Sorted by date Results 1593 - 1617 of 5553
With the increasing presence of cell phones in the district, the Petersburg School Board held a discussion on the district's cell phone policy at a school board meeting last week. At Rae C. Stedman Elementary School, cell phones are not allowed to be seen during school hours, and must be kept in students' backpacks. Principal Heather Conn said she hasn't seen any cell phones this year so far, though she has seen them in past years. When a student is caught with their cell phone out, they must dr...
Eleven birders spent their Saturday identifying 58 species of birds and counting over 8,000 birds total for this year's Christmas Bird Count in Petersburg. Every year, thousands of volunteers from the United States, Canada and other countries in the Western Hemisphere count birds within a 24-hour period to document numbers and species of birds for the National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count, according to Brad Hunter, the organizer for Petersburg's bird count. The data from the bird count...
Inside Passage Electric Cooperative is building a hydro electric project that will utilize Gunnuk Creek and supply Kake with 55 percent of its annual energy usage. The Gunnuk Creek Hydro Electric Project has an installed capacity of 500 kW, according to Service Operations Manager Brandon Shaw. It's estimated to produce 1,600 MWhs annually, which is around 55 percent of Kake's energy usage. Over the course of 50 years, the hydro project will save approximately 6.2 million gallons of diesel fuel....
The United States Army Corps of Engineers went over the status of the project to dredge South Boat Harbor, along with associated costs to be covered by the borough and the next steps in the project at a public meeting on Dec. 3. In 2017, the Petersburg Borough and the USACE entered into a feasibility cost share agreement wherein both entities agreed to split the costs of a feasibility study to determine a solution to the compromised egress in South Boat Harbor. The borough and the USACE equally...
The Petersburg School Board approved a board policy in its second and final reading regarding restrictions on sex offenders on campus. "We are not putting this policy into place because we are currently dealing with a situation," said School Board President Mara Lutomski. "There is no crisis going on within the school." Board Policy 3515.5 was on the agenda at the October school board meeting, but school board members present wanted to receive clarification on the policy and vote on it with a...
Fish and Game Area Biologist Frank Robbins and Forest Service Regional Biologist Dan Eacker held a lecture on deer and moose harvests and deer density on Mitkof Island last Thursday. Robbins started off the lecture by comparing deer harvests in Unit 1B and Unit 3 from 2011 to 2018. In Unit 1B, the area east of Mitkof Island on the mainland, the average number of deer harvested was 100. In the past five years, the deer harvest in Unit 1B averaged 115. In Unit 3, which includes the Petersburg and...
Nate Hepp, 30, is the new station manager at the Alaska Airline Petersburg terminal. Six years ago he started out as a ramp agent with Horizon Air in Portland and for the past four years has held supervisory positions in Portland, Los Angeles and Anchorage for Alaska Airlines. Hepp describes his job as being, "a go-to person for his customer service agents. I give them the tools they need to do their jobs." He will also be working to strengthen and maintain ongoing relationships with the...
Assembly Member Bob Lynn and Robert Larson were appointed as voting members on the Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board by Mayor Mark Jensen at an assembly meeting last week, with Utility Director Karl Hagerman and Planning and Zoning Commissioner Tor Benson serving as alternate voting members. Each year, Petersburg and Wrangell appoint one voting member and one alternate member to serve on the SEAPA board. Ketchikan appoints two voting members and two alternates each year. However, there is one...
In a joint work session between the Petersburg Borough Assembly and Petersburg Medical Center Board of Directors last week, Dan Jardine, project manager with NAC Architecture, updated both entities on the status of the master plan and revealed the preferred layout of a new hospital. In their efforts to design a new hospital, NAC Architecture has been conducting tests to determine possible sites for a new building and what a new facility would feature. In January, NAC Architecture plans to...
Strong colors and erratic brush strokes could be seen in Joe Viechnicki's paintings on display at a joint art show with photographer Mark Kubo at FireLight Gallery & Framing on Friday. All of Viechnicki's paintings depicted landscapes around Southeast Alaska, such as the Stikine River, Duncan Canal and Level Island. Some of his paintings were completed on location, or at least started, while most were done back at his home with the use of photos taken of the landscapes. He named his art show...
Both the Petersburg Borough and former Parks and Recreation Department employee Chris Allen have been dropped as defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the Estate of Molly Parks, one of two women killed in a July 4, 2016 crash on South Nordic Drive. Allen was the driver of the parks and recreation van, which crashed after Allen suffered a seizure while driving with three other persons in the vehicle. Allen is serving a 7-year sentence after entering a guilty plea to a single...
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 #...
People in Petersburg know her has their school bus driver or driver's education teacher, but on Friday evening Hoopie Davidson was this year's tree lighter during the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Davidson was born in Petersburg, but moved to Squaw Harbor on Unga Island in third grade with her family to catch crab. The family then moved to Kodiak in time to experience the Good Friday earthquake of 1964, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2 that hit near Prince William Sound. Later...
