Author: kfskadmin

The City of Petersburg is still moving ahead with its lawsuit against the new legislative boundaries set by the Alaska Redistricting Board. Local officials want their district redrawn so that Petersburg remains grouped with Sitka and other smaller communities rather than with the much larger city and borough of Juneau. As Matt Lichtenstein reports, the council took another step forward this week despite some concerns over legal costs.

The Alaska Redistricting Board maintains that its redistricting plan is constitutional.

Petersburg Medical Center’s new Chief Executive Officer Liz Woodyard has been on the job for several weeks. Woodyard took over the top job at the medical center from John Bringhurst, who retired in the middle of July. She has three year’s experience as a CEO of a hospital in Susanville, California. Woodyard, a registered nurse, is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She’s worked as chief nursing officer at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, and has been in health care administration, nursing and nursing education jobs in Fairbanks, Missouri and Minnesota since 1987. Joe Viechnicki spoke with her about the new job in Petersburg.

Petersburg voters will decide this fall whether senior citizens and non-profit groups will have to start paying sales tax on their alcohol and tobacco purchases. The city council last night voted five to one to put the proposed ordinance on the ballot.

The state ferry Fairweather runs twice weekly between Petersburg and Juneau during the summer months. The vessel is one of two fast catamarans the state brought into service in 2004 and 2005 and it has more than cut in half the sailing time between Petersburg and the Capital City.