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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...
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....
WRANGELL — A Georgia-based developer who has taken a liking to Wrangell has offered the borough $200,000 for the former hospital property, with plans to tear down the building and construct as many as 48 new housing units. Wayne Johnson’s offer on the 2-acre property is contingent on striking a deal to purchase six smaller borough-owned lots behind the hospital building, adding an additional 1.3 acres to the development site. The purchase price for the hospital property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved into its new Wrangell Medical Cen...
The governor’s growing obsession with charter schools is frightening for the future of public education in Alaska. He talks as if charter schools are by far the best answer to the state’s low student test scores. He has told Alaskans he would not support an increase in state funding for public schools unless the Legislature also backs his proposal to bypass local school boards when parents want to start up a new charter school. At the same time, he resists providing adequate support for public school districts that have not seen any real inc...
Wrangell has lost three cruise ship stopovers this summer to Klawock, where a partnership of three Native corporations is developing a tourist destination with facilities, shore excursions and other activities for passengers. The 746-passenger Seven Seas Explorer has crossed Wrangell off its schedule for a May visit, with the 670-passenger Regatta canceling a stop in June and one in September but retaining a Wrangell stop earlier in September, according to the schedule posted by the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau earlier this month. The...
WRANGELL — The borough is waiting on a federal disaster declaration to cover the expense of power line repairs and other immediate and near-term costs from the Nov. 20 landslide at 11.2-Mile Zimovia Highway. The Wrangell Cooperative Association is seeking federal funding for the longer-term expense of cleaning up the tidelands of debris and toxic material. Under federal law, only the governor can request a federal disaster declaration, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency reviews before sending it to the president for signature. The s...
Assembly members agreed that a port commission proposal to require boat owners to carry marine insurance — or pay a monthly fee in addition to their stall rental — needs a lot more work. The port commission has been discussing since 2022 the financial risk to the borough when an uninsured vessel catches fire or sinks in the harbor, requiring cleanup and removal. The commission last month voted unanimously to recommend assembly approval of an ordinance requiring boat owners show proof of insurance or pay an additional monthly fee so that the...
Risky business not the state’s business The advice for Las Vegas gamblers is don’t bet more than you can afford to lose. It’s generally the same advice for investors: Don’t take more risk than you can afford, even when the riskier bets look like they could pay off the same as 21 at the blackjack table. The six members of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. board of trustees are not gamblers but they are getting a little too aggressive in accepting risk as they chase after higher investment returns. Most every investment is a gamble — company s...
Wrangell borough officials are concerned that Wrangell continues to lose population, while those who stay in town grow older and leave the workforce. As a whole, the state has lost more residents than it has gained in new arrivals every year since 2013, with only the birth rate keeping Alaska from showing a population decline. However, unlike the statewide totals, Wrangell recorded more deaths than births between 2017 and 2022, adding to the community’s overall population decline. The state’s latest estimate for Wrangell’s population, as of las...
“I’ve never seen market conditions as bad as they are now,” Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told a conference of Southeast business, community and municipal government leaders last week. “Last year we said we reached rock bottom,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said of low prices, weak markets and reluctant consumers. But then he added, “we’ve scraped off more levels,” reaching deeper to the bottom. All of the participants in the fisheries panel discussio...
Crew shortages continue to plague the Alaska Marine Highway, the ferry system’s director told a gathering of Southeast officials last week. “Our biggest shortage is in the engineering department,” where the 54 ship engineers on the payroll as of Jan. 26 were far short of the 81 needed for full staffing, Craig Tornga told a gathering of community, business and government leaders at the Southeast Conference on Feb. 7 in Juneau. “We’re short in the wheelhouse,” he added, down eight from a full contingent of 79 in the master, chief mate, secon...
WRANGELL — State geologists were able to more accurately measure the movement and damage from massive landslides that poured across roads in the middle of the island in November because just a few months earlier the state and U.S. Forest Service had collected detailed images and data — literally laser-focused — of the terrain. The Forest Service and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys partnered in July to conduct an aerial survey of the entire island, using airborne lasers to map out ground cover, geology and slopes for f...
Alaskans often like to complain — a lot, and loudly — about national groups sticking their noses and opinions into the workings of the 49th state. So, it’s only fair to extend a “thank you” when a national group puts up its money and time into doing something Alaskans like. The National Forest Foundation, chartered by Congress in 1992 as the official nonprofit partner of the U.S. Forest Service, is partnering with the federal agency to rebuild the popular public-use cabin at Anan Bay and, in an even bigger undertaking, building new cabins th...
WRANGELL — John Florschutz was surprised to learn that his parents’ homeowner’s insurance policy did not cover the loss from the Nov. 20 landslide that destroyed their home and killed his father, Otto Florschutz. “I think it’s a shock to everyone I talk to,” he said last week. “What’s the point of home insurance. … You would expect flooding to be on the policy.” But floods, landslides, mudslides and other “earth movements” are not covered by standard home insurance policies. “There’s not a lot of people who know that,” commented Florschutz...
