Sorted by date Results 3401 - 3425 of 5703
The Petersburg Girls Scouts enjoyed a day long STEM workshop at the Sons of Norway Hall lead by Kelly Fitzgerald of the Alaska Girl Scout Council. The girls rotated through four sections on: engineering, ecology, ornithology and seismology. Susan Harai, a professional engineer licensed in the State of Alaska, lead the engineering project which was a geodesic dome made of newspaper triangles. The triangles are the strongest structure shape and are used throughout building trusses and bridges. The girls built the dome then further added to the...
WRANGELL – The hospital approved a response to the Wrangell Borough Assembly regarding the future of its billing services contract. At an August 23 meeting, the city’s governing body asked that Wrangell Medical Center put together an assessment of its two-year contract with TruBridge, which took over billing services for the community-owned hospital the summer of 2015. The contract offered the company 2.2 percent of the transactions it processes on behalf of the hospital, with the intention of addressing its excessive accounts receivable and...
WRANGELL – After meeting with one candidate in a closed-door session last week, the Wrangell Borough Assembly has decided to put the city manager position back out for advertisement. In the position since 2013, present manager Jeff Jabusch announced last September his plans to retire on March 31. Prior to that, he spent the better four decades as the city finance director. From a pool of 25 candidates a selection committee made up of Mayor David Jack, city staff and some Assembly members winnowed the field to four candidates. Of these, two d...
WRANGELL – A Wrangellite took part in the 44th annual March for Life, which last month made its way through the streets of Washington, D.C. Since 1974, the annual nondenominational march is held each year on or around the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which held that abortion was protected under the right to privacy in the Constitution. Opponents to the court decision have since met at the National Mall on about every January 22 since, marching from there to the s...
WRANGELL – At its rescheduled meeting last week, the City and Borough Assembly approved a bid by the Stikine Inn to purchase adjacent tidelands for less than assessed value. Southeast Properties LLC, which has owned the hotel for a decade, proposed purchasing from the city 5,450 square feet of submerged tidelands and 2,000 square feet of uplands to the north and west of the property's current boundaries. The assessed value of the site was at $101,200, based on estimated fair market value as...
JUNEAU (AP) - A supporter of Alaska’s sweeping criminal justice legislation is no longer a member of a commission that has recommended changes to the law. Juneau Police Department Lt. Kris Sell declined to comment after she resigned from the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission, the Juneau Empire reported. Commissioners provided input for a law that focused on punishments outside of prison or jail time. Sell was a vocal proponent of the legislation approved last year. She told a Senate committee Jan. 25 that her time on the commission helped s...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – Alaska State Trooper investigators have seized marijuana with an estimated street value of more than $600,000 from an illegal grow operation near Tok. Acting on a tip, Fairbanks troopers in the Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit on Wednesday contacted the occupants of a home at Mile 1316 Alaska Highway. Troopers say a suspected grow operation was on property next to the home. The property owner gave officers consent to seize illegal marijuana plants. Troopers seized 10 pounds of processed marijuana packaged in quarter-ounce b...
JUNEAU (AP) – The University of Alaska system has agreed to resolve issues stemming from a federal review of its handling of campus sexual assault and sexual harassment cases. The agreement, signed by system President Jim Johnsen on Friday and released Monday, outlines steps the system will need to take over the next several years. It follows a review, initiated in 2014, by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Johnsen, in a letter to the university community, said the system did not enter into the agreement grudgingly and...
KENAI (AP) – With several marijuana businesses up and running on the Kenai Peninsula in south-central Alaska, industry estimates show the businesses could contribute $5.3 million annually to the local economy. Eight marijuana businesses have opened on the peninsula since last summer and nine more are planned. Of those businesses, two are retail stores and the rest are cultivators, The Peninsula Clarion reported. Dollynda Phelps of cultivation company Peace Frog Botanicals presented a survey of current licensees to the Kenai Chamber of C...
KENAI (AP) – More than a dozen environmental groups are seeking to join lawsuits filed by the state of Alaska over a federal ban on certain hunting techniques in national refuges and preserves. The two lawsuits filed in January claim the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service illegally pre-empted the state’s authority to manage wildlife by banning state-approved hunting practices. The federal regulations prohibit the killing of black bears in their dens with the aid of artificial light and shooting brown bears over bait st...
Tanner crab estimates are down from the previous season although there is enough to go around for a successful fishery. Mature male Tanner abundance estimate is 4.9 million pounds, down from the 5.6 million estimate from the previous year, according to a Alaska Department of Fish and Game press release. "The Tanner crab harvest strategy sets the season length based on the mature male biomass estimate and the number of pots registered at the start of the fishery," ADFG region one lead crab...
Petersburg's hospital board received an update of the Medical Center's strategic plan for the years 2017-2020 at last month's meeting. Part of the plan addresses people and includes patients, employees and physicians. The planning effort has been in use for decades, "and gives focus and direction as the hospital plans for the future. I'm a firm believer in the plan," said PMC CEO Liz Woodyard this week. The first stated goal is to reduce employee turnover to less than 20% by January 2018. The...
