified Command reconvened on June 17, through teleconference to consolidate the community COVID-19 response. Talks were largely focused on recent efforts by the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to implement community testing and changing the culture surrounding positive cases. EOC Manager Dorianne Sprehe filled the group in on discussions which would allow the EOC to provide relief to the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium's (SEARHC) COVID testing efforts. Sprehe...
KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) – A person who didn’t follow quarantine procedures after arriving in Alaska has created the possibility of broad community spread of the coronavirus after going to social gatherings and public places in Ketchikan while awaiting results of a COVID-19 test that turned out positive, officials said. The person arrived in Ketchikan Saturday and underwent testing for COVID-19. The state says anyone tested on arrival is to quarantine until they receive a negative test result. Under the state rules, one is not to leave a quaranti...
Unexpected upheavals stemming from the coronavirus have slowed the process of getting relief payments into the hands of fishermen and communities hurt by the 2018 Gulf of Alaska cod crash. In late February, the Secretary of Commerce cut loose $24,416,440 for affected stakeholders. Then in late March, Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang proposed a written timeline for developing a distribution plan and also called for input from communities and fishing groups. A draft of the initial plan was intended to compile...
PETERSBURG – An employee with Trident Seafoods has tested positive for COVID-19 on the individual’s tenth day of quarantine after arriving to the community, according to a press release from the Petersburg Emergency Operations Center. All Trident Seafoods employees that travel to Petersburg are tested for the virus prior to arriving in town and are quarantined in a bunkhouse upon arrival, according to the press release. The workers are then tested again on the tenth day of a 14 day quarantine. The individual’s roommate was also tested on the...
After last week's announcement of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Wrangell, two other cases were confirmed shortly after. Wrangell now has three total cases of the virus. One case has been declared recovered. However, there is some question about the source of the third case. Public Health officials state that Wrangell's third case was a contact with the first case, but the first case said she does not know how that could be. The first case was announced on Sunday evening, June 7. A join...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly hosted a public hearing on next year's budget Tuesday night, June 16. This was an opportunity for members of the public to voice their opinions and concerns regarding FY 2021, and how Wrangell's money is going to be allocated. Thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, like many other communities, Wrangell is facing a lean financial year. There were several people who called in to the meeting, or wrote emails to the city, who wanted to state their support for...
In one of their final budget workshops for FY 2021, the borough assembly gave guidance to city administration to do as much as they can to close Wrangell's general fund deficit. According to the agenda packet for the June 10 meeting the FY 2021 general fund was facing a deficit of $801,451. However, city administration is anticipating that roughly $350,000 in wages for the upcoming financial year will be eligible for reimbursement through the CARES Act, "due to time spent on COVID-19 by...
Wrangell's Economic Development Committee met Monday, June 15, to workshop various grant programs to assist Wrangell businesses. The EDC has put together three local grants that businesses could apply for to get some financial assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of the discussion revolved around eligibility requirements and dollar amounts for these grants. The first grant they workshopped was for small businesses. This grant program, according to a draft application the EDC rev...
All systems are go for keeping close tabs on fish and crab stocks in waters managed by the state, meaning out to three miles. While constraints from the coronavirus resulted in nearly all annual stock surveys being cut in deeper waters overseen by the federal government, it’s “closer to normal” closer to shore. “While it’s not business as usual, we are conducting business in as close to normal fashion as we can,” said Forrest Bowers, deputy director of the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. “We have kept all...
Work on establishing an alternative isolation site for COVID-19 patients reached an important milestone last week. During the June 9 assembly meeting, Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen announced that a lease had been signed to use the old Sourdough Lodge to potentially house COVID-19 patients. The original plan was to use one of Trident Seafood's bunkhouses, but Von Bargen said that using the lodge would be a better deal. "The terms of that are $5,000 a month while there's nobody in there," she...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly considered adopting a new emergency ordinance last week, mandating that out of state visitors to Wrangell take a COVID-19 test or quarantine themselves. However, this ordinance proved to be controversial with the public and, with recent updates to state health mandates, unnecessary. The item was dropped by the assembly, after two meetings and lots of public input. Ordinance No. 978 was put together in the first place because the state government was preparing to rev...
On Sunday evening, June 7, the first positive case of COVID-19 was announced in the community of Wrangell. A joint press release from the city and SEARHC reports that the patient is an unnamed female. She is a resident of Wrangell, according to the press release, and is asymptomatic. Contact tracing, trying to determine who might have come into contact with the patient and may potentially be at risk, is currently ongoing. "SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) representatives are...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met last Wednesday evening, June 3, for a special meeting. City administration was wanting to enter a Memorandum of Understanding with SEARHC to provide COVID-19 testing for Sea Level Seafood employees. The total cost for the proposed memorandum, according to the meeting's agenda packet, comes out to $60,000. This amount provides some padding in case of emergency, the actual cost of the memorandum is anticipated to be $52,500. "In order to ensure an appropriate...
