Author: kfskadmin

A newly formed committee of Petersburg residents will be meeting throughout the summer to try and find ways to improve the financial future of the assisted living wing at the city's Mountain View Manor elderly housing building. The committee will investigate whether formation of a non-profit organization might cut costs and open up more opportunity for revenue. They’ll also look into whether selling all or part of the Manor facility is an option, along with raising rents, or an increase in property taxes, among other ideas.

Scientists in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest are trying to find ways to save an economically and ecologically valuable tree—the Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Some of the latest experiments are focusing on whether cedars can be transplanted further north, along with a search for the hardier genetic strains of the tree.

Author and kayak guide Kurt Hoelting tonight will talk about his year-long experiment to go without use of a car, and the walking and kayaking trips he took during that time around his home on Whidbey Island. Hoelting first came to Southeast Alaska to fish during college in 1969. He has worked as a commercial fisherman, and nowadays offers kayak tours during the summer out of Keene Channel south of Petersburg. In April he published his first book called “The Circumference of Home” about the year he went car-less. Joe Viechnicki spoke with Hoelting about his experience.

For the second year in a row, a ferry terminal on the southern end of Mitkof Island, 25 miles south of Petersburg, remains unused by the state, or an independent ferry authority that operates in Southeast. A marine highway official says the next generation of state ferries will not be able to dock at South Mitkof and the Inter-Island Ferry Authority says it needs an operating subsidy to restart service to that terminal.

The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has funded road resurfacing, bridge replacement, dock repairs and trail work in the Petersburg area in the past year and a half. The legislation, commonly called the stimulus bill, has brought some high paying jobs to the area. Melati Kaye reports on where stimulus dollars have gone around Petersburg.