Sorted by date Results 3361 - 3385 of 5623
WRANGELL – A Wrangell resident was among the travelers detained following a selective travel ban issued by the White House last week. Sylvia Ettefagh was returning from a 10-day vacation in Costa Rica with her husband, John, and friends the Stroms on Saturday. The group was at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on its way to connecting with an Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. At customs, Ettefagh attempted to enter the Global Entry section of the Trusted Traveler program. The expedited screening is offered by US Customs and Border Pro...
As the Alaska State Legislature continues with the new session, members in both the House and Senate have put forward ideas to fix the state’s ongoing budget woes. Sitka Sen. Burt Stedman (R-District R) submitted his own contribution to that discussion, filing Senate Bill 21 on January 18. “It’s a percent of market value bill for the permanent fund which would have a five-year average market value payout of four percent. Of that four percent, a minimum of half of it or two and a quarter percent would have to go to dividends,” he explain...
Anchorage, AK – The Municipality of Anchorage, which sued PND Engineers, Inc. in 2013 over the failed Port of Anchorage Intermodal Expansion project and sought more than $100 million in damages, has settled with PND for $750,000. PND was the designer of record on the project, which was halted before completion of the construction. “We are happy to settle this meritless suit against us for less than the cost of going to trial, and move on with the business of engineering,” said Jim Campbell, PND President. PND’s Open Cell Sheet Pile™ design wa...
Though last year’s season may have hurt, Alaska fishermen may take some comfort in a disaster declaration made by the Department of Commerce last month. Then-Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker determined it and eight other commercial fisheries along the West Coast to have been failures, in a January 18 announcement. Low pink salmon runs across the Gulf of Alaska led to a significant drop in 2016 harvest numbers. This declaration provides Congress with a basis to appropriate disaster relief funding for economic assistance to affected c...
The Borough Power and Light Dept. has a fund balance of $7.5 million dollars. That's a lot of money by any standard, but remember, $3 million of that is required to remain in reserve, as mandated by the Borough's fiscal policy. It equals 6-month's operating cost for the utility. In 1985 when Petersburg and Wrangell went onto hydropower supplied by the Tyee Lake facility, rates were lowered, but set high enough to enable the utility to build reserves to move their downtown plant out the road....
ANCHORAGE (AP) – A volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands has erupted again, sending a cloud of ash and ice particles 30,000 feet in the air. The Alaska Volcano Observatory says the cloud was seen by satellite shortly after Bogoslof (BOH-gohs-lawf) Volcano erupted Thursday. Volcanic ash above 20,000 feet is a threat to airliners flying between Asia and North America. The Aviation Color Code was lowered from red to orange late Thursday evening after the ash cloud dissipated. The volcano 850 miles southwest of Anchorage has erupted more than 25...
JUNEAU (AP) – Alaska has never violated its constitutional spending cap, but many Republican lawmakers consider the limit too loose and want it tightened to limit future government growth. Under the existing cap, which excludes certain types of spending, this year’s budget could not exceed $10.1 billion. Current spending falls well below that. So far, House and Senate Republicans have proposed three constitutional measures aimed at restricting spending growth. These come as lawmakers, faced with a gaping deficit, are expected to debate dee...
JUNEAU (AP) – Alaska Gov. Bill Walker on Monday expressed renewed hope for working with the federal government on oil, gas and land issues, praising President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Interior Department as “just what we need.” Walker said he met informally with Interior secretary nominee Ryan Zinke while in Washington, D.C., for Trump’s inauguration. He said Zinke, a Montana congressman, understood the challenges Alaska has had with access to federal lands for things like resource development. “I think we’re going to have a very, very...
JUNEAU (AP) – Juneau officials have begun removing boats from city harbors after identifying dozens of boats that have not moved in years. City Harbormaster David Borg started a campaign to clear harbors of inoperable boats in August and found 39 boats that could be cleared from the waterways, the Juneau Empire reported Sunday. A few owners were ordered late last year to prove their boats could move under their own power or leave the harbor. Two owners have shown their boats are operable and three boats have been impounded. City code r...
Over 30 people turned out for a meeting to discuss long-term goals for developing the Scow Bay turnout last Thursday at the Halingstad-Peratrovich building. Members of the PEDC committee and the Harbor Advisory Board were in attendance and the meeting was led by Dick Somerville representing PND Engineers, Inc. in Juneau. Somerville displayed three drawings showing possible development options for the property. One proposed upgrading the existing ramp into a 40-ft. x 420-ft. concrete plank struct...
With the introduction of land exchange legislation in Congress, the Alaska Mental Health Land Trust has backed away from logging Trust lands in Petersburg and Ketchikan. John Morrison, Executive Director of the Trust Land Office (TLO) wrote in an opinion piece last week that with the introduction of S.131 and H.R. 531, 18,000 acres of Trust land would be traded for 20,000 acres of USFS land as an equal value land exchange. Morrison wrote, “We understand the importance of this issue to your community and are thankful for your engagement with u...
Petersburg Indian Association board member candidate Will Ware who submitted a challenge letter following the PIA election, withdrew as a candidate and clarified that the intent of the challenge was not to challenge the results but to bring attention to concerns about the process....
