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The Legislature is in its 10th year of struggling to balance Alaskans’ wishes and wants for a large Permanent Fund dividend with the checkbook reality that is much less than the wants. It’s been an annual political and fiscal battle ever since Gov. Bill Walker in 2016 bravely cut that year’s PFD in half after legislators had approved an unaffordable dividend while the state budget was in a deep billion-dollar deficit, dug deeper by low oil prices. Mike Dunleavy, who was then a state senator, vowed to push legislation to undo the gover...
In poker, four of a kind beats just about everything. But this isn’t about gambling with chips or betting on cards, it’s about gambling with the country’s future. It’s about how four-of-a-kind senators could beat President Donald Trump at the dangerous game he is playing with the nation’s economy and people’s lives. No surprise, it’s just like Trump to gamble with everyone else’s money, livelihood and families but his own. The guy’s been dealing from the bottom, making up new rules as he plays the game from the Oval Office, and it’s time tha...
Most folks who ride the ferries have no idea there’s a crew of highly trained engineers, unseen below deck, running complex systems that could run a small city. Marine engineers control ships’ propulsion, power generation and other vital systems. We monitor control systems and ensure all machinery is operating correctly. We not only operate the ferries, we repair and maintain their mechanical and electrical systems and equipment. We’re also the ones called when just about anything goes wrong on the ship, from the elevator breaking down to a...
It’s been seven weeks since the borough manager ordered a closure of the town’s nearly 50-year-old barge ramp over structural and safety concerns. Any answer to the community’s needs for a dependable facility for the essential weekly freight barges is a long way off — at a cost of millions of dollars. Possible options include repairing the existing 140-foot-long steel ramp that floats with the tides; scrapping it and getting a new one built for the same downtown location; creating an expanded fill area next to the Marine Service Center and buil...
I didn’t like the freshmen dress code for the dining room at college. We had to wear these stupid beanies on our heads at the start of the first semester if we wanted dinner. No blue jeans were allowed. Shirts with collars were mandatory. Socks, too. And this was at a public university. But it was 1968 in Indiana, which seemed more like living in the 1950s. I also remember something about having to sing the school song to gain admission to the dining room in the dorm. I was 16 years old and the only songs I knew were not ones that would get m...
When our family resided in Wrangell from 1963-66, the community had two major payrolls: the Wrangell Mill located in town, and six miles south a mill owned by Alaska Lumber and Pulp Corp., which later acquired the downtown mill. In addition to the sawmill jobs, there were longshore jobs, numerous tugboats and, of course, loggers in the woods harvesting the timber. The recent release by the Trump administration’s report outlining “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” included development of the timber resources of Southea...
More than likely, the Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy will strike a deal next month to increase state funding for K-12 education in Alaska. That’s the big checkbook fight as lawmakers face a May 21 constitutional deadline to finish their work. The increase in state aid will not be enough to solve all the money problems at school districts across Alaska, but it will be enough to prevent the worst of the crisis from hitting students, teachers and parents for the 2025-2026 school year. In Wrangell’s case, it probably will be enough money to...
Fiscal conservatives like to say that Alaska has a spending problem. Solve it, cut programs, and the good tax-free life can continue — along with a fat Permanent Fund dividend every fall. The other side in the budget debate says the state has a revenue problem. They cite the political refusal to consider changes in oil taxes, mining taxes or corporate taxes, the rejection of a return to the pre-oil-days personal income tax, even the denial of an increase in the lowest-in-the-nation motor fuel tax rate. They say raise new revenues and a good l...
Wrangell is big on annual traditions. The Fourth of July, salmon fishing, high school homecoming basketball games, Christmas tree lighting, tax-free shopping days and putting away the snow shovels and ice melt. Of course, there are the less welcome yearly traditions, such as paying property taxes, getting an annual physical and digging through the final packages of last year’s frozen fish. The annual spring cleanup is sort of a mix of the eagerly awaited and the yearly event that feels good even if it requires some manual labor. Kind of like e...
I figured all terrorism was equally bad. No distinctions allowed. Aiding in the murder — stealing of life, liberty or property — from innocent people deserved strong punishment. Terrorism by the far-left or far-right, foreign-born or U.S.-born, religious zealots or atheists, rich or poor, people wearing burkas, balaclavas or Brooks Brothers suits are all equally punishable under the law. Anyone and everyone who encourages or helps terrorists belongs in prison for the public’s protection. Except in the Trump administration, where who you know,...
There is growing concern among Alaskans that oil and gas revenues to the state general fund will be insufficient to satisfy programs such as education, law enforcement and transportation, as well as to continue to pay a reasonable Permanent Fund dividend. The Alaska Department of Revenue Spring 2025 Forecast projects oil and gas revenues declining over the next decade, dwindling from 37% of general fund revenues for fiscal year 2024 to 25% by fiscal year 2035. The primary components of oil and gas revenues are royalties, production taxes and...
No one likes another requirement to pass through security before boarding a flight to see family or friends, visit a medical specialist, attend a business meeting or, even better, take a vacation. But the federal requirement that travelers on domestic flights must show a REAL ID, or other approved enhanced-security photo identification, will take effect on May 7. The deadline comes 20 years after Congress approved the law. Over those two decades, the frequently criticized law has been postponed several times, same as the morning northbound...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been traveling a lot to Asia, Houston and Washington, D.C., working hard to sell government officials and the private sector on the decades-old vision of an Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline to make the state rich again. But while peddling the dubious prospects of a megaproject — one of the most expensive natural gas developments anywhere in the world — the governor has been absent from his day job. He hasn’t been fiddling, and the state isn’t burning like it does during the wildfire season, but he has been playing...
