Sorted by date Results 2711 - 2735 of 5553
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — While constitutional questions swirl around a crime bill recently passed by the Alaska Legislature, the director of the state Department of Law’s criminal division thinks the courts will work out a solution. John Skidmore said courts will find a way to interpret the law in a way that avoids constitutional issues, KTOO radio reported. But Tara Rich, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, believes the courts will invalidate a provision dealing with Class C felonies. She also expects legal cha...
WRANGELL - Until further notice is given, the clerical offices and courtroom at the Wrangell Public Safety Building have been closed down temporarily. The closure began Monday morning, with the Alaska Court System citing air quality concerns for staff using the premises. The space is rented from the city, which maintains the entire facility and surrounding property. "We've got some water issues that need to be addressed," explained Neil Nesheim, area court administrator for the First District...
WRANGELL — Following talks earlier this month with the city, the hospital board drafted a letter requesting that it move forward with finding a third party partnership. At their November 15 meeting, Wrangell Medical Center governing board members discussed the pros and potential cons of partnering up with another organization. A major reason for considering the move is seeking out project support for construction of a new medical facility, an elusive goal for much of the past decade. Among the board’s more immediate concerns is maint...
SEATTLE (AP) - Harbor seals, sea lions and some fish-eating killer whales have been rebounding along the Northeast Pacific Ocean in recent decades. But that boom has come with a trade-off: They're devouring more of the salmon prized by a unique but fragile population of endangered orcas. Competition with other marine mammals for the same food may be a bigger problem than fishing, at least in recent years, for southern resident killer whales that spend time in Washington state's Puget Sound, a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) _ The special legislative session is staggering toward its end Tuesday, with a small contingent of lawmakers holding so-called technical sessions to keep it alive after the Alaska House and Senate disagreed on adjourning early. Technical sessions are more casual gatherings involving a handful of members charged with gaveling in and out. They are used regularly, including when one side doesn’t want to keep all its members waiting around while waiting for the other to send it a bill. Doug Gardner, the Legislature’s top leg...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly talked at length in a meeting last week about forming a tax committee, made of community members who could explain how tax finances work and eventually bring recommendations to the council. “I’ve had a chance to talk to several members of the community who had all kinds of questions about senior citizen property tax exemptions and overall sales tax,” said Jeff Meucci, an assembly member. “And what the trends are.” As a result, the assembly agreed to ask community members to sit on a short term – possibly si...
A local Petersburg artist illustrated two children's book with ancient stories from the Tlingit and Haida native tribes, and the goal in her work is to connect people with symbols, shapes and patterns. Janine Gibbons illustrated "The Woman Who Married the Bear" and "The Woman Carried Away by Killers," two oral traditions of the respective native tribes. "You, as an American citizen, should know more about symbols and shapes and patterns," Gibbons said. "And repetitions of shape, and patterns...
The remodel of the Petersburg Municipal Power and Light building is asking for an additional $60,000 in contingency dollars to address items that were left out of a ‘bare bones’ plan in 2015, said Karl Hagerman, the Public Works director. “There wasn’t a whole lot of thought about this being the long term headquarters of the department,” Hagerman said. “Being that the construction of a new headquarters in Scow Bay has been eliminated from consideration and the current offices will be the PMPL headquarters for many years into the future, the...
A group of high school seniors at PHS are learning how to manage finances in a career readiness course. Students manage hypothetical loans, credit cards, 401k retirement plans, write checks and compete against classmates for who can be most fiscally responsible. “There may be a little bit of financial trash talking,” said Jim Engell, the careers class teacher, speaking at a school board meeting on Tuesday. “It’s been fun listening to the kids deal with real life scenarios, and I’m hoping it’ll reap the benefits down the road for them in ways th...
The Alaska National Guard will host a town hall meeting this Thursday in Juneau to provide an update on the Alaska National Guard in Southeast Alaska, present some of the challenges facing the Guard, and hear concerns from citizens in the community. Maj. Gen. Laurie Hummel, adjutant general for the Alaska National Guard, will host the meeting and will be accompanied by several Army Guard and Air Guard senior leaders, a chaplain, a recruiter and a representative from the state’s Office of Veterans Affairs. The focus of the town hall will be a...
The Southeast Alaska 2018 pink salmon harvest is predicted to be in the average range, with a point estimate of 23 million fish (80% confidence interval: 3–44 million fish). An actual harvest of 23 million pink salmon would be below the recent 10-year average harvest of 38 million pink salmon, but near the average even-year harvest since 1960 (25 million). The 2018 pink salmon harvest forecast was based on the average of 5 recent even-year harvests (2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016). Forecast Discussion: The 2018 harvest forecast of 23 m...
(JUNEAU) A joint letter sent Wednesday to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson from Alaska Governor Bill Walker and Lt. Governor Byron Mallott, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Representative Don Young emphasized the “potential catastrophic effects on Alaska’s communities” from upstream mining activities in British Columbia (B.C.) and urged the U.S. federal government to “help protect overall U.S. interests in this situation.” The letter also called the Tulsequah Chief “an example of an inadequate response by the B.C. government....
