Sorted by date Results 5331 - 5355 of 5625
The meeting of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board of Directors on Sept. 19-20 in Petersburg discussed an agenda item that may signal the end of the Thomas Bay Power Authority, as we know it. A decision by the board to consolidate TBPA and Ketchikan Public Utilities in SEAPA, based on the finding of an internal agency report, will have to wait, however, for input from the Borough Assembly, Petersburg’s City Council and the Ketchikan Borough Assembly. John Heberling of the consulting firm D. Hittle and Associates performed the study of t... Full story
The Petersburg police station is now the number one capital project for 2014. The Petersburg City Council revised and prioritized the Capital Improvement Projects list Monday evening during its regular meeting. Several attendees at Monday’s meeting agreed the North Harbor and the police station were still the top projects for the list. These two projects were the top two on the list last year as well. During the public hearing portion of the meeting there was some disagreement over which project should be listed as number one. Local a... Full story
The Alaska Permanent Fund dividend for eligible Alaskans will be $878 this year. State officials announced this year’s payout from Alaska’s oil savings account Tuesday morning. This year’s amount is significantly less than last year’s dividend of $1,174, which was the smallest amount since 2006. The payout will be distributed Oct. 4. The annual distribution of the dividends is calculated on a five-year average of the earnings of the Alaska permanent fund. According to state officials the stock market took a hard hit in 2008 and that market... Full story
The 24th Alaska State Legislature Representative Peggy Wilson visited Petersburg last week to discuss any issues residents may have. “This visit to Petersburg has been wonderful and sad at the same time,” Wilson said. “I feel that Petersburg is mine because I have had it for 12 years, and I am going to miss being a part of this community when the redistricting takes effect.” Southeast Alaska had five legislators in the past but the area has lost 17,000 people between the last two censuse...
Mayor Al Dwyer read the Petersburg City Managers report into the record during the Petersburg City Council regular meeting Monday evening. The City has issued a request for proposals for Radio Narrow Band Conversion. According to City Manager Stephen Giesbrecht, the Fire, Police, Electric and Public Works Departments formulated the RFP. These proposals are due to the City by 5 p.m. Sept. 21 and the conversion must be completed by Jan. 1, 2013. Council member Mark Jensen questioned the deadline. “We will absolutely have problems meeting the d...
Questions regarding the decrease in port departures were a topic of discussion by Petersburg City Council Monday evening. Petersburg Mayor Al Dwyer addressed a letter to Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Deputy Commissioner of Marine Operations Michael Neussl asking about the reduced ferry schedule for 2013. “Our community has seen an overall decrease in port departures by 19.5 percent since 2002 and an 18.6 percent decrease in passenger disembarkment over the same time period,” Dwyer noted. “These two facts are clear... Full story
Petersburg City School District, along with Kenai Borough Peninsula Elementary Schools are the first two Alaskan School Districts to receive national recognition for supporting the health of children and communities through the Healthier US School Challenge. As part of their efforts in this challenge, the districts feature healthy items on their school menus and emphasize physical education and activity. “Kenai had four elementary schools to meet this challenge,” Petersburg City Schools Superintendent Rob Thomason said. “But Petersburg was r...
As the Petersburg City Council opened the floor for public comment on the Capital Improvement Projects list Monday evening, a new request for funding was addressed. Dave Berg Compass Theater board member, along with Sarah Tate, newly elected treasurer of the theater, addressed the council with the needs of digital upgrading. “The theater is going to be forced to upgrade to a digital format to be able to continue showing movies in Petersburg,” Berg said. “This will happen by the end of next year.” According to Berg, only high school students wor...
Josef Quitslund crafted this bicycle rack for Rae C. Stedman Elementary School. There are two racks that stand at each end of the school made of aluminum and filled with sand to keep them in place....
Phase 1 of the downtown road construction project is well underway. The project involves removing all concrete streets, curbs and sidewalks and then installing new structures and pipe and repaving. So far only Dolphin is closed to through traffic, but the construction will extend to Nordic Drive and Excel street....
Recent thick fog condensed on plants like this backyard “common sweetgrass” bejeweling it with droplets.... Full story
Police Chief Jim Agner told the Petersburg Rotary Club Wednesday that he believed cases involving persons on the lower socio-economic level are not being prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office in Juneau. Without going into specifics, Agner said the home of a person being detained by the State was broken into and a flat screen television was stolen. The Petersburg Police Department spent about $5,000 investigating the case and was able to interview a witness and the suspects alleged to have taken the property. They even recovered the t... Full story
The Petersburg City Council chose a new home for the Police Department from six different sites Tuesday, Sept. 4. The land that has been selected sits on the west side of the fire station and has been evaluated by the City's architect Wayne Jensen of Jensen, Yorba and Lott, Inc. “The City Manager, Stephen Giesbrecht, and I looked at several other sites beyond these six,” Petersburg Police Chief Jim Agner said. “We literally drove around town trying to 'think outside the box' and keeping an open mind about what would work.” After looking... Full story
September 8, 1982 - It was a fluke that so many coho returned to Crystal Lake hatchery this early in the year, but it made about 75 people very happy. Those were the people who made it out to Crystal Lake Hatchery before the supply of free coho ran out. Bob Zorich, hatchery biologist, said the offer to give away six free coho per person on a first come, first serve basis last Friday appealed to an awful lot of people. The hatchery had about 450 coho to give away, and the bulk of them went in the first half hour. After that, people stood in line...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency is preparing a grant application to study the feasibility of hydrogen production and storage as an alternative to underutilized hydro. In a letter written to the Alaska Energy Authority by Petersburg Mayor Al Dwyer, he states that the Southeast Region has experienced significant winter load growth, which has caused, and will continue to cause, both energy and capacity shortages. According to Dwyer, the shortages are currently met with diesel electric generation that dispatches at a cost differential of four to... Full story
The Petersburg gun range, near Papke’s Landing, recently was vandalized by gunfire. Petersburg Rod and Gun Club President, Chris Cotta, discovered the damage when he took his sons out to do some target shooting. “Someone had shot the lock off of the front gate,” Cotta said. “I started looking around and noticed most of the clubhouse windows had been shot multiple times.” Other damage to the range includes the range shelter, trash can, the rifle platform and also the 6 X 6 uprights were shot...
