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The Petersburg School Board voted in its first reading a district memorial policy last week—the lack of which caused some confusion and conflict between district staff and members of the public two years ago. The policy would, in part, limit the display of student memorials for a two-week period. Petersburg School District Superintendent Erika Kludt-Painter said her predecessor, along with district staff, removed a memorial to Jake Madsen, a Petersburg High School student athlete who died in a... Full story
Memorial policy To the Editor: I am very saddened by the decision of the School Board to not include the Jacob Madsen Memorial with the other memorials in the school that the School Board has decided to grandfather in. The memorial will be taken down with the writing and passing of their new memorial policy at the next reading/meeting. The Jacob Madsen Memorial is currently hanging in the High School gymnasium. I understand the reason we need a memorial policy. I am writing today because I feel the existing memorials that are already in the...
Four hundred and seven Petersburg voters cast their ballots Oct. 6 for this year’s borough election, which included one ballot measure along with uncontested candidates who will continue to serve on various seats across the borough’s assembly, boards and commissions. Voters elected newcomer Eric Castro who will serve on a three-year seat on the Petersburg Borough Assembly along with incumbent Nancy Strand. Incumbent’s Cheryl File and Jay Lister will serve three-year terms on the Petersburg School Board. Mara Lutomski will serve a one-y... Full story
October 6, 2015 Total ballots cast - 407 Assembly - 3 yr term: Eric Castro - 336 Nancy Strand - 305 School Board - 3 yr term: Cheryl File - 337 Jay Q. Lister - 340 School Board - 1 yr term: Mara E. Lutomski - 336 Harbor Board - 3 yr term (2 open seats): Bob Martin - 312 John Murgas - 217 Jim Stromdahl - 195 Hospital Board - 3 yr term: Marlene Cushing - 367 Hospital Board - 2 yr term: Kris A. Thynes - 343 Public Safety Board - 1 yr term: Gina E. Meucci - 339 Planning & Zoning Commission - 3 yr term: David Kensinger - 323 Otis Marsh - 320... Full story
The Petersburg School Board met in a work session last week to discuss the implementation of random drug testing for Petersburg High School students participating in activities. The board kicked off the discussion highlighting criticisms and questions they’ve heard from community members regarding drug testing. Board member Mara Lutomski said one of the common concerns she hears is whether or not teachers and coaches will be tested along with students. While coaches and teachers wouldn’t likely be randomly drug tested, the board can request dru...
Petersburg Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht reported the following information during the October 5 borough assembly meeting: Four Petersburg High School students are participating in this year’s Junior Firefighter Program. The annual Fire Prevention Program for Rae C Stedman elementary school kids kicks off this week, Oct. 5-9. EMS Director Sandy Dixson will attend the grant required Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Fall Preparedness Conference in Anchorage, Oct. 5-10. Harbor staff is winterizing the harbor f...
This year's School Board candidates are all three incumbents running unopposed. Mara Lutomski is the newest member to the board. She was appointed to the position in April to fill a vacancy left by Jean Ellis who resigned from the board in March. Jay Lister has served since last year and Cheryl File has served a three-year term. Cheryl File for School Board Name: Cheryl File Age: 44 Occupation: stay-at-home mom Political Experience: Three years on the school board Why did you choose to run for...
Name: Nancy Strand Age: legal Occupation: Retired Education: Graduated Petersburg High School Class of 1963, attended Oregon State University 1 1/4 years, diverse education continues daily Political Experience: Served a few times on the local utility board; Served on Petersburg City Council and Borough Assembly Why did you choose to run for the Borough Assembly? Received lots of positive encouragement from my diverse constituency to run again What are some of the biggest issues or concerns...
The Petersburg Chamber of Commerce announced this week that they have hired John Havrilek as the new Administrative Manager of the organization. He replaces Cindi Lagoudakis who resigned in August. Havrilek will assume the administrative duties of the organization and work with the 11-person board of directors in fulfilling the chamber's community-wide mission. President Seth Scrimsher expressed appreciation to Lagoudakis for her work the past 20-months and welcomed Havrilek, who began his...
September 18, 1915 – The power barge Elliott, Captain W. H. Royden, arrived in port on Friday of last week from a six weeks' shark-fishing cruise. The cruise was successful, the scow bringing in forty-one barrels of oil and twenty-nine barrels of salmon bellies. The salmon were seined for bait, the backs being used for that purpose. The total number of sharks caught was 362, and the oil rendered averaged about five gallons per shark liver. The principle demand for shark-liver oil comes from the paint companies. The oil is said to be a very f...
