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Dear Friends and Neighbors: After a lovely and restful Easter weekend the House is continuing to debate the operating budget. The House Finance Committee is working through nearly 100 amendments, but so far very few have passed. After the committee finishes the amendment process, they will vote on whether to pass the operating budget out of committee. After the bill moves from the House Finance Committee it will be another opportunity for members to offer budget amendments on the House Floor before the budget package is debated and voted on....
Maximum payouts from a fund that covers medical costs of injured seafood harvesters would be boosted under a bill that won final passage in the Alaska Legislature on Thursday. The measure, Senate Bill 93, would boost allowable payouts from the Fishermen’s Fund to $15,000 per injury or disablement from the current $10,000 maximum. The Fishermen’s Fund serves as something of a stand-in for workers’ compensation. Commercial fishers in Alaska are not covered by workers’ compensation insurance. The fund, which predates statehood, is adminis... Full story
The state ferry system carried 181,000 passengers in 2023, still short of the pre-COVID numbers in 2019 and down substantially from almost 340,000 in 2012 and more than 420,000 in 1992. Overall vehicle traffic also is down, from more than 115,000 in 2012 to 63,000 last year. Much of the decline corresponds to a reduction in the number of vessels in operation, according to statistics presented to a state Senate budget subcommittee on March 19. The fleet provided almost 400 “operating weeks” in 2012, with each week a ship is at sea counting as an...
The customer line was out the door on opening day at Fire! Bistro - Petersburg's newest restaurant located in the former conference room of Tides Inn. Community members looked forward to eating their fill of gourmet sandwiches, salads, wraps, and smoothies found on a new menu chock-full of flavors missing from the local food scene until Fire! Bistro opened March 5. Owner Chef Juan Herrera is no stranger to the food business. He earned a catering certificate and personal chef certificate from...
The Associated Teachers of Petersburg (ATP) and Petersburg School District are negotiating the next labor agreement that will take effect in the fall of 2024 and span three school years through spring 2027. Past negotiations between the teachers union and the district, which occur every three years, have largely focused on updating the contract language. This year, however, ATP and PSD are focusing more on when, where and how to allocate what limited money the district has to work with. ATP is...
The U.S. Census Bureau rejected Haines' appeal over the 2020 population count, which showed Haines’ population dropping by around 500 residents. “I’m deeply disappointed. I really thought that our response was compelling,” said borough clerk Alekka Fullerton, who worked on the appeal. “I was mad – it’s a big deal to our community.” The bureau counted 2080 residents in Haines in 2020. The borough appealed that number in June. Fullerton said a few weeks ago, she realized the borough still hadn’t received a response about its appeal. She reach...
Crew shortages continue to plague the Alaska Marine Highway, the ferry system’s director told a gathering of Southeast officials last week. “Our biggest shortage is in the engineering department,” where the 54 ship engineers on the payroll as of Jan. 26 were far short of the 81 needed for full staffing, Craig Tornga told a gathering of community, business and government leaders at the Southeast Conference on Feb. 7 in Juneau. “We’re short in the wheelhouse,” he added, down eight from a full contingent of 79 in the master, chief mate, secon...
Alaska’s courts have had a backlog of cases since courts shut down for months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The backlog has persisted, in part because of attorney shortages. The court typically carries many pending cases, but the number of pending cases is currently 27% higher for felonies and about 13% higher for misdemeanors than it was in 2019. “The overall numbers are going down, which is what we want to see,” said Stacey Marz, the Alaska State Court System’s administrative director. “We want to see fewer cases that are pending.” In the yea... Full story
In January, a newly-installed barbershop pole light turned on outside of Spruce Frisør, a walk-in barbershop that opened for business in downtown Petersburg. Carrie Martinsen, the owner and sole barber at Spruce Frisør, intends to keep her barbering business simple for both herself and clients in the community. "I've been doing this long enough that ... I just want simple and fun," she said. Martinsen has worked with hair "in some capacity or another" for nearly 30 years. "When I went to hair s...
Just before Christmas this year, Mori Hays, of Haines, and Petersburg's Julia Murph found themselves in an unfamiliar situation: waiting in line to take a selfie. Most of the past year and a half had been spent on the saddle of their bicycles slogging through thousands of miles of rain and heat, or camped out in soccer fields or deserts at night. Now they were fighting other tourists for a spot to get a photo in front of the iconic sign that stands in Ushuaia, Argentina, a windswept tourist...
Robyn Taylor spent the first six years of her career in the Alaska education system teaching in Petersburg, and the next 18 years elsewhere in the state as an administrator. Currently on year 24, Taylor is excited to return to the Petersburg School District as the next superintendent, in place of Erica Klut-Painter who will depart from the role at the end of this school year. "I'm just so appreciative of the opportunity," Taylor said. "Right timing, right place." Originally from Idaho, Taylor...
In January The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously voted to award the construction contract for the Blind Slough Hydroelectric refurbishment project to McG/Dawson Joint Venture for an amount not to exceed $5,744,000. The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved an ordinance in its first reading that would rezone a lot located at 10 N. 12th Street for commercial use. The rezoning was requested by the Petersburg Indian Association ahead of their prospective purchase of the lot, which h...
Correcting the wrongs of the past To the Editor: As the Landless Native bill works through Congress and many Alaskans eagerly await its passage and others oppose it, a look at the past provides a broader perspective. In the years prior to Statehood when Alaska was a Territory, there was a movement to repatriate lands to Alaska Natives through the creation of a system of reservations throughout the Territory. At the time, the Governor of Alaska was Ernest Gruening, a wise and learned man who believed strongly in Native rights. He did not...
