Author: kfskadmin

Staff with the U.S. Senate and Natural Resources committee is in Southeast this month taking public testimony on the Sealaska Native corporation’s effort to complete its lands selection. Meanwhile, the small community of Port Protection on northern Prince of Wales Island is opposing the corporation’s effort to select land on that part of the island and wants U.S. senators to come to hear their input.

A newly completed electrical intertie has allowed the Tyee electric plant near Petersburg and Wrangell to provide a substantial amount of its excess power to Ketchikan. That’s according to Petersburg’s Electric Superintendent Joe Nelson this week. Nelson gave the Petersburg City Council an update on that project, and other news from the year-old Southeast Alaska Power Agency Monday night.

Democratic candidate Hollis French is focusing on energy, education and safe communities as he campaigns to be Alaska’s next governor. French is a state senator, representing West Anchorage. He has lived in Alaska since 1978, has worked in the oil industry and as an assistant district attorney….and twice climbed Denali. Joe Viechnicki spoke with French this month about some Southeast issues.

Petersburg’s City Council re-affirmed its support for a group of Mitkof highway residents in their struggles with the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority this week.
Trust land managers are working on a land exchange with US Forest Service that could address residents safety concerns over potential development of steep hills above their homes and businesses. However, the agency may keep a portion of its highway property for use as a rock quarry. That idea has generated more local objections. The Council passed a resolution Monday asking that the trust include the land in question as part of the broader exchange.

Alaska’s House Finance Committee voted down a proposal to add funding for the University of Alaska’s Marine Advisory Program Monday. The program is facing cuts to six of its ten local offices around the state due to declining federal grant funds. As the committee worked to finalize its operating budget proposal, Nome democrat Neil Foster offered an amendment adding the University’s request for 614 thousand dollars for MAP.
University officials have said the committee’s general fund spending proposal would not provide enough to cover map as well as many other programs that need additional money. Anchorage Republican and Committee Chair Mike Hawker acknowledged lawmakers had received extensive public comment in support of MP but hawker emphasized that the state had to live within its means and he preferred to let the University decide how to allocate its limited funding.
The Committee voted seven to three against the amendment.
The vote comes on the heels of testimony from program supporters around the state. Speaking to the committee last week, residents from Petersburg and other coastal towns echoed the University’s request for state money to prevent cuts to six rural map offices. Matt Lichtenstein has a look at some of those comments.