Sorted by date Results 651 - 675 of 10720
The borough’s Economic Development Department has a caffeinated idea to energize the community’s push for economic stability and, in time, some growth would be good, too. The plan is for a series of “economic coffee chats” the third Friday of every month through March, starting Oct. 18. The location will vary each month. The department is calling the informal sessions “Our Town, Our Future.” It’s a good time to talk about a better future. Wrangell needs some new ideas to reverse years of population loss. Even worse, the state’s latest forecast...
We deliver you the Sentinel as one piece, whether in print or online. If you’re reading this in print, just pretend that the sheets of paper folded together are one piece. Regardless of how you read the paper, it has five elements: Paid advertising, news, the Sentinel’s editorial, my personal opinion column and opinions from our readers. Each has different rules and standards. Each is essential for newspapers that want to serve their community. Paid ads are pretty simple: The advertiser, be it a business or an individual or a government agency,...
Trollers shoved off from docks across Southeast Alaska over the weekend, following an announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game of a very limited 10-day commercial opening for kings. The brief window opened Sept. 1 and was scheduled to close Sept. 10, with a limit of 12 kings per troller. The department said it expects trollers will harvest the remaining Southeast allocation of about 4,000 fish. That’s what remains of the commercial net fisheries share of Southeast kings, as seine fisheries have wrapped up and gillnet fisheries a...
Head Coach Brian Herman wants the Wrangell High School girls volleyball to be the best team in Southeast — and he knows they can be. After winning the regional title (and fourth place at state) last year, the team is looking to take another step up this year. The 2024 season will be the second year for the team’s co-head coaching duo of Herman and Shelley Powers, and Herman noticed that the players are already looking better than they were at this point last year. Since May, Herman and Powers have hosted open-gym sessions for the players to...
Wrangell High School’s cross-country teams raced well last Saturday and improved their results from the season’s opening race two weeks ago. The boys team finished first in all divisions in Craig, anchored by another Boomchain Loucks victory. Loucks, a junior, won the boys 5K handedly, and improved on his personal best race time by nearly 14 seconds. The girls side showed improvement as well — something coach Mason Villarma has emphasized as the focus of their season. Wrangell finished second in their division thanks to a sixth-place finis...
Southeast Alaska subsistence users who want current information on sockeye escapement numbers, deer seasons and detailed maps now have a single website providing all the information. The U.S. Forest Service on Sept. 2 went live with its new subsistence dashboard. “This tool was created in response to feedback and requests by tribal organizations and subsistence users throughout Southeast Alaska,” Tongass Subsistence Program Manager Robert Cross said in a prepared statement. “We heard how difficult it was to find subsistence data and under...
Assembly Member David Powell has filed to run for mayor, taking on incumbent Patty Gilbert in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Gilbert is running for a second two-year term as mayor. Powell is in his ninth year on the assembly. In another contested race on the ballot, Chris Buness is seeking a second three-year term on the port commission, with Tony Guggenbickler, Eric Yancey and Antonio Silva also on the ballot. The top two vote-getters will each win a three-year term. Guggenbickler has never held elected office in Wrangell, though he served...
Voters will decide Oct. 1 whether the borough should borrow $3 million to repair the Public Safety Building, and also whether to amend the municipal charter so that assembly members could eventually receive compensation. The charter currently prohibits compensation for the mayor and assembly members; the Oct. 1 vote could change that. The assembly voted Aug. 27 to place both questions on the municipal election ballot. The bond proposition passed unanimously, while the compensation ordinance passed 6-1. Assembly Member Bob Dalrymple was the...
Ann Hegney will be the school district's new counselor this year, but not until she can catch a state ferry to town. The school board approved her hire on Aug. 19, but due to a lack of car deck space on the weekly ferry from Bellingham, Washington, she will not arrive in Wrangell until Sept. 15. From there, she will have a quick turnaround: Her first day of work is the very next morning. She is driving cross country from upstate New York and plans to stop in Wyoming and Montana for some...
Aug. 28, 1924 The Wrangell schools opened Tuesday morning with a good sized enrollment. A total of 95 were enrolled in the grade school and 20 in the high school. Both school buildings are still somewhat torn up by the workmen engaged in the alteration program, which had not reached completion before the opening of school. The objectionable, unsanitary toilets will soon be eliminated from the main floor and adequate, sanitary facilities provided in concrete rooms in the basement, accessible from the main hall. The chimney at the high school...
BASKETBALL SKILLS CLINIC 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept 6; 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7; 9 a.m. to noon Sunday, Sept. 8. Coach Mark Cascio will teach shooting with confidence, effectiveness on ball defense, quick and clever transition, essential actions to score. At the high school gym. For eighth through 12th graders. Walk-in registration, $50. Scholarships available. Call Coach Good 707-779-9505 or Coach Allen 907-305-0910 with any questions. Sponsored by the AAU Sports team. MUSKEG MEADOWS championship 18-hole, individual...
The borough is asking a military training program to help assess and clear out a sunken barge and tug offshore the former sawmill property near 6-Mile. It’s unclear how long the vessels have been stuck on the bottom but it’s likely been 25 or 30 years, according to current and past borough officials. Though the vessels do not impede access by the scrap metal salvage barge operator that has a five-year lease on the borough-owned property, the sunken vessels could become a problem if Wrangell is able to attract a long-term user or buyer for the...
