Sorted by date Results 401 - 425 of 717
“I didn’t like what was happening with the (department head) restructuring thing. I didn’t have the energy to go through that fight,” two-term mayor Mark Jensen stated in explaining his single sentence resignation from the Petersburg Borough Assembly on May 18. If the department head changes had been proposed earlier, “it could have worked, instead of cramming it down our throats,” Jensen noted of the manager’s plan to realign department heads following the retirement of Power and Light Superintendent Joe Nelson. “The day after the last meetin...
Former Borough Mayor Mark Jensen said he was not aware of the Borough Manager’s decision to move Karl Hagerman into the Electric Superintendent’s position until a May 2 email from Steve Giesbrecht announced the personnel changes. The email began: “Please join me in congratulating several of our peers.” Next Giesbrecht wrote that both Public Works Superintendent Karl Hagerman and Asst. Public Works Superintendent Chris Cotta had accepted the positions of Utilities Director and Public Works Director, respectively. The email stated, “Both Karl and...
As your Borough Manager, my job is a combination of providing advice along with implementing the policies of your elected officials. This necessitates me taking criticism, including from those very people your elected officials (the Assembly) are trying to help. I am not whining, just stating a fact. Today I find myself involved in a debate that clearly I started when I made a proposal to save money in some of the community's utility departments (water, sewer, electric). The savings, about $110,...
We find the turmoil created by proposing that an inexperienced electric utility supervisor take over the Power and Light Department a very risky decision. It backfired. And it’s not about Karl Hagerman. Every employer would like to have a worker like Karl, but he needs time to learn the job before he can run an electric utility department. Unfortunately for the community, we lost a good mayor who worked hard for the Borough. Mark Jensen could not support the manager’s proposal for replacing retiring Joe Nelson and decided to resign rather tha...
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht's proposal to replace the retiring power and light superintendent with Public Works Superintendent Karl Hagerman, received strong criticism from both the public and the assembly on Monday night. Hagerman started with the City of Petersburg as a Water and Wastewater plant operator in 1992, and was named to the Public Works Director position by City Manager Bruce Jones in 2001. Hagerman has no experience in managing an electric utility. Petersburg Power and Light...
Representatives of the IBEW Local 1547 office in Ketchikan and the Power and Light Superintendent of Wrangell Power and Light have responded to Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht’s proposal to appoint Public Works Director Karl Hagerman to head the Petersburg Power and Light Department. Jay Rhodes, Assistant Business Manager of the IBEW Local 1547 wrote in a letter to Giesbrecht on May 12, “The proposed combining of the Power and Light Superinte-ndent with that of Water Wastewater Supervisor poses serious safety concerns for employees of the Pow...
Power and Light Superintendent Joe Nelson announced his retirement effective June 30. Nelson has held the position since March of 2003. Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht proposes to fill the vacancy by merging management duties and will propose to the Assembly that Public Works Superintendent Karl Hagerman fill the PMP&L vacancy and assume the title of Utilities Director. Hagerman started with the City of Petersburg as a Water and Wastewater plant operator in 1992, and was named to the Public...
WRANGELL – Topping Tuesday’s city agenda was a continued discussion of the city’s residential and commercial water rates, which have lagged well behind covering costs. In light of looming supply problems (see water plant story), significant capital investments ahead for a new plant, and prospective development at the Institute and former mill sites, every penny counts for the water enterprise fund. At the past several meetings, interim city manager Carol Rushmore presented Assembly members with an assessment of rates charged to local water...
Staff numbers have been boosted for Wrangell’s ailing water treatment plant this summer in an effort to keep up with increased demand. Sedimentation has built up over the life of the 18-year-old plant’s slow sand filtration system, an increasing weight on efficiency, which last summer resulted in an emergency shortage of treated water. Measures to curb Wrangell’s usage were taken as a result, causing some disruption to the water-intensive seafood processors’ seasonal operations. Public Works director Amber Al-Haddad explained the plant was poor...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – An Alaska lawmaker who set off a firestorm by suggesting women try to get pregnant for a “free trip to the city” for abortions is a military veteran and first-year representative who has developed a reputation for being outspoken in his conservative beliefs. Rep. David Eastman, a Republican from Wasilla, is a firefighter and father of two young children. Eastman found himself in the hot seat last week when he discussed his concerns about the use of state funds and Medicaid for abortions. In an interview with The Assoc...
WRANGELL – At its regularly-scheduled meeting Tuesday evening, the City and Borough Assembly revisited the water crisis that potentially looms over the coming summer. Public Works director Amber Al-Haddad reported efforts to “plunge” two of the plant’s four slow-sand filtration bays in order to clean them since last week showed promise. However, she was careful to point out that the method was still in its infancy, and only time and repetition would reveal how effective it actually is. Her plan is to plunge each of the filters in turn, repeati...
WRANGELL – The Borough Assembly convened in a special meeting midday Monday to change course on actions it took last week to curb water production issues this summer. Last Tuesday the Assembly approved moving forward with funding the redesign and installation of a new roughing filter system and purchasing fresh silicate for one of its four slow-sand filtration units at the water treatment plant. The intent was to address persistent clogging in the units from built up sediment, which was l...
