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Epitome of ignorance To the Editor: As an ex Petersburg resident and currently a business owner in Seattle, I find the comments by Mr. Martinson disturbing. To insinuate only the unhealthy are dying from covid is the epitome of ignorance. To constantly push his agenda and ignorance is why we are still in this mess. Please, don't listen to someone like this who might know how to fish, but sure as heck isn't a medical expert. Leave the medical advice to people who know what they're talking about...
At this point, anything is worth a try. If a healthy life, caring about family and neighbors, and wanting to dream about perhaps someday flying without a face mask isn’t enough of an incentive, maybe a chance at winning the Alaska vaccination lottery will be just the shot in the arm some people need. Literally. The state has decided to use $1 million in federal pandemic aid to offer a lottery — a weekly $49,000 prize for eight lucky adults (age 18 and over) of the 49th state who figure a chance at cash is worth a little ache in the arm. The...
It's not about you To the Editor: I am a youth of Petersburg, and similar to the majority of the youth in Petersburg that are my age, I attend Mitkof Middle School. I have lived in Petersburg for nine years. When the pandemic hit, my family and I socially distanced, masked up, and did what we thought was right. Part of the reason we didn't contract the virus is because the school took precautions too. There has been an argument about what the coming school year will look like; people are...
Me, Myself and I To the Editor: Millions of people are sick and dying of covid, or as the unbelievers, uneducated call it "the Sniffles." I can't understand with 99% of the medical community saying covid, especially covid delta is making millions of us sick and killing us yet people refuse to get a simple vaccine approved by the FDA. It saves lives and keeps people from extreme illness. Why do people listen to talk show host Phil Valentine (RIP) who told his followers not to get vaccinated with...
Editor's note: The following letter is published as submitted, unedited. We just don't know To the Editor: Seems like a lifetime ago the consensus was to lockdown, shutdown, close schools, business we must stop this horrible virus. My question was, can man stop a virus. Not a great track record with the common cold. Dr. Fuacci, CDC, WHO, were convinced we could. Ok,well good luck with that one. School, sports, little league, jobs, dignity, self worth replaced with alcohol and drug abuse. Depress...
It seems like we've been here before. Mask use is low, positivity rates are low (3.3%), only 3 active cases in town and 55.6 % of us are fully vaccinated. The temptation is to let our guards down as COVID-19 fatigue sets in and makes us forget about masking, social distancing and hand washing protocols. That is all that needs to happen to allow a surge of cases to run amok in Petersburg. To avoid infection, get vaccinated. The much higher transmission rate of the delta variant is one of the...
Don't understand To the Editor: I'm sure it is just me; but I don't understand how a large blue banner on Fram St. that says F....K BIDEN contributes to a fact-based, calm, rational, respectful discussion of the controversial issues and problems facing our beloved country today. Sam Bunge...
We Alaskans have had a free ride To the Editor: We Alaskans have basically had a free ride since our Permanent Fund was established in 1976 with the proceeds from the Prudhoe Bay oil lease sales. At that time, the Legislature decided to abolish the State income tax (based on a percentage of the Federal income tax), the School Tax (a once-a-year $5 payment per wage earner to help fund schools) and the Disaster Tax (a once-a-year $10 payment per wage earner to help fund disaster relief). Rather than keep these taxes, even at a very minimal rate,...
The list of escalating Alaska political divides is growing faster than skunk cabbage in a rainforest. And it smells just as bad. The line-up for the political fight scorecard seems endless: Democrats versus Republicans, liberals versus conservatives, rural versus urban, sportfishing versus commercial versus charter fishing, full-dividend advocates versus fiscal restraint, tax advocates versus budget cutters. There are those who believe religion belongs in government and others who believe God belongs in church, not the state Capitol. And those...
A new group of citizens are advocating in favor of SEARHC to provide for the future health care needs of Petersburg. After all, it worked in Wrangell after the community leadership grew weary of writing checks to keep their facility operating. Petersburg is however a different story. Petersburg Medical Center is financially self-sufficient and carries an investment account balance enabling them to get through occasional lean times. They have an attentive hospital board that is elected to seats...
We congratulate Joyce Cummings on her semi-retirement from her 35-year tenure at First Bank. We have observed first-hand Cummings commitment to her work and her fellow employees. Over the years she became an expert at mortgage loan production and has been repeatedly named as a top loan producer by the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation in Southeast Alaska. For decades we have watched as she trained new employees and branch managers about all things Petersburg as it related to First Bank. She...
WRANGELL - As of last week, employees, contractors and volunteers with the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, which operates in 19 communities, must show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or risk losing their jobs or access to the facilities. Exceptions will be allowed for staff who are pregnant or breastfeeding, have a history of anaphylaxis or allergy to the vaccine, or "persons whose sincere religious observances and practices related to life, purpose or death oppose vaccines,"...