JUNEAU (AP) – A 21-year-old man caught transporting methamphetamine on a ferry running between Washington state and Ketchikan, Alaska, has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison. Jason Corey Vincent Alto was sentenced last week to 20 months in prison, the Juneau Empire reported Sunday. Court documents say Alto was stopped by Alaska troopers in May after a K-9 alerted troopers to 3.2 pounds of meth in his luggage. Federal prosecutors called it the single largest seizure of methamphetamine in southeast Alaska. Alto was charged with p...
WRANGELL – The Forest Service (USFS) announced its permits for visiting Anan Wildlife Observatory this summer will be available at the start of next month. At 8 a.m. on February 1 members of the public will be able to reserve permits at the Recreation.gov website. Twenty permits will be made available for each day of the season, which runs from July 5 to August 25. Visitation outside this time frame does not require a permit. Reservations and payment can also be made by phone, at the 1-877-444-6777 hotline. Permits for 2017 cost $10 api...
WRANGELL – A new sample site shows more butter clams carry the risk of paralytic shellfish poisoning for consumers, according to a report released last week. Since last year Wrangell Cooperative Association's Indian Environmental General Assistance Program (IGAP) staff have been collecting samples of various bivalves from the beaches around Shoemaker Bay on a weekly basis. It added a new site further south to its monitoring, near Pats Landing. It was here that the butter clam samples showed u...
WRANGELL – Taking up the mantle left by the Lions Club after it closed its Wrangell chapter last summer, the Garnet Grit Betties roller derby team is continuing its aluminum collection program. For two decades the club had raised money for itself through the program, as aluminum is one of the few recyclable materials which can turn a profit for collectors. Reprocessing the material is considerably more efficient than producing it from bauxite ore, a savings which makes it more profitable than i...
WRANGELL – Trident Seafoods will be welcoming a new manager for its Wrangell plant during the summer's production run. Nick Ohmer was named as the company's selection in a media brief last week. A lifelong resident of Southeast Alaska, in an interview Ohmer said he would be bringing to the job his local knowledge and personal connections with Wrangell's fishermen. Ohmer grew up in Petersburg, and even before fishing alongside those from the neighboring community he grew up with many of them t...
KENAI (AP) – The Alaska Board of Fisheries is asking the state Legislature to reconsider the state’s fish habitat permitting process. The board sent a letter to the Legislature earlier this month asking lawmakers to review how the commission of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issues permits in streams determined to be fish habitat, the Peninsula Clarion reported Sunday. Any activity that may use, divert, obstruct or change the natural flow of a body of water determined to be fish habitat requires a permit, granted by Fish and Gam...
JUNEAU (AP) – Legislators on opposite ends of the political spectrum are supporting an Alaska Senate bill to restore the portion of Alaskans’ oil wealth checks cut by Gov. Bill Walker last year. Walker vetoed about half the amount available for checks after legislative sessions that focused on the state’s multibillion-dollar deficit ended in gridlock. Senators who want the rest of the checks restored disagree with Walker’s veto but they also have different ideas on what a fiscal plan should include. Signing on as co-sponsors to Republi...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly held the first reading of an ordinance designed to amend municipal code regarding the local improvement district (LID) process on Tuesday night. The program is aimed at taking advantage of the SECON asphalt plant while it’s in town by offering residents of select neighborhoods the opportunity to pay for their streets to be paved. Lake Street resident Joel Randrup spoke to the assembly last week about the issue, and did so again this week. He wanted to reiterate his characterization of the LID as having a “majorit...
The Petersburg Indian Association held board elections earlier this month, but it took until Tuesday for the results to be certified because of a candidate challenge, according to a press release. The challenge, brought by William Ware, resulted in a challenge committee being formed on Jan. 11. The challenge committee was comprised of one election official, two election committee workers and two PIA tribal members. However, on Jan.15, Ware withdrew his challenge in a letter clarifying the intent of his challenge as regarding the election...
David Plagens worked as a police officer in west Texas on the border of New Mexico and Mexico prior to accepting a position with the Petersburg Police Department. He has four years of law enforcement experience, including three years as a deputy and one as a jailer. Plagens is married and his wife Jolie will be moving to the island this spring, maybe mid-April. Plagens has only been in town a couple of weeks, but he already has a healthy respect for the local fishing community and wet weather. "...
JUNEAU (AP) – Alaska legislators agree on the need to address the state’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit. But rifts remain over how best to do that, with divisions forming over taxes, how much to keep cutting spending and whether the state needs to tinker with Alaskans’ beloved yearly oil wealth checks. A new 90-day legislative session begins Tuesday, with many lawmakers citing a sense of urgency amid the continued drawdown of state savings. Last year’s regular and special sessions were snarled by gridlock ahead of a heated electio...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – Esteban Santiago stood alone in the cold one day last month outside Mom & Pop’s liquor store in Anchorage. He was waving his arms and having a terrible argument in the parking lot. “He’d just be talking to himself ... screaming as if he was having a battle with himself,” said Naomi Harden, a clerk at the store, situated across the street from the motel where Santiago lived. Last week, Santiago got off a one-way flight from Anchorage at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, arriving with a single piece of checked luggage:...
After spending four years with the U.S. Navy working military police, Luis Waechter is looking forward to the slower pace of life in Petersburg. "The last three years of my Navy contract I was deployed out in the Middle East, so everything about Petersburg is better in that aspect," he says. "I like the quiet, small town community here." Waechter recently moved to the borough after accepting a position with the police department. He is originally from South Carolina and fell in love with...
