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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Senate has narrowly approved a formal statement supporting a “free and open” internet that’s equally accessible to all consumers. The so-called Sense of the Senate also calls on Congress to overturn a Federal Communications Commission decision to end net-neutrality protections. It passed 11-7. The FCC in December voted to gut U.S. rules meant to prevent broadband companies from exercising more control over what people watch and see online. Sen. Bill Wielechowski (wil-a-KOW-skee), an Anchorage Democrat who spo...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska state Rep. Justin Parish says he will not seek re-election this year. That means none of the three members of the Legislature representing Juneau plan to run in this year’s elections. Sen. Dennis Egan and Rep. Sam Kito III announced previously that they do not intend to seek re-election. All three are Democrats. Parish announced his intentions in a video posted to his Facebook page, and confirmed them in a phone interview with The Associated Press. The first-term lawmaker said he had maintained that he would see...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) —The penalty is going up for hanging out in a car and not actively loading passengers outside the Juneau International Airport terminal. Juneau radio station KTOO reports the Juneau Assembly voted Monday to quadruple the fine from $25 to $100 for drivers clogging up the loading zone in front of the terminal. Airport Board Chairman David Epstein says too many people idle in the active loading area while waiting for passengers. He says there’s a free cellphone lot where people cars can wait until passengers emerge. Mun...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A small cruise ship company is already offering trips to Alaska as part of an effort to persuade the industry to set sail for the state earlier in the year. UnCruise Adventures has launched cruises in southeast Alaska a few weeks before the first large passenger vessel is due in Juneau at the end of the month, the Juneau Empire reported Friday. “It’s the whole idea of making May the new June and April the new May,” said Dan Blanchard, the company’s CEO. “We can do that in southeast and even a little bit in south centr...
The USCG Auxiliary is offering Free Vessel Safety Checks Sat., May 12 at the South Boat Harbor starting at 9 AM....
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is moving toward oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, fulfilling a longtime Republican priority that most Democrats fiercely oppose. A notice being published Friday in the Federal Register starts a 60-day review to sell oil and gas leases in the remote refuge, one of the most pristine areas in the United States and home to polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other species. President Donald Trump has said he “really didn’t care” about opening a portion of the refug...
A hospital administrator from Nome is slated to become CEO of the Petersburg Medical Center. Philip Hofstetter, who's been vice president of hospital services at the Norton Sound Health Corporation in Nome for about six and a half years, was offered the CEO position at the Petersburg Medical Center. He signed a four-year contract, and his salary will be $185,000 annually. Hofstetter has 25 years of healthcare experience, 20 of which in Nome, with the last five in administration, overseeing a...
A Petersburg Samaritan was clipped by an oncoming car on Sunday as he was tending to a distressed man in the middle of the road, who had just swum halfway across the Wrangell Narrows, police say. Sgt. Jim Kerr with the Petersburg Police Department said Jeremy Johnson was floating halfway -- “or a little more” -- across the Wrangell Narrows on Sunday when the dingy he was in sank. Kerr said Johnson swam back to Mitkof Island, crawled up the bank and went into the roadway to seek help. The good Samaritan, Colin Perry, noticed Johnson on Mit...
This week we distribute the Petersburg Pilot to all post office boxholders. If you’re not a regular reader of this publication, it’s your opportunity to look it over and consider purchasing a discounted subscription as a new subscriber. We do this on a regular basis, as it has proven successful in attracting new readers. We increased our single copy price this month, and a subscription is one way to save several dollars annually as opposed to paying the higher newsstand rate. In addition to local news stories, we also publish special sec...
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — Thousands of small earthquakes have been recorded in the Kodiak area since a magnitude 7.9 temblor in January hit about 175 miles (281 kilometers) southeast of the city. Nearly 3,000 aftershock quakes of 2.5 or above have hit since the major earthquake on Jan. 23. The vast majority have hit southeast of the island in the same area as the major quake, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported Thursday. Only 20 were recorded last year over the same time period. Natalia Ruppert, a seismologist at the University of Alaska, said a...
KENAI, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska public health nurse says the state’s recent outbreak of chlamydia and gonorrhea is likely to place it in the top tier of national rankings for the two sexually transmitted diseases. The Peninsula Clarion reports that Susan Jones, manager of the state HIV/STD program, said Alaska will likely place in the first- or second-place spot for both of the diseases, which continues the state’s trend of leading the nation in outbreaks. Jones said that in 2017, preliminary numbers show that there were more than 2,000 cases...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Karl Ward is long dead, but some say the once-revered school superintendent in a small Alaska fishing town was not the benevolent educator worthy of having the high school gym named in his honor. A cellphone video made by a man before he died by suicide last month has given voice to at least five other men, all of whom say they were sexually abused decades ago by Ward, confirming publicly whispers that had long quietly existed. Rick Martin graphically explained on the video what he said Ward had done to him, and now his w...
WRANGELL — Wrangell’s annual birding festival is gearing up for a week of activities late next week. This year’s Stikine River Birding Festival will be the 21st, put on cooperatively each year by Wrangell’s Convention and Visitor Bureau and the United States Forest Service. Highlighting birding opportunities on the Stikine River, the event also encourages wildlife conservation and is an opportunity to hone new skills. “This year we’ve brought back more of the art and photo aspects of the festival,” said Corree Delabrue, an interpreter w...
