Sorted by date Results 176 - 200 of 218
WRANGELL – The board of directors of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency held a teleconference meeting March 31, to hear an annual operations plan update as well as some operating budget increases, among other items. SEAPA provides hydroelectric power to the communities of Wrangell, Petersburg, and Ketchikan. The board is made up of five voting directors and alternates, who are appointed by their respective communities annually to represent them. The operations plan update, according to the meetin...
WRANGELL – The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, according to several members of Wrangell's local government, has been doing a very good job of communicating with them during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Assembly Member David Powell said that communications between SEARHC, Mayor Steve Prysunka, and Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen have been taking place almost daily. Prysunka and Von Bargen are really on top of things, he said. Assembly Member Drew Larrabee added that, in his opinion...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – The Alaska Legislature has approved a $66.7 million budget appropriation that lawmakers said should keep the Alaska Marine Highway System running for the year. Legislators increased the operating budget for the state’s ferry service by around $20 million over the previous year, CoastAlaska reported Monday. An estimated 42% of the overall $122 million ferry budget is expected to come from ticket sales for passengers, vehicles and freight. The appropriation should guarantee at least one ferry is available as relief if ano...
WRANGELL– Despite concerns of COVID-19, construction of the new Wrangell Medical Center has continued largely unhindered. Work on the new hospital began back in April of 2019, with an official groundbreaking ceremony in June, after the City and Borough of Wrangell and SEARHC came to a mutual agreement on the project. Work is nearing the one-year mark, and so far everything is largely on track. Current activities at the construction site include sheathing the exterior of the building, roofing wo...
WRANGELL–Governor Mike Dunleavy announced two new statewide health mandates Monday, March 23, in response to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 in Alaska. These are the ninth and tenth health mandates the state government has announced regarding the virus. Many local communities have been taking steps of their own to mitigate the risk of the virus spreading further. These mandates, however, are meant to help statewide efforts to combat COVID-19. The first of these two mandates, Mandate 009 took ef...
WRANGELL - The Wrangell Borough Assembly held a special meeting on Tuesday afternoon, March 17. In response to the global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), which recently reached Alaska, the assembly decided to meet to determine how best to handle the situation, and mitigate chances of the virus spreading locally. There are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Wrangell as of March 17, but the assembly felt it was important to be proactive. As part of an effort to encourage social...
WRANGELL - Trident Seafoods, one of the two main seafood processors in Wrangell, has decided not to operate during the upcoming salmon season. Stefanie Moreland, vice president of government relations, seafood sustainability, and corporate social responsibility with the Trident Seafoods Corporation, explained that this decision was made earlier this year. Predictions of a low abundance of salmon in Southeast Alaskan waters led them to the decision to not operate the Wrangell plant this season....
WRANGELL - As any resident of Southeast Alaska knows, rain is a common occurrence. This is no different for Wrangell. One Wrangell resident, Bill Messmer, has made a hobby out of tracking the amount of rainfall the island receives. He has now collected 35 years of data, showing trends and changes to rainfall Wrangell has seen. "Originally I worked for the Forest Service, and there was people that lived in different parts of Wrangell, and we had rain gauges out and there was a variety of v...
WRANGELL - Randall Ferdinand, 53, of Wrangell, passed away at sea last Sunday. A dispatch from the Alaska State Troopers reports that they received a report of an overturned vessel about 12 miles southwest of Wrangell the afternoon of Feb. 16. Wrangell Search and Rescue and the Coast Guard went to investigate and the vessel in question was located around 3 p.m. The 32-foot vessel had struck some rocks in shallow water. Wrangell Search and Rescue and Wildlife Troopers from Ketchikan remained on...
WRANGELL - The Nolan Center celebrated the new year on Dec. 31, with a murder mystery party. As this new year marks a new decade, a return to the '20s, the party had a 1920s theme to it. With jazz music, people in themed costumes, and masks, party-goers had the chance to return to the previous century. The main theater of the Nolan Center was decorated to look like an old speakeasy, from the prohibition era, to fit the mood. For those who have never participated in a murdery mystery, it is a...
WRANGELL - Wrangell's Convention and Visitor Bureau met last Monday, Dec. 23, to continue their ongoing work on putting together a "tourism best management practices" document for the city. This conversation began back in November. A growing tourism industry in Wrangell has highlighted the need for some form of guidelines, as well as concerns about how future tourism might impact the community's day-to-day life. Tourism best management practices, or TBMPs, are a way to help ease friction...
On 12-4-19, Alaska Wildlife Troopers in Wrangell, investigated a moose that was taken on Wrangell island after the registration moose season had closed. Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to contact the Wrangell AWT office at (907) 847-3215 or Wildlife Safeguard at 1-800-478-3377...
WRANGELL — Arnold and Alice Bakke are seeking a refund of property tax payments due to an assessment error going back to 1994. The total amount of money owed back to the Bakkes, from 1994 to 2019, is around $12,000. However, according to Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen and City Attorney Joseph Levesque, there is a six year statute of limitations on seeking a refund for overpaid taxes. This means that the wrangell assembly was considering paying the Bakke family $4,382.46, the amount overcharged within the past six years. Helen Keller, d...
