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The debate about whether a travel lift bid from an Italian manufacturer will be accepted – over a higher bid from a North American company – is over, as the members of the Wrangell Port Commission voted on Thursday, Jan. 3 to accept the deal and purchase a new haul out unit for the Marine Service Center. Ascom S.p.A. a Modena, Italy-based firm, will provide the City and Borough of Wrangell with a 300-ton unit to replace the aging 150-ton Marine Travel Lift unit currently in use at the MSC. Prior to last week’s decision by the commission, some...
It’s official – the City and Borough of Wrangell has decided to purchase a 300-ton travel lift from Ascom S.p.A., an Italian manufacturer that recently won the bidding contest for the right to supply the Marine Service Center with its new haul out equipment. The decision to buy the new lift became official after the Borough Assembly approved the bid in a unanimous vote during their Jan. 8 regular meeting, which was their first of the New Year. Debate had initially raged about whether the Modena,...
A new mayor, renovations to the Shakes Island Tribal House and Marine Service Center, and the ongoing Wrangell Medical Center debate – all of these stories were newsmakers in 2012. Let’s take a look back at some of the biggest stories in Wrangell over the past year. JANUARY A late night blaze destroyed a trailer and sent a woman to Wrangell Medical Center with severe burns on Dec. 22. The fire, which began at 10:30 p.m. in a small pull-behind trailer near the top of the park, severely inj...
The Wrangell Port Commission is having serious doubts about the technical and mechanical aspects of a hoist bid from an Italian firm that recently won in the bidding process for a new 300-ton lift to be installed at the Marine Service Center in downtown. Ascom S.p.A., an Italian firm that builds travel lifts for clients in Europe and has sold at least one model to a yard in the Gulf Coast, made the lowest bid for the machine at $1,315,000, while the Canadian-based Kendrick Equipment turned in a...
The progression of a court case against former Wrangell Medical Center administrator Noel Rea and six former members of the WMC Board of Directors was a main topic discussed this week during the regularly scheduled Borough Assembly meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 27. After coming out of executive session, Mayor Don McConachie informed the public that the Assembly had directed Borough Manager Tim Rooney and Borough Attorney Bob Blasco to continue in negotiations to settle the matter. The offer would...
Planning for the proposed Mariner’s Memorial at Heritage Harbor, and the purchase of a new travel lift for the Marine Service Center were the highlights of the most recent Wrangell Port Commission meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 20. After the selection of Brennon Eagle as the new chairman of the commission, and the seating of Eric Yancey as the newest member, the quorum present got down to business beginning with a report from Harbormaster Greg Meissner. “Phase II of the (Marine Service Center) con...
A local man is in custody after an indictment for alleged drug possession and maintaining a residence in the borough for the purpose of distribution was returned against him by a grand jury in Sitka. Wilson Boon, 24, of Wrangell, was arrested by Wrangell Police Department officers on Friday, Oct. 26 and is charged with three felony counts – possession with intent to distribute hydrocodone, possession with intent to distribute an ounce or more of marijuana, and maintaining a dwelling within t...
The next step in the renovation process at the Marine Service Center in Wrangell is about to get underway – with better roadways and a paved connection to Trident Seafoods on the horizon. The section of the MSC nearest to the Case Street gate and Trident’s cold storage, or Project Area 1, would be the first to be renovated, according to Wrangell Harbormaster Greg Meissner. “The next phase of the project is under design and we have 35 percent of the design finished,” Meissner said. “In November,...
For master shipwright Don Sorric and a number of other ship repair businesses located at Wrangell’s Marine Service Center, the improvements made to the facility – along with Wrangell’s increasing reputation as the place to bring your vessel for repair – have made the economic outlook for those repairing boats better than ever. Sorric, who has held a lease location at the MCS for four years, employs seven workers and a number of subcontractors who are working on some of the largest fishing...
The Borough Assembly met in open session on Tuesday, Oct. 9 – and featured the return of Don McConachie as Mayor of the city – a position he held when Wrangell was incorporated as a borough in 2008. Assembly member Bill Privett was appointed as Vice Mayor, with Mayor McConachie appointing a number of Wrangell residents to various board and commission positions currently vacant. McConachie also directed Borough Clerk Kim Flores to seek out letters of intent from individuals seeking to be appointed to the assembly seat left vacant by his ele...
Assembly member Don McConachie was elected Mayor in Tuesday’s election by the thinnest of margins, with only two votes separating him and now former Assembly member David Jack. After the votes were tallied – and with eight fax votes making the difference in the election – McConachie wasted no time in announcing his intentions on moving the city and borough forward. “This is an exciting day,” McConachie said. “But, now we have to put Wrangell back into good stead with the state, and we need to ad...
Assembly Maxi Wiederspohn What background or experience do you have that qualifies you to be on the Wrangell Borough Assembly? I was born and raised in Wrangell and my work history is all in Wrangell. I will be a good listener then get as many facts and answers as I can. I can then consider what is best for the community as a whole. I will not jump to any judgment and will follow the rule of law. Why are you running for the assembly? To give back to the community and the people that I love so mu...
