Sorted by date Results 3337 - 3361 of 5673
JUNEAU (AP) – Authorities escorted out the tenants of a century-old Juneau hotel and took the property’s manager into custody after identifying several public health and safety hazards. Bergmann Hotel was condemned after the owners failed to address fire and building code violations, city spokeswoman Lisa Phu said. Owners Kathleen and James Barrett had until last month to correct the violations, but city officials say recent inspections found few corrections and several more violations, the Juneau Empire reported Friday. The Salvation Army hel...
JUNEAU – The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (ADOT&PF) is selling the M/V Taku through a sealed bid sale. The minimum bid price is $1.5 million and interested bidders must have a bid bond of $5,000. The complete bid package is available on the state's Online Public Notice website. ADOT&PF is selling the vessel "As Is/Where Is" to the highest bidder. The sale process involved getting Federal Highway Administration approval since federal funding was used to maintain the v...
The small claims case of Feb. 28 involved Dean Roundtree and Ken Olsen of K.O. Construction. A decision is pending....
Colette Peters, 26, has been named Fleet Manager/Quality Assurance Manager at the Petersburg Trident Plant. She fills the position vacated by Nick Ohmer who is now managing the Trident Plant in Wrangell. Peters grew up in Ketchikan and is a 2009 graduate of Ketchikan High School. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound with a degree in Political Economics. She has worked for Trident in Seattle for 3-1/2 years monitoring environmental compliance at all Trident Plants. She visited each...
SITKA (AP) – On a cool spring day, Sitka veterinarian Burgess Bauder went down to the harbor and stripped down to his long underwear, socks and Crocs - all in the name of charity. With little more than a quilt covering his body, Bauder became a model in the Ocean Wave Quilt Guild’s “Alaska’s Undercover Men” 2018 calendar. “I make a fool of myself many times,” Bauder said. “Why not do it for something good?” Proceeds from the calendars will fund the guild’s projects that benefit cancer survivors, senior citizens and victims of violence. The Ocea...
SITKA (AP) – A national group has honored a group of Sitka High School basketball players who last year helped pull residents from a burning building in Anchorage. The National Federation of State High School Associations announced Monday that the boys basketball team will receive the “National High School Spirit of Sport Award” for the western region, The Sitka Sentinel reported. “The basketball team members employed the skills of teamwork and quick thinking that they had developed through many years of participation and sprang into action,...
WRANGELL – For visitors this summer to Anan Wildlife Observatory, trips to the restroom will become a bit less hectic. Up to the present, the oft-visited outdoor attraction's outhouse is sited apart from the main observation area – and its protective barriers – making run-ins with Anan's bears en route to the toilet an occasional risk. At least a few people have had to wait out a passing bear from inside, which can be unpleasant in addition to an unnerving experience. The Forest Service (USFS...
The Trust Land Office will hold a series of public informational meetings in Southeast communities to discuss the proposed land exchange between the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (Trust) and the United States Forest Service (USFS). The transaction would be a value for value land exchange of approximately 20,000 acres of USFS land for 18,000 acres of Trust land, the result of extensive negotiations between the Trust and the USFS and years of work with interested parties in Southeast Alaska. Informational meetings are scheduled starting...
JUNEAU (AP) – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says a proposed $1.3 billion cut to the Coast Guard's budget conflicts with President Donald Trump's goal of strengthening border security and rebuilding the armed services. The Alaska Republican outlined her concerns in a letter to Trump, released Monday. She says the cuts proposed by the Office of Management and Budget would have “far-reaching implications on national security” and force the Coast Guard to halt a program in which it replaces older ships with state-of-the-art vessels built in U.S. shipy...
Two fire trucks and the ambulance responded to a trailer fire at #11 Lumber Street shortly after 6 a.m. Monday morning. The property was in the process of being condemned by the Borough Building Department. Dave Berg, Fire Dept. spokesperson said someone may have been living in the structure that had a wood stove, but no power hook-up. Two fire extinguishers had been emptied at the scene, according to Berg. The fire marshal will investigate the origin of the fire, but Berg said it may be...
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....
At this week’s Assembly meeting, Community Development director Liz Cabrera presented to the Petersburg Borough Assembly an outline for how to update the borough’s zoning code that hasn’t been brought up to speed since 1986. Cabrera said many parts of the code are contradictory due to small updates in some sections but not in others, that the processes used are cumbersome and slow and that the zoning is restrictive. “A lot of the definitions in the code are nonexistent, blurry, unclear, really difficult to interpret and apply consistently, real...
