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Construction on the Kake Access Project is expected to begin in mid-July and depending on conditions in the upcoming year, the project should be completed by late summer 2021, according to Joseph Kemp, engineering manager for the project. The Alaska Department of Transportation's contractors for the project, Kiewit Infrastructure West, will be arriving in Portage Bay in early July and will start construction on the road in the following weeks, said Kemp. The contractors look to have the project...
The borough assembly failed to pass a letter to Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Commissioner John MacKinnon requesting DOT revise their plans for the Kake Access Road project to end the road directly across from Petersburg on Kupreanof Island instead of at Twelvemile Creek. Mayor Mark Jensen, who requested the letter be put on the agenda, said ending the road at Twelvemile Creek was not a good plan and it should end closer to Petersburg in the Wrangell Narrows. "I...
A resolution that would have opposed the Kake Access Road project and asked state legislators to reappropriate the remaining balance of the $40 million in funding for the project was voted down by the borough assembly at their meeting on Monday. Most assembly members were in support of a road connecting Kake to Petersburg, though they did not agree with the road ending at Twelvemile Creek. They had hoped the road would stretch closer to Petersburg. Assembly Member Jeff Meucci suggested the road...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly recently considered a resolution urging the Legislature to re-appropriate money from a critical $40 million Kake-Petersburg road project to the Alaska Marine Highway System. This engages in an unnecessary ferry versus road debate at a time when we're pursuing all avenues of transportation for Southeast Alaska: ferries, airports and roads. Some points to consider: • Road funding from the 2012 capital appropriation for the road cannot be used for ferries. • It can...
Kake/Kupreanof road To the Editor: The assembly will be considering a resolution on the Kake/Kupreanof road next week. No matter what happens some people will be upset at the final vote. Either way, I hope the public sends their thoughts on the Kake project to the State House Finance Committee, housefinance@akleg.gov. (Or visit the LIO for assistance submitting comments!) Considering the project was initially funded with no public hearing at the state level, a project with murky purpose and a...
A resolution opposing the Kake Access Road project was discussed at an assembly meeting Tuesday, but assembly members won't vote on the resolution until their March 2 meeting. Vice Mayor Jeigh Stanton Gregor requested that resolution #2020-01 be discussed at Tuesday's meeting to allow residents time to become aware of the resolution and to give their feedback to the assembly before they vote on it in March. The resolution cites the state's current "fiscal crisis" and the "99 percent shut down"...
With the M/V Matanuska going out of service last week, ferry service via the Alaska Marine Highway has completely shut down. According to a press release from the Alaska Department of Transportation, new issues have been found with the ferry's reduction gear system. The Matanuska, at the time of writing, is being towed to Ketchikan for repairs. "AMHS is aware of travel needs for upcoming school and community tournaments in March and is exploring options for alternative service in the event...
Editor's Note: The following was received from Sen. Bert Stedman's office. January 28, 2020 Honorable Governor Mike Dunleavy Office of the Governor Dear Mr. Dunleavy, Welcome back to Juneau. We extend our best wishes in the upcoming session. As the Mayor of the City of Kake, I would like to show our support for the Kake Access Road. Having a road connection to Petersburg is very important in keeping Kake viable in these important times. It will give us an opportunity to increase the quality of...
A letter to Sen. Bert Stedman and Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins requesting information on the proposed Kake Access Road project was approved by the borough assembly at their meeting Monday after amending the letter to remove a paragraph suggesting the road was a waste of funding. The letter follows a similar correspondence between the borough and the Department of Transportation's project manager, Greg Lockwood. In a letter to Lockwood, the assembly requested a public meeting with DOT officials...
Thank you To the Editor: To whomever maintains the Bill Musson trail it’s greatly appreciated. Andrew Greinier Road to nowhere To the Editor: Assembly Members please support sending a letter to Senator Stedman to not support the road being built from Kake to 12 mile. This is a total and complete waste of $40 million dollars and no one in Petersburg or Kake are in favor of this road and wasting $40 million, it makes us all look bad. It’s a “Road to Nowhere”. Who in Petersburg or Kake is going to leave a vehicle or boat at 12 mile to access...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly requested a public meeting with officials of the Alaska Department of Transportation in a letter approved at their meeting Tuesday to hear an update on the status of a new, unpaved 13.5-mile road connecting Kake and Petersburg on Kupreanof Island. The two paragraph letter addressed to Greg Lockwood, DOT project manager, states that the project is of major interest to the community and both the assembly and public have questions regarding the project. The letter...
A patchwork of logging roads already exists, and the project would connect those roads to make a 35-mile, single-lane road between Kake and 12-mile Creek north of the city of Kupreanof. The money was allocated in 2012 by State Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, as part of a program called "Roads to Resources" meant to help access to natural resources. "We need to have a transportation system in Southeast," Stedman said in a phone interview. "This road is part of a bigger drive to help stabilize and exp...
The borough assembly took a neutral position on the future of the Roadless Rule at Monday's assembly meeting when they voted against a resolution that supported keeping the Roadless Rule intact and a resolution repealing it. Resolution #2019-14 was in support of alternative one of the draft environmental impact statement released by the United States Forest Service regarding the future of the Roadless Rule. Alternative one, or the do nothing option, keeps the Roadless Rule in place. Resolution #...
