Week of June 5, 2025
Week of June 5, 2025
On Monday, Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved the resolution to set the property tax rate for the coming year, raising the millage rate from 10.0 to 10.8 mills. The new 0.8-mill increase means property owners in Service Area 1 will pay $10.80 per $1,000 of assessed property value, up from $10 last year. For a home assessed at $300,000, the annual increase would be $240. While an increase from last year, the new rate is still lower than the tax rate from the four preceding years:...
Alaska is required by law to fund public education equitably across all school districts through its Base Student Allocation formula. Each student generates a set amount of state funding, with adjustments for factors like special needs, district size, and geographic isolation. The federal government also sends Alaska over $100 million annually in “impact aid” – money meant to compensate certain school districts for lost property tax revenue from federal and Alaska Native lands that cannot...
Petersburg's borough assembly passed its overall budget for the next fiscal year on June 2. But the option to allocate a million dollars from the harbor reserves for a potential cruise dock project caused friction for the final vote. The Petersburg Borough's general fund was nearly $400,000 in the red for the last fiscal year, but that's not the case this time. The borough's next budget is in the black, despite state and federal funding reductions and inflationary costs in all departments....
Petersburg Mayor Mark Jensen announced during Monday's borough assembly meeting that he will not run for reelection in October, ending what will be an 18-year tenure as an elected official in Petersburg. "I thought it was time to announce that I don't intend to run for mayor in October," Jensen said during the meeting. "That's four months from now. That gives people that are interested in the mayor's position [time] to put their name in." Jensen was first elected to the Petersburg City Council...
Petersburg, Ketchikan, Haines, and Skagway all received record amounts of rainfall in May. Across the panhandle, many communities saw double or triple the amount of rainfall they normally get during the month. Most communities also experienced colder-than-average temperatures. National Weather Service Meteorologist Zoe Kaplan said that this kind of weather is unusual in spring. "This whole event is pretty anomalous, because these are totals that we would normally see in the fall. But I guess...
A bell recovered from a Southeast Alaska shipwreck that claimed 112 lives more than a century ago rang Thursday, May 29, for the first time in 117 years, signaling its future role in a Wrangell maritime tradition. Jeanie Arnold, director of the Nolan Center, struck the bell at the close of a community presentation, marking a significant moment for the artifact. If the bell can be restored in time, it will be used to ring out names at the community's annual blessing of the fleet in 2026. The...
WRANGELL — The Wrangell Borough Assembly has approved a $2.296 million contract to construct gravel streets and install buried utility lines at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision near Shoemaker Bay, almost $400,000 more than the engineers estimate of $1.9 million. The contract with Petersburg-based Rock-N-Road Construction, which was the only bidder on the job, will push total development costs for the 20 residential lots to about $4.1 million, more than double what the...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved a letter to Alaska’s congressional delegation urging cleanup of an abandoned mine that has been polluting a major salmon river for nearly seven decades. The Tulsequah Chief mine in British Columbia has discharged toxic wastewater into the headwaters of the Taku River since its abandonment in 1957, according to the letter signed by Mayor Mark Jensen on behalf of the assembly. “The Taku is a crucial ecological and economic resource for...
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The Petersburg High School track and field team had a strong finish to a successful season during the ASAA Division 2 State Championships in Anchorage. One of the reasons why this team had a successful season is due to their togetherness. "I think the best part about this season has been the team that we have has been very close, great energy, positive attitudes, excited about working hard and competing in their events. Seeing them step up and support each other has been really cool," said head...
Klas Stolpe, a sports reporter since the mid-1990s, was honored last month as this year's Region V winner of the ASAA Gold Lifetime Pass, presented by the Alaska School Activities Association for "extraordinary contribution to high school activities in Alaska and/or at the national level." The qualifications specified by ASAA are: "Significant service to high school students of Alaska through demonstrated leadership for at least twenty (20) years at the state and/or national level. Served as...
Thank you all! To the Editor: I want to express my most sincere and heartfelt (literally) thank you and appreciation for the rapid and exemplary care I received from our local EMTs/ambulance crew, all of the PMC ER nurses, doctors and hospital staff and the Petersburg Police Department last Wednesday. You all very well may have saved my life. I also want to give a shoutout and thank you to the Airlift Northwest nurses and crew on the medevac flight to Anchorage. The care I received on that flight was also exemplary. We are truly blessed in...
June 5, 1925 – Much interest is evinced in Petersburg over the trip of Roald Amundsen to the North Pole. Those most familiar with his methods and resourcefulness express very little anxiety over his fate, believing that he will return to civilization only after he has made a thorough examination of the great waste lands he set out to explore. Frederick Nelson, local agent of the Standard Oil Company, has an uncle, Helmer Hanson, now in Norway, who was with Amundsen on his trip to the South Pole, and who was the captain of the sloop Gjoa in...
Petersburg Indian Association disposed of ten junk vehicles from around the community last month. "Ten junk vehicles for people who couldn't get them up to the dump," said Brandon Thynes who oversees the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program (IGAP) for PIA. "It went really well, people were really up for it and it helped the community," said Thynes. "We contracted a towing company, and they towed the vehicle and took out the fluids and did the tires." More residents signed up than...
May 28 – An officer assisted Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Petersburg Police Department (PPD) received a report of a disabled vehicle on South 2nd Street. The owners were working to move it. An officer assisted EMS with a cardiac arrest on Mitkof Highway. PPD received a report of a lost CPAP machine. PPD received a report of a dog attempting to enter a neighbor’s house. The owner of the dog was contacted. An officer assisted a citizen. An officer issued a trespass warning to an individual who’d climbed scaffolding and was on the...
Petersburg Pilot... Full story
Petersburg Pilot... Full story