A $10,000 reward is being offered by The Southeast Alaska Power Agency (‘SEAPA’) for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the vandal, or vandals, responsible for causing an hour-long, region-wide power outage on Sunday, August 19, 2012, in both the City and Borough of Wrangell and the City of Petersburg. It is suspected that multiple rifle shots into an insulator core on one of the main power delivery towers on Wrangell’s Back Channel were caused by a vandal or vandals. Although power was restored quickly utilizing diesel gener...
Petersburg Child Care Center board vice president, Kim Kilkenny asked the Petersburg City Council to place the organization on the Capital Improvement Projects list during the regular council meeting Tuesday, Sept. 4. “The PCC is running very short on space and have a waiting list for infants and toddlers one to two years of age,” Kilkenny said. “We are starting the process of getting funds together to expand our building.” Kilkenny explained to the Council that the wish of the PCC Board is to expand enough to accommodate 20 more kids. At this...
Petersburg Police Station and North Harbor projects will stay at the top of the City Council’s list for state funding. During a work session of the Petersburg City Council Monday afternoon, council members discussed which projects they would like to see at the top of the capital improvement projects list. Petersburg City Manager Stephen Giesbrecht and City department heads provided a list of projects in order of priority for the council to debate. Council member Don Koenigs was not in attendance at Monday’s work session but made sure his pre...
A resolution to support the City of Petersburg’s application to the Alaska Energy Authority’s renewable energy fund to allow a feasibility study evaluating renewable heating systems for certain public buildings was passed unanimously by the Council during its regular monthly meeting. “This grant is a study looking at alternate ways to heat and power very specific buildings,” Petersburg Parks and Recreation Director Donn Hayes said. “This will include the municipal building, the aquatic center, the school district and Mountain View Manor.” T...
The fourth and final change order for the water and sewer reconstruction project has been approved by the Petersburg City Council. This change rectifies actual project quantities of various bid items, as well as, the addition of three items not included in the plans but which were deemed necessary by Public Works Director Karl Hagerman. “The largest overrun on the project was for geotextile separation required in the trench line,” Hagerman stated. “This material was installed to maintain separation between the rock backfill and surro...
THORNE BAY — The Thorne Bay Ranger District is mourning the loss of District Ranger Kent Nicholson, who passed away unexpectedly last weekend at his home on Prince of Wales Island. Although Nicholson had held his current position in Thorne Bay for less than a year, he enjoyed a long career in Southeast Alaska. Nicholson joined the Forest Service in Hoonah in 2004, when he was hired as a civil engineering technician. Soon after, Nicholson accepted a promotion to forester at the Petersburg R...
Ocean Beauty Seafood manager Cheryl Romeo requested the transfer of a conditional use permit allowing the placement of six 8 foot by 40 foot bunkhouses to the site of the old Ocean Beauty Bunkhouse at 15 Harbor Way during a regular Planning Commission meeting Thursday evening. “Letters were sent to everyone in the zone,” Community Development Foreman Joe Bertagnoli said. “The only response we received was in support by Dave Ohmer of Trident Seafoods.” Ohmer stated that this proposal goes along with the history of Ocean Beauty, the area they ar...
United States Postal Inspector Adam Henney, Petersburg Police Investigator Kalin Rosse and the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) intercepted approximately 19.93 grams of heroin as it was being mailed into the community. In a statement made by the Petersburg Police Department, an ongoing investigation produced a package with slightly less than one ounce of heroin addressed to Jeff Kyle Smith, 49, of Petersburg. The heroin was reported to have a street value of $18,000. Henney and Rosse contacted Smith in the parking lot with the... Full story
Due to road construction downtown, Petersburg Fisheries will hold the annual Humpy 500 in the PFI Cookhouse. “The Humpy 500 is a tradition here and we want to keep it going,” PFI Plant Manager and Humpy 500 Chairman Patrick Wilson said. “We will still have the races, but on a smaller scale.” Wilson will have containers available to be picked up by contestants immediately and will be sending information and rules home with the kids from the area schools. “We will be providing salmon roll cont... Full story