Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 27
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT) released a draft Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan (SATP) for public review. The plan includes the construction of a road from Kake to Petersburg and a Wrangell Narrows ferry. According to the plan, the road is meant to be a low-volume road intended to provide local traffic between the two communities. “A road connection to Petersburg would allow access to many of the needed goods and services and could be accomplished with a day trip at significantly reduced cost,” the... Full story
June 27, 1914 – Mr. Wm. Hesse, the moving picture man who has just returned from the Whaling Station at Port Armstrong, reports great success in his pictures. Though taken under difficulties, with the camera lashed to the mast of the ship during stormy weather, pictures of the whale were taken from the time it is sighted at sea until it cut up and reduced to oil, a process that takes two or three days. Mr. Hesse is an intrepid moving picture man, having made the trip to Mount Katmai and taken pictures at the very mouth of the crater while it w...
Issues of funding assistance continue to crop up between the Petersburg Borough Assembly and Petersburg Medical Center, and an ambiguous relationship between the two bodies isn’t clarifying the matter. Last week, PMC CEO Liz Woodyard requested, on behalf of the hospital board, the assembly pay for repairs on a leaking exhaust stack in the borough-owned hospital facility—a request the assembly denied. Woodyard said PMC is struggling to keep up with repairs as the borough-owned building ages, and the dilemma of not being able to afford the rep... Full story
More than 100 Petersburg youngsters are spending part of their summer break reading books and competing for prizes in the Petersburg Public Library summer reading program. Kids can read a book and then head to the library to test their comprehension of the themes, characters and plot of the story. Each book is worth a certain amount of points, and the kids receive tickets for each point they earn. The tickets are then used to enter in random drawings for prizes. There are more than 60 prizes ava... Full story
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved $137,538 in repairs to the failing parks and recreation HVAC system. Parks and Recreation Director Donnie Hayes said the repairs would help his department save money in the long run through energy savings. The pneumatic controls of the more than 25 year-old system are leaking, and many of the springs and actuators that assist the system's air pump have lost tension, causing too much heat to escape the system. “That compressor pumps air to an actuator and tells that actuator 'you need to o...
The Thomas Bay Power Commission will hold a meeting in the Petersburg Borough Assembly Chambers Friday, June 27 at 10 a.m. The commission will elect new officers after previous TBPA President James Stough resigned his position last week. Commission member David Galla also resigned. The commission will also discuss the transfer of TBPA Operations and Maintenance to Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) and work on providing all the necessary documents for the transfer to the Wrangell Borough Manager. The commission will also discuss the fiscal...
Disappointed with Borough Assembly To the Editor: I am very disappointed in the Petersburg Borough Assembly's decision making. Our hospital is as important to us as the fire department and the library and not asking for near as much support. Being the hospital landlord, it just stands to reason that the Borough is responsible for the upkeep when the hospital needs help. I think some of the assembly members are confused about senior citizens, too. Some of us are dependent on Social Security and not of the independent wealthy group. Maybe some...
June 18 Officers responded to a report of a fight outside of a bunkhouse. Jonathan T. Chim, 24, was arrested on charges of Probation Violation. Caller reported a vehicle on privately-owned property. Caller reported an individual burning a fire too close to the tree line. An officer responded and found the fire to be safe and contained. Caller reported an attempted unauthorized use of a private dumpster. Caller reported theft of pallets. Officer observed a vehicle in a park after hours. The individual agreed to leave. June 19 Caller reported...
The Petersburg Medical Center board and their hospital administrator continue their push to have their cake and eat it too. While they want to maintain their autonomy from borough oversight, they want the borough assembly to open the purse strings and fund capital projects for the facility. We don’t think that’s going to happen and we side with the assembly majority who denied PMC’s funding assistance at the most recent assembly meeting. The PMC board had requested $21,900 to repair a leaking exhaust stack. Up to this point, PMC has paid for r...
June 19 Marlon Mountjoy appeared before Magistrate Judge Burrell on a charge of Failure to Give Immediate Notice of Accident. The defendant entered a plea of no contest. The court sentenced the defendant to ten days in jail with ten days suspended, a $500 fine with $100 suspended, $50 surcharge and one year of probation. Roderick Vasquez appeared before Magistrate Judge Burrell on a bail hearing. The court set a $500 performance bond and barred him from consuming alcohol or controlled substances, among other conditions. June 24 Troy Hansen appe...
