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Early in-person voting for the 2022 state general election opened on Monday. Petersburg residents can vote ahead of election day in the community center activity room Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through Nov. 7. The election will use ranked choice voting where voters will be able to rank the candidates in each race based on their preference. After the polls close, each voter's first choice vote will be counted. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes, the candidate who...
At a forum on fishery issues held in the seaport town of Kodiak, two of the leading gubernatorial contenders spent time focusing on a man who was not there: incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy. After about an hour of in-depth discussions of fishery issues that included climate change and its effects in the oceans, the role of hatchery fish in the ecosystem and economy, the infrastructure and workforce development needs of the fishing industry and state fiscal policies, former state Rep. Les Gara and former Gov. Bill Walker turned their fire directly... Full story
Alaska officials are asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide 100% of the funds necessary for Western Alaska communities to recover from damages inflicted by Typhoon Merbok. That would match the 100% funding that was committed to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Fiona in President Joe Biden’s federal disaster declaration. Typically, FEMA covers 75% of disaster-relief costs, leaving the remainder to be matched by state, local or tribal governments. For Western Alaska, “we feel that that’s just not acceptable, parti... Full story
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska residents will receive $3,284 as part of a combined payout that includes the annual dividend from the state’s oil-wealth fund and a special energy relief payment. The amount was announced during a livestream broadcast on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Facebook page Thursday. Prior estimates indicated the combined payout would be around $3,200. There is a yearly application process and residency requirements to qualify for a dividend. Dividends traditionally have been paid using earnings from the Alaska Permanent Fund. Lawma...
A complaint filed Tuesday to the Alaska Public Offices Commission accuses Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who is running for reelection, of engaging in a “scheme to subsidize and coordinate” the activities between his official campaign and an independent expenditure group working on his reelection, and scheming “to improperly subsidize his campaign with public resources.” The complaint asserts that Dunleavy’s campaign spent a “laughable” sum on staffing while key positions were filled on a “volunteer” basis by people paid tens of thousands of d...
A statewide coalition of fisheries and economic development organizations, led by the Southeast Conference, has won a $49 million federal grant to help build up Alaska’s mariculture industry. “This is a moon shot,” Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, said of the challenges ahead and the potential rewards of growing the industry to raise and harvest shellfish and seaweed in larger commercial quantities. “It’s a big deal,” said Wrangell’s Julie Decker, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development F...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s reelection campaign is responding to a pending news story about improperly using official staff for campaign purposes by challenging the reporter’s credibility because of his marriage to a Juneau Assembly member who supports one of the governor’s opponents. Sean Maguire, who recently joined the Anchorage Daily News after working at KTUU since 2017, has since last November been married to Juneau assembly member Carole Triem, who is actively campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Les Gara. Maguire’s story reporte...
The state will receive about $36 million less in federal funding than expected for this year’s Alaska Marine Highway System operating budget, requiring the use of state dollars to cover the gap. No reduction in service is expected because of the budget shuffle, state officials said. But it could mean that legislators next year will need to approve additional state funds to fully make up for the loss of federal aid, exposing the ferries to another vote in the political process. The governor had looked to federal infrastructure money to r...
Special General Election: In Petersburg 725, or 24.22%, of the precinct’s 2,993 registered voters turned out. The preliminary numbers for Petersburg show Sarah Palin in the lead by a single vote. Sarah Palin: 256 Mary Peltola: 255 Nick Begich: 192 Absentee ballots postmarked by election day will still be counted until August 31st, at which time the ranked choice tabulations will determine the winner of the US House seat. Primary Election results in Petersburg U.S. Senate Lisa Murkowski: 312 votes (44.44%) Kelly Tshibaka: 258 (36.75%) U.S. H...
Alaska voters will go to the polls on Tuesday, August 16 to mark their ballots in a couple of firsts: The first election under the state's new ranked-choice voting system and the election of Alaska's first new member of the U.S. House in 49 years. The three finalists for Congress selected in the July special primary election are Republicans Nick Begich, a Chugiak businessman, and former Gov. Sarah Palin, and former Bethel state legislator Democrat Mary Peltola. At a recent candidate forum in...
Inflation smacks drivers in the wallet when they fill up the tank, punches shoppers in the stomach when they load up a grocery cart, and brings travelers down to Earth when they want to buy an airline ticket. The public complains loudly about rising prices that escalate without limits. Why then so quiet about unlimited contributions to political campaigns — it’s just as harmful to democracy as inflation. Maybe even more so. Inflation eventually will come down. Campaign donation limits will only come back when the Legislature and governor tak...
The top employees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. are some of the highest-paid public workers in Alaska, but with wages rising across the country and employers competing for skilled labor, even the $80 billion Permanent Fund is struggling to keep employees from leaving. Nine of the corporation’s 66 employees have quit this year, including the manager of the corporation’s highest-earning investments and the entire three-person team in charge of finalizing trades. Seven other positions are new, and filling them is expected to be dif... Full story
Shellfish hatcheries could be in Alaska's future, under legislation recently signed into law. The measure allows the Department of Fish and Game to manage shellfish enhancement and restoration projects. Restoration projects are designed to bring a struggling stock back to a self-sustaining level, while enhancement projects would boost the stock to allow for commercial harvest. The new laws give the department another tool to address declining shellfish stock, such as red and blue king crab, sea...