Clear Answers to our Petersburg Medical Center, Part 1 To the Editor: Like many in Petersburg, I didn’t understand specifically why we needed a new facility and how it would be paid for. I addressed the facility problems in the previous two letters. Apparently the decision to build a new facility was made over twelve years ago. Our CEO, Phil Hofstetter, was hired almost six years ago to rebuild by the hospital board. The 2015 architectural report (8 years old) cites $43 million to repair the systems. This is not possible with patients there a...
Roller derby took a knee when COVID-19 hit, and it's been slow to get back up to speed, not only in Petersburg, but across Southeast and the state. But lately, after a recruitment push new skaters - "fresh meat" the derby squad calls them - are joining the Ragnarok Rollers in Petersburg. Out of Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan, Sitka, and Juneau, Juneau is the only other town in southeast that has put a full team back together. Experienced Petersburg skaters like Deck 'Em (Victoria Moore), and...
The board in charge of Alaska’s retirement system for public employees has recommended the closure of its commonly used managed accounts program after an independent review found workers were being charged high fees and receiving lower-than-expected returns. Managed accounts cover more than 10,000 of the 122,000-plus accounts in Alaska’s state employee retirement system and were the default option when the state switched from a pension-style retirement system to its current 401(k)-like approach in 2006. Many of those employees are only now dis... Full story
The Mitkof Mummers are setting the stage for their upcoming play, "McQuadle: A Dragon's Tale." With performance dates of November 9, 10, and 11 just weeks away, director Tiffany Glass aims to be off-book soon, meaning everyone should have their lines memorized. Three performances, instead of the usual two, is part of a new Mummer's fundraising goal: to replace the worn-out seats in the auditorium. The Mummers' costume sale in the Elk's Ballroom earlier this month was also for that long term goal...
After a period when COVID-19 restrictions halted the spread of other respiratory diseases, Alaska had a big increase in influenza cases, state data shows. The overall influenza case load during the 2022-23 season was much higher than in prior years, reports a new bulletin issued by the epidemiology section of the Alaska Division of Public Health. Most notably, cases spiked much earlier in the season, in November and December, before dropping. There were five influenza deaths over the season, all among adults, according to the bulletin, the late... Full story
Alaska Seaplanes has decided to shut down its Wrangell and Petersburg operations, citing poor economics. Its last flights to the communities are scheduled for Oct. 31. "Unfortunately, it wasn't financially sustainable with the ridership," Carl Ramseth, general manager, said Thursday, Oct. 5. "It hurts to pull out of those two communities." Alaska Seaplanes started scheduled service into Petersburg in spring 2021, with daily flights from Juneau, and added a Sitka-Petersburg-Wrangell-Sitka flight...
At the Alaska Hospital and Health Care Association (AHHA) conference in Girdwood last month, Petersburg Medical Center Long Term Care received the top award of Excellence in Quality for the 2023 Nursing Home Quality Awards. The Alaska Nursing Home Quality Achievement Award was bestowed to PMC by Mountain Pacific, a nonprofit corporation that oversees the quality of care for Medicare and Medicaid members through federal and state contracts, as a Gold Pan award for the quality of care delivered... Full story
The Alaska Division of Public Assistance has temporarily stopped dropping people from Medicaid for paperwork-related reasons after thousands of low-income Alaskans — including families with children — lost health coverage that they may still be eligible to receive. Nearly 14,000 households have lost their Medicaid coverage in the past two months. Almost 265,000 households were enrolled in the program as recently as April, before the state embarked on the federally required review of participants’ eligibility. The state Division of Public Assis...
High oil prices could provide an additional $500 for Alaskans a year from now. As part of the end-of-session budget deal put together by legislative leaders, particularly in the Senate, lawmakers in May adopted a provision in the fiscal year 2024 state spending plan that will provide a one-time “energy relief payment” next fall if state revenues exceed estimates. Global supply shortages, caused largely by production cuts in Saudi Arabia and Russia, have driven up oil prices and boosted state revenues for the first three months of the fis...
A record number of people visited Anan Wildlife Observatory this season - the largest amount since 2004, when the permit system was implemented. Of the 2,905 visitors who came through the observatory in 2023, 548 were independent or unguided and 2,357 were commercially guided. Guide companies used nearly 80% of their available permits - only 610 commercial permits were unused. The visitor count was slightly higher than the pre-pandemic peak in 2013 and much higher than the lowest recorded visito...
Negative stereotype To the Editor: In the spirit of free enterprise, Sig and Ambre Burrell are trying to address the demand for affordable housing in our community by developing a manufactured home neighborhood on their privately-owned land. Some people argue that Petersburg should not give up this beautiful open space; they also complain about ugliness and lack of cleanliness in mobile home parks and of prevalent crime in these neighborhoods. One individual believes that people who live in trailer homes neglect their pets and are outsiders,...
Candidates for the hotly contested seats on Petersburg Borough Assembly came together last Thursday for a live candidate forum where they responded to questions from news reporters with the Pilot and KFSK and questions from a live audience. After opening statements, the evening’s first question was the big one: Where do the candidates stand on the new hospital project? Jeigh Stanton Gregor and Jeff Meucci answered with clear, full support of the new hospital phased construction project. Candidates Rick Perkins and Rob Schwartz both emphasized t...
