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No question about it, the state is delinquent in funding public schools in Alaska. It has failed to do its homework, turn in assignments, come to class prepared and whatever other analogy you want to use. The mathematical fact is that the state’s per-pupil funding formula hasn’t had a permanent raise of any significance since the Chicago Cubs broke a 108-year drought and won the baseball World Series in 2016. And while 2016 was a good year for Cubs’ fans, that shouldn’t also be remembered as the last year the Alaska Legislature and governor agr...
I like flying. I like looking down at the Earth and trying to identify what I see. I like having breakfast in one state and dinner in another. I like resetting my watch as if I am traveling in time, which I am. And I enjoy imagining stories about people on the plane. It’s as if I am writing a novel, only no one will review and criticize my work. The key point being I imagine what I like. I don’t really want to know their long stories, so I generally don’t talk to people on planes. Of course, it doesn’t always work. I was flying back to Alaska...
Not everyone in Wrangell welcomes more cruise ships or the visitors they bring to the community. There are detractors who fear too many ships and their passengers could change the character of the town. They look at Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka and Skagway and see more than a million visitors a year crowding the sidewalks and shops, the buses crowding the streets and the summer workers crowding already tight housing. But they need to look at the numbers for Wrangell; actually, two sets of numbers. Wrangell could see 40,000 cruise passengers next...
Most people are not wealthy, or even close to it, though many enjoy reading about and watching and following the lives of the rich and famous. Maybe it’s envy, maybe it’s enjoying hanging on the drama, laughing at the comedy and gawking at the lavish spending. Or maybe it’s just the dumb things rich people do with their lives, the way they behave and the things that show how out of touch they are with the real world. Of course, I have a couple of examples. First, it’s the opposite of conspicuous consumption, which is when rich people buy exp...
We stayed inside for days, the nonstop rain pelting the windows. We waited for the sun to come out to explore our new community. We were California girls. Little did we know the sun was not coming out; it can rain six to 12 feet a year in Southeast Alaska. I answered a knock on the front door to find two shy, Alaska Native boys. They had come to show my sister and me their island. We picked blueberries in the rain, hiked a steep winding trail through a dark, dripping rainforest to a waterfall, saw a beach where 3,000-year-old petroglyphs were...
It’s more than 2,700 miles from Wrangell to the nation’s capital — if you have a private jet. Or more than 3,600 miles if you plan to ride the state ferry and drive. Either way, Wrangell is far from Washington, D.C. Except not really this year. With a special Christmas tree, hundreds of handcrafted ornaments and a local hand at artful floral arrangements, Wrangell will make its presence known in the nation’s capital. The official U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree, a tall spruce cut from Zarembo Island, is on the road and on its way to Washington, due...
The next two years may be Alaska’s last chance for productive, bipartisan legislative action. The state House and Senate have both organized in bipartisan coalitions, with Democrats, Republicans and independents pledging to work together on the big issues facing Alaska. Sadly, that across-the-political-aisle cooperation could end in two years. Alaska’s switch to open primaries and ranked-choice voting for the 2022 and 2024 elections encouraged candidates, particularly Republican candidates, to appeal to moderate and nonpartisan voters ins...
Online, mail order and phone shopping by Wrangell households and businesses last year totaled around $7.5 million, which averages out close to $4,000 for every person living in town. That is a stunningly large amount of money. And a large opportunity. Not that residents could find every item, or even most items, on that $7.5 million shopping list in town. But if they could shift just 10% of online shopping to in-town shopping, that would equate to about $2,000 a day in additional spending at local businesses. That is a lot of money in a small...
I’m on the five-year plan for colonoscopies. The doc keeps finding small polyps that he cuts out and so he tells me to keep coming back to avoid a worse fate. As uncomfortable as it is, at least the prep work for that is brief and painless compared to the excruciatingly long and upsetting presidential elections which come every four years. Something is wrong with politics when I dread elections more than colonoscopies. Yes, the voting is over, though it will take several more days or weeks or court decisions to know the final outcomes of the p...
Though voters should remember that campaign signs, flags or banners are prohibited within 200 feet of a polling place — and that applies to T-shirts, hats and buttons, too — there is one very good sign to hold up for this year’s state general election: Wrangell voters have cast a record number of early ballots. As of last Friday, 147 residents had cast early ballots in the election. That’s just in the first five days of voting, with several more days remaining before the early voting station at City Hall closes at 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4. Elec...
It’s not only the fault of the people who post insults on social media, who embrace the politically inspired lies and accept the politically driven threats of violence as a necessary means to the end they favor. Nor is it only the fault of people on the other side of the political world who lecture but don’t listen, who can’t understand why so many Americans are drawn to the ever-expanding lies and ever-cruder insults yet sit by all too quietly, waiting for the turmoil to pass. It’s like the entire nation is living through a Florida hurricane,...
I have worked for hourly wages and also for many years operated restaurants paying hourly wages. During college and around and about my service in the Army, including a tour in Vietnam, I worked as a roughneck on oil rigs throughout the west. After graduation in 1968 I roughnecked in California for the “high” wage of some $3.50 an hour before the new oil discovery in Prudhoe Bay enticed me to move to Alaska. There I found employment roughnecking on the North Slope for the even higher wage of about $4.50 an hour until I decided to try my han...
