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KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — The state has signed a $2.1 million contract with ALCAN Timber Inc. for a timber sale on state and federal forest land in southeast Alaska. The timber sale includes about 481 acres (195 hectares) within the Southeast State Forest and Tongass National Forest on the northwest end of Gravina Island, the Ketchikan Daily News reported Saturday. State Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige signed the three-year contract Wednesday. The Vallenar Bay sale involves about 16 million board feet (38,000 cubic m...
After being accepted into the FBI National Academy in April 2018, Capt. Randal Holmgrain of the Petersburg Police Department said he will be entering the 10-week program in October of this year. During the professional education course at the FBI training facility in Quantico, Virginia, Holmgrain will be learning skills that he’ll be able to bring back to Petersburg, such as new methods of investigations and management. Holmgrain will receive a course catalog in the coming weeks for the program that will give him a better idea of the c...
The Petersburg Fire Department responded to an apartment on Sing Lee Alley that was filled with smoke after a tenant left food cooking on the stove unattended. The call was placed shortly after 12:00 A.M. on Saturday morning. Residents of the apartment building first became aware of a fire when smoke began filling the upstairs apartments. First responders began taking action immediately upon arriving on the scene. It was determined that the smoke was coming from a pan that was left cooking on...
SEATTLE (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says one of the nation’s biggest seafood companies has agreed to spend up to $23 million to fix serious air pollution issues with its vessels and land-based facilities. Seattle-based Trident Seafoods will also pay a $900,000 fine for Clean Air Act violations under a settlement agreement filed Tuesday in federal court in Alaska. The company uses ozone-depleting coolants in its refrigerators. While the law requires any leaks to be fixed within 30 days, the government said Trident all...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency held a teleconference last week, on Feb. 15, to discuss the ongoing power issues in the region. The SEAPA Board of Directors is made up of community members from the three cities: Two directors from Ketchikan, one from Petersburg, one from Wrangell, and a fifth seat that alternates between the cities (which belongs to Ketchikan this year.) The lights are usually kept on in the cities of Wrangell and Petersburg via hydropower from Tyee Lake. However, sometimes power from the lake is sold to Ketchikan, when the...
KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) – Ketchikan’s power utility is asking customers to throttle back their electrical usage. Freezing temperatures and low water levels in lakes, the source of hydropower for Ketchikan Public Utilities’ electric division, has maxed out power production, the Ketchikan Daily News reported. A 30-megawatt demand is putting stress on the system during peak hours. The utility is also juggling repairs, sending power to northern communities and dealing with Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation permit limitations, said...
Next week Kelly Bakos will be screening her award-winning documentary film, A HERD OF ORPHANS, which looks at the lives of young elephants who were abandoned when adult elephants in their herds fell victim to poachers in the African ivory trade. The 90-minute documentary has been shown in film festivals across the world, including Estonia, Finland, Malaysia and China. Bakos has attended several of the festivals and won four Awards of Excellence from The Accolade Global Film Competition. A HERD...
The borough assembly held a work session on Feb. 6 where public works director Chris Cotta gave a brief overview of the solid waste and recycling programs and answered questions from assembly and community members. In 2014, the borough started a commingled recycling program using blue bags. The Petersburg Indian Association and later Ruger’s Trucking picked up the bags and delivered them to the baling facility. It was costing the borough $90,000 a year for the Ruger’s Trucking contract, in addition to the $20,000 annual cost of the blue bag...
Guardian Flight’s search effort for its crew and aircraft that were due in Kake on Jan. 29 has detected an underwater beacon ping from the cockpit voice recorder, or black box. Randy Lyman, Guardian Flight senior vice president of operations, said in a prepared statement on Tuesday that the ping will allow search crews to narrow down the location of the aircraft through triangulation. A Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle will be used to visually spot the aircraft once the location of the a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Preliminary numbers released by the state indicate the number of opioid-related overdose deaths in Alaska fell between 2017 and 2018. Andy Jones, director of the state Office of Substance Misuse and Addiction Prevention, told a Senate committee Thursday that this suggests steps being taken to address opioid abuse are working. “Something's working,” Jones said, adding later: “It is exciting news to see this trend.” But Jones said there is more work to do. The preliminary data showed there were 100 opioid-related overdose...
Petersburg Medical Center held its second Community Cafe last week where CEO Phil Hofstetter gave a presentation on the hospital’s use of telehealth and its potential. Hofstetter was joined by Dr. John Kokesh, an ENT surgeon based in Anchorage, via video conference to share his experience with the innovative way of providing healthcare from a distance. At the beginning of his presentation, Hofstetter asked the audience three questions to keep in mind while he was speaking about telehealth: What kind of health care access do you want to see i...
Petersburg experienced its 10th warmest year and fifth warmest summer on record in 2018, according to Tom Ainsworth, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service forecast office in Juneau. In Petersburg last year, the average temperature was 43.3 degrees Fahrenheit, with the average high at 49.5 and the average low at 43.3. Snowfall in Petersburg was 77.7 feet, only one foot above normal, according to Ainsworth. With the top ten warmest years on record, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2010 and...
Last year was the second driest year on record in Petersburg at almost three feet below average, according to Tom Ainsworth, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service forecast office in Juneau. The average amount of rainfall in Petersburg is 109.23 inches. In 2018, there was a total of 76.03 inches of rainfall, making it the second driest year on record. The driest year for Petersburg was in 1951 with 71.31 inches of rain, according to Ainsworth. November saw the most amount of pre...