WRANGELL — The borough assembly has declared as “hazardous” and assigned a property value of zero to the two lots owned by victims of the deadly Nov. 20 landslide at 11-Mile Zimovia Highway, making the owners eligible to possibly receive state land as replacement for their unusable property. The owners or their estate could build on their new lots, hold them undeveloped or sell them and keep the proceeds, explained Hannah Uher-Koch, who runs the land grant program at the Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mining, Land and Water....
The dumpsters at Wrangell’s public harbors are for boat owners only and for their household trash only — but that hasn’t stopped people from tossing in waste oil, fishing nets, appliances and even a Volkswagen Beetle cut into pieces. “It’s been bad forever,” Harbormaster Steve Miller said last week. In an effort to stop or at least reduce the illegal dumping, the port commission on Thursday, Feb. 1, voted unanimously to recommend assembly approval of a new ordinance to explicitly prohibit throwing non-harbor and non-port related trash into the...
It seems the governor’s office must like country music. Can’t argue with that choice. The lyrics speak of American dreams and heartbreaks. What makes the songs so popular is that they tell stories, believable or not, such as the famous line: “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.” Sadly, that same line is essentially all the public is getting from the governor’s office to explain his decisions behind a dozen executive orders that will take effect unless rejected by the Legislature before mid-March. While some of the orders are not controver...
Unless the Legislature decides otherwise by mid-March, Gov. Mike Dunleavy will take over appointment of the entire nine-member Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board. State law reserves four of the seats for appointment by legislative leaders, but Dunleavy on the first day of the legislative session Jan. 16 introduced an executive order that changes the law so that the governor would control all of the appointments. The change will take effect 60 days after the order was issued — unless a majority of the 60 legislators vote in a joint s...
WRANGELL — Cruise ship operators that lighter their passengers to shore will pay higher port fees starting this summer in Wrangell. The borough assembly unanimously approved the new rate structure Jan. 9, following a port commission recommendation. The rates had been set at 40% of the cost of tying up to the dock, with the new fee structure raising that to 60%. The increase in lightering fees is intended to encourage more ships to tie up at the dock rather than anchor offshore, Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma told the assembly. Wrangell...
This fall’s energy relief payment, which would go out along with the annual Permanent Fund dividend, is looking smaller than expected several months ago. The “bonus” on the 2024 dividend would come from state revenues in excess of what is needed to cover the spending plan approved by lawmakers and the governor last spring. The Legislature included a provision in the state budget that said half of any surplus would go into savings and half into an energy relief payment to Alaskans. The latest projection for the fall payment is about $175, Alexe...
Almost 110,000 Alaskans applied for the fall 2024 Permanent Fund dividend in the first eight days after the application period opened on Jan. 1. Applications close in 11 weeks, on March 31. Last year’s dividend was $1,312. This year’s amount will be determined as part of annual state budget deliberations, which will begin next week when legislators reconvene in Juneau. The annual dividend is paid from the state general fund, which gets most of its money from investment earnings generated by the $78 billion Alaska Permanent Fund and from oil...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is starting his sixth year as the state’s top elected leader. Sadly, he’s not providing much fiscal leadership, other than beating the drums for his perpetual political bandwagon that trumpets the Permanent Fund dividend at the front of the parade, with public schools playing second fiddle. It’s sour music, off-key and off-base. The governor unveiled his proposed state budget last week, setting out a spending plan for the fiscal year that will start July 1 and which legislators will start working through when they recon...
With the rusty Matanuska out of service pending repairs, the Kennicott scheduled for tie-up due to lack of crew and the Tazlina in the shipyard to add crew quarters, the state ferry system’s draft summer 2024 schedule is limited by the number of vessels in service and looks about the same as this past summer. The Columbia would make a weekly northbound stop in Petersburg on Sundays and a weekly southbound visit on Wednesdays on its run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. The marine highway system released its draft schedule D...
WRANGELL - Response to the deadly landslide continues, with extensive clearing work to remove debris from along the highway to increase safety and with fundraising for families affected by the disaster, particularly the Heller and Florschutz families that lost loved ones. More than $43,000 from 342 donations had been raised in a GoFundMe campaign for the two families as of Monday, Dec. 4. Almost $20,000 had been raised in another account to help families who were displaced or whose lives were...
WRANGELL - State officials have released the names of the four people killed and two others still missing from the Nov. 20 landslide that hit just past 11-Mile Zimovia Highway. As of Monday, Nov. 27, searchers had found the bodies of Timothy Heller, 44, his wife, Beth Heller, 36, and their daughters, Mara, 16, and Kara, 11. Mara was a high school junior and Kara was in fifth grade. Searchers found Mara's body the night of the slide, during the initial search operations by first responders able...