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) —Tourism leaders in Alaska are asking Congress to increase U.S. Forest Service recreation funding. Tourism leaders representing 49 businesses in Southeast Alaska wrote in an open letter last week that the U.S. Forest Service’s budget has shrunk by nearly half in a little more than a decade, hampering growth in southeast Alaska’s visitor industry. The U.S. Forest Service’s funding for recreation on the Tongass and Chugach national forests declined 46 percent from 2004-2014, the businesses said. That’s hurting businesse...
WRANGELL — Wrangell’s mayor chose the community’s new voting and alternate member on next year’s Southeast Alaska Power Agency board. Based in Ketchikan, the regional power provider services that community, Wrangell and Petersburg. The three member utilities pool production from their hydroelectric facilities and collectively purchase power from the agency through 25-year power sales agreements, with the current agreement extending through 2034. Decisions guiding the agency is overseen by a governing board consisting of five voting directo...
One of the state’s public ferries will help collect data on ocean acidification during its regular route. The news was announced last week by Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center at University of Alaska Southeast, which has partnered with the Alaska Marine Highway System, British Columbia’s Hakai Institute, Alaska Ocean Observing System and other federal agencies on the project. The vessel chosen for the data collection study is the M/V Columbia, which at 418 feet and a gross tonnage of 3,946 is the ferry system’s largest. On its route betwe...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska House isn’t giving up on the special legislative session, even though the Senate has called it quits. The House majority coalition on Monday announced plans to hold technical sessions until the special session ends Nov. 21. The House plans for the two Juneau members to preside over the technical sessions, for which attendance isn’t mandatory, to keep the special session alive. That will force the Senate to hold similar sessions since one body can’t adjourn without the other. Special sessions can last up to 30 d...
Mon., Nov. 20 Stedman Elementary - Regular release time: Kndgtn 1:15, Grades 1-5 2:45pm. Scheduled conferences, 3-8pm. Mitkof Middle School - Regular release time: Grades 6-8 3:00pm. Conferences, 4-8pm (call middle school office for scheduling information). Petersburg High School - Regular release time: Grades 9-12 3:00pm. Walk-in conferences, 4-8pm Tues., Nov. 21 Stedman Elementary - Early release time: Grades Kndgtn -5 1:15pm Scheduled conferences, 1:20 - 8pm. Mitkof Middle School - Early release time: Grades 6-8 2:20pm. Conferences, 3-8pm...
Ray Olsen, 91, sat at a Veterans Day assembly in Petersburg on Friday in a wheelchair, with his hands folded on his lap. In a blue parka and sporting a trim white beard, he watched as students praise his service, and he stood for the honorary moment of silence. Olsen, who was a first class petty officer in the Navy from 1944 to 1945, watched middle schoolers read their definition of a veteran; he sat when high schoolers recited the Gettysburg Address; and he listened to the band play the "Armed...
The assembly unanimously denied a request by the Petersburg Housing Coalition that asked borough departments for data and solutions to the homeless population in town. Assembly Member Jeff Meucci asked for the coalition’s request to be on the agenda, not because he supports it, but rather that he wants the public to be represented. “I kind of feel strongly that people come up here and speak at the podium, and in the past, their letters or their requests -- it seems like they fall on deaf ears,” Meucci said. “I just wanted to make sure that when...
Soon after Rachel Kvernvik's dad died at sea in 2002, she wrote him a letter, sealed it in a bottle and threw it in the ocean, never thinking it would be opened. She was 16 and looking for closure. About 15 years later, on Halloween day 2017, a man told Kvernvik that he and a group of campers had found the bottle in 2003. The campers hadn't contacted Kvernvik for 15 years. They had broken the bottle, read the letter and returned it to the ocean, where they said it belonged. Afterward, they could...
Rain Country Quilters showcased about 40 quilts at its annual quilt show at the recent Oktoberfest event. Also included were antique quilts dating back to the Civil War. Rita Byrer, who's with Rain Country Quilters, estimated the group raised more than $700 through a silent auction in the high school library. That number will be confirmed at a meeting next year, at which they will decide what Petersburg organization a portion of the money should be donated to. Marcy Gelhaus was given the...
Firefighters on Tuesday responded to a distress call from a woman whose front lawn had caught fire, which burned her arm and nearly ignited the front porch, until a man who noticed the escalating blaze stopped to help. At about noon on Tuesday, the Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department responded to a fire on Philbin Lane, where the homeowner had been injured, said David Berg, the assistant chief. The owner later said she was cooking when a grease fire ignited in her kitchen. She rushed the...
Mayor Mark Jensen reported on Monday that Gov. Bill Walker is scheduled to visit Petersburg next week to sign a borough land bill. Senate Bill 28, Petersburg Municipal Land Selection Bill, will entitle the borough to 14,666 acres of state land after it is signed by Walker. The Deputy Press Secretary to the governor, Jonathon Taylor, confirmed that the visit is scheduled. Walker is slated to sign the bill and give remarks on Thursday afternoon at the Sons of Norway Hall....
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — Horizon Air and its Bombardier turboprop Q400 aircraft will be phased out of Alaska in March and replaced with Boeing 737s, an Alaska Air Group official said. Horizon Air is a component of the group, which includes Alaska Airlines. Horizon’s Anchorage base will close March 10, 2018, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. Alaska Airlines Regional Vice President Marilyn Romano said on Tuesday that Horizon “has struggled to operate cost-effectively in such a remote environment with limited resources.” Horizon started...