The borough assembly voted to continue moving forward with negotiations for a possible land swap with Petro 49, Inc. after the company’s CFO declined to agree to most of the borough’s positions on the trade. In a letter sent to Petro 49, Inc. CFO Jason Werner in mid-December, borough manager Steve Giesbrecht wrote that he had been directed by the assembly to begin negotiations with the oil company. Giesbrecht expressed the borough’s concerns for the trade and interest in changing aspects of it. Werner responded in a Jan. 25 letter by not agreei...
Guardian Flight has resumed their air medical transport service in six base locations across Alaska following a 63-hour search for an overdue Guardian King Air 200 medical life flight near Kake. While services have resumed in Anchorage, Deadhorse, Dillingham, Fairbanks, Ketchikan and Sitka, Guardian Flight base locations in Kotzebue and Juneau will reopen sometime in the future, according Guardian Flight senior vice president of operations Randy Lyman in a prepared statement. "Guardian Flight...
A build up of creosote ignited and caused two chimney fires last week due to high temperatures emitting from wood stoves. The first chimney fire occurred on Jan. 28 at a residence on Fram St., and the second one was in a three-story building in the airport subdivision behind Hammer and Wikan Grocery Store on Jan. 30. Both fires occurred in the evening hours and were extinguished in less than an hour by the Petersburg Fire Department. “Generally, I think we get more [chimney fire calls] in the evening because people are coming home and are s...
Four discussion items were removed from Monday’s assembly meeting agenda by the assembly that would have addressed cuts and additions to the borough’s 2020 fiscal year budget. In the beginning of the meeting, assembly member Bob Lynn made the motion to amend the agenda and remove the four items. The items would have called for a discussion on whether to add a full time fire fighter/EMT to the fire department, reduce some community services, give department head merit increases and eliminate snow removal outside of service area one. Lynn, who...
The borough assembly voted in favor of instructing borough manager Steve Giesbrecht to send out a request for proposals, or RFP, for the cost of a consultant for Mountain View Manor assisted living to determine if the facility is running efficiently. The costs for Mountain View Manor are greater than the revenue it brings in despite being at 100 percent occupancy, according to Giesbrecht. The borough lost an estimated $240,117 in the 2018 fiscal year from the assisted living operation. “We’ve scratched and clawed to get to where we are, and...
The Sitka black-tailed deer hunting season is now closed in Southeast Alaska. All hunters who obtained deer harvest tickets, even those who did not hunt or harvest a deer, must return completed hunt reports to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. If you haven’t submitted your hunt report, do so immediately. Hunt reports may be submitted by mail, in person at a Fish and Game office, or online at http://hunt.alaska.gov. For information or for assistance call the Petersburg office at 907-772-5228....
The borough assembly held a work session last week to go over comments submitted by residents on ways the borough can increase revenues and reduce expenses. Over a three week period in January 2018, 132 suggestions were submitted during three public meetings conducted by borough manager Steve Giesbrecht. The comments addressed the growing tourism industry, taxes on online shopping and increases in certain fees. “Since we had those three meetings, it might be good to at least let the community know that we looked at some of their s...
The assembly voted against filling a vacant police sergeant position on Monday expressing concerns over uncertainty of the state’s budget. “I don't want to hire somebody and then later on tell them that they aren't able to work for us because we just don’t have the funding,” said assembly member Kurt Wohlhueter. The police department is budgeted for nine officers, which includes police chief Jim Kerr, captain Randall Holmgrain, two sergeant positions, four officers and one SECAD officer...
KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — A mayor in southeast Alaska received a 10-day suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution. The Ketchikan Daily News reports 36-year-old Lawrence Armour pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge Wednesday in court on Prince of Wales Island. According to court documents, the Klawock (klah-WAHK) mayor sent $400 to a woman on New Year's Day, asking her to come to his residence for sex. Ketchikan District Attorney Timothy McGillicuddy told the court that the woman took the money but “no fol...
The borough assembly discussed possible solutions to address the safety of the troll bridge near Sandy Beach Park after Kathryn Schneider submitted a letter last week expressing concern for residents walking across the wooden bridge. "I see the Troll Bridge as a safety hazard and liability issue due [to] the bridge's deck, which is four feet above the creek, the intermittently slippery wood decking and the lack of handrails," wrote Schneider in her letter. The discussion item was added to the...
The United States Coast Guard has located possible debris from an aircraft with three people onboard that was due to land in Kake Tuesday evening at 6:19 P.M., according to a USCG press release. On board the Guardian King Air 200 medical life flight, which departed from Anchorage, was a pilot, a nurse and a paramedic who were planning on picking up a patient in Kake. Because of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations, representatives from Kake Health Clinic and Guardian...
After nearly five years with the Petersburg Medical Center, chief financial officer Doran Hammett announced his departure from the hospital during an executive session at Thursday's board meeting. Hammett said he is leaving PMC to find an interim position closer to his family in Okarche, Oklahoma. It currently takes him about a day to fly back home. "My leaving doesn't have anything to do with the town or the hospital or anybody here," said Hammett. "I thoroughly enjoyed it. Leaving is going to...
