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King Salmon King salmon regulations for areas where Alaska hatchery produced king salmon will be returning have now been announced. Starting June 1, king salmon will be open to retention inside the Wrangell narrows terminal harvest area and within the Anita Bay terminal harvest area. The City Creek release site will open to king salmon retention on June 15. Please see the link to emergency orders at the bottom of this page for boundary lines along with bag and possession limits. This information is also posted at boat harbors and launches....
Several Coast Guard Personnel are in Petersburg until noon on Fri., June 5 to conduct dockside safety exams on commercial fishing vessels. If interested, sign up at the harbormaster’s office. The exams are free, take about an hour and help ensure vessels are being operated safely and legally. Vessels passing their exam will be issued a decal good for two years. Prior to the exam, go to www.fishsafewest.info, to create a customized checklist of federal requirements for their vessel. Prior to each dockside exam, a COVID19 Risk Assessment form w...
On page 8 of last week’s edition of the Pilot, a photo of Adam Ware in the graduation parade was incorrectly identified as being Tani Hansen....
On April 20, Stacey Dahl left Petersburg and arrived in New York City. She was there to help in the COVID-19 pandemic. Dahl would spend the next three weeks working in "the hot zone" of a lower Manhattan hospital on a designated COVID-19 floor as a nurse. Dahl's journey started three years ago when with some time on her hands she registered to be part of the International Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) with Samaritan's Purse (SP) organization to do some volunteer work. She had...
In an unorthodox graduation ceremony that began with a parade throughout town and ended with the viewing of a video of Petersburg High School seniors wearing their graduation garb and giving speeches, the Class of 2020 completed their high school careers on Tuesday. Thirty-six seniors graduated Monday, and of those seniors, 24 have plans to attend college in the fall or near future. Four students will be learning a trade. Kole Sperl, like his brother before him, plans on attending flight school...
Petersburg Public Health Nurse Erin Michael warned the public that as people's lives change and adapt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they can begin to feel depressed and suicidal. At the COVID-19 community update on Wednesday, May 27, Micheal said the state reported an increase in emergency room visits related to suicide. She said it's not uncommon for people to feel anxious or depressed as they deal with the pandemic. Some specific causes of depression brought on by the pandemic can be a lack...
Since Gov. Mike Dunleavy's phase two and three of his Reopen Alaska Responsibly Plan went into effect Friday, businesses have been able to operate without mandated restrictions. Some businesses, however, are still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and the state health mandates that followed. One of the first state health mandates that affected businesses restricted restaurants to take out orders only. Papa Bear's Pizza complied and only allowed customers to enter the building to pick up their...
After seven superintendents, five principals, countless teachers and 30 years, Administrative Assistant Irene Littleton is just about ready to retire from the Petersburg School District. It was August 1990 when Littleton first joined the school district. She was born and raised in Petersburg, but she had moved away for awhile and had finally returned home. When she first got back, she briefly worked for a local chiropractor before taking a job as the secretary of Rae C. Stedman Elementary...
State health officials held a virtual work session with the borough on May 27 that updated the community on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alaska. Joe McLaughlin, chief of epidemiology in the state, opened the work session with a brief presentation on the virus. He said the state isn't entirely sure what the total number of COVID-19 cases are in Alaska because not everyone has been tested for the virus. It is possible that there might be double or even triple the amount of cases than...
Ocean Beauty Seafoods LLC and Icicle Seafoods, Inc. will be merging their wild salmon and Gulf of Alaska groundfish operations effective June 1, the two companies announced in a joint-statement on Friday, May 29. Both companies will each own a 50 percent stake in the new company, which will be called OBI Seafoods LLC. The company looks to modernize processing facilities and combine marketing product expertise. The merger has been in the works since the fall of 2018, said Mark Palmer, president a... Full story
The borough assembly approved a letter of agreement with the Petersburg Municipal Employees Association at their assembly meeting on Monday that includes a two percent raise that will go into effect on July 1, 2020. The letter of agreement extends the term of the 2017-2020 collective bargaining agreement, which was set to expire on June 30, 2020. Negotiations between the two parties to discuss a new three-year contract were to begin in April, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The...
American Cruise Lines has 11 stops planned for Petersburg this season, with the first docking taking place at the end of June, according to ACL CEO Charles B. Robertson. ACL's American Constellation is planning to dock in Petersburg on June 21 and June 29, the first of the cruise lines' expected stops in town. The two sailings will begin in Juneau and make their way counterclockwise through Southeast Alaska. Nine more stops are planned in Petersburg through the summer, with the last trip being...
The borough assembly passed the borough's fiscal year 2021 operating budget in its second reading on Monday after making six amendments to it. The first draft of the budget shows expenditures for the general fund totaling $9,838,846, but it's balanced out equally by $9,838,846 in revenues. The first amendment to the budget removes an additional building maintenance position back into the Public Works Department, resulting in a savings to the borough of $117,445. The second amendment increased th...