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Wrangell community on this year’s anniversary of the tragic event that changed many lives forever. Nov. 20, 2023, is a date we will never forget. No one wasted a minute responding after the slide. Many of you touched my family’s hearts in a positive way. Or they touched your heart. They lived with the values of being kind, honest and hard working — and family. Education was at the top, with dedication to each child first and foremost. Beth and Tim had a lot on the plate, and they made me so...
Wrangell hasn’t been this excited about a harvested spruce tree since the sawmills were running. Only the tree that is the subject of this month’s enthusiasm wasn’t cut down, it was dug up. Crews dug, then dug some more, cut some roots and then lifted the 80-foot-tall tree and its massive root wad out of the ground on Zarembo Island on Oct. 19 for a short ride to Wrangell, where it will go on display Saturday, surrounded by a weekend of activities. Not to diminish its brief display in Wrangell, but the tree’s real destination is the West La...
Making it easier for Alaskans to cast their ballots shouldn’t be about how they vote, which way they lean politically or how much they favor one party over another. Admittedly, elections are partisan. Sadly, increasingly so. Candidates, their fat-funded political action committees and political parties have turned the nation’s elections into an endless stream of negative attack ads that prey on the public’s fear of anything that will get them to the polls. It’s bad enough that partisanship has taken over election campaigns. But those same ug...
In state House District 1 there are three candidates: Jeremy Bynum, Republican, and Agnes Moran and Grant EchoHawk, both running as nonpartisan. But are they really nonpartisan? Moran, who has donated to the Democrat party and its fundraising mechanisms more than 98 times since February 2019, raises significant questions about her nonpartisan claim. Specific instances include contributions to Democrat U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, the Progressive Era PAC (described as a Democrat liberal organization), and seven donations to Democrat presidential...
Alaskans will be asked on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot if they want to vote yes and repeal the state’s ranked-choice election system. Opponents of ranked voting collected enough signatures to put the question on the ballot, though they violated state campaign finance laws to get there — a rank and dishonorable start. Alaskans would be better served to vote no on Proposition No. 2. Ranked-choice voting, adopted by Alaskans in 2020, ensures that the winning candidates in state and congressional races have the support of a majority of voters. Not...
Supporters of Herbert Hoover’s 1928 campaign for president ran newspaper ads with the headline, “A Chicken for Every Pot.” An impractical campaign pledge, though maybe it helped: Hoover won the election. But he then presided over the start of the Great Depression in 1929, when many could afford neither a chicken nor a pot. Almost 100 years later, political campaigns are still promising a better life for voters, though the price tag has risen far above the cost of a chicken, or a pot, or even an entire new kitchen. In rare cases, the count...
The Nolan Center is so much more than a museum, though it certainly excels in its historical role. It’s the center of activity in town. It’s a meeting place, a conference center, movie theater, visitor information center. It’s something for everyone, all under one roof. And it’s 20 years old. Actually, 20 years and 3 months old, but Nolan Center staff figured they couldn’t very well manage a big community birthday party for residents in the middle of the visitor season, so the celebration was moved to 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14. A birthday cake cou...
Southeast Alaska communities and their local newspapers share a common problem: Not enough people, and the ones who are here are getting older. For the communities, an aging and declining population means not enough people to fill jobs. It means falling further behind in providing services that attract and retain new residents, making the situation worse. For newspapers, it means a declining population of readers as aging residents who grew up with their local paper die out. Younger generations are so unconcerned about the necessity of...
The community is climbing up the right tree as it prepares to celebrate an early start to the holiday season Oct. 25-27. The borough’s economic development team, the Nolan Center, chamber of commerce, U.S. Forest Service and other branches of community service are going all out to deck out the weekend as Wrangell will for the first time see and then say goodbye to the special tall tree that will truck its way to a spot on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. It’s not going out on a limb to say it’s a big deal for the town. This year’s Capitol...
Whichever side wins the national election Nov. 5 needs to think about why they did not get a larger share of the vote. Not that they ever really expected to win over the hearts, minds and ballots of 60% of voters. The honest reality is that most candidates would accept 51% as a clear victory in this divisive world. OK, maybe they’re prefer 52%. But they’ll happily declare a mandate on the thinnest of margins. Gloating is ugly. It makes sore losers out of disappointed losers. Even worse, many of those sore losers are increasingly embracing anger...
The Public Safety Building needs work. Water and rot damage have taken their toll on the almost 40-year-old wood-frame building. Yes, the borough could have and should have spent more on maintenance and repairs in years past but that doesn’t change the fact that the work is past due and the community needs to pay the bill. Voters are asked on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot to approve a $3 million bond issue to help pay for new roofing and siding and other critical repairs. The Sentinel supports a “yes” vote. The borough would borro...
To say I am resistant to change is an understatement. I acknowledge that it happens in life — after all, I am about to turn 73 — but that doesn’t mean I embrace or enjoy it. Rather, I quietly accept change, though not happily, just like I accept that rainy fall comes after summer, and that my 20-year-old spices don’t seem to smell like anything anymore and it is time to buy new jars. My resistance to change in life was obvious when I was getting coffee with a friend recently and pulled actual change out of my pocket, just as I’ve done sinc...
The school board made the right decision last week to pull the plug on accepting a federal grant to purchase an electric school bus. Just because the EPA grant would have covered 90% of the purchase price doesn’t mean it was a good fit for Wrangell at this time. In this case, board members discussed it at a public meeting and voted down the idea. But it was a close vote, with two of the five board members wanting to go ahead with the purchase. It was a close vote because there are good reasons to run an electric bus rather than continue b...
