Author: kfskadmin

The Forest Service’s disciplinary actions against a whistleblower employee on the Tongass in 2007 and 2008 did not sit well with some of the agency’s own lawyers.
According to recently released documents, Forest Service legal staff in Washington DC recommended against firing biologist Glen Ith, and questioned some of the actions that the agency had already taken.
Ith died suddenly last year, not long after being told his job had been eliminated due to budget cuts. His widow sued to get the agency to release the emails and other documents related to the case. Matt Lichtenstein reports:

Petersburg’s main food pantry at the Salvation Army has seen the need for its services increase dramatically this year. As Alex Hotz reports it’s one sign of the national recession’s affect on Alaska.

Petersburg is hiring a new tax assessor. On Monday, the City Council decided to sign a two-year contract with The Appraisal Company of Alaska. The Anchorage firm will replace Canary and Associates. Canary’s Juneau-based business has done the city’s assessments since 2002, but some councilors have been critical of their results. The council’s finance committee recommended the change.

Rates are going up at Mountain View Manor Assisted Living, but not nearly as much as staff recommended. The Petersburg City Council last night rejected the proposed increase of a thousand dollars a month for the facility’s eight self-pay residents. Instead, they approved increase of just over 300 dollars a month as suggested by a family member of one of the residents.

Alaska’s Congressional delegation is asking for nearly ten million dollars in capital project funding for the city of Petersburg in the federal budget for 2010. The requests are still a long way from being approved by Congress, but as Matt Lichtenstein reports, the money could make a big difference for the local projects.