Rachel Newport's Peruvian turkey soup and Bev Siercks' crabapple cordial were named best in show in this year's Brew and Stew Festival hosted by the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Petersburg Ragnarök Rollers on Friday. There were 28 submissions in this year's festival, up from the 21 submissions last year. Contestants entered homemade "brews" and "stews" in various categories and were judged by participants in the festival who went around sampling each submission. Though each category had...
The borough is in the process of renewing an agreement with the state to receive $6,200 annually for the maintenance of the Ernie Haugen public use area, according to Public Works Director Chris Cotta at an assembly meeting on Monday. At an assembly meeting last month, the borough assembly approved letters to Sen. Bert Stedman and Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins asking them to inquire into cooperative agreements between the borough and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources for the management...
Leila Gharbi recounted her journey from Newfoundland to Port Townsend, Washington through the Northwest Passage, while sharing pictures and stories to a captive audience at the Petersburg Public Library last Wednesday. Gharbi was working for a film archive in Paris, one of the most famous archives in the county, when she read the book, "Woman at Sea" by Cathrine Poulain. The novel tells the story of Lili, a French woman who leaves her country in search of adventure and ends up working on a...
Petersburg's Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla is down to zero members, and if at least five members don't joined by February, the flotilla could be dissolved. Division One Commander F. Stuart Robards and Ketchikan Flotilla Commander Renee Schofield held two meetings this week encouraging members of the public to join the local Coast Guard Auxiliary. From 2015-2018, Ketchikan's flotilla almost disbanded as members retired and remaining members were unable to fill their roles, according to...
After the tree lighting ceremony on Friday, Erin Kandoll, of Twisted Ginger Designs, revealed a collection of rosemal inspired jewelry at FireLight Gallery & Framing. During the holidays, Kandoll always notices that people around town like to don their Norwegian sweaters to keep warm as temperatures drop. To accompany the town’s holiday attire, Kandoll handmade 135 pairs of earrings, 35 necklaces, 28 rings and four cuff bracelets with rosemal designs. “I really just had fun with it this yea...
In a couple of months, Petersburg High School senior Kole Sperl has turned a pile of aluminum sheets into a skiff. He has plenty of work left to do before it's seaworthy but Sperl said in its current state, it would float. "There might be a couple leaks that I'd have to patch, but it'll definitely float," said Sperl. "All the main welding is done down by the water line." Sperl spends anywhere from one and a half hours to three hours a week working on his skiff as part of his marine fabrication...
A public works crew worked from 7 P.M. on Nov. 20 to 2 A.M. the following morning to fix a leak in an 8-inch water main on 12th St. that was spurting out 250,000 gallons of water a day. The leak was first identified when an electronic leak detector was used to determine if there were leaks in any of the pipes throughout the city. The leak detector showed a major leak in the 8-inch water main on 12th St. at Haugen Dr., so Public Works Director Chris Cotta decided to dig into the ground to...
With the two-decades old lighted Christmas street decorations in tatters, both the Chamber of Commerce and the Petersburg Borough scrambled to find replacements this month. New decorations were priced at $500 each, according to Chamber Manager Mara Lutomski, but when board member Carrie Martinsen heard of the cost, she proposed that her company Tamico, Inc. fabricate the decorations for half the price. The original 16 snowflake designed ornaments were made of painted steel and were prone to...
Kim Aulbach has become Petersburg Post Office's new postmaster after the previous postmaster, Mark Eppihimer, transferred to Anchorage. Eppihimer was promoted to labor relations specialist and relocated to Anchorage in August. Once he left, Aulbach applied for the position while she and Nels Nielsen took on postmaster duties. On Oct. 12, she was promoted to postmaster. During her five and a half years with the post office, Aulbach said she would learn new skills every chance she got to increase...
The Petersburg Medical Center saw a 26 percent increase in net operating revenue for the month of October, reported Controller Rocio Tereja at a board of directors meeting last week. PMC expected a net operating revenue of $1,391,250 for October, but instead the net operating revenue was $363,780 higher for a total of $1,755,030. Total operating expenses were at $1,545,742, over the $1,391,250 that was budgeted. Despite coming in over budget, the total operating expenses were lower than the net...
Petersburg Medical Center was approved for a $100,000 grant from the Rasmuson Foundation to help offset the costs of a new drug room, CEO Phil Hofstetter told board members at a meeting last week. PMC is remodeling the part of the hospital where the drugs for chemotherapy are prepared to become compliant with standards that regulate the handling of hazardous drugs. Currently, the drugs are prepared in a negative pressure hood. The new drug room will have a negative pressure hood, room and storag...
Local berry pickers were treated to a plentiful harvest this year as warm weather helped the berries thrive throughout Mitkof Island. "It was unbelievable," said Marilyn Menish-Meucci. "There were berries everywhere. If you found a spot where there weren't berries, then something was really wrong." The season starts with salmonberries in June and as the weeks go by, other berries begin to ripen, said Menish-Meucci. Some of the berries that ripen after salmonberries, are blueberries, red...
