Sorted by date Results 401 - 425 of 1325
The borough assembly has approved applying for a $3.8 million loan from the state to fund construction of a new water treatment plant, estimated to cost nearly $15.4 million. The borough has nearly $11.1 million in funding from two federal grants and one federal loan, leaving a shortfall of $4.3 million, according to information presented to the assembly for its April 26 meeting. The assembly approved seeking a loan from the Alaska Drinking Water Fund, to be paid back over 20 years. It would cover construction of a new building to house...
Probably nothing is more important to the community than its school. Not just for educating students, but as a point of pride and center of activities, and a source of future workers needed to keep the town in business. Good schools also are an attraction to bring new families to town, and to keep them here. It’s a cliché, but good schools cost money. “Doing more with less” is not a sustainable education plan, and the risk of losing more programs from an already limited school district operation is an admission of defeat, not hope, for future s...
The borough assembly on April 26 postponed a vote to put the old hospital building up for online auction after assembly members raised the question if the $830,000 starting bid went up to or beyond the $1 million limit in the law for selling municipal property without a vote of the people. If that were to happen, the sale would have to be approved by voters at an election — either the regular one in October, or the borough would have to hold a special election. The assembly will consider the issue again at its May 10 meeting. “If it (bi...
The borough assembly may put the old hospital building up for online auction next month, at a starting bid of $830,000, the value deemed by a recent commercial appraisal. A Florida-based substance abuse treatment center that had expressed interest last year in taking over the property had told borough staff it was waiting on an appraisal but hasn’t been back in touch. The borough assembly on Tuesday considered a resolution to put the 30,596-square-foot former Wrangell Medical Center on nearly two acres along Bennett Street up for auction on p...
The borough assembly has started work on its budget for the fiscal year that will start July 1 and will need to decide on a school district request for more funding in addition to paying higher fuel and property insurance costs and spending on necessary maintenance of public facilities. Revenues are up, however, with more money coming in from sales taxes and federal payments in lieu of property taxes on national forest lands. Borough staff and assembly members started their budget review during a work session April 20. The borough’s annual c...
School board members voted unanimously on April 18 to adopt the district’s budget for the 2022-23 school year, which is balanced on the assumption of $432,000 in additional state and borough funding. The school district submitted a letter along with the adopted $5 million budget to the borough, requesting an additional $292,000 on top of the $1.3 million the borough has paid the district in past annual appropriations. The district also is counting on an additional $140,000 in state funding for next year. The borough funds its local c...
The borough assembly has postponed for the second time a decision on a proposed increase in water rates, and is now considering a 30% boost instead of the 21% rate hike originally suggested by staff. The assembly last month delayed a decision on the 21% rate increase after several members said they wanted to hear more public comment on the issue. At the April 12 assembly meeting, Assemblymember David Powell said he doesn’t put much stock in future assemblies honoring the incremental rate increases over several years included in the original p...
The borough assembly has rejected a staff proposal to remove the cap on sales taxes payable on individual purchases. Dropping the limitation, which shuts off Wrangell’s 7% sales tax on the purchase price above $3,000, could have generated an estimated $500,000 a year in additional revenue for the borough. The assembly April 12 accepted moving to second reading the other provisions of the ordinance that would make some administrative changes to the sales tax code, but deleted the change to the tax cap. The ordinance is scheduled for a public hea...
The borough is moving to solve the problem of dwindling burial space in town. The community this summer will get a new columbarium, a structure for keeping urns, and the borough assembly has approved an expansion to Sunset Gardens Cemetery. The expansion, in two phases, will add 100 burial plots. Only three plots remain in Sunset Gardens at 1.5 Mile Zimovia Highway, on the uplands side of the highway, and four in Memorial Cemetery at 1 Mile, on the water side of the highway. But even that number is iffy. “The borough has been reluctant to s...
The Port and Harbors Department wants to strengthen municipal code to lessen the burden of paying for derelict and impounded vessels. It drains the department’s coffers when clunkers take on water or sink, leading port staff to foot the cleanup efforts and the department to foot the bill. The port commission is asking the borough assembly to amend municipal code to hold boat owners liable for disposing of derelict boats. The commission has also begun discussing whether to require boat owners to have insurance if their vessel is moored in a W...
The borough is not looking to inhibit private development or evict business owners with its pending purchase of the former sawmill property at 6.5 Mile, no matter the rumors on Facebook, Mayor Steve Prysunka said. The property owner accepted the borough’s offer of about $2.5 million for the 39 acres, with closing on the sale expected June 1. More than 50 replies and comments were added to a Facebook posting last month, questioning whether the borough would kick Channel Construction off the property. The Juneau-based company periodically collect...
A 21% increase in sewage rates will take effect in May, adding about $8.50 a month to a residential utility bill. The borough has not raised the rate since 2015 and anticipates costly upgrades will be needed to the community’s sewage treatment system to meet state and federal standards. The assembly unanimously approved the increase at its March 22 meeting. Though a similar rate hike for water service was on the agenda, the assembly postponed action and set another public hearing on the issue for April 12. In addition to the 21% boost in sewage...