WRANGELL - Some Wrangell residents may remember Tod Jones. He was a Wrangell resident for about 20 years, from the '70s to the '90s. He first moved to the area to help start a fish hatchery in the Burnett Inlet with the Alaska Aquaculture Company. Wrangell resident Brian Ashton was his former operations manager, Jones mentioned. When the hatchery closed down around 1995, Jones moved away. After leaving Wrangell, Jones said he spent four years in Israel, then came back to the United States and...
WRANGELL - Mayor Steve Prysunka travelled to Washington D.C. last week to speak before the Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources. He was invited to speak on behalf of the National Association of Counties, an organization that works to advocate county priorities in federal policymaking. Prysunka spoke last Thursday, Nov. 21, on the importance of the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) Program and Secure Rural Schools (SRS) funds. "We're somewhat unique because we're actually the third...
WRANGELL - Plans are in motion to subdivide the old mill property around 6.5 mile Zimovia Highway, according to Terri Wenger with Anchor Properties. The property, currently owned by Betty Buhler, has been on the market for quite some time. On the Anchor Properties website the almost 39-acre lot is listed at $2.7 million. Wenger said that the plan is to subdivide the land into 11 lots, ranging in size from one to three acres. "I could be wrong, but I think that it could be possibly the biggest...
WRANGELL - The Nolan Center opened its newest exhibit on shipwrecks with much fanfare on Friday, Nov. 8. With food, wine, music, and special presentations, many people turned out for the grand opening. The exhibit, "Wrangell Remembers - Shipwrecks Close to Home, 1908-1952," features stories and artifacts of several Southeast Alaskan shipwrecks from the 20th century. Four ships are featured in this exhibit, The Star of Bengal, the S.S. Mariposa, the Princess Sophia, and the Princess Kathleen....
WRANGELL - SEARHC, the medical provider that recently took over management of the Wrangell Medical Center and is currently overseeing construction of a new hospital, held a talk Monday, Oct. 21, on diabetes and traditional foods. The talk was lead by Kelly Lakin, a diabetes educator with SEARHC. Diabetes is a disease that occurs when one's blood sugar is too high, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Insulin is a hormone that the body produces to tra...
WRANGELL - Back in April of this year, Wrangell resident Kipha Valvoda filed a civil suit against several past and present members of the Wrangell city government. Valvoda, in several letters to the editor to the Wrangell Sentinel, has argued that the city has used discriminatory hiring practices that have kept him out of jobs. His complaint to the court, filed on April 17, contends that borough officials were lax in their hiring practices, and that they held onto his resume for seven years but...
WRANGELL - Monday, Oct. 7, members of the Forest Service and high school oceanography students, boated over to the east side of Wrangell, near Channel Island, to retrieve the remains of a gray whale that washed up back in June. The whale, a 30-foot male, was one of the victims in a UME, or "unusual mortality event" that has seen numerous gray whales die. According to NOAA, as of Sept. 30, there have been 47 gray whale strandings in Alaska, or 212 across the whole American, Canadian, and Mexican...
WRANGELL - The Wrangell Municipal Light & Power Department spent most of their day last Thursday, Sept. 19, moving one of their new generators into the power plant. Wrangell recently purchased two generators from the city of Nome to reinforce the department's power generation capabilities. Rod Rhoades, director, said that all of the city's generators are basically the "plan B" for emergency power. Wrangell's power needs sit between 8-9 megawatts, he said. The borough typically draws its power...
WRANGELL — The Wrangell Borough Assembly held a work session on top of their regular meeting Tuesday, Sept. 24. The work session was to discuss the Alaska Municipal Sales Tax Authority, a statewide entity that the Alaska Municipal League is currently working to organize. The tax authority is meant to act as the “clearinghouse” for tax collection from remote retailers, according to the agenda packet. For towns like Wrangell, only large online retailers like Amazon meet certain thresholds to collect and remit local sales taxes. Aleisha Molle...
WRANGELL - Sabina Schlotzhauer, at one month old, is one of Wrangell's newest residents. Born to Kassee and Curtis Schlotzhauer, Sabina is facing some medical issues. Kassee said in a Facebook message that Sabina suffers from HIE, or Hypoxic-ischemic Encephalopathy. According to the HIE Help Center, it is a form of brain damage that can occur in newborns when there is a shortage of oxygen in the bloodstream and a shortage of blood flow to the brain. There are a wide range of causes for HIE,...
WRANGELL - For many people in Southeast Alaska, mining operations in nearby British Columbia is a source of concern. While these mines are across the border in Canadian jurisdiction, many of them are located in the watersheds of rivers that cross back into Alaska. Should an accident or pollution occur at these mines, whatever flows downriver could have a major impact on the lives and livelihoods of many people, Canadian and Alaskan. Salmon Beyond Borders is one Southeast Alaskan organization...
