Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 1808
January 2024 A prized Mental Health Trust lot by Blind River Rapids, a popular recreation site for sport fishing, was sold at auction to a USCG family. Toler and Jessie Alexander are eager to return to Petersburg after retiring from the Coast Guard in a few years. The borough listed its top priority capital projects, and the Petersburg Medical Center replacement was first and second on the list – for the main hospital construction and the main hospital interior build out. Petersburg Indian A...
The Petersburg Borough will enter negotiations with a local developer who wants to buy seven borough-owned lots between Severson Subdivision and Skylark Way. Skylark Park LLC wants to develop the land into a major subdivision with roads and utilities that could provide cheaper housing options in Petersburg. In 2023, a survey found that the town needs over 300 more housing units in the next decade. Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht told the Petersburg Borough Assembly at a meeting Dec. 2 that...
On Monday the Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution opposing a proposal coming before the Board of Fish two months from now which seeks to reduce the production of hatchery chum and hatchery pink salmon in Southeast Alaska by 25 percent. Max Worhatch, a Petersburg commercial salmon fisherman, addressed the assembly at the start of Monday’s meeting “to voice the commercial fishing industry’s support of a resolution to oppose the Board of Fish Proposal 156.” “Hatchery production has long been an important element of the vi...
Mitkof Highway was closed to through traffic for around eight hours on Sunday, Dec. 1, after a power pole snapped under the weight of snow and ice on the line – leaving power lines on the ground crossing the highway. The pole failure occurred around 2:30 p.m. just past 9-mile and caused an 11 hour 10 minute power outage for the entire circuit from the Scow Bay substation out to Blind Slough. Winds reached 35 mph with sideways rain as the crew from Petersburg Municipal Power and Light worked i...
Staff at Petersburg Medical Center sprung into action earlier this month when a sudden leak erupted from part of the building's hydronic heating system, spewing dozens of gallons of mixed water in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) room behind the nurse's station on the hospital's second floor. Maintenance staff were able to patch the leak with plumbing parts, but have not been able to find a replacement for the actual piece that was leaking yet. There was not a patient in that particular room at the... Full story
Before a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision removed the legal barrier to apply local sales taxes to online purchases, states and municipalities were blocked from collecting sales taxes from sellers that did not have a physical presence in the tax jurisdiction. Most online merchants declined to collect sales taxes on goods shipped into states and cities with a local tax. Residents of Petersburg could purchase tax-free orders from Walmart, Eddie Bauer and other vendors online. After the ruling, to...
Earlier this month, the Petersburg Borough Assembly passed an ordinance updating the sales tax chapter of municipal code to clarify exemptions and rules for businesses, modernize definitions and organize information for better transparency - borough officials emphasized that the ordinance does not introduce new taxes or exemptions, nor does it change how sales tax is applied locally. The amendment highlights existing information about sales tax into clear new sections and adds definitions that w...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly adopted a few ordinances on Monday - one of which will increase and establish certain charges for residents of Mountain View Manor Assisted Living Facility, and another that clarifies the process of selling borough-owned tidelands. ORDINANCE #2024-20 Beginning in 2025, new residents moving into the Mountain View Manor Assisted Living Facility will pay a one-time Community Facility Fee of $2,000. Proceeds will go toward maintenance and repair of the facility. If a...
A new ordinance being considered by the Petersburg Borough Assembly proposes adding a new section about "inactive vessels" to the municipal harbors section of borough code. Adopting the new language would impose certain requirements —including storage fees, a marine condition survey, and proof of insurance— on vessels that don't leave their moorage stall in the harbor for 12 consecutive months or longer. The ordinance aims to encourage active, regular use of vessels that are moored in bor...
American Cruise Lines —operators of a small cruise ship that frequents Petersburg during the summer— is working with the borough to design and potentially build a dedicated cruise ship docking space at the end of Dock Street. Having a guaranteed place for the cruise line to dock could help the harbor department to better manage vessel congestion in the inner harbor. Splitting the cost with American Cruise Lines (ACL), the borough has hired PND Engineering for conceptual drawings to assess wha...
A borough-owned parcel near Sandy Beach will undergo a rezoning process before it is auctioned for sale. The Petersburg Borough Assembly weighed an application to purchase the vacant 2.3-acre lot at 1020 Sandy Beach Road and, with a contested vote, decided the parcel should be rezoned prior to selling it. Rezoning the lot would make it eligible for developing more single-family homes and align it with the zoning in the surrounding neighborhood along Sandy Beach Road. Now the parcel will be sent...
The U.S. Forest Service Petersburg Ranger District is temporarily moving office operations to Scow Bay while the downtown headquarters is renovated. Work on the downtown office —including a complete renovation of the interior of the building— is estimated to start in January 2025 and could last two years. Until then, the Harris Building —at 123 Scow Bay Loop Road— will be the de facto Petersburg District office location where the public can meet with USFS staff. Work at the downtown office site...