The borough set a record last year for sales tax collections, exceeding budget estimates for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2021. And so far this year, sales tax receipts are continuing on another record pace. Multiple factors are leading to the increase in sales tax collections, officials said. The borough collected $3.26 million from its 7% sales tax on goods and services last year, about $300,000 more than in the pre-pandemic fiscal year 2019 and $600,000 above the 2017 number. Sales tax revenues have exceeded budget estimates each of...
Wrangell schools are not short of dedicated staff, engaged students or supportive parents. But what the district is short of — and getting shorter — are students and funding. That is a bad combination, putting stress on the schools as management puts together a budget for the 2022-2023 school year, and creating a serious long-term problem that needs the full attention of the school board, borough assembly and, most importantly, the community. The Wrangell School District has been losing students for the past 25 years, dropping from more tha...
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. ...
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...
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium and the borough are negotiating another year of voluntary payment in lieu of taxes on the nonprofit’s property in town. SEARHC paid property taxes when the clinic and hospital were under construction, Finance Director Mason Villarma said March 2, even though those tribal-owned parcels are exempt from property taxes. Construction on the $30 million hospital started in 2019; the facility opened in February 2021. SEARHC paid $331,000 for the 2021 tax year. Payments in lieu of taxes, or PILTs, “are re...
The borough has received a nearly half-a-million-dollar state grant, intended to help Wrangell cover some of its revenue losses due to the pandemic’s hit to the economy. The grant is $469,785, which the borough assembly may put toward buying a new garbage truck and replacing the exterior siding of the pool building at the recreation center. The assembly was scheduled to consider the expenditures at its Tuesday meeting. The borough had requested $1.8 million when it applied for the grant from the Division of Community and Regional Affairs in D...
The owner of the former sawmill property at 6-Mile Zimovia Highway has accepted the borough’s offer of about $2.5 million to buy the 38.59 acres, which the borough sees as an economic development opportunity for the community. Borough Manager Jeff Good declined to name the exact amount but said Friday, “we did make an offer, they accepted.” Bennett McGrath, of Anchor Properties, in Petersburg, the representative for property owner Betty Buhler, said the borough initially offered $2.3 million and they “met in the middle” between $2.3 million a...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association was told last month it will receive $620,000 in federal funding from the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, a $25 million U.S. Forest Service investment to diversify the economy of Southeast communities. The tribe plans to spend $500,000 on a project to carve new totem poles, $60,000 on a cultural symposium and $60,000 toward cultural preservation, such as promoting traditional, healthy foods and adding the Tlingit names to signs around town. WCA plans to hire a master carver and obtain the logs to...
Sometimes, governments just have to take a chance. They need to ensure the pieces are in place for economic development of their community, even if that means spending money on the potential — not a guarantee — of building jobs in the future. In Wrangell’s case, the almost 40-acre waterfront industrial property at the former 6-Mile sawmill site is one of those pieces. The borough assembly decision to buy the property is smart, long-term thinking. It’s about preserving the site intact for possible future use, rather than see it subdivi...
In October 2021, Wrangell Mayor Steve Prysunka spoke about the abandoned Johnny Mountain Mine before the Wrangell borough assembly to highlight irresponsible mining practices in British Columbia. As the new owner of Iskut property which includes the abandoned mine, through this letter we would like to share with the residents of Wrangell the multiyear and multimillion-dollar voluntary reclamation activities Seabridge Gold is undertaking to reclaim the Johnny Mountain Mine site back to its original pre-mine condition. When Seabridge Gold acquire...
The port commission has voted to increase most of Wrangell’s port and harbors rates, generally about 2% per year for the next five years, sending the new fee schedule to the borough assembly for consideration. The new rates would take effect this July and apply to most port and harbors services, including long- and short-term storage and haul-out rates at the Marine Service Center, transient and reserved moorage in the harbors, electricity hookups, use of the gridiron and hoists. The borough had generally been raising port and harbor rates a...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association wants to move the Chief Shakes Island footbridge to allow better access for buses coming to the popular site and possibly setting aside an area for selling Native crafts. The plan would be to move the bridge access point to create more room at the harbor parking lot, along with rebuilding the decade-old wooden walkway to the island. “They envision the new access to not only clean up the former harbor parking lot but create an in/out access for buses and a place to potentially sell Native goods,” Carol Rus...
Finance Director Mason Villarma has been on the job for about five months and is proposing changes to the borough assembly that he believes could bolster Wrangell’s financial health. At a work session Jan. 25, Villarma said the borough’s assets totaled $39.7 million as of Dec. 31, a mixture of cash, cash equivalents, money market funds, investments and other accounts. Some can be spent, some is in long-term savings, and some is reserved for self-sufficient funds such as the electric utility and port and harbors. Almost one-quarter of that mon...