Sorted by date Results 526 - 550 of 736
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...
It's a frustrating plant when out fishing, but the prickly devil's club won Petersburg's Sunny Rice second in a statewide Salmon Haiku Contest. Sponsored by The Salmon Project, a group focused on exploring the deep relationship Alaskans have with wild salmon, the second annual Salmon Haiku Contest ran from May 1 to May 15 and encouraged participants to express their understanding of salmon habitat through poetry. This year, over 1,000 entries submitted across Alaska were judged, said Emily...
A one handed clap best describes the reaction to the 43,000 signature drop off by anti-salmon setnet advocates at the Division of Elections last week. It means enough signatures were gathered to include the question on the 2016 primary election ballot, and let Alaska voters decide whether to ban setnets at Cook Inlet, Mat-Su, Anchorage, Juneau, Valdez, Ketchikan, and any communities designated as “urban” and “non-subsistence” in the future. The ban is being pushed one-handed by the Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance (AFCA), whose board o...
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht gave the following report at Monday’s assembly meeting: The Middle Harbor waterline is back on. Crew from Rock N Road assisted the Harbor maintenance crew over the last week as the line was lengthened and laid completely outside of the problem area. EMS Marine Survey performed a condition survey on the Homeland Security boat as required by insurance every third year. All looked fine and no maintenance exceptions were noted. The Drive Down Facility is busy with 157 annual permits sold thus far. Mark Morris c...
WRANGELL - The next steps have been taken on an agreement between the University of Alaska Southeast and Wrangell Public School District, with the establishment of an office for the university's technical preparation program. The tech prep program is offered for college credit through the university, and courses are taught by approved instructors using UAS syllabi. Enrolled students earn high school credits needed for graduation as well, and school superintendent Patrick Mayer explained the...
State Department of Environmental Conservation results are in, and there don’t appear to be any issues with water quality after an accidental spill of waste at the borough’s landfill in late March. The borough’s Wastewater Utility transports and buries piles of solid waste at the landfill about once a week. While digging a hole with an excavator, Public Works Director Karl Hagerman said, sludge sitting to the side to be buried slid down a hill to a stream that runs to the Sandy Beach Park area. Mike Solter with DEC’s Division of Water said th...
A short-lived farm property tax exemption proposal died during an assembly meeting Monday afternoon. Assembly member Jeigh Stanton Gregor had been contacted by residents on the possibility of the exemption earlier this year and asked in January if he could work with staff to develop an ordinance for future consideration. On Monday he said he liked “the idea of promoting agriculture in Southeast” because it’s challenging, but added that he could no longer support the ordinance knowing the exemption would also apply to marijuana grow opera...
As part of his bi-monthly report to the Assembly, Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht gave updates on the road construction projects happening around town. SECON and Rock N Road are making slow but steady progress on gravity sewer work on Sing Lee Alley. Giesbrecht said it is "one of the deepest and most complicated sections of underground work on the project." SECON has also started work on the sidewalks, curbs and gutters on Haugen Drive. Giesbrecht reminded the public to drive slowly through...
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht gave the following report at Monday’s Assembly meeting: -On May 12, the Harbor Department had their annual surprise visit from the US Coast Guard Homeland Security unit to review the Borough’s Harbor Homeland Security Plan. They passed with no deficiencies. On May 26, Eddy Tagaban and Officer Jim Kerr attended the annual meeting in Wrangell with the Captain of the Port to discuss homeland security and other Coast Guard issues. -Public Works waited until after Memorial Day to begin work on the Columbarium foundat...
One of Petersburg's biggest construction projects is nearing its end as the other's just beginning. Work on the $8.6 million Haugen-Nordic road project started last week while nearly $3 million worth of runway resurfacing at the Petersburg James A. Johnson Airport is expected to wrap up by the end of next month, Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities spokesman Jeremy Woodrow said. Utility work at the end of Sing Lee Alley, on the south side of Rasmus Enge Bridge, got Phase One... Full story
The Assembly unanimously passed, on second reading, an ordinance that would create a special revenue fund to house Transient Room Tax (TRT) revenues. Those funds currently go into the General Fund, and Finance Director Jody Tow said moving them to a special fund will increase transparency during future budget decisions. Passing the ordinance will also result in the dissolution of the TRT committee and grant process they once oversaw. Assembly Member and Chamber of Commerce Director Cindi Lagoudakis said the Chamber board explained, “the T...
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht gave the following report at Monday’s Assembly meeting: Community Development and Finance staff are working to streamline the process of issuing building permits and other land use permits. With both departments in the same building, we need a new procedure for customers to help make the process easier. Community Development staff have also begun the process, with the attorney, to develop procedures and new documentation (letters, notices) for use with the new nuisance ordinance. Fire/EMS Director Sandy D...
