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The Petersburg Borough Assembly approved an extensive resolution during its last meeting that will move the Petersburg Medical Center new facility project one step closer to shovel-ready status. The resolution, passed in a 6-1 vote with Assembly Member Donna Marsh against, approved the North Haugen site as the location of the future hospital and authorized the PMC board to proceed with a preconstruction services contract with Dawson Construction. The new facility project was made the borough's...
Longtime Petersburg High School Coach Rick Brock has made it his mission not just to develop students as better athletes, but to help them build stronger character. Teaching kids that it is not just about how well they shoot a basketball or how fast they can run, but how they lift others up on and off the court. For those efforts, the Alaska Association of Basketball Coaches named Brock as the recipient of the 2023 Roger Steinbrecher Coaching Integrity Award. The integrity award is given annuall...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy told legislators in a pair of closed-door meetings last week that he will introduce a state sales tax as a component of a budget-balancing, long-term fiscal plan. But with just three weeks left in the legislative session, with no details about the governor’s tax bill as of Monday, and with strong opposition from lawmakers who represent communities with a local sales tax, the odds of passage this year are extremely low. If the governor goes ahead with a sales tax bill, it would join more than a dozen proposals offered by H...
April 27, 1923 – That a large party of capitalists and others interested in the development of the water power at Thomas Bay and the erection of the ten million dollar paper mill there will visit the power site this summer is indicated by the following article printed in the Seattle Times of recent date. “Indicative of the spreading fame of vacation attractions offered by Alaska, is a letter received by the Chamber of Commerce from F.C. Dougherty, a San Francisco business man asking the chamber’s assistance in finding a sumptuously appointed st...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously passed a supplemental budget during its April 17 meeting that includes spending for dredge projects, attorney fees, and more. The FY23 budget revision was amended in its final reading to increase the South Harbor dredge project budget by $1 million, bringing the borough's total budgeted amount up to $2.1 million. The project, which has removed approximately 29,351 cubic yards of material so far, has faced difficulties removing hard blue clay from the...
We are in need of a neutral third party To the Editor: I am writing today in response to last week’s Guest Editorial, a report submitted by Assembly Member Fine-Walsh on Petersburg Borough Human Resources Practices and Procedures, and to underscore the need to employ a neutral third party to daylight gaps in our Borough’s policies and protocols in regard to human resource management, safety, and communications. I appreciate the effort taken to review what actions the Borough of Petersburg has made since the crash that killed Molly Parks and...
We are addressing Assembly Member Fine-Walsh's guest commentary published on April 20 in the Pilot. You are right, Mr. Fine-Walsh, we did want to hear your report. We had been asking for that report for 4 days prior to the April 17th Assembly meeting. We were hoping to review it and make comments in our statement at the April 17th meeting. A report we had been hoping to see in a timely manner before the 6:00 pm meeting, we received 2 hours before the meeting, a meeting where we were to speak to the Assembly about our daughter's death. We do not...
April 19 – An officer responded to a report of suspicious activity on Sing Lee Alley and an individual without permission to be on the property left at the direction of the officer. Found property brought to the Petersburg Police Department (PPD) was returned to its owner. An officer spoke with a complainant concerning a suspicious incident on Howkan Street. An officer responded to a disturbance on 4.5 Street. PPD received a report of theft from Lumber Street. An officer responded to a report of a dangerous driver at Papke’s Landing. April 20...
Alaska is 30 years into state budget deficits, borrowing billions from savings to pay the bills. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is five years into the job, still pledging mega Permanent Fund dividends even if the money isn’t there. Three months ago, Dunleavy in his State of the State address couldn’t even manage to acknowledge the need for a long-term fiscal plan, despite the budget math that adds up otherwise. Then the governor had an epiphany last week. Not a religious one, a fiscal one. He said the word “taxes.” Only he didn’t say it in public. T...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly held a work session on Monday to review the borough's FY24 draft budget ahead of its first reading. Finance Director Jody Tow walked through the presentation, along with Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht and other borough department heads, which gave assembly members an overview of what next year's budget may look like. Giesbrecht said this upcoming budget was a bit of a challenge to put together due to increased costs of insurance, inflation, uncertainties in...
A bill advancing in the Alaska Legislature would dramatically shorten the time needed to approve the logging of some state-owned lands, shrinking approval time from years to days in the most extreme cases. Proponents say the bill will alleviate fire danger and revitalize the state’s dwindling logging industry by expanding the amount of timber that can be sold from public land, but legislative and public critics have noted that the bill’s lack of specificity gives the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources almost unlimited dis... Full story
The state should change its tax code to increase corporate income tax collections from out-of-state businesses that sell goods or services to Alaskans, particularly digitized services, according to a legislator promoting the revisions. “The world has changed,” said Anchorage Sen. Bill Wielechowski. “We’re no longer bricks and mortar.” His legislation would amend Alaska’s income tax code to ensure that online and digital sales are included in calculating how much of a company’s U.S. profit was made in Alaska and should be subject to corporate...
The visiting Sitka Wolves took down the Petersburg High School baseball team last weekend, winning each of the three games by mercy rule. The Vikings started the series with a 15-4 loss Friday evening, which Head Coach Jim Engell said was a "real gut check for us." The Wolves broke away with a six-run third inning and added to their lead with five runs in the fifth while Petersburg suffered through five errors in the game. "We've been talking a lot this year about being resilient, being able to...
The Petersburg High School track and field team made it over their first hurdle of the season-the Capital City Invitational-last weekend with many students chalking up personal records over the two-day meet. The competition was the Vikings' first opportunity to race on a real track all season after training in the rocks and dirt of the school yard, and Head Coach James Valentine said they are still getting used to the feel of it. "It was just a good overall first meet to get the jitters out,"...
The Alaska Press Club held its annual conference in Anchorage last weekend where Petersburg-based journalists representing the Petersburg Pilot, KFSK, and CoastAlaska received awards for their work over the last year. The three-day conference was the first held in-person in four years and featured speakers, breakout sessions, and professional development opportunities with reporters from across Alaska. The Petersburg Pilot was awarded a third-place prize for Best Weekly Newspaper in the state....
Brad King, the current principal at the K-12 school in Gustavus, visited Petersburg over the weekend as a candidate for secondary school principal. He's lived in Southeast Alaska ten years, serving as principal in Hydaburg and then Gustavus. Before that he was the district curriculum coordinator in the Fairbanks school district. A teacher for 14 years before turning to administration for the last 19, King still tries to teach a class at every school he works at. He's taught social studies, Germa...
