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Wrangell has set a pandemic record for the community for the number of COVID-19 cases in a month, reporting on Thursday its 50th and 51st infections in the first 18 days of November. The old record of 48 was set in August. Amid the surge in new cases in town, the borough assembly had called a special meeting for Thursday to consider an emergency ordinance requiring face masks to help limit further spread of the highly infectious disease. “Wrangell is experiencing unprecedented levels of positive COVID-19 cases,” the borough reported Monday eve... Full story
A for-profit detox and recovery center business interested in purchasing the former hospital building planned a site visit for this week, and a former Wrangell resident who now works as a company representative led them to it. Casey Odell, the representative from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Regard Recovery Centers, called in to the borough assembly meeting on Nov. 9 to discuss the possibility. She said she worked for Alaska Island Community Services as a therapist and health counselor in 2013 in Wrangell, before SEARHC took over the...
The borough assembly last Friday approved submitting an application for $1.8 million in pandemic relief aid to replace lost sales tax, port and harbors and other revenues in 2020. The funds, if granted, would come from the state’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief fund Congress approved in March. Cities and boroughs received a direct federal allocation under the act — Wrangell’s share was $485,000 — while the state is going to share some of its money with municipalities that got hurt above and beyond...
Wrangell's interim borough manager has been in the role for more than two weeks and would like to stay a lot longer. Jeff Good has applied for the full-time borough manager position, seeking to make his role more permanent. The assembly is continuing to accept applications for the job "until filled," with no deadline for a decision. Whether temporary or permanent, the retired Coast Guard officer, who served as base director in Kodiak from 2017 to 2020, said his job at the borough draws plenty...
The borough assembly has denied the school district’s request for an exemption from Wrangell’s testing and isolation requirements for unvaccinated students who travel. In October, the district had requested students and staff traveling for extracurricular activities, such as sports, be exempt from the borough’s COVID-19 emergency ordinance testing and isolation requirements since it wouldn’t allow students and staff to attend events on back-to-back weekends. The assembly denied the request at its Nov. 9 meeting. “We believed, based on the la...
It will be spring before the city barge ramp is back in operation, with repairs taking several months longer than expected. Until then, the weekly Alaska Marine Lines freight barges will have to continue to side-tie at the former sawmill dock at the Marine Service Center. The borough assembly at its Nov. 9 meeting authorized $115,000 for the project to fix the damaged barge ramp flotation tank. Workers last month pulled the tank off the end of the barge ramp for repairs of a leak that had reduced its buoyancy. A local contractor, Tim Heller,...
Loose trash goes in and comes out in compact, 50-cubic-foot bales, strapped up and ready to ship out of state. The combination masher and baler has been at work at Wrangell’s trash transfer station since late October. Rather than shipping out loose garbage in open-top containers, Wrangell can now load the bales into closed containers. Alaska Marine Lines, which hauls trash out of Wrangell and several other Southeast communities, had told the towns that it needed everyone to switch to closed containers after a couple of fires in open containers...
While Wrangell has counted 11 new COVID-19 infections in the past week, Petersburg was at 69 active cases as of late Monday, with a mandatory face mask order in place and public buildings closed. Almost 20% of COVID tests administered in Petersburg in the past seven days had come back positive, the borough reported on its website Monday. The active case count set a pandemic record for the community, going past the old record of 68 from March 3. Petersburg was hit with 85 cases from mid-February to the first week of March, its highest numbers...
An addiction recovery center operator is interested in possibly buying the former hospital to open a residential and outpatient treatment center in Wrangell. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Regard Recovery Centers planned to send a representative, Casey Odell, to the borough assembly’s Tuesday meeting this week to introduce the organization, discuss its interest in the former Wrangell Medical Center property, and to schedule a time in the coming weeks for a follow-up visit to Wrangell, Amber Al-Haddad, capital facilities director, reported to t...
The Wrangell borough assembly recently passed a resolution calling for a pause in mine development in the British Columbia/Alaska transboundary region until a binding international agreement on watershed protections is developed that would ensure upstream mining operations in British Columbia do not harm fisheries or water quality in the Taku, Unuk and Stikine rivers. But there is one mining-related activity that B.C. should be aggressively pursuing — shutting down and cleaning up the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine in the Taku watershed. The B...
The Alaska Redistricting Board has adopted a new map of legislative districts for the state, keeping Wrangell and Ketchikan in the same district. The board had considered other proposals that would have put Wrangell in with Sitka, not Ketchikan, along with Petersburg and other small Southeast communities, or moved Petersburg in with Ketchikan and Wrangell. Wrangell and Ketchikan currently share a state House district. The only change from the current boundaries for that seat is the addition of Metlakatla, to get the district closer to the popul...
The Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau is trying to finish a draft of its tourism best management practices. The renewed push comes after the effort to adopt best practices was waylaid by the onset of the pandemic almost two years ago. The latest draft was distributed among the CVB board members at their Nov. 4 work session to share with businesses and get their input for a final draft that would go before the borough assembly after the holidays, and once enough input from business owners and tour operators is collected. When the visitor...
The Juneau assembly will consider an ordinance that would amend the borough’s sales tax code to collect on goods and services sold aboard cruise ships, whether tied to the dock or anchored in front of town. The ordinance would amend a provision in code that currently exempts sales aboard cruise ships from the borough’s 5% tax. Services sold on board the ships but which are delivered or used on shore, such as bus or whale watching tours, cooking classes and other activities, already are subject to sales tax, but goods or services consumed abo...
