Author: Joe Viechnicki, KFSK

Ocean Beauty Seafoods has told the Petersburg borough it will permanently close the company’s cannery in Petersburg. An August 2nd letter from the company’s president and CEO Mark Palmer says Ocean Beauty’s facilities at Excursion Inlet, Cordova and Kodiak provide it with adequate canning capacity to meet customer demand.

The shelves at the grocery store in some Alaska communities may be a little emptier than normal this summer and it’s not because customers are buying up all the food. A national food supplier is having shipping problems from Tacoma, Washington. In Petersburg it’s impacted the bottom line for a grocery store during its busiest time of year.

In light of two recent cyber-attacks on other municipalities in Alaska, the Petersburg borough has checked with the outside company that manages its computer network. A virus took down phones and computers in the Matanuska-Susitna borough and the city of Valdez in late July. Petersburg’s borough manager Steve Giesbrecht explained that a company called P-C-S in Des Moines, Iowa manages Petersburg’s servers and network.

Other places in Alaska have banned single use plastic bags. Could Petersburg be next? A former member of Petersburg’s borough assembly hopes so and is asking the assembly to pass a ban here. Managers at grocery and hardware stores in town have already been taking steps to reduce their use and keep them out of the landfill.

A pioneer in aviation in Petersburg died Monday, July 30 at the age of 94. Bill Stedman was a...