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The Wrangell port commission has started work on a proposed ordinance intended to solve the problem of inactive vessels taking up moorage space while a growing waitlist strains harbor capacity. Commissioners discussed the idea at their Sept. 4 meeting. Harbormaster Steve Miller said there are about 25 to 30 boats waiting for moorage space, prompting the look at new rules. Inactive vessels taking up space is an ongoing problem, Miller reported to the commission. Harbor staff “have been working diligently to address vessels that have been i...
In the main bay of the former Wikan Enterprises building, Mike Corl fabricates a new fuel tank for a customer's Bayliner. On the other side of the wall, in what will soon be a retail space and front office, 19-month-old Charlotte hums happily on a rug, playing with a plastic T-rex. Her mother Ashley keeps an eye on her from her big desk where she is working on the launch of Corls Customs LLC. This is what family business looks like for the Corls, who purchased the Dock Street property last...
A shutdown of the federal government is beginning Wednesday after Congress failed to find agreement late Tuesday to continue funding operations. Essential services — including Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and food-stamp benefits — won’t stop while airports will continue to operate. But the impacts in Alaska, home to a large federal workforce, could be significant. Alaska has been through federal shutdowns before, said Dave Owens, the representative in Alaska for the American Federation of Government Employees, in an interview on Tuesd...
As concerns mount over the looming government shutdown which would defund the WIC program that provides food support for pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children, along with ongoing SNAP benefit disruptions in Alaska, Humanity in Progress in ramping up its efforts to address food insecurity in Petersburg with their Empty Bowls, Ending Hunger fundraiser this Saturday at the Sons of Norway Hall. The event, taking place October 4 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. offers community members...
Reporters and editors at the Homer News and Peninsula Clarion announced their resignations on Monday, citing a decision by the papers’ corporate owners to bow to political pressure to amend an article about a vigil for the slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk. The resignations, which include two editors and two reporters based in Homer and Kenai, were scheduled to take effect in two weeks, but managers at Carpenter Media Group fired all four immediately. Carpenter Media Group, an international chain, owns the News, Clarion and the Juneau Empir... Full story
Despite a light turnout due to threatening weather on Saturday, a handful of volunteers showed up to finish compacting gravel on the Bike Park's newest trail addition. "Today was basically putting the park to bed," said Pat Blair of Wheelhouse Bikes, a board member of Friends of the Petersburg Bike Park. "I wanted to finish that trail. That was my intent." The newly completed portion of the trail extends the ride through the woods, adding some length with "a lot of slope to it," allowing riders...
Proposition 1 Yes – 633 No – 624 Petersburg Borough Mayor (One 3-year term) Bob Lynn – 807 Scott Newman – 443 Borough Assembly (Two 3-year terms) Bob Martin – 825 Jeff Meucci – 539 Donna Marsh – 520 Raliegh H. Cook – 286 Tony Vinson – 221 School Board (Two 3-year terms) Sarah Pawuk Holmgrain – 1,042 Hospital Board (Three 3-year terms) Joni Johnson – 933 Cindi Lagoudakis – 874 Joseph Stratman – 853 Planning Commission (Two 3-year terms) Write-in: Joshua Adams – 66 Planning Commission (One 2-year term) Sarah Fine-Walsh – 833 Harbor & P... Full story
Alaska residents can expect to receive their 2025 Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend of $1,000 beginning in early October, according the Alaska Department of Revenue. The 2025 dividend amount of $1,000 per recipient was set by the Alaska Legislature in House Bill 53, and is a sharp decrease from the 2024 PFD amount of $1,702 allotted to each eligible resident. More than 600,000 Alaskans, according to the Department of Revenue, will begin receiving their dividends early next next month. Depending on how applications were filed, the DOR states,... Full story
Another field season of whale research has concluded at Five Finger Lighthouse, and Dr. Fred Sharpe will hold an open forum on Thursday at the Petersburg Public Library to discuss their latest efforts. Five Finger Lighthouse provides an extraordinary whale research venue because of its isolated location – miles from the nearest shore in the rich waters of Frederick Sound, buffered from the open ocean by miles of mountainous islands. "We're shielded from the global rise of ship noise in the Pacif...
The first week of moose season has been relentlessly windy and rainy across Southeast Alaska, but there was a break in the weather on Tuesday, September 16 so Joe Willis pounced on the opportunity and harvested the first moose of the season on Mitkof Island. "When I left in the morning, I told my wife, 'don't expect me back till after dark,'" Willis said. "It was still really wet at daybreak... my enthusiasm level was not what you would call epic," Willis recalled. "The phone says it's going to...
More than 25,000 Alaskans who buy health insurance through the federal marketplace will face massive and possibly unaffordable cost increases if federal subsidies expire at the end of the year. “I do think it’s important to recognize that we should be seeing thousands of people likely lose coverage from this,” said Jared Kosin, president and CEO of the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. In a panel discussion last month, local experts in Juneau laid out the stark reality for Alaska, which has the highest health care costs in the natio... Full story
It will be a homecoming when the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood hold their Grand Camp Oct. 1-4 in Wrangell. Wrangell’s history with the ANS goes back to the beginning. The organization was founded by Wrangell women in 1915, following on the formation of the ANB in Sitka in 1912. The 2025 Grand Camp will be held at the Nolan Center. This is the organizations’ first in-person gathering in six years, due to COVID-19 social distancing shutdowns and its aftereffects. While there have been meetings via Zoom, there is a rea...
