Author: Joe Viechnicki, KFSK

Petersburg’s emergency operations center, which has worked on the community’s response to COVID-19 for over a year, is disbanding this month.

Some of the COVID-19 mitigation measures for next school year in Petersburg are still an unknown. School officials are putting together a plan for what face covering and other health measures may look like and say guidance on that is changing. It also may be different in the three local schools and take into account vaccination rates and case numbers. Petersburg’s school board heard the latest update Tuesday.

A top official for the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium outlined to the Petersburg assembly Monday how that regional health care provider could be part of new hospital facility in this community. It was a surprise for the leader of the Petersburg Medical Center, which had just received backing from the assembly to pursue their own project, at least the first phase of it.

Petersburg’s borough assembly Wednesday heard strong support and some opposition to legislation that would grant land in Southeast Alaska to five new urban Native corporations. The bill would change the 50 year old Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act for shareholders of those new corporations in Petersburg, Wrangell, Haines, Tenakee and Ketchikan.