How much are fishermen affected by long term health problems like hearing loss, lack of sleep and high blood pressure? A pilot study aims to find out and researchers are using the 500-plus members of the Copper River salmon driftnet fleet as test subjects. “The Copper River fishing season lasts five months and most of the fleet is very digitally connected so it seemed a great fit,” said Torie Baker, a Sea Grant Marine Advisory Agent in Cordova. Baker is the point person for the project being done by the School of Public Health at the Uni...
A petition to retain the blue bags as part of the Borough’s curbside recycling program has been withdrawn by its sponsor Angela Davis and 13 co-sponsors, bringing to an end a several months long debate about the future of recycling collection in Petersburg. Davis submitted the withdraw in a letter to the Borough dated April 23. In it she wrote, “In light of the approval of resolution #2015-09…I do not feel that it is in the best interest of the community to have increased garbage rates and to have two competing recycling programs.” The resolut... Full story
The Petersburg Borough Public Works Department has met a 48 hour nuisance abatement order issued by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for a spillage of waste, but an investigation continues. The Wastewater Utility transports and buries piles of solid waste at the borough's landfill about once a week. Last week, while digging a hole with an excavator, Public Works Director Karl Hagerman said, sludge sitting to the side to be buried slid down a hill to a stream that runs to the... Full story
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht gave the following report at Monday’s regular Assembly meeting: • PFI manager Patrick Wilson has been chosen as the Grand Marshal for the 4th of July festivities. This year’s theme is “Freedom, FROZEN in time.” • Public Works staff helped expand the running track at the school. While not a full-distance track, it will be better for the kids to have some straightaways to practice on. • Crews will take advantage of dry weather to paint crosswalks and curbs downtown in the coming days before Mayfest. • Public Works...
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Division of Water has issued a nuisance abatement order giving the Petersburg Borough Public Works Department 48 hours to clean up a spillage of waste. The Wastewater Utility transports and buries piles of solid waste at the borough’s landfill. This week, while digging a hole with an excavator, Public Works Director Karl Hagerman said, sludge sitting to the side to be buried slid down a hill to a creek that runs to the Sandy Beach Park a...
Petersburg residents will get to choose whether to haul their recyclables to the curb in a cart or a blue bag, following the Assembly’s approval of a resolution Monday night that provides for the dual program. The new program is aimed at maximizing recycling participants, some of whom favor the continuation of the blue bag program and others who’d like to see a move to a cart-based system. The resolution that passed on a 5-1 vote includes all the elements of the initiative petition submitted by Angela and Wes Davis and certified as suf... Full story
Mayor Mark Jensen and Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht announced at Monday’s Assembly meeting that Petersburg Public Schools will be granted Secure Rural Schools funding for this academic year and next. The two-year funding extension was included as a provision in the US House’s Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which was signed by President Barack Obama late last week. “They put in the bill we will get within 45 days so we will actually get it prior to this year end and that will go into the fund that the Borough has set a...
The Borough Assembly voted 5-2 in favor of delaying the purchase of a new sanitation truck for the recycling program. Though the Assembly approved the transition to a cart-based system on March 16, an as-yet unresolved citizen initiative to retain the blue bag system for two more years gave several assembly members pause on moving forward with the truck’s purchase. Angela Davis and Wes Davis filed an application for initiative petition with Borough Clerk Debbie Thompson on March 31, which outlined a two-year, blue bag program with a c... Full story
Long time Petersburg resident John Johnson, 79, passed away in Fulshear, Texas, April 1, 2015. John Webster Johnson was born December 4, 1935 to Joe and Cora Johnson in Petersburg, Alaska. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Blashke Island just south of Petersburg. In 1938, they moved to West Petersburg where his Dad worked at the Yukon Fur Farm. They remained there until 1941 when the family purchased their own mink farm which they operated until 1954. Catching fish for mink feed and... Full story
Angela Davis and Wes Davis and ten other sponsors may be asking for your signature on a petition for a resolution to retain the blue bag recycling program for at least two more years. The Davis’s—owners of Ruger’s Trucking, the current recycling contractor–filed an application for an initiative petition with the Borough clerk on Tuesday, and it is currently under review by Borough attorney Jim Brennan. If approved by the attorney, the Davis’s would have a limited time to collect 255 signatures, which would then bring their proposed resolutio... Full story
What am I missing? To the Editor: How are . . . 100's of big, blue plastic containers that will continuously need replacing and recycling, or will end up as another huge item in a landfill; a huge truck that will continuously require gas and will end up in a landfill; a specially trained city employed mechanic to maintain the truck; the part time use of two full time city employees with full employee benefits; a baler facility now reduced to fewer hours of use, supervision, and maintenance less expensive and more environmentally friendly than...
The borough will transition to a cart-based, in-house recycling program. The assembly passed an ordinance 5-2 at Monday's meeting that budgets for the switch. Sixteen residents spoke on the issue-the vast majority of who were in favor of keeping the current system-as part of an extended comment period before the vote. Many speaking against the changes to the blue bag program cited their satisfaction with the current collection system. "I think Ruger and PIA (recycling contractors) did a good... Full story