Jeffrey Good, who moved to Wrangell after retiring from the U.S. Coast Guard, started work Monday as interim borough manager, replacing Lisa Von Bargen until the assembly can make a permanent hire. The borough assembly last Thursday offered the position to Good, who was among five candidates for the job. Von Bargen's last day as manager was Friday. Good, the only local candidate, served as U.S. Coast Guard base director in Kodiak from 2017 to 2020, according to his résumé. He served as public w...
Rod Rhoades has a sick generator. It's down for the count after mechanical issues this summer, said the superintendent at Wrangell Municipal Light & Power. The generator is one of five that provide backup when Wrangell loses its feed from the Tyee Lake hydroelectric station. After Rhoades started in 2018, he brought a fifth generator online in 2020 to "give me some breathing room." Before that, there would be times when all four generators were running to meet power demand, he said, and for...
While Wrangell experienced a small outbreak of community-spread cases over the weekend, Alaska continues to lead the nation in new COVID-19 cases per capita. The state health department reported more than 2,400 new cases Friday through Monday, continuing Alaska’s ranking at the top of cases per resident nationwide. In Wrangell, the borough reported 11 new cases Saturday through Tuesday, a majority of which were community spread and mostly linked to attendees at a memorial service Oct. 19. The 11 cases came after a lull during the first 22 d...
The borough assembly acknowledged the life-giving watershed that feeds the Stikine River, which crosses the U.S.-Canada border, in approving a resolution to support efforts to protect Southeast Alaska’s three transboundary waters from mining pollution. The resolution references the ecosystem, Indigenous people, communities, residents and economies that depend on the health of the Stikine River. The assembly on Tuesday approved a “Wrangellized” version of a resolution that was originally scheduled for consideration Sept. 28. “The assembly furthe...
Wrangell’s public library is 100 years old this week and ready to turn the page for its next century. The library’s history includes several chapters, starting with 802 books on the shelves on opening night Oct. 31, 1921, about equal to the 821 residents counted in the 1920 census. It must have been a long wait for popular books back then. Members of the Wrangell Civic Club led the movement to open a library. The town was just 18 years old and ready for a library, which shared the building at the site where the senior center is now loc...
The borough assembly on Tuesday discussed — but took no action — on Wrangell’s COVID-19 testing and isolation policy as it affects unvaccinated students who travel out of town for sports and activities. The school district had requested a waiver of the policy. The district currently allows unvaccinated students who travel for games or other activities to return to school and practice without isolating until their test results come back, so long as the students follow the school district’s weekly testing protocols and mitigation plan. The sch...
The six Alaska communities that shared in a $10 million pandemic-relief gift from Norwegian Cruise Line have found various ways to spend the money — or save it for later. Seward committed much of its share to help provide child care services. Skagway set aside nearly half-a-million dollars to pay out as cash to residents this winter. The cruise line in May announced it would donate $10 million to communities that had been on the company’s itineraries and suffered economically with the loss of cruise ship travelers last year and again this sum...
The borough received five applications for the interim borough manager position: Jeff Good, of Wrangell; Gene Green, of Silverton, Oregon; Mark Lynch, of Stanford, Illinois; Darrell Maple, of Jacksonville, Oregon; and David Palmer, of Anacortes, Washington. Manager Lisa Von Bargen’s last day will be Oct. 29. The interim borough manager will fulfill the duties of manager until a new manager can be hired. The position will be a short-time hire, with an expected commitment of between one to three months, according to the borough's job notice. P...
Skagway’s borough assembly has voted unanimously to work with the Skagway Traditional Council to authorize ground-penetrating radar — and some shovel work — at the former Pious X Mission School site, which operated from 1932 to 1959 and served about 60 Indigenous children. The property is now owned by the municipality, which uses it as a seasonal RV park. The borough in recent years has considered redeveloping the property as a housing subdivision or making utility improvements and continuing RV services for independent travelers. The Skagw...
The borough has reported 11 new cases of COVID-19 since Saturday -- the majority of which are community spread. Wrangell had just two COVID cases in the first 22 days of October, The first announcement came Saturday with three cases, all Wrangell residents. The borough reported six more cases on Sunday and one more on Monday, "a close contact of a previously identified case." Then one more on Tuesday, also a close contact of a previous case. All of the individuals went into isolation after their positive test results, the borough reported.... Full story
Mason Villarma is good at math. "It's therapeutic, in a way. It always works out," Villarma, the borough's new finance director, said. The Gonzaga 2020 grad has plans to work out the borough's books after filling the position - which was vacant for about eight months - in September. After he snagged an internship with Big Four tax audit firm KPMG in Spokane, Washington, last year, the firm hired Villarma to work in Seattle. Then the pandemic struck right in the heart of his employment. Like so...
The borough assembly approved a one-acre tidelands lease to Canoe Lagoon Oysters at its Tuesday night meeting. Co-owner Brian Herman said the business would use the intertidal area in front of the former airplane pullout at 4 Mile Zimovia Highway to raise oysters in floating containment bags and hold them for sale. Having the site in Wrangell would allow the operation to bring maturing oysters over in good weather from the existing farm on the Blashke Islands, established in March 2020, making it easier to harvest the oysters when bad weather...