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WRANGELL — Anyone who wants to get a pizza midweek at the Marine Bar or a steak or burger at the Elks Lodge knows that worker shortages have forced employers to reduce their days and cut back on offerings. “This worker shortage is real, and it’s not going away anytime soon,” Dan Robinson, research chief at the Alaska Department of Labor, told legislators last month. “For nine years in a row, more people have left the state than have come here,” he told the Senate Finance Committee. The population has been stable as births have outpaced de...
Update on Landless Efforts To the Editor: Hello folks, this is a quick update on the efforts of the Landless group for the benefit of Petersburg. Who are the Landless? They are 5 communities that got left out of ANCSA in 1971 and should have gotten land under that legislation 50 years ago: Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan, Haines and Tenakee Springs. Together we are Alaska Natives Without Land. Our goal is to amend ANCSA to reunite our five SE Alaska Native communities with their lands, to grow and succeed with their rightful land base as their...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska lawmakers are considering a request by Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration that the state take over part of a federal environmental permitting program, though some members of the Senate's budget-writing committee have expressed concerns with the potential costs. Administration officials have said the idea behind the proposal is to speed the construction of roads, bridges, mines and drilling projects, the Anchorage Daily News reported. While the state would have to follow federal standards, critics of the proposal sa...
Legislation to restore and increase the state licensing fee on sportfishing guides and operators ran into problems in the Senate Finance Committee last week, as lawmakers questioned why out-of-state boat owners who bring up guests are not required to get a license and pay the fee. “My district has got to be one of the top guided areas in the state,” said Committee Co-Chair Sen. Bert Stedman, whose district stretches from Sitka to Prince of Wales Island, including Petersburg. And while that means a lot of non-residents pay local operators for...
The US Coast Guard Cutter Anacapa invited the community on board for tours on Monday. The occasion was to bid thank you and farewell to Petersburg, which has been home port to the USCGC Anacapa for the entirety of her 32-year career. Commissioned to serve as an Island-class patrol boat on January 13, 1990, the Anacapa has carried out her mission of law enforcement, safety and fisheries law enforcement, search and rescue, and maritime defense with a crew of sixteen on board and their families living in the Petersburg community. Captain Darwin Je...
Ocean Rangers To the Editor: If you were disappointed in the Senate Resource Committee’s decision last week and want to stop SB 180 please speak up now. As constituents of Senator Bert Stedman, it is very important he hear our concerns on this bill introduced by Governor Dunleavy that will eliminate Ocean Rangers on cruise ships. We need to ask him to hold SB 180, to not schedule a hearing this session, and urge him to reinstate funding for the Ocean Rangers on most ships, most of the time. Ask Senator Stedman directly what he is planning to d...
Keep the Ocean Rangers program: Together we can have a voice To the Editor: Whether you are a commercial fisherman or just an Alaskan who enjoys recreating in Southeast Alaska’s waters fishing for salmon, halibut, crab, shrimp, digging for clams or collecting seaweed, you should be deeply concerned about SB 180 which will eliminate the Ocean Ranger program that was put into law by voters in 2006. In mid-summer of 2019 Governor Dunleavy vetoed funding for the Ocean Ranger program just after Carnival Corporation was fined $20 million for i...
A state Department of Transportation official told legislators that the ferry system is "burning out our crew" with lots of overtime amid staff shortages, and that the problem jeopardizes tentative plans to bring back the Columbia to service in Southeast for the first time since fall 2019. The Alaska Marine Highway System as of March 16 was down 125 employees from the minimum needed to staff its full online summer schedule plus the addition of the Columbia, according to a department...
March 10, 1922 The pupils of the first and second grades received a vacation on Friday owing to the illness of Miss Edna Miller, teacher in that room. While Miss Miller is not seriously ill, her indisposition worked for the benefit of the kids and they enjoyed the day to the utmost. March 14, 1947 Authority has been received by Colonel L.H. Hewitt, district engineer, Seattle district, Corps of Engineers, to commence work on The Wrangell Narrows, Alaska. The Wrangell Narrows project consists of dredging approximately 16,000 cubic yards of ledge...
It’s not often you hear political debates that invoke religion and booze but have nothing to do with temperance, the social ills of alcohol or strict adherence to church teachings. In Alaska, those points are being offered in the context of the state budget and oil prices — both of which are similar to alcohol and religion in the 49th state. They can be intoxicating, debatable and divisive. High oil prices of recent months — and even higher in recent days after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — have made Alaska rich again, for now....