The Wrangell Borough assembly held another budget workshop last week, Wednesday, June 3. In this meeting the assembly briefly reviewed a looming budget deficit in the borough's general fund. They also looked at a variety of department budgets that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are anticipating reduced revenues. Among these are the Transient Tax and CPV budget, the Nolan Center, and Parks and Recreation. As reported in previous articles regarding these budget workshops, the City and Borough of...
The Wrangell-Petersburg-Kake Resource Advisory Committee met last Tuesday evening, June 2, to consider multiple projects to recommend funding for. Among these was a plan for a culture camp, presented by Wrangellite Virginia Oliver on behalf of the Wrangell Cooperative Association. The "Kaatslitaan Culture Camp," as the project was named, is designed to be an adult camp for people to learn about traditional native values and the subsistence lifestyle from cultural bearers of the native...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met Tuesday evening to hear from some Alaskan health experts regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. As Wrangell received its first case of the virus over the weekend, assembly members and other city officials wanted an opportunity to learn more about how the pandemic is being handled, and to ask questions about how testing works and the process behind pandemic response. Public Health Nurse Erin Michael was given the opportunity to explain the process of what happens when...
The Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau met last Tuesday afternoon, June 9, to workshop various marketing plans. The CVB was looking to put together a list of various ways they could promote Wrangell and its local businesses, to draw in tourists to present to the borough assembly in the near future. Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore said that, as many communities were struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they could potentially use CARES Act funding to cover the costs of som...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Forty-one crew members and passengers of an Alaska state ferry will undergo testing for COVID-19 before disembarking the Tustumena in Homer later Monday after another crew member tested positive over the weekend. The crew member on the 198-foot ferry began exhibiting symptom and tested positive Saturday in Dutch Harbor. The ferry set sail for Homer that night after 21 passengers who boarded in Dutch Harbor were put back ashore. No other tests on crew members or passengers were conducted on Saturday. In all, 35 crew m...
Surveys of Alaska's fish, crab and halibut stocks in the Bering Sea have been called off or reduced due to constraints and dangers posed by the coronavirus. In what they called an "unprecedented" move, NOAA Fisheries announced in late May that five Alaska surveys will be cancelled this summer "due to the uncertainties created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unique challenges those are creating for the agency." NOAA said in a statement that they found "no way to move forward with a survey plan...
Prior to state mandate 10.1 taking effect, members of SEARHC set up their tent outside of the Wrangell airport to prepare for incoming travelers on June 5. Under new state guidelines, out of state travelers to Alaska are mandated to either take a COVID-19 test shortly before arriving in Alaska, or submit to one upon landing. Otherwise, the travelers are required to quarantine themselves for two weeks. Summer Burk, with SEARHC, explained that when a plane lands in Wrangell, travelers will be gree...
In a special meeting last Thursday evening, May 28, the borough assembly approved the purchase of a new ambulance. This purchase, according to Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen, is to strengthen a potential weak spot in the city's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. "It became glaringly apparent, recently, that a huge gap in our local medical capacity is an ambulance," she said. "You heard Captain Sprehe speak tonight, now that we have to consider every individual a screen positive because so many...
The Southeast Alaska Indiginous Transboundary Commission has been led by Wrangellite Tis Peterman since 2017. Before that, Peterman was part of the group that put the organization together back in 2014, representing the Wrangell Cooperative Association. SEITC has worked to raise awareness of the risks transboundary mining represents to Southeast Alaskan waters since their founding. The organization will be continuing this mission without Peterman moving forward, however, as she intends to...
After several years with the Wrangell Public School District, Wrangell resident Drew Larrabee will be leaving town to take a new position as K-12 principal in Tok. Larrabee and his family first moved to Wrangell eight years ago, he said. He has been the fabrication teacher for Wrangell High School for the past eight years. Larrabee said that he and his family are going to miss the Wrangell community and school district a lot, but this move is meant to help him advance his career goals. "I had...
The local Resource Advisory Committee, which covers the areas of Wrangell, Petersburg, and Kake, held a series of meetings last week. The RAC, for those who are unaware, is a committee of residents of these three areas that advise the Forest Service on what projects to pursue. There were a variety of interesting and pertinent projects covered in the recent RAC meetings. In their meeting on May 27, the RAC elected committee co-chairs Kim Powell and Patrick Fowler. They also approved of a proposal to spend $40,000 on dock repairs in the City of...
The Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau met last Thursday, May 28. The main topic that day was an ongoing discussion of how the bureau can improve Wrangell's social media presence. To promote local businesses and encourage tourists to come to Wrangell, the CVB is interested in using social media to achieve these goals. Lucy Robinson, with the Parks and Rec Department, was invited into the meeting to talk about important aspects of social media marketing they need to keep in mind. "Lucy has of...