The borough assembly unanimously approved the extension of an emergency ordinance that allows the assembly and certain staff members of the borough to put civil emergency provisions in place in the event of a civil emergency for another 60 days. Emergency ordinance #2020-08 was first adopted on March 20 and had an expiration date of May 18. The assembly extended that expiration date in emergency ordinance #2020-17 on Monday by an additional 60 days, though the emergency mandate can be repealed...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced on Tuesday that phases three and four of his Reopen Alaska Responsibly Plan will take effect Friday morning, but Borough Incident Commander Karl Hagerman said communities are still waiting for more details on what businesses can expect to happen later this week. "[Dunleavy's] obviously making some leaps here to move the state ahead and jumpstart the economy, but the details of how or what restrictions are expected of every business hasn't been released," said...
Representatives from Icicle Seafoods and Tridents Seafoods laid out their plans for bringing in outside workers to Petersburg amid the COVID-19 pandemic at the COVID-19 community update last Friday. Julianne Curry of Icicle Seafoods said the company's plans for protecting its workforce and the community from an outbreak will adapt as new mandates are released from the state and as needed on a local level. "The situation is very fluid, so we'll incorporate new information into our plans and...
On April 24, Gov. Mike Dunleavy's first phase of his Reopen Alaska Responsible Plan went into effect, allowing some businesses to open their doors again with restrictions. Since then, businesses in town that had to close up shop have been scrambling to reopen their doors and make sense of the restrictions they now have to operate under. Kito's Kave, Roni's Hair Design, the Cedar Box and Sing Lee Alley Books are just a few of the businesses in town that have jumped at the chance to resume busines...
Typically sometime in May, parents and family members fill the stands in Petersburg High School gym and watch as the graduating senior class, dressed in their regalia, walk up one-by-one to receive their diplomas. This year, the graduation ceremony will look much different than it has in the past as Petersburg School District reacts to social distancing orders caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. "We're doing everything we can, and we're putting in a lot of extra time," said PHS Principal Rick...
A graduating class of 36 Petersburg High School seniors will be receiving their diplomas on Tuesday following a parade that is set to begin at 7:30 P.M. This year's senior class is just above the average number of graduating students, according to PHS Principal Rick Dormer; however, this is just a small iteration of the class of 2020. Up until this recent year, the class has had around 40 students in it, said Dormer, but some students have moved and exchange students have come and gone. Last...
About 10 residents watched a special screening of a documentary titled, "The Story of Plastic" last week and participated in a discussion on the film and its take on the proliferation of plastics in the waste stream. The documentary was released in October of last year and was directed by American Filmmaker Deia Schlosberg. The documentary focuses on the amount of plastic products in waste worldwide and points out the inadequacies of recycling plastic waste. According to the film, about 32...
On Monday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy released state health mandate #18, which eases previous restrictions on intrastate travel. The newest health mandate supersedes state health mandate #12, which had limited travel between Alaskan communities to critical infrastructure or critical personal needs. State health mandate #18 now opens up all purposes of travel for communities connected by the road system and the Alaska Marine Highway System. Travel between those communities does include the use of boats...
Petersburg Magistrate Judge Debra O'Gara is retiring from her position with the state court system to pursue a PhD in indigenous studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her last day on the job is Friday, May 15. O'Gara, who moved to town last summer from Juneau for the magistrate judge position, said her decision to retire isn't a reflection on how she feels about Petersburg. In fact, she will continue to live in town while attending UAF, since her studies will be done remotely. "This is...
The borough assembly met with Matt Weatherly of Public Sector Personnel Consultants on Tuesday afternoon to review the preliminary findings of a recent compensation survey of borough staff for the 2020 fiscal year. According to survey documents, the borough's current entry pay ranges are more than five percent behind market averages for 52 percent of the borough staff survey sample, resulting in 48 percent of entry wages for borough positions being competitive. Less competitive were the maximum...
The Petersburg School Board approved the 2021 fiscal year operating budget at their meeting on Tuesday, which has a revenues budget that is $105,060 above expenditures to account for unknowns in the coming school year. The budget has $8,832,258 in revenues, with most of the funding to Petersburg School District coming from the state and Petersburg Borough, according to PSD Director of Finance Karen Morrison. The state contributes $6,861,054 to the Petersburg School District, making up 78...
A modern, custom built home designed and built by Andy Grauel, located along the Farragut River inside of Farragut Bay, was given away for free last year and recently was barged to Petersburg by Charles Davis. In 2002, Grauel listed the house for sale with realtor Leif Stenfjord with an asking price of $129,500. Since the house had to be relocated from the property, no sale ever transpired and Grauel ended up giving the home to a Juneau resident who intended to tear the house apart and haul the...
