Author: kfskadmin

Petersburg city councilor Sara Stoner says she’s resigning.
Stoner recorded a commentary over the phone with KFSK Tuesday morning, and in it she said she would no longer be on the council. Stoner is one of two councilors subject to a recall effort by local residents this summer. Recall supporters say she and other council members met in private, in violation of a state law on open meetings. In her commentary, stoner says she has not broken the law. She points out that she was at a winter legislative meeting of the Alaska Municipal League in Juneau during the time that one of the alleged private meetings took place.
Allegations of private meetings, and counter-charges of spying to prove the allegations have spawned a lawsuit between one city councilor and the city’s harbor master. The accusations were also a factor in the council’s decision to part ways with the city manager.
Stoner was the top vote getter in a four-person race for two seats on council last October. At the age of 24, the commercial fisher was the youngest person elected to the city council in recent memory and she campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility in local government. She garnered statewide attention last year after starting a petition drive to seek governmental aid for the high cost of commercial fishing fuel. She is most of the way through her first year of a three-year council term.
The vacancy will be filled by a majority vote of the remaining city council members…and that appointee will serve until the october election.

Petersburg’s city council Monday approved new five-year contracts with two city department heads, postponed a vote on another contract and voted down yet another. The council will try again at their next meeting to approve contracts for the city’s parks and recreation director and harbormaster.

A partially finished shelter at Sandy Beach Park has used up a little more than half of the federal grant money that the city secured for the project and should be completed this year, according to the city’s parks and recreation director. The Sandy Beach shelter number 2 received a grant of just over $49,000 from the federal Secure Rural Schools program. The money was awarded to the project by a joint committee of Wrangell and Petersburg residents called the Resource Advisory Committee, or RAC, and it was intended to fund half of the cost of rebuilding the shelter. The city undertook a rebuild of the entire structure and has spent around $31,000 of the grant money with plans to complete the structure in the next three months. Joe Viechnicki spoke with parks and rec director Ryan McFarland about the project.

Supporters of an effort to recall two Petersburg City Council members are trying again. Local residents have resubmitted applications for recall of councilors Lee Corrao and Sara Stoner, with more detailed allegations of Open Meetings Act violations.

A former Petersburg resident and author is speaking tonight at the Petersburg Public Library about her new book and efforts to raise awareness about Tourette Syndrome. Mandy Ostheller, formerly Mandy Fleming, graduated Petersburg High School in 1999 and went on to Eastern Washington University. Her first book “Rise of the Sun” was published in March and she expects the second book of a trilogy “The Sun Will Fall” to be out this October. Ostheller is married with three children, one of whom was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome. She is donating profits from her book to an organization that studies the disorder. Joe Viechnicki spoke with her and started off by asking about her first book.