Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 302
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 6-0 last week to sell seven parcels of borough-owned land to Skylark Park LLC at half their appraised value. The reduced price reflects the project's public benefit purpose: creating at least 20 new residential lots in a community facing a dire housing shortage. The assembly authorized the sale of the lots for $55,500 - 50% of their $111,000 appraised value and well below their $188,300 assessed value. The sale includes Lots 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 in Block A of...
After years of planning and development, Petersburg's Scow Bay Boat Haulout project is nearly ready for construction. PND Engineer Dick Somerville presented a progress report on the 65% design completion at a joint work session with harbor board, assembly and economic development officials on Wednesday morning. Somerville highlighted that all the necessary funding has been secured for the $15.07 million project, the permitting is in progress, and as long as the federal government eventually...
The final piece of funding is in place for replacement of the deteriorating breakwater system at Banana Point, with construction expected to begin next spring. The Petersburg Borough Assembly accepted a $78,000 contribution last week from the Petersburg Indian Association to close a gap between the project's existing budget and the lowest construction bid. The borough has issued a notice to award to bidders and plans to present a contract for assembly authorization at its next meeting,...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved the appointment of Michelle Lopez to lead both the elderly housing and assisted living operations at Mountain View Manor, consolidating two director positions that had been separate for the past three years. Lopez, who has served as the Elderly Housing Director, will assume the combined role of Assisted Living and Elderly Housing Director at an annual salary of $100,000. The assembly voted 6-0 to approve the hire at its Oct. 21 meeting. "I'm...
At the start of Monday's Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting newly elected assembly members Bob Martin and Jeff Meucci were sworn into office by Borough Clerk Becky Regula. The swearing-in was followed moments later by newly elected Petersburg Mayor Bob Lynn offering remarks of appreciation and gratitude and presenting a commemorative gavel to outgoing, long-serving Petersburg Mayor Mark Jensen....
In 1927, a 14-year-old girl named Alice Norberg left the fox farm in West Petersburg where she was raised and boarded a steamer to Seattle then a Greyhound bus to Hollywood to pursue a showbiz career. She eventually appeared in 32 movies during the 1930s and 40s. This Friday, the Clausen Memorial Museum is screening one of her films, "The Invisible Ghost" (1941), starring Bela Lugosi, in an evening designed to bring Alice's story back to Petersburg's collective memory. "People kind of forgot...
Petersburg’s nonprofit Viking Swim Club will hold its annual fundraiser auction this Saturday at the Sons of Norway Hall, with proceeds helping to keep swimming affordable for local families. “This is the main vehicle to fund the Viking Swim Club,” said Marlena Newman, the club’s fundraising chair. “If we don’t have our fundraisers, then, of course, the dues go up for families.” Newman and a team of volunteers have spent the past three months organizing the event, which includes a dinner, silent and live auctions, and a raffle. It’s one of two...
Jaime Cabral, Petersburg High School and Mitkof Middle School Assistant Principal and Activities Director, was named the 2026 Assistant Principal of the Year by the Alaska Association of Secondary School Principals (AASSP) at a ceremony in Anchorage last weekend. The recognition came while Cabral was already in Anchorage, in the middle of coaching his volleyball team at a tournament. Cabral's wife Heidi picked him up between games, drove him across town to accept the award, and rushed him back...
Construction is underway on an open-sided equipment storage shed adjacent to the Petersburg harbormaster's office, a project designed to protect the harbor's maintenance equipment from winter weather. The steel structure, being built on an existing timber dock at the intersection of Excel Street and Harbor Way, features a 10-foot interior clearance that slopes to 13 feet. The roof-only design, with open sides, will shelter harbor equipment including a telehandler, four-wheelers for snowplowing,...
This Saturday, the Petersburg Public Library is hosting the opening reception for TalisWoman, this year’s iteration of Petersburg’s long-running Women’s Art Show. While the library regularly features art displays and maintains a permanent art collection, hosting a curated exhibition complete with an opening reception is a rare occasion. The last time the library hosted a curated art show was the touring exhibition “Decolonizing Alaska” back in 2018, which spanned the library and the Clausen M...
"I wanted to do something different, challenge myself as a director and challenge the students," says Elsa Wintersteen, director of Petersburg High School's drama program. "Doing something scary... that can actually evoke feelings of discomfort in people is a really hard thing to do." For this fall's production of Dracula, that challenge includes scaring the hometown audience, then, next summer, taking their show on the road to the largest theater festival in the world - Edinburgh Scotland's Fri...
Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist/singer-songwriter Abby Posner will perform in Petersburg on Saturday, Oct. 18 and will lead a morning workshop on music theory and songwriting. Posner, who won the 28th Annual USA Songwriting Contest in 2023, is making a special stop in Petersburg during a weeklong Alaska tour centered around Parlor in the Round, an Anchorage-based songwriter showcase. Though Petersburg is not hosting the full Parlor event this year, the Petersburg Arts Council made special...