Jackson Pool loves solving problems. As Wrangell's new finance director, he is excited to do just that. He joined the borough last week after working as an accountant for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough for just over a year. His hire ends a run of nine months without a finance director for Wrangell. Borough Manager Mason Villarma has been doing both jobs since last November. Pool's hire is a relief for Villarma; not only will the borough manager now be able to direct all his attention toward his...
If you’ve enjoyed City Park’s newly refurbished pavilion this summer, you might be twice as happy now. The borough recently approved a construction contract for a new pavilion in City Park, and the best part: Wrangell hardly has to pay anything for it. The new pavilion replaces the structure that was destroyed in a November 2021 windstorm. It will be built exactly where the old one stood, a couple hundred feet south of the pavilion upgraded this summer. Following the storm, the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management all...
In less than four weeks, Wrangell voters will cast their ballots in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Voting is easy — cast an early ballot at City Hall any weekday starting Sept. 16, or vote at the Nolan Center on election day. The harder part is deciding how to vote. The decisions include contested races for mayor, the school board and port commission, and two ballot propositions: One question asks voters whether the borough should borrow $3 million to start repairs to the 40-year-old Public Safety Building, and the other asks if voters want t...
Damage to the outfall line, a plastic pipe that moves Wrangell’s treated sewage 1,200 feet out to sea, caused a temporary backup in the wastewater treatment plant on Aug. 30. To prevent wastewater overflow at the plant, borough workers dug up and cut the line on the beach. The short-term solution resulted in treated sewage deposited directly on the beach between City Park and the Mariners’ Memorial at Heritage Harbor. Wrangell’s primary treatment plant removes all solid waste before it is discharged. The borough on Sept. 3 announced the immed...
The borough has started a newsletter, the first in a series of initiatives to provide more information for the public, particularly focused on promoting economic growth. The second initiative will be monthly informal discussions titled “Our Town, Our Future.” The “economic coffee chats” will be held the third Friday every month, starting Oct. 18, said Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director. The meetings will be held at a different location each month, she said, with the first location undecided as of last week. The series will...
After five years, Wrangell High School will have a new elevator, at last. The new elevator will be installed next summer after the borough assembly approved a construction contract last week. Demolition will begin toward the end of the current school year, and Capital Projects Director Amber Al-Haddad hopes construction will be completed by the time students walk in on the first day of school in August 2025. After an oil leak was discovered at the bottom of the existing elevator’s hydraulic ram in March 2020, the school shut down the e...
“Deadpool & Wolverine” isn’t a great movie: Many of the jokes went on a little too long; the story was all over the place; the ubiquitous cameos felt forced and often unnecessary. But you know what? I had such a blast! I giggled pretty much the entire movie, and I’m proud to say I liked “Deadpool & Wolverine” — even if it’s not winning any awards any time soon. The movie screened at the Nolan Center over the weekend, giving Wrangell an option of indoor entertainment amid an otherwise rainy weekend. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman headlin...
Wrangell’s only home cross-country meet of the season, scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 31, was canceled the night before due to forecasts for heavy rain. Earlier on Friday, a tentative plan to run a boys 5K and a girls 5K at the same time as cross country was put in place, but eventually it was decided that even this would have been untenable in the weather. Head Coach Mason Villarma hopes to reschedule the cross-country meet later this season. The cross-country team will race next at the Craig Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 7...
Participants in a transboundary mining conference in Juneau last week said recent natural and industrial disasters show why their heightened concerns are justified. “I think that people are realizing that more and more this is an emergency situation,” Wrangell’s Esther Aaltséen Reese, president of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, said in an interview Aug. 28. “We can’t just keep coming to these meetings and saying the same thing.” The third annual Transboundary Mining Conference began two days after a major landsl...
Disposing of large, derelict vessels abandoned in Petersburg’s harbors comes at a cost. The borough assembly has authorized the transfer of $240,000 from the harbor department reserves to the derelict boat disposal budget category to pay for disposal of two large derelict boats. The assembly also amended the code to make clear that boat owners are responsible for disposal costs. “It’s incredibly expensive,” Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht said at the Aug. 19 assembly meeting. “Literally, to take two boats apart and scrap them and handle an...
Turnout in this year’s state primary election is on pace to be the third lowest in the past 50 years, according to preliminary figures published Aug. 27 by the Alaska Division of Elections. Through that evening, 106,208 votes had been counted from just over 17.5% of all registered voters. The turnout rate in Wrangell was similar. Four years ago, Alaskans approved a new elections system that includes an open primary election in which candidates from all parties compete in the same race for each statewide office. The top four vote-getters a...
FOR SALE 2009 Ford E-350 bus with 86,341 miles. Runs well and has had all scheduled maintenance. Call Catholic Community Service at 907-874-2006 for more information. $15,000 OBO. HELP WANTED Johnson’s Building Supply is accepting applications for the following position: Customer Service: Duties include counter sales, freight handling, customer deliveries, stocking and inventory. Full-time position; will require working Saturdays. Valid Alaska driver’s license, must be able to lift 50 lbs., forklift experience a plus, starting pay is DOE. Stop...
The Southeast Alaska sport fishery is on track to exceed its king salmon allocation for the summer by 14,000 fish, prompting the state to close the region to sportfishing for kings. The closure went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Aug. 26. “King salmon may not be retained or possessed, and any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed,” according to the Department of Fish and Game announcement late Friday, Aug. 23. The king salmon sport fishery will reopen on Oct. 1 for the winter season. “While the (...