Q: Ideas to increase economic opportunity? "Natural resources, timber, commercial fishing, mining. This town was built on fishing, and whereas some of the problems that the industry is facing, this town alone cannot solve them altogether. But I think we have the people, and I think we have the voice to make a call to action to change some of the legislation ... and capitalizing on the opportunity that we've got: Logging ... the thing is, with trees, they grow back, and we all live in houses...
Q: Ideas to increase economic opportunity? "As always. It's resource extraction, diversify our income base, expand our tax base, more housing. Obviously, we've got to streamline our business opportunities here. We got to streamline, just build a packet to help businesses get through the city red tape. It's really, really, really hard to start business in this town, and I don't understand that. Hopefully ... I can help with that and figure out ways to make it easier for businesses to start here....
Q: Ideas to increase economic opportunity? "The smaller cruise ship tourism ... and the Scow Bay haul-out has potential ... once that facility is created, a mobile, submersible travel lift, to haul boats out ... a new cruise ship dock that would be a partnership between borough and American Cruise Lines ... the more medical treatment we can do in town, those dollars will circulate through here before they leave, those big dollars ... and the act of building the housing will help our economy...
Q: Ideas to increase economic opportunity? "Off the top of my head, I would say, address the housing issue. I think with new construction comes more jobs and more jobs increase revenue and economy. The local economy will spend more than local stores and services and things of that nature." Q: How do you plan to prepare for meetings and make time for this responsibility? "With my extremely long commute to work - across the street - I feel like I have time. And I mean, I guess, especially during t...
Q: Ideas to increase economic opportunity? "For the business owners I've been talking to over the last month, you know that they one of their biggest concerns is there's not enough local tradesmen in town ... maybe a borough school partnership program for scholarships for kids who want to go to become electricians, refrigeration person, or welder, mechanics, and so they come back to Petersburg and work. We need to make sure that we have the basis for the local services in town covered so that...
A tug and heavily laden Alaska Marine Lines barge drew notice on Monday as it transited back and forth for hours in the waters between Mountain Point and the entrances to George and Carroll inlets. Some observers noted that stacks of containers amidship on the starboard side of the Pacific Trader barge had shifted substantially and toppled over. An Alaska Marine Line statement response to a Daily News inquiry said that "weather-related issues caused containers stacked on this barge to shift on...
Bob Lynn's decision to run for mayor wasn't made lightly. "It wasn't an easy decision for me at all."But he sees a need for the community to become more self-reliant as times become more challenging and costs shift from state and federal government to the local level. He says he is willing to listen to and work with all and has demonstrated his ability to help guide decision making: "I have the time to do this, and I have the experience. I'm hoping that I get a chance to try some ideas and see...
Scott Newman decided to run for mayor because he feels "there hasn't been strong leadership, advancing any advocacy towards the big projects in the community like the hospital and in tourism ... I kind of feel like we've had a bit of a dysfunctional process." "We could be advocating more strongly, at a state and federal level for these projects that we have going on, mainly the hospital," Newman told the Pilot in an interview. "I just don't feel like we've been doing enough in that direction....
As wind gusts exceeded 30 knots on Wednesday morning a roughly 180-foot barge broke loose from its moorage around a mile south of Scow Bay in the Wrangell Narrows. The Coast Guard issued a maritime security alert warning vessels in the area, while the harbormasters office contacted residents along the shore of Kupreanof Island, "just to let them know that if it does end up ricocheting down that Narrows, to be aware of it," Harbormaster Glorianne Wollen said, "to potentially pull your outhaul in...
During midday mass on July 6, 2023, an accidental fire broke out at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Petersburg. All parishioners and church staff safely escaped the fire, which burned for nearly ten hours. The Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department fought the blaze and successfully prevented the tragic fire from spreading to nearby homes and businesses like the neighboring Petersburg Children's Center. The church building was left in ruins, though firefighters were able to recover some...
Petersburg voters will decide October 7 whether to limit the borough’s senior sales tax exemption to only low-income seniors. Proposition 1 would restrict the current exemption — available to all residents 65 and older who qualify for the PFD — to only those who qualify for the State of Alaska Senior Benefits Payment Program. That means individuals earning less than $34,213 annually or married couples making under $46,253 would retain the exemption, while higher-income seniors would lose it. On September 15, KFSK Petersburg hosted call-in show...
Southeast Alaska's commercial red king crab fishery will open Nov. 1 after stock assessments revealed the highest red crab populations in decades. Last week, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced a regionwide guideline harvest level of 211,573 pounds for the 2025/2026 season, exceeding the 200,000-pound threshold required for a traditional competitive commercial fishery. The biomass numbers and the available surplus for harvest, came as somewhat of a surprise to fishery managers fishermen who had been preparing for a different type o...
The 2025 Southeast Alaska Purse Seine Fishery closed in early September with just under 20 million pink salmon landed - well below the forecast of 29 million and marking the lowest odd-year harvest since the 1980s. "Fair to say that the season was a disappointment as far as pink salmon harvest goes," said Troy Thynes, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Region I Management Coordinator. The disappointing harvest adds pressure to an industry already facing high fuel costs, inflation, and low...