Bob Lynn decisively won Petersburg's mayoral race in the October 7 municipal election, defeating fellow assembly member Scott Newman 807 to 443 votes, while Proposition 1 - limiting the senior sales tax exemption to only low-income seniors - squeaked by with a nine-vote margin. The unofficial results showed strong voter participation, with a record-breaking number of early and absentee ballots cast before election day (647) and the highest local voter turnout (1279) since the borough formation...
During Monday's meeting, the Petersburg Borough Assembly approved a $768,330 design-build contract, for the Scow Bay standby diesel generator project, marking the next step forward on a voter-approved bond-supported capital project that has been in development for more than four years. The contract, awarded to Dawson Construction LLC of Juneau, covers engineering design, heavy equipment moving tasks and project commissioning for the new generator facility. "It is important to note that the...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly heard from Tidal Network representatives during Monday's assembly meeting, as the organization's proposed communication tower has raised some concerns in the community. On September 2, the assembly voted unanimously to proceed with direct negotiations for the sale of a small piece of borough-owned land, 10,040 square feet of adjacent to the fire hall, to the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska for its broadband enterprise, Tidal...
In the main bay of the former Wikan Enterprises building, Mike Corl fabricates a new fuel tank for a customer's Bayliner. On the other side of the wall, in what will soon be a retail space and front office, 19-month-old Charlotte hums happily on a rug, playing with a plastic T-rex. Her mother Ashley keeps an eye on her from her big desk where she is working on the launch of Corls Customs LLC. This is what family business looks like for the Corls, who purchased the Dock Street property last...
As concerns mount over the looming government shutdown which would defund the WIC program that provides food support for pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children, along with ongoing SNAP benefit disruptions in Alaska, Humanity in Progress in ramping up its efforts to address food insecurity in Petersburg with their Empty Bowls, Ending Hunger fundraiser this Saturday at the Sons of Norway Hall. The event, taking place October 4 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. offers community members...
Despite a light turnout due to threatening weather on Saturday, a handful of volunteers showed up to finish compacting gravel on the Bike Park's newest trail addition. "Today was basically putting the park to bed," said Pat Blair of Wheelhouse Bikes, a board member of Friends of the Petersburg Bike Park. "I wanted to finish that trail. That was my intent." The newly completed portion of the trail extends the ride through the woods, adding some length with "a lot of slope to it," allowing riders...
Another field season of whale research has concluded at Five Finger Lighthouse, and Dr. Fred Sharpe will hold an open forum on Thursday at the Petersburg Public Library to discuss their latest efforts. Five Finger Lighthouse provides an extraordinary whale research venue because of its isolated location – miles from the nearest shore in the rich waters of Frederick Sound, buffered from the open ocean by miles of mountainous islands. "We're shielded from the global rise of ship noise in the Pacif...
The first week of moose season has been relentlessly windy and rainy across Southeast Alaska, but there was a break in the weather on Tuesday, September 16 so Joe Willis pounced on the opportunity and harvested the first moose of the season on Mitkof Island. "When I left in the morning, I told my wife, 'don't expect me back till after dark,'" Willis said. "It was still really wet at daybreak... my enthusiasm level was not what you would call epic," Willis recalled. "The phone says it's going to...
Bob Lynn's decision to run for mayor wasn't made lightly. "It wasn't an easy decision for me at all."But he sees a need for the community to become more self-reliant as times become more challenging and costs shift from state and federal government to the local level. He says he is willing to listen to and work with all and has demonstrated his ability to help guide decision making: "I have the time to do this, and I have the experience. I'm hoping that I get a chance to try some ideas and see...
Scott Newman decided to run for mayor because he feels "there hasn't been strong leadership, advancing any advocacy towards the big projects in the community like the hospital and in tourism ... I kind of feel like we've had a bit of a dysfunctional process." "We could be advocating more strongly, at a state and federal level for these projects that we have going on, mainly the hospital," Newman told the Pilot in an interview. "I just don't feel like we've been doing enough in that direction....
As wind gusts exceeded 30 knots on Wednesday morning a roughly 180-foot barge broke loose from its moorage around a mile south of Scow Bay in the Wrangell Narrows. The Coast Guard issued a maritime security alert warning vessels in the area, while the harbormasters office contacted residents along the shore of Kupreanof Island, "just to let them know that if it does end up ricocheting down that Narrows, to be aware of it," Harbormaster Glorianne Wollen said, "to potentially pull your outhaul in...
During midday mass on July 6, 2023, an accidental fire broke out at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Petersburg. All parishioners and church staff safely escaped the fire, which burned for nearly ten hours. The Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department fought the blaze and successfully prevented the tragic fire from spreading to nearby homes and businesses like the neighboring Petersburg Children's Center. The church building was left in ruins, though firefighters were able to recover some...
Petersburg voters will decide October 7 whether to limit the borough’s senior sales tax exemption to only low-income seniors. Proposition 1 would restrict the current exemption — available to all residents 65 and older who qualify for the PFD — to only those who qualify for the State of Alaska Senior Benefits Payment Program. That means individuals earning less than $34,213 annually or married couples making under $46,253 would retain the exemption, while higher-income seniors would lose it. On September 15, KFSK Petersburg hosted call-in show...
