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An ordinance amending Petersburg municipal code to allow borough land to be disposed of for less than assessed or appraised value when deemed for a “public benefit purpose” passed in its first reading Feb. 5 at a Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting. Amending the code will allow the assembly to dispose of borough land at a lower price for projects deemed more valuable to the community than revenues from a sale at full-value. The municipal code currently has a mechanism for disposal of borough real property for less than the assessed value to...
The leaders of the $76 billion Alaska Permanent Fund voted unanimously on Friday to adopt a strategic plan that calls for borrowing up to $4 billion in order to increase the amount of money available for investments. Friday’s vote has limited effect: The borrowing could take place only if the Alaska Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy change state law to allow it. “It’ll start out as a legislative effort, then it would take a bill,” said Paulyn Swanson, communications director of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., which manages the fund. The Ala... Full story
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration introduced legislation on Wednesday that would criminalize unpermitted street protests and other activities that block passage through public places. Certain types of protest could be counted among the state’s most serious crimes. Dunleavy said the proposal is aimed at increasing public safety. Civil rights advocates say the potential infringement of Alaskans’ First Amendment rights is concerning. House Bill 386 would impose penalties for obstructing highways, navigable waterways, airport runways and other pu... Full story
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase about 50 million pounds of Alaska seafood to use in national food and nutrition-assistance programs, state officials said on Tuesday. The seafood purchase is to benefit needy children and adults and school lunches, said the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which announced the department’s plans. The purchases are authorized through a portion of federal law called Section 32, which allows the department to buy surplus food products, and through the department’s Commodity Credit Corp., a gov... Full story
The U.S. Census Bureau rejected Haines' appeal over the 2020 population count, which showed Haines’ population dropping by around 500 residents. “I’m deeply disappointed. I really thought that our response was compelling,” said borough clerk Alekka Fullerton, who worked on the appeal. “I was mad – it’s a big deal to our community.” The bureau counted 2080 residents in Haines in 2020. The borough appealed that number in June. Fullerton said a few weeks ago, she realized the borough still hadn’t received a response about its appeal. She reach...
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...
IGA President John Ross presents Hammer & Wikan General Manager and CEO Jim Floyd with the USA Retailers of the Year award in Hammer & Wikan grocery store on Feb. 8, as board members and staff look on proudly. Pictured, left to right, are Jennifer Toyomura, Terri Faulter, Bruce Westre, Laron Martin, Sharon Wikan, Gainhart Samuelson, Katrina Miller, Audrey Samuelson, Jim Floyd and John Ross....
The Alaska House of Representatives voted on Wednesday against increasing the amount written into law saying how much the state should spend per student in public schools. Wednesday’s action isn’t final, and the House could change course as soon as 11 a.m. Thursday, when debates are scheduled to resume. House Minority Leader Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, said it would be accurate to consider things in a holding pattern. “Obviously, we haven’t come to a deal yet. But the bill will be in second (reading) tomorrow. So we’ll still have the opportuni... Full story
“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...
An ordinance amending Petersburg municipal code was passed in its first reading by the Petersburg Borough Assembly last week. At its second reading during the next assembly meeting a public hearing on the ordinance will take place. The ordinance would amend borough code to increase the assessed property value requirement for disposal of borough property from $500 thousand to $2 million. Currently, voters must approve of any sale or trade of borough property with an assessed value $500 thousand or higher. The ordinance seeks to change that requi...
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected the Blind Slough Hydroelectric Project to receive up to $2.9 million in Hydroelectric Efficiency Improvement Incentives which will complete funding for the hydro project, support the facility improvements, and enable the borough to shift money to the Scow Bay Generation Project. "The whole energy efficiency grant is set up to help projects that will increase energy efficiency and small hydro," Utility Director Karl Hagerman told the Pilot. Hagerman...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: Last week was a bucket-filler: I was able to connect with constituents from across the district through the school administrators' fly-in and Southeast Conference. On Friday I was thrilled to be able to attend a workshop on how to fund schools to provide the opportunities we all want for our students. While I'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes on the bill to raise the BSA, it has not yet been scheduled for a floor vote. The part of the bill that funds...
