Representatives with the state’s Office of Childrens Services Wednesday fielded two hours of questions and concerns from local educators, foster parents, law enforcement and mental health service providers. People who work with children in Petersburg say the state’s regional system for reporting cases of child abuse or endangerment is not working. Locals are also concerned that a vacant social worker position has not been filled.
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Long-time Petersburg Indian Association Tribal Council member Jeannette Ness writes that she was deeply hurt to hear the meeting minutes she recorded in October called inaccurate. That’s in response to an assertion that PIA President Derek Lopez made in his interview with KFSK public radio.
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The U.S. Forest Service is considering a new timber sale on Kupreanof Island, west of Petersburg. The agency in October released a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Tonka Timber Sale, which could provide up to 53 million board feet of timber to area sawmills. The logging could also fund some second growth thinning and fish habitat work.
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Officials say major construction work will start up next year on an electrical power line extension in interior British Columbia, across the border from Southeast Alaska. That project will bring online a new large hydro-electric power plant, already under construction on the Iskut River, a tributary of the Stikine River. It could also spur development of several large mines in the region and will bring the North American power grid a little closer to Southeast Alaska.
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Petersburg’s failing North Harbor and police building are topping the city council’s list for capital project priorities. Councilors ranked the city’s top needs at a work session and meeting this month.
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