The Petersburg Medical Center will provide the public a time to create a living will using the Five Wishes document. The booklet allows anyone 18 years or older a way to control how they are treated if they get seriously ill and cannot speak for themselves. The meeting will be from 7-8 p.m. at the Dorothy Ingle Conference Room on Wednesday, April 19. The Five Wishes document will be explained and questions about it will be answered. Five Wishes is a living will that talks about people’s personal, emotional and spiritual needs as well as t...
Despite a high participation rate in the Petersburg Borough’s recycling program there is still too much recyclable material going to the baler facility, according to Public Works Superintendent Karl Hagerman. 95% of Petersburg’s 1,200 sanitation customers participate in the recycling program, but Hagerman says the waste diversion rate hovers around 16%. Hagerman wants to move that number to 30-50%. Recycling can make a significant difference in the cost of removing trash from Mitkof Island. The sanitation department pays $113/ton to ship garbag...
Petersburg Power and Light is seeking to fill a vacant journeyman lineman position to enable the local crews to complete improvements and upgrades to the utility infrastructure. At a Friday morning work session Superintendent Joe Nelson told the Assembly his workers can complete the work at lower cost to the utility than hiring contract workers from Juneau. Nelson said Chatham Electric in Juneau could do the work at more than double the cost of local crews. A Chatham foreman would cost $175/hr and overtime would cost $242/hr. PMP&L’s foreman w...
March 23, 1917 – Ole and Peter Knutsen arrived home on the Spokane, Monday, after a several months’ visit in Puget Sound cities. They are now getting their barrel factory in shape for the season’s operations. Although hoop iron is still a scarce article, they managed to secure sufficient for a couple of thousand barrels, and also have some left over from last season. March 27, 1942 – Crews of the Alaska Steamship Company boats have been ordered by the post office department not to accept mail from anyone, unless there is a mail clerk aboared...
City Manager Steve Giesbrecht presented the following information to the Borough Assembly at Monday’s meeting. We have been getting a false alarm indication at the Main Street Sub transformer. We plan to replace the faulty switch during the scheduled maintenance shutdown of the transformer. The top of this unit often needs cleaning (branches, leaves, moss, etc.) because of the size and close proximity to the grove of trees. Joe Nelson’s been working with Parks and Rec to address lighting issues in their back parking lot. We are hoping to com...
The Petersburg Borough is responding to accusations that it made an illegal search of Karen Ellingstad's Wrangell Avenue home on Jan. 9 and 13, 2014 to seek and retrieve asbestos samples prior to the scheduled demolition that had been upheld by the Superior Court. Furthermore, Ellingstad states that entry to her home by Public Works Director Karl Hagerman violated her right to privacy and required a search warrant based on the Fourth Amendment and Art. 1, Sec. 14 of the Alaska Constitution....
Borough-wide trash collection should go more quickly, with the arrival of a 2017 side-loading vehicle, according to Public Works Director Karl Hagerman. The Borough’s oldest trash collection vehicle has been out of service since the start of the year. The 2006 vehicle “has had one problem after another,” so the sanitation department has gotten by with two trucks, collecting both recycle totes as well as trash, according to Hagerman. Hagerman explained that crews often had to pull trash from large totes by hand, since the rear-loading truck...
Oversight and communication by the Chief Financial Officer are a key component of PMC's strategic plan to achieve a break-even operation. The CFO is charged to balance quarterly spending with revenue and reimbursement in each department and control unnecessary waste at PMC. Doran Hammet, CFO, regularly communicates PMC's financial position to employees, physicians, management and the board. He does this at monthly meetings of the hospital board. He assures that pricing is competitive and he...
Petersburg Rotarian Rick Braun traveled to India recently to administer polio vaccines and help build two dams to create a water retention reservoir. The reservoir will provide both crop irrigation water and raise the underground water table, enabling area wells to store more water for village residents. Braun has been a member of the Petersburg Rotary Club since 1987. The club has carried out fundraising projects for the organization's Polio Plus project for decades. Braun said polio has been...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly gathered in its newly renovated municipal building this week during its February 27 meeting. During the meeting, the assembly passed 5-2 in its final reading an ordinance updating from city to borough code a Local Improvement District (LID) that allows for property owner-funded capital improvement projects. The ordinance would, in part, take advantage of the SECON asphalt plant while it’s in town by offering residents of select neighborhoods the opportunity to pay for their streets to be paved. The assembly a...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly discussed a request made by the Petersburg School District and Petersburg Medical Center to pay a lower power rate last month. The request comes after meetings between PSD, PMC and borough administrators on how to maintain services without increasing fees or taxes. "The school, the hospital and the borough have been getting together in these meetings to try to figure out ways that we can continue to function in the way the community wants without having to cut...
Paving proposal unanimously The Petersburg Borough Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday to approve a program known as a local improvement district or LID. The program is taking a private approach to funding paving improvements in a select number of neighborhoods around town. Public Works director Karl Hagerman gave details about the program at the assembly’s last meeting and assembly members asked for a resolution prior to granting any approval. The time also allowed assembly members to learn more about LID and why Hagerman was so passionate a...
January Public Works rolled out the borough's highly anticipated blue cart recycling program. The borough received $820,117.61 from the annual raw fish tax. Dave Zimmerman was hired as the new Tongass National Forest Petersburg District Ranger. The assembly continued discussing the reallocation of the Kake access road funding. Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins took part in a budget crisis presentation at Sons of Norway Hall. The visit was the first of many by representatives throughout the...
