Author: kfskadmin

High school teams in many smaller southeast towns will have one more school to compete with next year….while Juneau and Ketchikan will have one less. School activity officials say Sitka High School’s shift to the 3A conference will mean some significant changes for southeast sports next year. They worked out the schedules during a meeting in Petersburg late last week.

Petersburg Medical Center will be raising rates five percent in May as part of an effort to cope with ongoing financial problems. The hospital was a million dollars short on revenue for its 7-point-six million dollar operating budget last year. Hospital administrator John Bringhurst says the situation has improved this fiscal year though the hospital is still operating at a projected loss of about 200 thousand dollars. Bringhurst spoke with KFSK’s Matt Lichtenstein

Improvements to the community cold storage, marine support services and regional marketing are all issues that the Petersburg Economic Development Council has tackled over the past year. The PEDC, which is supported by money from the city’s economic fund, gave its annual report to the council Monday.

Petersburg’s city assessor faced questions and, at times, some angry criticism for the better part of an hour at Monday’s council meeting. Several property owners turned out to challenge substantial increases in their assessments.

Community service organizations have long played a prominent role in small-town America and Petersburg is no exception. At the same time, it has been a struggle for some groups to attract new members to carry-on their service tradition. Last week, the 82-year-old Emblem Club held it’s statewide convention here in Petersburg. The group, which is affiliated with the Elks Club, has about 80 local members and a thousand statewide. Nationally, the group has about 15 thousand members. National Emblem Club President Janis Falcon of Oregon and past President Gay Odsather of Alaska took part in last week’s convention. They spoke with KFSK’s Matt Lichtenstein about community service and their organization.