WRANGELL - An emergency slide on an Alaska Airlines jet plane deployed accidentally Saturday, delaying a north-bound flight for several hours at Wrangell Airport, according to a spokesperson for the company. Airlines staff were opening the hatch for off-loading when the plane's emergency slide deployed. Pictures, widely circulated on Facebook, show the slide deployed perpendicular to the ground. No one was injured in the mishap and passengers were able to disembark, said spokesperson Nancy...
Local land surveyor Rick Braun recently began using newer GPS technology and has interesting insights into its application and the land it measures. Braun used to use the Trimble system—a system that required the use of at least five U.S. satellites out of the 31 that are in space. “It works okay, but you need a really good look at the sky,” Braun said. “That system is only accurate to within 1 to 3 meters.” The new GPS system Braun is using, the Javad system, utilizes both U.S. and Russian satellites that send signals to a rover and a base st...
Uncertainty best sums up the mood as fishermen and processors await the world’s biggest sockeye salmon run at Bristol Bay. In fact, it’s being called the riskiest season in recent memory in the 2014 Sockeye Market Analysis, a biannual report done by the McDowell Group for the fishermen-run Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. As presaged by buyer pushback at seafood trade shows earlier this year at Boston and Brussels, for the first time since 2010 the starting price for the first sockeyes from Copper River took a $0.50/lb dip...
wrangell — Patients in local hospitals could face new limitations on how physical therapy can be paid for in Southeast Alaska hospitals. Annual caps for the amount of physical therapy have, in past years, been restricted only to hospitals that did not receive the critical care designation from the federal government. However, for the first time this year, Medicare will apply reimbursement caps – the limit is $1,920 – to physical therapy patients receiving physical therapy even at critical access facilities, like the Petersburg and Wrang...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A strong earthquake near Alaska's Aleutian Islands triggered a tsunami warning Monday, but only small waves measuring several inches hit coastal communities. The National Tsunami Warning Center canceled all tsunami warnings late Monday afternoon, about four hours after the earthquake struck. The magnitude-7.9 earthquake was centered about 13 miles southeast of Little Sitkin Island, or about 1,400 miles southwest of Anchorage. There were no reports of damage, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of H...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Acting courteous, even when arresting someone, has paid dividends for the Alaska State Troopers. KTVA reports a 49-year-old Anchorage man wanted on several felony warrants decided to turn himself in to troopers Friday after watching an episode of the reality show “Alaska State Troopers” on the National Geographic Channel. Brian John Fahey approached two troopers in the parking lot of the Anchorage headquarters late Friday afternoon. According to troopers, Fahey said he believed they “were more professional and courteo...
JUNEAU (AP) — Alaska authorities say they have shot and killed a black bear that lumbered through the front door of a home in the state's capital while people were inside. Juneau police say in statement Saturday that the residents were on the first floor, the same level where officers spotted the bear in the two-story home in the city's downtown. Police say the bear appeared briefly in a doorway, and an officer fired a shotgun twice at the animal. It ran behind the home and was later found dead. Investigators determined the animal came in thr...
Paul Arvid Blatchford passed away peacefully at home in Elma, Wash. on June 6, 2014. He was born July 5, 1941 in Petersburg to Arthur and Pauline Blatchford. Following high school, Paul joined the Air Force, the highlight of his life, and was stationed in France. While overseas, he traveled through England, exploring where his father was from and looking up family members. When his tour was up overseas, he was stationed in Florida where he met and married Norma Jean. Together they had two children, Kara and PJ. After leaving the Air Force,... Full story
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved a letter to the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities and a union representing ferry service employees to settle a labor contract dispute in a timely manor so as to not disrupt ferry service by the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS), which has already decreased in Petersburg during the past several years. “We, of the Petersburg Borough, encourage a timely and equitable settlement of this dispute,” the letters states. “In addition, we continue to suggest to AMHS, and their...
