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The Petersburg Pilot received quite a bit of recognition at last month’s Alaska Press Club conference in Anchorage. The press club’s annual contest is a valuable opportunity for our newsroom to take stock of the past year’s efforts, and it helps us get some external feedback from experts in the field. Contest entries are submitted by most of the journalists in Alaska working in print, radio, television, and web. And our state is blessed with a lot of top notch local news being produced across the state, so competition is often pretty tight... Full story
PMEA supports the teachers union To the Editor: We, the members of the Petersburg Municipal Employees Association Union (PMEA), support the Associated Teachers of Petersburg Union (ATP). As fellow public servants and advocates for quality education, we recognize the vital role that teachers and staff play in shaping the future of our community. We stand firmly behind the ATP in their current ongoing negotiations for a fair and equitable labor agreement. We believe that investing in our teachers is an investment in the future of Petersburg....
The state House needed an auctioneer last week. Instead, it wasted three hours in a meaningless bidding war as the Republican-led majority told Alaskans they cared far more than anyone else about supporting education and ensuring state-funded alternatives for correspondence school students and their families. That meant they didn’t want to move too quickly to fix the constitutional problem of state money going to private and religious school programs. Let the millions continue to flow and wait for the Alaska Supreme Court to hear the appeal o...
Let’s keep Petersburg schools - and Alaska - great To the Editor: Through no one’s fault but my own, I got busy with work and forgot to run down and attend the #RedforEd march for education. So I wanted to thank the Pilot and KFSK for covering the event as well as local school board and statewide education issues. Public school is what we make it, and in the near decade I’ve lived here I’ve seen people pour their hearts into making our schools great. I don’t have kids in the district, but as a Borough taxpayer I believe strongly in funding o...
Letter to the Editor: Support teachers to keep Petersburg competitive Contract negotiations between the Petersburg School District and the Associated Teachers of Petersburg began in January. The current contract, which is set to expire at the end of this school year, allowed for a 1% increase across the certified salary schedule in each of the last three years. This was in line with similar increases in previous contracts. As we all know, the last three years have brought significantly steeper inflation - roughly 15% in Alaska. We have all...
Less than two years ago, Alaskans voted overwhelmingly against convening a constitutional convention to amend the state’s founding document. More than 70% of voters said no thanks, it’s a bad idea. It was the sixth time in a row, going back to 1972, that voters by wide margins rejected the whimsy of shaking up the constitution as you would a game of Etch A Sketch and redrawing the fundamental laws of Alaska. While they oppose reopening the constitution to a potential wholesale rewrite, Alaskans have approved multiple specific amendments ove...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: After roughly 24 hours of debate and consideration of 137 amendments, the House passed the operating and mental budgets last week. Leading up to passing the budget on the House Floor there were weeks of subcommittee hearings, where each agency’s budget was scrutinized, amended, and then passed to the Finance Committee for consideration. As a reminder, my subcommittees were the Departments of Public Safety, Corrections, Education and Early Development, and Fish and Game. In the Finance Committee each agency’s budg...
The Permanent Fund dividend is important to a lot of Alaska households, but so is education, public safety, ports and harbors, roads and more. The state House did the right thing last week in rejecting a proposed constitutional amendment that would have elevated the PFD to a higher status than any other need in the state. Yes, Alaskans have to find a solution to the annual divisive, debilitating, political fight over the amount of the dividend. It has become worse than a distraction; it’s become an obstruction that prevents elected officials an...
Who better to talk about education in Alaska than students. They could continue leaving it to school administrators, elected officials, their parents and teachers to speak for them, but that would be the easy way out. It’s also been unsuccessful. Looking to break that losing streak with the governor and state legislators unwilling to adequately fund education, hundreds of high schoolers around the state last week showed they are frustrated at the outcome. From Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau, in Anchorage, Eagle River, Homer, Bethel and U...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: The House Finance Committee wrapped up debate on amendments to the operating budget Thursday evening and moved the budget out of subcommittee on Friday. Amendments to the budget are being considered on the House floor this week. After we consider over 100 amendments the budget will be debated and voted on. If there is support, the budget will pass the House and then be considered by the Senate. Usually, the differences between the House and Senate versions of the operating budget are worked out in a conference...
Youth education in shooting sports To the Editor: The weekend of March 22-24 three Petersburg students with Devil’s Thumb Shooters participated in the Western Regional Junior Target Championships in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hannah Slaven, Marcus Anderson, and Cayden Turland joined ten Anchorage area students on the ALASKA YESS state team. The tournament in Las Vegas had many teams from all over the midwest and AKYESS team placed third over all in the trap shoot. All students shot 350 targets in four different events: 50 international skeet, 100 A...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: After a lovely and restful Easter weekend the House is continuing to debate the operating budget. The House Finance Committee is working through nearly 100 amendments, but so far very few have passed. After the committee finishes the amendment process, they will vote on whether to pass the operating budget out of committee. After the bill moves from the House Finance Committee it will be another opportunity for members to offer budget amendments on the House Floor before the budget package is debated and voted on....
If you read the mainstream papers and blogs and spend just a little bit of time on social media these days, you will see, read, and be told that the education sky is falling. The people promoting this narrative might be right, but not just because of funding. Education in Alaska needs reform. I’ve been very transparent in my conversations with the Legislature, school district administrators, the education lobby establishment, and the public. My message – yes, there needs to be additional funding for education, but we also need some changes to...