Alaska’s courts have had a backlog of cases since courts shut down for months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The backlog has persisted, in part because of attorney shortages. The court typically carries many pending cases, but the number of pending cases is currently 27% higher for felonies and about 13% higher for misdemeanors than it was in 2019. “The overall numbers are going down, which is what we want to see,” said Stacey Marz, the Alaska State Court System’s administrative director. “We want to see fewer cases that are pending.” In the yea... Full story
The International Pacific Halibut Commission released the halibut numbers for 2024 on Feb. 5 following their annual meeting. The IPHC oversees management of halibut along the Pacific coast — from California, through British Columbia, and across coastal Alaska. During their annual meeting in January each year, the commission adopts the total mortality limits for halibut distributed across the areas they regulate. The adopted total mortality limits for 2024 amount to a net weight of 35.28 million pounds (Mlb), a decrease from the 36.97 Mlb d...
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...
Sitka's Mount Edgecumbe volcano is wired. On Jan. 26, the Alaska Volcano Observatory announced the completion of a new instrument network intended to measure the activity of a volcano that could be awakening after a period of dormancy. The network includes four seismic stations and four sites that measure the way the ground is deforming as magma moves deep below the volcano. Since April 2022, the movement of that liquefied rock has caused hundreds of small earthquakes and raised concerns that... Full story
The Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) named Hammer and Wikan Grocery - represented by CEO General Manager Jim Floyd, Board President Gainhart Samuelson and Vice President Bruce Westre - 2023 USA Retailers of the Year. Representatives from nine stores were chosen for the honor. Nominations were made by their wholesalers "for providing leadership and excellence in their community," out of a network of 30,000 independent grocers in the U.S, according to a press release sent out by IGA. "It was a...
The seventh annual Project Connect Resource Fair was held in Petersburg on Jan. 30. Organized under the umbrella of nonprofit Humanity In Progress (HIP), the event provided access to free basic necessities and local resources for people in Petersburg who are experiencing housing insecurity - and was an opportunity to survey attendees about their present housing situation for a Point-In-Time count that records the status of homelessness and housing insecurity in Petersburg. When the doors to...
Concert pianist Tony Lu, 26, arrived in Petersburg on Tuesday for a week of piano performances and inspiring the community to think about music differently. He will perform live at the Lutheran Church on Sunday, Feb. 11. Originally from Wuhan, China, Tony moved to the United States when he was 16 years old, completing high school in St. Louis, Missouri. "It was a really good experience ... getting to know the culture, getting to know the language," he said. He first started teaching piano to...
In January of last year, 10 Alaskans sued the state because they said the Department of Health failed to provide food stamps within the time frames required by federal law. The state has been able to push pause on litigation since last year, but now it has to begin the process. District Judge Sharon Gleason wrote in a court order that further delays would be “inefficient” and noted that the state has now had a year to try and resolve its backlog. The court granted the state a series of stays, or pauses in the process, to allow it to work on... Full story
The Ketchikan Police Department and Alaska State Troopers have announced the seizure of fentanyl and methamphetamine with a total street value of nearly $1.7 million. Tuesday's seizure by troopers and KPD drug investigators involved about 14,938 "counterfeit pills containing fentanyl" and about 1.8 pounds of methamphetamine, according to information contained in a troopers dispatch and a separate KPD social media post published early Wednesday afternoon. The KPD post indicated that the alleged pills weighed about 3.29 pounds. As of mid...
At a joint work session last week, the Hospital Board and Petersburg Borough Assembly discussed the estimated time, cost and progress of the Petersburg Medical Center replacement project. Much of the information was echoed the following day at the PMC Open House event where the public attended presentations about the new hospital project by Roy Roundtree with Bettisworth North Architects, Ben Coon with Dawson Construction, and PMC CFO Jason McCormick in the Assembly Chambers. With sizable...
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....