Our family-owned and operated small business provides 140 jobs on Prince of Wales Island. With 30 years in operation, we know that year-round jobs in rural communities keep grocery stores and schools open. Viking Lumber employs 46 Alaskans living in rural communities like Craig and Klawock. Employees at Viking Lumber receive family wages, health care, dental, vision, life insurance and a retirement plan. School-age children of Viking employees are equal to one full class of students in our already shrinking schools. Viking’s operations also s...
In today’s world, many feel concern, anxiety and cynicism. Yet there are countless reasons to remain hopeful. A gathering in Anchorage on March 29-30 and open to all, explored how we can unite to create a more peaceful and prosperous world for every member of the human family. Among the 140 attendees with diverse backgrounds were three adults and one youth from Wrangell, all eager to reflect on this question. Through devotional gatherings, large and small group discussions, the arts and shared meals, we explored the teachings of B...
North Slope oil production has been in steady decline since 1988. The trans-Alaska oil pipeline is more than three-quarters empty. It’s no one’s fault, that’s just how oil reservoirs behave. They are not some kind of eternal spring that replenishes itself. Even as companies work hard to find new oil fields and increase production from the older reservoirs, it’s not enough to permanently reverse the inevitable. And with that decline, so goes state revenues. Even today, in its diminished capacity, oil remains the single largest source of tax rev...
I’m not an attorney and I never took a law school class, though I have walked past law school campuses in three states. I’ve also walked past medical schools and lots of banks, but I am not a doctor and I am not rich. I have learned that proximity does not mean success. You have to work at making good decisions. Or, in the case of the nation’s capital these days, you have to work to be so dishonest with a straight face. Even when caught with the evidence on their phones, officials deny their own typing and emojis. They need to learn when to pl...
Article VII of the Alaska Constitution requires the Legislature to “maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the state.” Alaska statute, in the Alaska Students’ Educational Bill of Rights, states: “A quality education for students of all ages is a concrete investment that vastly improves the future prosperity, welfare, productivity and vitality of society.” The indisputable, mathematical fact is that at least for the past 10 years; (years in which I served in the Alaska State House), the Legislature and the executive...
Alaskans won’t turn into a pumpkin at midnight the evening of Monday, March 31, but they could lose out on a chance to be richer. The deadline to file for this year’s Permanent Fund dividend is 11:59 p.m. March 31. Complete the online application by then and, come the first week of October, the state will deposit the PFD into your bank account. If online is not your thing, head to the Legislative Information Office upstairs at the Kadin Building on Front Street, above the Tongass Federal Credit Union office, pick up a paper application, get...
Alaska’s two U.S. senators both believe that President Donald Trump’s pro-development administration will be good for the state’s natural resource economy, creating jobs, boosting tax revenues and building long-term prosperity. Both support the president’s initiatives to unlock resources that had been placed off-limits by the administration of Joe Biden and others before him. And both want the federal government to operate efficiently and reduce spending. Beyond those shared beliefs, however, the two came across as worlds apart in their a...
It’s a two-sided coin, this. An opportunity to say goodbye to an entire community but also something that can only be written in broad strokes, absent the hugs and the clasping of hands that I usually prefer for my goodbyes. The reason is that today was my last day at the Wrangell Sentinel. I start my new job as a food and culture writer with the USA Today network in Boston in just five days. So, to all those who’ve been kind to me at any point in the past nine months — even if it was just a tiny little moment — I’m clasping my hands together,...
The federal and state stars are not lining up well for Wrangell’s budget future, at least not for the next few years. And that will mean some hard choices for the community, particularly when it comes to deciding the future of its schools and how to pay for that future. The borough has been using money from a federal program that dates back to 2000 to cover much of its annual contribution to the school district operating budget. But Congress failed to appropriate the money last year — the Republican-controlled U.S. House declined to take up...
I am having a problem as I age. Well, sure, lots of problems, like my legs moving about as smoothly as an engine with cold motor oil on a winter day. Or a memory that drains faster than a smartphone left on video streaming overnight. Or an arthritic neck that moves about as easily as a frozen, rusted bolt. But I can handle those. They are physical reminders of aging. I know they are inevitable and cyclical, like the tides. So I just wait for the tide to change and go about life, though I did add a second handrail to the staircase at home. But...
I know I’ve made it home when I step off the plane and a rush of cedar bark invades my senses. As I step onto the airport tarmac, I see the Stikine River and the tiniest airport terminal I have ever laid eyes on. I’ve returned for my annual summer vacation in Wrangell. Once a small yet vibrant logging and fishing community which has long since diminished, leaving a population of roughly 2,000, what could make a town double in size for two weeks out of the year? That’s simple, the best Fourth of July celebration of my life. The Fourth is the t...
Going on attack against Canada makes as much sense as picking a fight with your best friend and neighbor, the one you share holiday meals with, the one who steps up when disaster hits the neighborhood, the one who helps make sure you and your family are safe. Which is to say it makes no sense whatsoever. President Donald Trump says Canada should become the 51st state. Canadians have declined. If the tiff would have ended there, no harm, no foul. But it hasn’t ended, and the fight could soon cost Alaskans money. Trump is throwing tariffs at Cana...