PETERSBURG (AP) – A seafood processing company will stop canning salmon at its facility in the southeast Alaska city of Petersburg this year in response to a growing demand for frozen salmon. Tom Sunderland, vice president of marketing for Ocean Beauty Seafoods, said the company will make more money selling frozen salmon than canned salmon this year. He said the company will focus on freezing salmon at its plant northwest of Petersburg in Excursion Inlet, which has “substantial freezing capacity,” KFSK-FM reported. “And by doing so, the hope is...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – A year after tens of thousands of common murres, an abundant North Pacific seabird, starved and washed ashore on beaches from California to Alaska, researchers have pinned the cause to unusually warm ocean temperatures that affected the tiny fish they eat. Elevated temperatures in seawater affected wildlife in a pair of major marine ecosystems along the West Coast and Canada, said John Piatt, a research wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. Common murres are an indicator of the regions’ health. “If tens of thous...
Alaska Power & Telephone is announcing its redesigned website www.aptalaska.com that is now live. Central to the new format are clean straightforward visual references on each page directing customers and visitors to locations within the site quickly and easily. The new homepage also provides continual at-a-glance access to the latest product and service announcements as well as career opportunities, news releases and our award-winning customer newsletter, TALK. With the increasing number of customers who prefer self-service support over...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – The search has been called off for the six veteran fishermen aboard a crabbing boat missing in the icy, turbulent Bering Sea. The fishing vessel Destination went missing early Saturday after an emergency signal from a radio beacon registered to the ship. The signal originated from 2 miles off St. George, an island about 650 miles west of Kodiak Island. The Coast Guard released a statement Monday night saying the search has been suspended. “We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the six crewmembers dur...
Four Kake women reported overdue KAKE – On Feb. 11, at 8:44 a.m., Alaska State Troopers received a report of four adult female Kake residents overdue in two separate vehicles out a logging road outside of Kake. The females were identified as Falen Mills, 29, Jocelyn McKinnon-Crowley, 24, Jordana Grant, 27, and Julianne Brown, 31. The females were last seen on Feb. 10 at 11:45 p.m., and they were not intending on remaining out overnight. A search team was assembled and responded to their anticipated location. At 9:39 a.m., the females were locat...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – A lawmaker wants to spike Alaska’s studded-tire tax from $5 to $75. Sen. Cathy Giessel’s bill is aimed at raising money to repair rutted roads damaged by studded tires, reported KTVA-TV. Giessel called the tax hike a “public safety user fee.” “There are states in northern climates that do ban studded tires, but this is not a ban,” she said. “It is a user fee to help to restore the damage that’s caused from the studded tires.” The higher tax would add $300 to the cost of four studded tires compared with the current $20. “While...
Trappers are reminded the season for marten, mink, weasel, and river otter in Unit 4 (Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof Islands) ends Wed., Feb. 15, 2017. Beaver season remains open in Unit 4 through April 30, 2017. Pelts of marten, river otter, and beaver must be sealed by a department representative within 30 days after the close of the season....
WRANGELL – In its first meeting of the new year, the governing board for Southeast Alaska Power Agency looked ahead to political reshufflings at the state and federal levels. Meeting in Petersburg February 8, members of the board learned from SEAPA executive officer Trey Acteson a change in administrations at the federal level could be useful to the agency’s future operations. For example, only two commissioners sitting on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – which licenses hydropower projects – remain in place since the swearing in of P...
The front page article (February 9, 2017) incorrectly cited the wholesale power rate from the Southeast Alaska Power Agency at 8 cents. SEAPA’s base wholesale power rate is 6.8 cents per kWh....
WRANGELL – A planned-for merger between two regional healthcare providers has been put on hold for two months. Alaska Island Community Services was to merge with larger organization SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) on February 1, but the consolidation will have to wait until April 1. The merger was formally announced last October, and heads of both organizations subsequently met with Wrangell officials in November and in January to explain the transition. AICS executive Mark Walker has said the move was needed due to g...
SITKA – March 30th is officially recognized in Alaska as Seward’s Day. On this date in 1867, Russia and the United States signed the Treaty of Cession agreeing to the sale of vast Alaskan lands. That same year, on October 18, now known as Alaska Day, the official transfer ceremony took place in Sitka, or New Archangel, which had been the capital of Russian America since 1808. The Russian Flag was lowered, the American Flag was raised, and Alaska became a US Territory. Today, historic sites from Alaska Native culture and from Russian occ...
Petersburg Police Department searched a residence at #12 Towne Trailer Park and recovered 6 one-quart mason jars of marijuana, more than one ounce of methamphetamine, two handguns and cash. The warrant was served on Feb. 3. One of the handguns was reported stolen locally last year. The methamphetamine represents about 160 typical dosage units with a street value of about $8,000, according to a department press release. Several people, all of whom have been identified, occupied the residence. PPD has been in contact with the prosecutor’s o...
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...