Borough unfairness To the Editor: I moved here 30 years ago and fell in love with this community. Everyone helped each other and the city government was run quite well and fair. But as time has gone by the government has gotten bigger and created a borough that costs us lots more than it's worth in my opinion. I understand that the people that got swallowed up by the borough needed to pay for some of the benefits like school and such, but in most cases they are paying taxes for little to no...
At this week’s Assembly meeting, Community Development director Liz Cabrera presented to the Petersburg Borough Assembly an outline for how to update the borough’s zoning code that hasn’t been brought up to speed since 1986. Cabrera said many parts of the code are contradictory due to small updates in some sections but not in others, that the processes used are cumbersome and slow and that the zoning is restrictive. “A lot of the definitions in the code are nonexistent, blurry, unclear, really difficult to interpret and apply consistently, real...
January Public Works rolled out the borough's highly anticipated blue cart recycling program. The borough received $820,117.61 from the annual raw fish tax. Dave Zimmerman was hired as the new Tongass National Forest Petersburg District Ranger. The assembly continued discussing the reallocation of the Kake access road funding. Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins took part in a budget crisis presentation at Sons of Norway Hall. The visit was the first of many by representatives throughout the...
The Kake Access road project is officially dead after the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) nixed the project’s environmental impact statement (EIS). “A Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an…EIS was published in the Federal Register on January 22, 2013,” a notice on the federal register states. “The FHWA is issuing this notice to advise the public that FHWA and the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT&PF) will no longer prepare an EIS for the Kake Access project.” In 2004, a state transportation plan identified... Full story
The state is closing out the Kake Access road project and will be looking for other ways to improve access to the village. Residents from Kake, Petersburg and the City of Kupreanof have criticized the project that would have linked Kake to Petersburg by way of road and ferry. In September 2015 public comment documents from the Office of Federal Lands Highway (OFLH), some Kake residents supported the road for the employment opportunities the construction would offer Kake workers. Others criticized the project and said they’d rather have b... Full story
One could hear the proverbial crickets chirping after Petersburg Mayor Mark Jensen brought up the assembly’s previous request to have a discussion about the possibility of re-appropriating money from the Kake access road project. During its last Borough Assembly meeting in January, several assembly members were in support of such a reallocation and suggested a bulk of the money go to projects for Kake and Petersburg. State Senator Bert Stedman appropriated the $40 million in 2012 for the project that would build a road and ferry connection from... Full story
The Petersburg Borough Assembly will discuss at its next meeting in February a request to the state asking the legislature to reallocate funding from the $40 million Kake Access Road project. Many Petersburg residents have expressed criticism and concerns regarding the road that would connect Kake to northwest Kupreanof Island, where a proposed ferry would increase traffic in between the two communities, and think the project isn’t sustainable and won’t serve its expressed need. The assembly discussed the idea of reallocating the funds dur... Full story
PETERSBURG (AP) — The state of Alaska is moving forward with plans to construct a controversial road linking the city of Petersburg to Kake as part of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. The proposed road from Kake would end at Wrangell Narrows across from Petersburg, where a shuttle ferry would then pick up passengers to complete the trip. The Kake Access Project calls for building 27 miles of unpaved road and upgrades to another 26 miles of logging roads, KFSK-FM reported. Funding for the $37 million project is covered under the...
October 30, 1915 – H. S. Finch arrived from Seattle Wednesday and is spending the week meeting friends and looking after business in this vicinity. He is well satisfied with his fish brokerage venture, and reports a steady increase of trade. Mr. Finch was in the fish business at Anacortes several years ago, and he finds this a big asset in his present undertaking, as many of his old customers are again dealing with him. Rather unexpectedly, the freighter Redondo arrived in port Thursday with 7,500 feet of pipe for the water system. The work of...
About 15 Petersburg and Kupreanof residents attended a meeting last Thursday night to hear about and voice their opinions on recent developments on the Kake Access road project. Meeting attendees listened to presentations by ADOT's Andy Hughes, Seth English-Young from the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) and two consultants working on the project who explained developments with the project's purpose and need statement and a screening process developed to evaluate 21 transportation... Full story
Don't give up on recycling To the Editor: I have been a proponent of recycling for decades. The recycling effort, which has been managed and maintained by the municipality for as long as I can remember, is just that: an effort to renew, reuse, and recycle. It's what is best for our community and our planet. From having to separate our recyclables to hauling them to various drop-off places around town to hauling them to the baler facility to hauling commingled blue bags to our curb, recycling in Petersburg has been quite a journey where much...
What is the need for a road between Kake and Petersburg? That's the question Petersburg residents wanted most answered during a meeting with the Federal Highway Administration and Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT&PF) Tuesday evening. The two entities brought along the McDowell Group and Northern Economics, who conducted studies concerning the project. It was the 2012 Alaska Legislature that appropriated $40 million to ADOT&PF to construct about 22 miles of a new,... Full story