Alaskans have taken a collective leap over the embankment of common sense. We didn't merely leave the road to the Church of Wisdom, we turned to the false political god of the Church of the Permanent Fund Dividend to lead us to the promised land. Think about what Moses would do. Instead of leaving the Israelites on their own for 40 days during his hike up Mount Sinai to retrieve the Ten Commandments, what if he had climbed Denali and returned with a long-term fiscal plan for Alaska, only to see...
LeConte Bay To the Editor: All around the state we have names which have deviated from the pronunciation that was used at the time that they were named. There must be a natural human tendency to do that that is even stronger than the one that causes explorers to ignore the geographic names the locals use and bestow new ones. A couple of local examples are Sukoi and Kupreanof Islands. Pronouncing either of them in the phonetically proper way will instantly expose anyone who does so as not being...
Bridges skookum & handsome To the Editor: The P.I.A. Trail Crew really knows their business. Today I walked the William Musson Trail between Mountain View Manor and the ball fields. The two new trail bridges spanning the gully are skookum and handsome. Thanks to P.I.A. for a job well done. Sam Bunge...
The word is already out. Pilot reporter Brian Varela is leaving Petersburg this week. His 3-year Petersburg career is drawing to a close. He's moving up in the world and will write for the 45,000 circulation Ventura County Star, a DAILY newspaper in Camarillo, California, just a stone's throw from his hometown of Oxnard. As a matter of fact, his beat will be his hometown. When Brian arrived three years ago, we had some problems. Not with him, but the education he received from a university...
Blame legislators for overspending and underachieving at the underlying need for a long-term fiscal plan for the state - if it makes you feel better. They certainly have made some poor decisions. But Alaskans need to look at their own reflection in the mud puddle of politics and realize we share in the blame for electing and encouraging bad decisions by many of those same lawmakers. We're just as guilty for decades of irresponsible requests for state funding, unreasonable expectations that the...
There’s another way To the Editor: I want to thank our Mayor Mark Jensen for inviting the SEARHC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Elliot Bruhl to the Borough Council Meeting. To hear another option for financing and managing our local hospital was encouraging. There is another way besides the borough going into long term debt. Maybe SEARHC would bring back the option of delivering babies in our community? Marj Oines Former hospital employee and retired RN...
If our old friend, and my mentor, the late Sen. Ted Stevens were with us today, he would have a short and direct solution to the extended deliberations of the Alaska Legislature and governor. It would be: "Just do what's right for Alaska." And he might add a few expletives. It's past time for our governor and a majority of our legislators to recognize the responsibility of each of them to represent the current as well as the long-range interest of Alaskans. This can only be done by making...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy must have learned how to manage state finances from the same people who guard the world’s biggest secret recipes: Col. Sanders’ fried chicken, Coca-Cola, Big Mac’s special sauce, Twinkies and Dr. Pepper. Keeping secrets from customers is smart marketing hype. Keeping secrets from the public is irresponsible. And, in the governor’s case, it’s dishonest. Dunleavy, who served on the Matanuska-Susitna Borough school board and later spent five years in the state Legislature, should know his arithmetic — if he had paid attention i...
Landless legislation needs support To the Editor: I am 80 years old now and was born here at the Petersburg Hospital as was my mother. Thirty years ago Spencer Israelson, who spent his youth at Point Agassiz, took me to the mainland and showed me many petroglyphs that he and his friend had found as they grew up in the area. He also showed me, as well, evidence of a native fish trap at Muddy River. My grandfather, Carroll Clausen, took me to Sandy Beach when I was eight years old and showed me...
Despite the fact that there were specific reasons why the five landless communities of Haines, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg and Tenakee were not included in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, legislation is being crafted to grant each community 23,040 acres of land from the Tongass. Natives in these communities did not meet the requirements for inclusion under the legislation. In Petersburg's case, natives from surrounding villages came here to fish and hunt each summer and retu...
SEARHC or not to SEARHC To the Editor: I listened to the representative from SEARHC at Monday's Assembly meeting. It was really nice of him to come and give an overview of SEARHC to the Assembly. I have only lived in Petersburg for 25 years. I am a firm supporter of the hospital and Phil the present director. In the 25 years I have lived here this is the first time we have had not only a good administrator, but an excellent hospital administrator. It had been pretty dismal for several of the...
Just a couple weeks ago, Ketchikan reported 20 new COVID-19 cases in a single day and had more than 100 active cases in the borough. A week ago, the community still had more than 80 active cases and four people in the hospital. About 20% of all the cases reported in Ketchikan since the pandemic infected and inflicted its misery on the world more than a year ago have occurred in just the past few weeks. Many of the recent cases are people who did not choose to get vaccinated. Almost 40% of Ketchikan Borough residents 16 and older had not...
To steal the line from a country-western song of almost 30 years ago - "Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it" - Gov. Mike Dunleavy is sticking to his story that the Permanent Fund dividend is just about the most important thing in Alaska today. So much so that not only does he want the PFD enshrined in the constitution, but he wants the formula for calculating the annual payment to residents hard-wired into the everlasting document. Even education, public health and safety don't get that...