The Petersburg School Board voted unanimously to amend its COVID-19 mitigation plan Tuesday night which now allows for limited optional masking in yellow status depending on cases within each building. Some parents and teachers spoke at the beginning of the meeting against the continuation of the mitigation plan approved in January, which required universal masking and had no provisions for optional masking, saying universal masking was counterproductive and inhibited learning. During last...
During the Petersburg Borough Assembly's meeting on Monday, Mayor Mark Jensen reported that he and Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht recently took part in a conversation with two representatives from the U.S. Postal Service about the ongoing problems at the post office. The assembly has previously discussed staffing issues and the resulting long wait times at the post office which culminated in the passage of a resolution requesting a formal discussion with the USPS about solutions and...
As of Tuesday night, the Petersburg Medical Center's COVID-19 Dashboard reported 10 active cases in Petersburg with 16 new cases in the previous seven days. The Petersburg School District recorded seven total cases among staff and students Wednesday afternoon. Rae C. Stedman Elementary School numbered the most with five followed by one at Mitkof Middle School and one at Petersburg High School. According to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, the state recorded 4,147 new cases...
Though they say the level of funding for the state ferry system in Gov. Mike Dunleavy's budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is adequate, coastal legislators don't like that the governor wants to use one-time federal money to pay the bills, eliminating almost 95% of state funding. Their fear is that when the federal dollars from last year's $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending plan run out, so too will adequate ferry service. "Those federal dollars were meant to augment state money, no...
Rae C. Stedman Elementary School called for aid, and Petersburg answered. The school was threatened with the closure of four classrooms in February and March as some teachers were set to take leave while there were no available substitute teachers before four Petersburg residents stepped up to fill the need. Casey Knight will fill in for Hillary Mullen's Kindergarten class on February 3-4, Erin Streuli will step in for Erin Willis' Kindergarten class from February 28 to March 9, and two classes...
According to the Petersburg Medical Center's COVID-19 Dashboard, Petersburg had an active case count of 11 as of Wednesday evening with 20 new positives within the previous seven days. PMC is asking residents to notify the hospital if they test positive with an at-home COVID-19 test so they can keep an accurate count of cases in the community. The hospital is also urging people to receive their booster vaccination as soon as possible in order to significantly decrease the chances of serious...
WRANGELL– In a break from past practice, the Alaska Department of Revenue this year will provide monthly updates to legislators whenever projected oil prices — and state revenues — move up or down more than 10%. Several legislators worry that could confuse budget deliberations this session. Revenue staff has updated the state’s twice-yearly oil-price forecasts internally but not released the numbers to the public, the department’s chief economist Dan Stickel told the Senate Finance Committee on Jan. 20. “We’ve decided to go ahead and star...
The Petersburg School Board voted to continue universal masking throughout the district as part of its COVID-19 mitigation plan Tuesday night. At the beginning of Tuesday's meeting, teachers and parents spoke to the board both in support and against the continuation of universal masking. Those who supported universal masking cited the high number of positive cases nationwide with the spread of the highly infectious omicron variant and their belief that remote learning is more harmful to...
Petersburg has reached 27 active cases of COVID-19 according to the Petersburg Medical Center's COVID-19 Dashboard which was last updated Tuesday. The Petersburg School District has also begun reporting cases after students returned to school this week. As of Wednesday, Rae C. Stedman Elementary School had three active cases and four on quarantine, Mitkof Middle School had two active cases and one on quarantine, and Petersburg high school had three active cases and four on quarantine. According...
The Petersburg School Board held a work session Tuesday night to discuss potential changes to the district's COVID-19 mitigation protocols before its next regular meeting. While no action was taken at the over two-and-a-half-hour work session, it gave the board members an opportunity to prepare for action at the next board meeting and hear from experts about current guidelines and the state of the pandemic. The work session was originally scheduled for January 4 but was postponed due to flight...
6 brought with it a new record snowfall on New Year's Day which has the National Weather Service in Juneau and Petersburg Borough staff worried as rain and warmer temperatures are predicted for this weekend. Saturday saw the most snowfall and highest depth ever recorded in Petersburg on January 1 of any year with 17.5 inches of new snow for a depth of 40 inches according to data collected by the NWS. It was just short of the most snowfall ever recorded on a single day in the month of January...