A huge thank you! To the Editor: Humanity in Progress (HIP) would like to give a huge thank you to our Local Moose Lodge #1092 for choosing HIP to receive this years Heart of the Community donations from the Alaska-Hawaii Moose Conference held in Petersburg this past week. Through this amazingly generous program HIP received $2600 in donations from eleven Moose Lodges across Alaska, including our local lodge. We also had the honor of being recognized and getting to share with visiting lodge members this weekend about the work we are doing...
Tax credits have long been popular, growing more so every year. Supporters push them to provide government backing for new initiatives or ongoing programs, steering money to worthy causes — some unworthy ones, too — bypassing actual appropriations by federal, state or municipal lawmakers. With a tax credit, businesses or individuals can make donations to a program or invest in a project, such as housing, and reduce their taxes to the federal, state or municipal treasury. Tax credits divert private money that otherwise would become public mon...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: In a frantic week last week, and a busy day Monday, the House met twice in joint session with the Senate. Yesterday we held a joint session for the purpose of overriding Governor Dunleavy’s veto of SB 140, the omnibus education bill, and last Tuesday we held a joint session to consider a dozen Executive Orders the governor introduced at the beginning of session. As you have likely heard, Governor Dunleavy vetoed SB 140 last week, and Monday afternoon, by a vote of 39 for to 20 against the legislature failed by on...
Even in winter, there are hot opportunities. And since the state’s prospects for economic well-being are in short supply these days — like being short of buyers for Alaska salmon, running short of energy for Southcentral residents and businesses, and falling woefully short of funding for public schools — the state needs to seize whatever unexpected opportunities arise. Alaskans have long prided themselves on ingenuity, making something anew from the discard piles left behind by others. In this case, there are six ice-class liquefied natur...
Love thy neighbor as thyself To the Editor: Dear Borough Assembly: My name is Almont Lindsey. I own lot 6 block 2 in the Frederick Point East neighborhood. I am asking that you all please do not repeal the no discharge of firearms law in that area. I want you all to ask yourselves if you would like strangers or people you know discharging around your homes or cars? I am guessing most of you would not. Thus, I ask you humbly please; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Why not use the money paid in property taxes (from Fre...
In 1986, two linguists, Ron and Suzie Scollon, drafted a proposal for the Sealaska Heritage Foundation to inaugurate a new kind of education, which they had developed with help from Tlingit scholars Nora and Richard Dauenhauer. It was an education that would prioritize building knowledge about the place you live in, the cultures you interact with, and the communication skills you need to flourish in an interconnected, media-saturated world. The Axe Handle Academy, as it was called, never became a physical school, but its curriculum and values...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: It feels like everyone in the Capitol is holding their breath as we count down the days until March 14, the deadline for the governor to sign, veto, or allow SB 140 to become law by taking no action. As a reminder, SB 140 is the bipartisan education bill that will increase the Base Student Allocation by $680, provide assistance and a faster timeline for charter school approval, adds funding for student transportation, internet speed increases in remote schools, charter schools, and the Individual Reading...
Pharmacy Corner To the Editor: We would like to thank the community of Petersburg, and especially our patrons over the past two weeks, for your patience in the backlog of prescriptions services. As some of you may know, pharmacies across the country were basically shutdown in billing third parties due to a cyber attack that affected Change Health. Change Health is the billing transmission platform we use to relay what we bill to the insurance to receive the copays or coinsurance you pay at the counter. Our ability to communicate that...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: Last week the House debated amendments to House Joint Resolution 7, which would add language to the Constitution that would obligate the state to pay out a dividend in the amount in state law. We will continue to debate the resolution this week. In order for this constitutional amendment to go into effect, it must pass the House and Senate by a two thirds vote and then be approved by a majority vote of Alaskans in a referendum. Bills that Passed the House last Week HB 148, AK PERFORMANCE SCHOLARSHIP, ELIGIBILITY...
It was a perplexing week in the Legislature. While the Senate Finance Committee was reviewing honest numbers about real budget needs hitting up against the limit of available state revenues, the House was debating whether the exalted Permanent Fund dividend belongs in the Alaska Constitution, putting the PFD above all else in life. The Senat committee last week was doing the math, realizing the state would not have enough money for a fat dividend this year, no matter what the governor and too many legislators may pledge, promise and promote....
Petersburg has been blessed with great Teachers To the Editor: Last Saturday, the town celebrated a prince of a man, an amazing and caring educator. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather. Friends lined up to speak about Paul Bowen and his love of Alaska, LeConte Glacier, geology, duck hunting, trolling for salmon – especially those summers with his family. We personally enjoyed sharing stories with Paul of our own special memories of fishing as a family. We agreed – it just does not get any better than that. Not many of us knew of...
A crowd of hundreds marched through downtown Anchorage last month calling on the governor and the legislature to increase funding for public education in Alaska. A few weeks later, protestors gathered on the steps of the capitol in Juneau with signs and songs emphasizing that same message. And a few weeks after that, Governor Dunleavy proposed a piece of legislation that would create a new crime in Alaska: “obstruction of free passage in public places.” The proposed anti-protest House bill, HB 386, makes it a class A misdemeanor –with priso...