With the arrival of Carl Tate, 24, the police department is back up to a full contingent of officers. Tate arrived here last month from Fort Bragg, South Carolina, where he served four years with the U.S. Army working in communications. He is currently completing field training with the department and will attend the police academy in August of this year. When not working, Tate says he enjoys spending time with his family. He is married to a local woman, Hailey Lund, who relocated here with her...
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...
WRANGELL – Residents of Wrangell concerned about the state’s evolving budget proposals joined those from Cordova, Nome and other rural communities in testifying on House Bill 57 over the weekend. Proposed by the House Finance Committee as part of a package of budget cuts, HB 57 proposes cutting state payments to municipalities for school construction debt. Homer Rep. vPaul Seaton (R-District 31) co-chaired the proceedings on March 4, seeking input ahead of an amendment process scheduled for Tuesday. Wrangell is among the communities that would...
The bill giving the green light to an exchange of thousands of acres of land between the Alaska Mental Health Trust and the U.S. Forest Service was introduced in Juneau this week. Rep. Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan, filed House Bill 155 on Monday. It authorizes the trust to go ahead with an exchange of more than 17,000 acres of trust land for 20,000 acres of rural Forest Service timber land. In the process, the exchange would eliminate the possibility of logging on trust-owned land on Deer Mountain and above the Mitkof Highway in Petersburg. Those...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – Two people were rescued Friday after their small plane made an emergency landing near an Alaska island. The Coast Guard credits local authorities and others from the nearby community of Metlakatla for quickly responding to the scene in Smuggler Cove off Annette Island. The Coast Guard also helped in the response. Petty Officer Lauren Steenson says the people rescued were taken to the Metlakatla clinic for treatment of minor injuries. Officials say that because of icing on the BE18 Beechcraft plane, the pilot had missed the a...
The final chapter of Petersburg Medical Center's strategic plan is likely the most daunting. The first goal of the plan states: "Fix or replace the facility to create a safe environment for patients, staff and community." Decisions need to be made to remodel the current facility at an estimated cost of $16 million or to replace the facility for an estimated $33 million. Both options require outside funding sources. In May 2016 Joann Lott of Jensen Yorba Lott Architects told the PMC board:...
A snag in Sitka that was holding up progress on a state bill to help the Alaska Mental Health Trust with its land exchange — and thereby prevent logging on Deer Mountain — has been resolved, putting the bill on track to be introduced this session. State and federal lawmakers, at the behest of the trust, have been working on legislation that would mandate the U.S. Forest Service exchange more than 20,000 acres of rural timber land for approximately 17,000 acres of trust land located near Ketchikan, Meyers Chuck, Petersburg, Wrangell, Sitka and...
The Petersburg Police Department clarified that the arrest reported in the March 2 edition of Dustin L. Delong, 29 was a non-custody arrest. Charges of Theft in the 4th Degree and Criminal Mischief in the 5th Degree resulted in charges being filed, but Delong was not taken into custody....
WRANGELL — Anan Wildlife Observatory will soon be implementing site improvements for safety and to extend the life of its existing facilities. The work is scheduled to begin March 15, 2017, weather permitting. Rainforest Contracting Inc. of Petersburg, will be making improvements to the trailhead and observatory deck. The work will require periodic closures to portions of the Anan Creek Trail (Trail #448) during construction and closure of the Lower Falls Observation Deck when the work moves to that location in the spring. The contractor w...
Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. was the keynote speaker at the Chamber of Commerce annual meeting and banquet on Saturday night at the Sons of Norway Hall. His company purchased Icicle Seafoods in June of last year. Cooke lives in Saint John, New Brunswick with his wife Pamela and two young children Allison and William. "Every time I come to Petersburg I discover we have many more things in common than we have differences. We all speak the language of seafood. We all depend on the sea for our liv...
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...
State Senator Bert Stedman predicts the legislature will be in session for a full 120 days with an additional 30 day session if they are to complete their work this session. “There’s a lot of talk of the 90 day session but the constitution calls for 121 days. “We’ve only finished in 90 days one time,” Stedman noted. Stedman was in Petersburg this past weekend to attend the Chamber of Commerce Annual Banquet along with his wife Lureen. Stedman said there is a “near zero chance of a 90 day session with any quality work being accomplishe...
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...
