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The overall 2020 salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska was down by about 56 percent compared to 2019, as all five commercially harvested salmon species runs came in below recent and long term averages. About 14.6 million salmon were harvested in Southeast Alaska last year, which was down from the 33.5 million salmon harvested in 2019, according to a season report by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Statewide, salmon harvests were down by 14.4 million from the preseason forecast, with 118.3...
Approximately 250 residents were vaccinated at Petersburg Medical Center's COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Friday, which was the hospital's second vaccination clinic this month, according to PMC Phil Hofstetter at the COVID-19 community update on Friday. A combination of first doses and second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, as well as the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, were administered. Theresa Ruzek, a public health nurse manager with the state of Alaska, said the state and...
Six people addressed the Borough Assembly at a work session on March 10 to express their support and opposition to legislation that would transfer 23,040 acres of federal land within the Petersburg Borough to an Urban Corporation. The intention of the work session was to give the public an opportunity to share their opinions with the Borough Assembly on the Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act before the bill is reintroduced to the 117th United...
About 400 residents received their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Petersburg Medical Center's vaccine clinic on March 5, and 1,000 residents are expected to be fully vaccinated in the next two weeks, according to PMC CEO Phil Hofsetter at Monday's Borough Assembly Meeting. PMC will be hosting another COVID-19 vaccine clinic on Friday, March 12 at the Parks and Recreation community gym. The clinic will focus on administering the first dose of the vaccine, but some second doses will also...
About 200 patients at Petersburg Medical Center may have had their medical records viewed inappropriately in a data breach, said PMC CEO Phil Hofstetter in a prepared statement on KFSK on March 4. PMC first became aware of the data breach when an employee told the hospital's compliance officer that another employee may be committing curiosity lookups. PMC employees are only allowed to look up a patient's medical record when their job requires them to do so, said Hofstetter. The hospital...
Sixteen infected residents were released from isolation on Wednesday, while just one new active case has been added to Petersburg's active COVID-19 case count, according to a joint press release from the Petersburg Borough and Petersburg Medical Center. Additionally, Petersburg is only reporting 16 active cases of COVID-19 as of 4 P.M. on Wednesday. The current case count is the lowest the town has seen since Feb. 21 when Petersburg was reporting 13 cases. The Petersburg Operations Center has...
An audit of the borough's finances for the 2020 fiscal year reveals an overall positive change in the borough's net position from July 1, 2019 through June 20, 2020, according to documents presented to the Borough Assembly at their Feb. 22 meeting. The audit was conducted by BDO and was presented to the assembly by Sam Thompson, an auditor with the accounting firm. The audit showed a positive change in the net position of $825,913 for the 2020 fiscal year. Additionally, the unassigned fund...
The Supreme Court of the State of Alaska ruled last month that Superior Court Judge William Carey acted correctly in disqualifying Petersburg Attorney Fred Triem from representing the Estate of Helen A. Lingley and upheld his order dismissing the lawsuit filed by Triem against Alaska Airlines, Inc. and its supervisor Dan Kane. Triem filed the lawsuit for the wrongful termination of Lingley, from the company in December 2012 after the woman was terminated from her customer service position in...
A Petersburg Economic Development Council document that highlights opportunities within the community to improve the local tourism industry has been given to the Borough Assembly to be reviewed. The Visitor Industry Management Plan categorizes Petersburg's tourism industry. A working group selected a goal for each category and presented several actions the borough could take to reach that goal. The six categories are quality of life, maximize local benefits, infrastructure and planning,...
The Borough Assembly approved an ordinance in its third reading on Monday that reinstates user fees at the Parks and Recreation Center and makes changes to the fee structure. Ordinance #2021-03 reestablishes user fees at the Parks and Recreation Center. The facility had been waiving user fees since the facility reopened in August after it closed its doors at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ordinance also groups all users into two categories and establishes three types of fees. Those...
Petersburg High School will test students involved in interscholastic, in-person sports that involve competition and travel on a weekly basis as the Petersburg School District looks for ways to get students participating in activities again, according to school district officials at the Petersburg School Board meeting on Tuesday. The school district will be using BinaxNOW Antigen tests, which are a low-level indicator for possible COVID-19 infection. Only high school students and their coaches w...
Southeast Alaska Power Agency will likely have to raise rates to pay off bonding for the replacement of a damaged submarine cable, said SEAPA board voting member Bob Lynn at a Borough Assembly meeting Monday. At a recent SEAPA board meeting, board members discussed bonding as a way to pay for the approximately $14 million replacement submarine cable. SEAPA has to pay Sumitomo, a Japanese firm, for the cable at one time, but $14 million is nearly all SEAPA has in financial assets, said Lynn. The...