For Alaska salmon fishing, the summer of 2022 is the best of times and the worst of times. In the Bristol Bay region, the sockeye salmon run and harvest amounts set new records, as was predicted in the preseason forecast. As of Monday, the run had totaled over 73.7 million, with a harvest of over 56.3 million. The previous record was set just last year, with a 67.7 million run of sockeyes and a third-biggest-ever harvest of nearly 42 million of the fish. But along the Yukon River, a prized salmo... Full story
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The state of Alaska plans to begin distributing this year’s oil-wealth fund check and a special energy relief payment to residents on Sept. 20. The timeline was announced Friday by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state Department of Revenue. The combined payout for the dividend and energy relief payment is estimated to be around $3,200 per person; a final figure is pending. Residents will receive the money as one payment, the department said. The energy relief payment was intended by lawmakers as a one-time benefit to help res...
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade today, ending the federal right to abortion and putting access to it in the hands of states. In Alaska, abortion remains legal through the state constitution's provision on privacy, but abortion-rights advocates say that right is fragile. And they say that access to abortions in Alaska is already inequitable. "The big takeaway is abortion is still safe and legal in Alaska. All of the options that existed yesterday exist today in Alaska," said Rose... Full story
Election-year politics have a way of bringing bad ideas to the top — when they belong at the bottom of the settling pond. Yes, fuel prices are high, painfully so in many communities and particularly so for people and businesses that have no choice but to fill up the tank and drive to work or deliver for a living. But suspending the federal tax on gasoline and diesel would not accomplish much good. Same for getting rid of the state tax. The Alaska Legislature this past session, with the support of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, considered suspending the s...
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has signed a $14.4 billion state budget, the sixth-largest in state history, after vetoing about $400 million from a proposal passed by the Alaska Legislature this spring. With Alaska expecting a multibillion-dollar surge in oil revenue due to high prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, spending is up by $2.7 billion when compared to the budget passed by the governor and lawmakers last year. That increase is less than the rise in revenue, and the state is poised to end a decade-long streak of years in which...
Western Alaska villagers have endured the worst chum salmon runs on record, several years of anemic Chinook salmon runs in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, harvest closures from the Bering Sea coast to Canada’s Yukon Territory and such dire conditions that they relied on emergency shipments of salmon from elsewhere in Alaska just to have food to eat. Many of those suffering see one way to provide some quick relief: Large vessels trawling for pollock and other groundfish in the industrial-scale fisheries of the Bering Sea, they say, must stop i... Full story
Heidi Drygas, the former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, visited Petersburg as part of her campaign for lieutenant governor during the Little Norway Festival in late May. Drygas is running with independent Bill Walker who served as Alaska's governor from 2014 to 2018 against incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy in this year's election. The trip marked her first visit to Petersburg and during her time in town she set up a booth to talk to members of the community...
Three minutes before 11 p.m. on the last day of its regular session, the Alaska Legislature finalized a state budget that will pay each eligible Alaskan about $3,200 later this year. As late as Saturday, it appeared possible that the House and Senate would agree on a $5,500 payment, but lawmakers settled on a lower amount after days of negotiations and a failed vote to spend from savings. "For the four years I've been down here, we've practiced fiscal restraint and tried to keep money in... Full story
The largest of the state ferries, the 499-passenger Columbia, was still listed as inactive on the Transportation Department website as of Monday, with no indication it will go back to work this summer as was planned nine months ago. Last August, the department’s draft summer 2022 schedule included the ship “penciled in” to run May 11 through Sept. 14, with weekly sailings to Southeast from Bellingham, Washington, “pending crew availability.” The run would have included weekly stops in Wrangell. After months of nationwide advertising for crew,...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska lawmakers are considering a request by Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration that the state take over part of a federal environmental permitting program, though some members of the Senate's budget-writing committee have expressed concerns with the potential costs. Administration officials have said the idea behind the proposal is to speed the construction of roads, bridges, mines and drilling projects, the Anchorage Daily News reported. While the state would have to follow federal standards, critics of the proposal sa...
Ocean Rangers To the Editor: If you were disappointed in the Senate Resource Committee’s decision last week and want to stop SB 180 please speak up now. As constituents of Senator Bert Stedman, it is very important he hear our concerns on this bill introduced by Governor Dunleavy that will eliminate Ocean Rangers on cruise ships. We need to ask him to hold SB 180, to not schedule a hearing this session, and urge him to reinstate funding for the Ocean Rangers on most ships, most of the time. Ask Senator Stedman directly what he is planning to d...
The Alaska House of Representatives voted last week to turn an oil-price surge into money for schools, repayment of tax credits the state has owed to oil explorers for years, and $2,600 payments for Alaska residents this fall. The House voted 25-14 to send its state operating budget proposal to the Senate, which is developing its own version. The two budget plans, which set spending for public services starting with the new fiscal year on July 1, will be negotiated into a compromise bill and...