Petersburg Borough is set to request over $3.5 million in state loans to help fund the long-anticipated vessel haul-out and work yard project at Scow Bay. The Petersburg Borough Assembly passed a resolution on Oct. 21, authorizing the loan application to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) for the Scow Bay infrastructure project. It passed unanimously in a 6-0 vote, with assembly member Bob Lynn excused. The borough will apply to ADEC's revolving fund program for...
An updated set of procedures for future sales of borough-owned tidelands could be codified this November. The Petersburg Borough Assembly is considering a new ordinance that would update municipal code to clarify the process of selling borough-owned tidelands and establish that such sales would be considered at no less than the appraised value —rather than the assessed value— of the land. The ordinance would add not one, not two, but three new sections under the Tidelands chapter of borough mun...
Faced with increased operational costs from inflation and higher utility expenses, paired with rates that are several years out-of-date, the financial sustainability of Mountain View Manor Assisted Living Facility is under review. A new ordinance brought before the Petersburg Borough Assembly this week would increase and establish certain charges for residents. Among the changes, the ordinance would install a one-time "Community Facility Fee" of $2,000 for new residents moving into the facility...
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) officials hear that processors have mostly cleared out their overflowing inventories of Alaska salmon from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, but the problem remains that Americans don’t buy enough seafood to sustain consistently profitable sales, particularly in years of strong salmon runs. And while last year’s problem was an oversupplied market, which pushed prices paid to fishermen to as low as 20 cents a pound for pink and chum salmon, this year’s harvest may come up short of a robust supply, Greg Smith...
Upgrades are in the works for a few amenities at Sandy Beach recreational area, including a year-round restroom, parking improvements, and the ongoing extension work on City Creek Trail. Sandy Beach is a place for all sorts of recreational happenings. The beachfront park and picnic area includes a few shelters, benches, firepits, barbecues, a playground, as well as a totem pole and four informational signs at the plaza installed this summer. Visitors also park at the Sandy Beach area to access...
WRANGELL – The borough wants a data center to plug into Wrangell. Better yet, it could even move into the unused formal hospital property. Data centers are large hosting sites for multiple servers that provide computing power and storage for cloud-based service providers. While at Southeast Conference, held in Ketchikan last month, borough representatives spoke with Sam Enoka, founder and CEO of Greensparc — a San Francisco-based technology company that specializes in setting up modular, small-scale data centers for cloud computing. Enoka gre...
Proposition 2 failed in the regular municipal election last week by an official total of five votes. The Petersburg Borough Assembly certified the election results in a special meeting Oct. 4, when outstanding ballots were counted toward the final tally. Julie Spigelmyre won the contested Library Board seat with 567 votes total; incumbent Gina Esposito had 554 votes and was not reelected. Proposition 2 failed with 516 votes in favor, and 521 votes against it. Prop 2 would have increased the...
A $900 thousand grant from the Denali Commission will help fund a borough project at Banana Point to replace the floating breakwater, reviving an undertaking years in the making. The boat launch at Banana Point is critical transportation infrastructure - but its existing breakwater system has deteriorated and no longer protects boaters as desired. There is a required 10 percent borough match tied to the grant -meaning if all the funding is spent, the borough would contribute $90 thousand....
Echoing a previous attempt that fell through last year due to cost, Skylark Park LLC recently reprised their request to purchase parcels owned by the Petersburg Borough. Skylark Park LLC filed to purchase the same parcels of borough property that they pursued last fall. The original effort to purchase these parcels did not proceed for Skylark LLC last year. At the time, Petersburg municipal code had no mechanism for the borough to sell parcels at less than assessed value for housing or large...
The preliminary results of the Petersburg 2024 Municipal Election are in. When the voting window closed Tuesday evening, 1,051 voters had cast their ballot. There are outstanding ballots that will be counted when the election results are certified this Friday. Those votes could potentially change the outcome for Proposition 2 and one contested Library Board seat. Among the five candidates who ran for the two three-year terms on the borough assembly, incumbent Bob Lynn received the most votes...
Voters in Alaska's capital city have rejected a resident-written ballot proposition that would have banned large cruise ships on Saturdays and the Fourth of July.Tuesday was municipal election day for most of Alaska's cities and boroughs, and in preliminary results in Juneau, about 60% of participating voters sided against the "ship-free Saturdays" initiative. Some ballots have yet to be counted but are not expected to change the result. Elsewhere across the state, municipal elections saw... Full story
Facing unavoidable costs for water and wastewater upgrades, borough authorities stress the need for voters to pass Proposition 4 in the municipal election next week. Passing Prop 4 will authorize the borough to borrow up to $19.3 million from the state to fund 12 water and wastewater projects slated for the next six years in Petersburg. The loans would not be borrowed all at once. On a project-by-project basis, each would need to be approved by the assembly before the borough could pursue the... Full story
Your vote matters To the Editor: As you may remember, I won a seat on the Borough Assembly last October by 1 vote… the very last vote to be counted from absentee ballots. Nearly a year later I am still grateful and humbled by that outcome. After the election, people shared stories of: driving through the Yukon to mail their ballots, voting via email from Europe, voting from college, and even a few stories of nearly forgetting to vote after dinner on election day. To be Captain Obvious, if any of those folks did not vote, the outcome of the e...