The Petersburg School Board held its first meeting of the 2015 school year. At the meeting, the board unanimously approved spending $18,510 for the much needed addition of an exhaust hood in the cafeteria kitchen. “We have received a health code violation because we do not have an exhaust hood over our stove and steam kettle,” said Daniel Tate, maintenance/facilities director. “The school never was designed with a cafeteria, it was essentially put into a multipurpose room.” Tate believes the cafeteria was originally called a gymnasium on the... Full story
September 11, 1915 – When the cannery boats arrived in last Sunday morning with 27,000 seine fish the catch for the season was finished, and within a couple of weeks the cannery crew will have completed work. The Petersburg pack this season is the largest put up by any cannery in this section of South-eastern Alaska, and is a record pack for the cannery, exceeding by 8,000 cases the output for any previous year. The total pack is 63,000 cases, of which about 50,000 are pinks, 6,000 reds, and the balance cohoes, with a few chums. The m...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly met on Thursday, Aug. 20, instead of their regularly Monday meeting, and took on a light agenda. An ordinance to create a local exemption to the state’s financial disclosure requirement for some public officials passed unanimously on its third and final reading, which will leave voters to make the final decision on the matter in the Oct. 6 Municipal Election. The financial disclosure requirement was put in place by the state to ensure that individuals do not use public service for personal financial gain. For man... Full story
Just six residents have filed paperwork with the Borough clerk to run as candidates in the October municipal election. There are 21 vacancies on seven local boards and commissions up for election, including two 3-year terms on the Petersburg Borough Assembly. The Planning and Zoning Commission has garnered three candidates—Tom Stearns, Mike Bangs, and Otis Marsh—each of whom holds a current seat on the commission. When vacancies were first posted, there were five open seats for the commission, but in the interim commissioner James Demko ten... Full story
The School Board met again after a one-month summer break on Tuesday evening, but they picked back up where they left off in June, talking about the budget. “I feel like that’s all I’ve talked about for six months, since I walked into this thing, is money, money, money,” Superintendent Erica Kludt-Painter said at the start of her report to the board. She and Finance Director Karen Quitslund had mostly good news to report regarding some loose ends that had been tied up by the legislature during the board’s June break. In particular, the legis... Full story
August 14, 1915 – The fast and commodious launch Trigby will leave Petersburg next Monday for Cape Fanshaw, Port Houghton, Pybus Bay, Tyee, Warm Springs Bay, Kuiu Island points, and Kake. Such is the announcement of S.L. Hogue, who this week purchased the Trigby from Conrad Dahl. It is Hogue's intention to make a trial trip to the points above listed, and if it appears that business will justify the enterprise, to make weekly return trips, carrying passengers, mail, and freight, and also to take orders for and deliver merchandise to people a...
The Petersburg School Board unanimously approved a list of capital projects for the district at their Tuesday evening meeting. Maintenance Director Dan Tate helped prepare and prioritize the list, which outlines the district’s needed capital projects for the coming six years and is required for submittal to the legislature for possible grant funding. Rather than being a straightforward list of priorities, projects are ranked strategically to garner points from legislators who prepare an overall ranked list for funding for new capital p...
An ordinance to allow voters to determine whether or not local public officials should be exempt from state financial disclosure requirements was passed on second reading by the Assembly at Monday’s regular meeting. By Alaska State law, certain public officials are required to report their income sources and other assets in an effort to ensure private interests do not conflict with their public service. Municipalities reserve the right to exempt their local public officials from the requirement, and locally there has been concern that not d... Full story
School enrollment will be a little bit easier for parents and staff this year as the Petersburg Medical Center (PMC) was selected to pilot a program that will transmit vaccine records, sports physicals and other pertinent medical information directly to the school. “We’ve been asked to pilot a program through AeHN (Alaska eHealth Network), which is a state-affiliated program,” said PMC Informatics Director Jill Dormer at last Thursday’s hospital board meeting. “They are going to pay us…to set up an interface connection with the school dist...
Residents wishing to serve or continue serving as local officials can file for candidacy for 20 vacant positions (see sidebar) on seven different boards and commissions starting Tuesday, July 28. Candidates for the Borough Assembly, School Board or Planning Commission are required by the state to file a financial disclosure statement disclosing their income sources and business interests, though that may change in the coming years if voters approve an ordinance exempting public officials in the...
June 10, 1915 – At an adjourned meeting of the council Thursday evening it was decided to send a delegate to Juneau to take up the matter of the building of the Petersburg – Scow Bay board walk with J.C. Hayes, superintendent of construction of the road commission of Alaska. A delegation from Scow Bay was present and acted with the council in the matter. S. L. Hogue was selected as the delegate. Resolutions on the subject passed by the Scow Bay school board will also be presented to Mr. Hayes. June 12, 1940 – Three salmon canneries are runni...
The Petersburg School District doesn’t “anticipate any large fluctuations” with the budget the state passed June 11, Finance Director Karen Quitslund said. The school board passed the district’s budget just two days before, on June 9, in order to meet a state deadline. But what the legislature passed “is what the school district projected for our operating budget,” Quitslund said. As planned, the district is losing $150,000 in HB278 and $30,000 in food grants. The Healthy Living grant that was a concern is being partially funded, though the...
Two borough committees are searching for new members while another is welcoming one. The Borough Assembly approved Dr. Monica Gross as the Petersburg Medical Center Board of Directors’ newest member during its meeting Monday evening. She’s filling a vacancy left behind by Steven Samuelson, who resigned in April. Samuelson had served on the board since February 2014 and tendered his resignation because he wouldn’t be in town for meetings. During a hospital board meeting last month, Medical Records Director Janet Kvernvik clarified that Gross...
Alaska trawl bycatch halibut To the Editor: Our North Pacific Fisheries Management Council just met in Sitka, Alaska. Trawl bycatch (non-targeted species) of juvenile halibut in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands was on the agenda. Around 130 people gave public comment on this topic in addition to 3 inches of paper letters in a spiral binder compiling written public comments. The overwhelming majority urging the council for a 50 percent reduction in halibut waste. A reduction of roughly 20 percent allowable trawl bycatch of halibut was...
The state still hasn’t decided on a budget, but the Petersburg School District has. The school board approved the district’s 2016 budget during its monthly meeting Tuesday evening in assembly chambers. Finance Director Karen Quitslund said Petersburg schools’ are looking at an $8.4 million general fund next year. “Well this has certainly been a very interesting budget year,” she said, adding she may not have survived it if it had been her first year in the job. While there are still uncertainties, the district’s budget is due to the state b... Full story