The Petersburg Medical Center has discovered that one of its employees may have broken PMC's code of conduct and violated federal healthcare privacy laws when the staff member accessed medical information of patients not under their direct care, according to a press release from PMC. An internal investigation was conducted, which determined the records were inappropriately viewed; however, the investigation found that the violation was an internal breach and patient information did not go beyond...
Despite the ongoing outbreak, PMC is still scheduled to hold their next two COVID-19 vaccine distribution clinics. The first will be held on March 5 and residents who received their first dose of the vaccine on Feb. 5 will receive their second dose, said PMC Infection Prevention and Quality Manager Liz Bacom at the COVID-19 community update on Feb. 26. The March 12 clinic will mostly be giving out first doses to residents, but some second doses will also be administered. Both vaccine clinics...
Instead of his usual report, Petersburg Medical Center CEO Phil Hofstetter asked Dr. Jennifer Hyer to give the PMC Board of Directors a detailed report of how the hospital has been responding to the local outbreak of COVID-19 at their meeting on Feb. 25. Hyer was on call during the weekend of Feb. 19, 20 and 21 when active cases of COVID-19 began increasing in Petersburg. The active cases were being identified from different locations around town. While PMC had always been able to trace...
To help the Parks and Recreation Department set priorities for the upcoming year, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board voted in support of sending out a public interest survey at their meeting on Feb. 25. The advisory board was in agreement with their support of the survey and directed Parks and Recreation administrative assistant Theresa Craig to distribute the survey online. The survey is available on the Parks and Recreation Center's Facebook page and will be available to the public until...
Petersburg's active COVID-19 case count reached a new high of 67 cases on Wednesday, according to a joint press release from the Petersburg Borough and Petersburg Medical Center. Two cases were reported on Wednesday, and an additional two cases were added to Tuesday's overall case count. Two more residents were also deemed recovered by public health officials on Wednesday. Because cases were added to both Tuesday's and Wednesday's case count, Petersburg had an overall active case count of 67 on...
The Borough Assembly meetings for March have each been postponed to avoid holding two meetings within one week The first assembly meeting in March will be held on March 8 at 12 P.M. and the second meeting will be on March 22 at 6 P.M. The assembly postponed their February meetings to allow contractors to replace the Assembly Chamber's audio system. As a result, the last meeting in February was held on Feb. 22. The first meeting in March was scheduled just one week later on March 1. "Having a...
Despite higher patient volumes at Petersburg Medical Center, total gross revenue was down in January and even lower when compared to the same timeframe last year. PMC had budgeted for 150 home health visits in January, but staff conducted 286 home health visits, according to financial documents presented to the Petersburg Medical Center Board of Directors at their meeting on Feb. 25. Emergency room visits were also up 14 percent and lab tests were up 3.1 percent. Other services, like rehab...
(Juneau) - The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is announcing the 2021 sport fishing regulations for king salmon in Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. These regulations will be effective 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, March 3, 2021 through 11:59 p.m. Thursday, March 31, 2022. The regulations are: Alaskan Resident • The resident bag and possession limit is three king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length; Nonresident • The nonresident bag and possession limit is one king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length; • The nonresident annual limit is four king...
Seven more residents tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing Petersburg's total active case count to 36, according to a joint press release from the Petersburg Borough and Petersburg Medical Center issued Wednesday evening. A large number of the current positive cases have been the result of community spread, but Incident Commander Karl Hagerman said the EOC hasn't been able to pinpoint any one business or location that has led to community spread of the virus. In response to the...
An aviation accident report on the Guardian King Air 200 medical life flight that lost control en route to pick up a patient in Kake in January 2019 could not definitively identify the cause of the accident due to limited information available. The report was conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board. Investigators were unable to recover the entire wreckage, and the Cockpit Voice Recorder did not contain recordings from the flight, according to the report. Investigators also...
The Borough Assembly updated several local health mandates and an emergency directive at an emergency meeting Tuesday in response to the expiration of the state's emergency declaration. The health mandates had previously contained language that reflected similar health mandates at the state level, but Alaska's health mandates related to COVID-19 expired Feb. 14 along with the emergency declaration. The Assembly updated the language in several of the local health mandates in order to reinstate...
The Petersburg Medical Center has the potential to vaccinate residents who want but have not yet received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on March 12, but recipients will have to commit to getting the shot, said PMC Infection Prevention and Quality Manager Liz Bacom at the COVID-19 community update on Feb. 19. She asked those who have not put their name on PMC's COVID-19 vaccine waitlist to do so before the vaccine clinic on March 12 where first doses of the vaccine will be...
Two sample sites in the waters around Petersburg tested above the Alaska Water Quality Standard (WQS) for fecal coliform, according to a preliminary marine water quality report on Alaska's ports and shipping lanes by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Water samples were taken at six locations in the Wrangell Narrows over the course of 30 days during the summer of 2020. While fecal coliform was identified at all six locations, mean concentrations of the bacteria was above the...