The Wrangell Road and Utility Improvement team met on Aug. 16 for what will be one of their final roundtable discussions of the project before it wraps in late September. Addressing the group, which included acting Borough Manager Carol Rushmore, project engineer Eric Voorhees stated that during the past two weeks vehicle access to City Market and Sentry Hardware has opened up to a greater degree, with parking and access to Zak’s Café being finalized as well. According to Voorhees, all the un...
Peggy Wilson Why are you running for this newly created seat in the Alaska State Legislature? I feel I have a good understanding of the legislative process and know what is reality and what really can be accomplished through legislation. I am not a quitter. I am in this thing for the long haul. Some legislation takes a long while to put in place like my bill forming the SEASWA (Southeast Solid Waste Authority) and another of my bills forming MTAB (Marine Transportation Advisory Board). Capital...
A bevy of capital improvement projects are underway in Wrangell, with the city dock undergoing rehabilitation, the Marine Service Center seeing a lot of pavement work, and underground electrical work on the Front Street redesign in full swing. In a July 24 supplemental report to the Borough Assembly, Borough Manager Tim Rooney brought the group up to date on those projects and others underway on the island. According to Rooney, while working on the city dock, crews found a number of improperly installed piling. “Several piles were discovered t...
The Borough Assembly met in two sessions on Tuesday, June 12 to hold a public hearing on a proposed ordinance relating to collection of utility fees, and to pursue a second reading of the ordinance during the regular session. Before the utility issue could be addressed in open session, however, assembly member David Jack, with fellow member Bill Privett, asked to have the agendized approval of the Wrangell Medical Center 2013 budget tabled until a future meeting. Jack asked to have WMC Chief Financial Officer Olinda White come before the...
The development of the timber and salmon fishing industries were the main topics discussed during Gov. Sean Parnell’s visit to Wrangell on June 5. In a meeting with Mayor Jeremy Maxand, Borough Manager Tim Rooney, and Jim Collier and Chris Guggenbickler, the governor was brought up to date – and asked for his assistance – on the possible creation of a value-added timber mill and salmon hatchery in the borough. According to Maxand, the governor was receptive to those ideas. “I wanted to give an...
Wrangell’s Marine Service Center and City Dock are getting a spruce-up this month as more than $4 million in capital improvements get underway. “We have these two new projects at the haul-out and at the City Dock,” Meissner said. “We have state money and some Denali funding to complete this work and really needed this for a while. We’re really glad it’s happening now.” According to Meissner, the steel pilings at the dock are more than 30 years old and need to undergo maintenance to keep it in...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met in open session last week to take up a number of new agenda items and included discussion on the formation of a hiring committee to help in choosing a successor to current Borough Clerk Christie Jamieson. Jamieson, who has spent the past three decades in service to the borough, plans on retiring from her position in the beginning of July. The committee, which consists of Jamieson, Borough Manager Tim Rooney, Mayor Jeremy Maxand, and Assembly members Pam...
The City and Borough of Wrangell drafted a plan that aims to enhance local industry and boost economic development throughout the town and Southeast Alaska. The plan maps out six local projects that, with the help of additional funding and collaboration with state and federal agencies, can be improved and stimulate the economy. The Wrangell Economic Cluster Initiative Plan is a result of a process started by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last fall that aims to revitalize all of Southeast Alaska’s economy. According to Wrangell E...
It’s a mixed bag in America in terms of bankrolling ‘the best available science’ for our nation’s fisheries. Based on the preliminary federal budget released last week, funds for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration went from $4.7 billion to $5.5 billion, an increase of about $750 million. Within the NOAA budget, funding for the National Marine Fisheries Service comes in at $1 billion - a drop of $15 million from its actual budget for the last fiscal year. Out of NMFS’ FY13 budget, $174 million will fund science and man...
Over half of all fishing fatalities are due to vessels going down, and most of the boats sink because of flooding. The sinkings of the Alaska Ranger and Katmai in 2008, for example, in which12 men died, both stemmed from flooding through open hatches. Those and other sinkings highlighted the need for an alert that provides immediate status of all openings aboard fishing boats. To the rescue: a simple electronic monitoring system on doors and hatches that sends signals to the...
January The Wrangell School Board found $128,451 in additional, unspent funding from a federal program. In passing their 2011 budget, the board also accepted an $8,300 grant for the Upward Bound program. Master carvers Steve Brown and Wayne Price visited Shakes Island to begin discussions on the renovation of the Tribal House and to propose a traditional tools class. The US Forest Service began a scoping project for an Environmental Impact Study regarding timber sales and road construction for...
The Wrangell Port Commission took a major step forward in a plan to build a Mariner’s Memorial at Heritage Harbor during their most recent meeting on Thursday, Dec. 1. After having been stalled as a project for a number of months, Harbormaster Greg Meissner and the commission set a Jan. 5, 2012 date for a special working session where, according to Meissner, public input will heard and used to determine the design of the memorial. “I think our site is quite designable, as is, once we put our...
With the seafood industry as the lifeblood of Southeast Alaska, staying up to date on the latest equipment, services, suppliers, gear and ideas is a must for any community in the region or an Alaskan commercial fishing endeavor. It is with those factors in mind that Wrangell Harbormaster Greg Meissner attended the 35th annual Pacific Marine Expo, otherwise known as “fish expo,” at Seattle’s Qwest Field last week. The expo, which included speakers on a range of topics including fishing safety, ma...