WRANGELL - Wrangell's emergency services were the recipients of the first-ever grant from the Walker Foundation, a benevolent fund established after the acquisition of Alaska Island Community Services last year by Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium. Governed by an appointed board, the Foundation supports activities that promote health and the welfare of the Wrangell community. "It's on a project by project basis. We currently have about $3.75M," explained Mark Walker, formerly CEO for...
For now, the Petersburg Borough won’t choose any state land it’s entitled to, coming after a string of emails that suggest a stunning miscommunication with the DNR. Gov. Bill Walker signed Senate Bill 28 in Petersburg in November, which entitles the borough to 14,666 acres of land. The apparent miscommunication started when Cabrera sent an email in March to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, saying various maps and legal descriptions that were provided to facilitate the land selection process might have been incorrect. She said cer...
A 23-year-old artist from Wrangell had her first solo show in Petersburg on Friday, where she was stunned by the turn out and support. The artist, Jaynee Fritzinger, was nervous for her first show at Firelight Gallery and Framing in Petersburg. For two weeks before, she had been waking up before 5 a.m., painting about 10 hours a day. "I was nervous that I wouldn't have enough pieces," Fritzinger said, "or nervous that people wouldn't show up, or nervous that maybe my art wasn't good enough."...
SITKA, Alaska (AP) — This season’s salmon harvest in Bristol Bay is looking to be a sizable one. Alaska officials project the sockeye salmon run to be 51.3 million fish, not far off from last season’s return of 56.5 million. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game expects 37.6 million fish to be potentially available for commercial harvest when the bay’s salmon season begins on June 1, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported Thursday. The bay’s harvest of sockeye salmon last season was 37.7 million. In 2016, the catch was lower with 37.3 million and r...
KENAI, Alaska (AP) — Attorneys presented arguments in Alaska Superior Court on the legality of a Kenai Peninsula Borough policy that allows only members of established religious groups to pray at the beginning of assembly meetings. Attorneys for the borough defended the policy before Judge Andrew Peterson in Anchorage on Wednesday, saying the invocations are open to any religion as long as it’s an association with a local presence, the Peninsula Clarion reported. The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska filed a lawsuit in late 2016 after th...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska House has passed legislation restricting access to records showing past convictions for simple marijuana possession. The measure is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Harriet Drummond. She says Alaskans should not be passed up for jobs or promotions for possessing something that is now legal. Alaska voters in 2014 approved recreational use of marijuana by those 21 and older. The bill pertains to convictions for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, committed when an individual was at least 21. Defendants w...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – The Alaska Legislature won’t finish its work by Sunday, but legislative leaders don’t think they will be in Juneau much longer – at least compared to the last several years. Sunday marks the end of the voter-approved 90-day session. Lawmakers have blown past that limit in recent years amid debate over how to address the state’s budget deficit. Even the constitutional regular session limit, of up to 121 days, hasn’t always been enough. But Senate President Pete Kelly and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon said Friday that this s...
WRANGELL — A work session on the Byford monofill between the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and City and Borough of Wrangell has been scheduled for next week. Around 18,500 cubic yards of treated, lead-contaminated soil is slated to be interred in a designated monofill as the second stage of site reclamation for a former privately-run junkyard along Zimovia Highway. The former Byford yard had passed to the City of Wrangell through foreclosure in 2009. Already on the Environmental Protection Agency’s radar as a contaminated site...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Voters in Alaska’s largest city are on track to becoming the first in the U.S. to defeat a so-called bathroom bill in a referendum that asked them to require people using public bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender at birth. The initiative asked Anchorage’s voters to repeal an ordinance passed in 2015 that prevented discrimination based on sexual orientation and added a clause that would have prevented transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender ident...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Legislature already is cutting into the amount of the yearly oil-wealth fund check given to residents to help pay for state government. Now, lawmakers are looking at other ways for residents to spend more of their check — to help pay for state government. One proposal would set up a raffle to benefit schools, with a minimum buy-in of $100 from a resident’s Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. Twenty-five percent of entry dollars would go toward the prize fund. So, if residents spend $400,000 of their oil checks on en...
Alice Neidiffer, the student body president at Petersburg High School, recently spent a half week in Juneau, researching bills and passing notes in hearings, all while observing those who might not be as balanced and fair as she strives to be. Neidiffer worked as a staff member on State Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins' roughly six-person team for four days in late March, living with her mom and commuting from the valley to the Capitol building. "Alice definitely has poise, period,"...
March in Petersburg was the fourth driest on record, and meteorologists are predicting the summer could be more of the same. There were 2.74 inches of rainfall in March, including snow water, which is 78 percent less than what is normal in Petersburg and enough for a moderate drought to be in effect along the Southeast panhandle. The snow levels were at 7.1 inches, while 16.9 is normal, according to Sharon Sullivan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau. Snowpack, in the meantime, has been on a gradual decline, with...
