A seasonal Sitka worker is breathing easier today. Her brother has been released by Israel after the humanitarian aid flotilla he was part of was intercepted by the military earlier this week. 

33-year-old Logan Hollarsmith, captain of the L’arq, was sailing with more than 400 activists from southern Turkey to Gaza to deliver aid when they were intercepted by Israeli troops in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Video footage from Global Sumud Flotilla, which organized the fleet, showed Israeli soldiers firing shots at ​two of the boats. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement that they fired nonlethal rounds “as a warning” and that “no protesters were injured during these events.”

“He has been doing this kind of stuff his whole life. This is what he does,” said Camryn Hollarsmith, Logan’s younger sister, who works seasonally in Sitka’s tourism industry. “This is something he’s always led with. [He’s] led with his heart.”

Camryn said this was the second time her brother was detained by Israel for attempting to sail through the Gaza blockade. 

“Last year, it was maybe September, October time, he went on the flotilla,” she said. “He started out in Barcelona, went down towards Gaza, carrying humanitarian aid on his sailboat. He was illegally intercepted there by the Israeli government.”

Logan was then held in Ktzi’ot Prison, a maximum security detention center in Israel, for five days before being released. At the time, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi issued a statement urging Israel to release him along with the hundreds of other activists who were detained.

“The right of U.S. citizens to due process and fair treatment under international law must be protected. I stand with the family of Logan Hollarsmith in demanding clarity, accountability, and the safe return of all detainees to their homes,” Pelosi said in her statement.

Camryn said her family thought they would be more prepared this time around. 

“I think we thought that going through these motions we’d have a little bit of thicker skin,” she said. “But on the flip side, knowing what actually happened at the end of it, that there was a lot of abuse and neglect and poor conditions [and] a lot of physical violence — I think knowing that that’s what’s happening this time, and not actually being able to do anything, is hitting a lot harder, a lot closer to home.”

Camryn said friends and family from all over have been calling and emailing their representatives this week to push for Logan’s release. Her family got word Thursday morning that Logan had safely arrived in Istanbul, Turkey, along with more than 400 others. 

The activists are being checked out by a medical team and meeting with lawyers. The Turkish public news broadcaster TRT World reported activists claimed mistreatment by Israeli forces while in detention — allegations that were denied by Israeli prison officials — and that at least three activists were hospitalized. The news organization also reported international outcry after Israel’s national security minister posted a provocative video showing him taunting detained flotilla activists who were handcuffed and kneeling.  

Camryn said despite being scared, this has been a proud sister moment for her. 

“As important as my brother is to me — obviously, he’s my older brother and I care so much about him — he’s doing this on behalf of the genocide that’s happening in Gaza and Palestine,” she said. “If you remove the politics from it, there are people being bombed, there are children being bombed. We need to get aid to them. At the very base of the morality of this is that this is not okay, and why are we accepting that this is okay?”

Camryn said it could still be a few days before her brother gets back to his home in Arizona. She said she’s feeling a “massive sense of relief,” but understands that Logan and others need to continue the fight.

I climb into the large police truck with Sitka Police Chief Mike Hall and we head out on patrol. We drive downtown and then hit the state highway to cover every inch of Sitka’s 14-miles of paved road.

“We have one patrol officer working today, and when I have one, I usually come out and also work patrol so we keep good coverage and give the service needed to the community,” Hall says.  

Hall says he’s looking out for anything out of the ordinary. Things like cars parked the wrong way, speeders, bicyclists on the sidewalk, or people peering in the windows of parked cars. 

The daily patrol here in Sitka is a bit quieter for Hall than his last decade-and-a-half working with the U.S. State Department in countries like Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon, and Ukraine. But, he says, this is what he needed.

“After the war in Ukraine, I just was really tired mentally, I was tired physically, the stress — I just had enough,” Hall says. “I had my third war zone in a row without a break, and I was just exhausted. I was tired. I wanted to find a place just to heal.” 

And it sounds like he’s found it. 

“Three or four weeks ago, I told my wife, ‘This is like the most relaxed I’ve been in 17 years, I love it,'” Hall says. “Nobody’s shooting at me. There’s no rockets falling out of the sky, and I get to look at the beautiful mountains and the eagles and the whales and the sea lions and the seals, and I get to walk through Totem Park, and get on the beach and look for stuff. It’s just fantastic. Haven’t been fishing yet, but it’s coming.”

Hall’s been on the job for about two months now. He was hired on as a lieutenant last year and completed his Alaska police certification before being sworn in to the top role in March. 

He’s inherited a police department that’s seen a tumultuous decade, marked by high department turnover, several lawsuits brought by former officers that were settled out of court, and public outcry after police euthanized six shelter animals by gunshot in 2024. 

But Hall says he sees a path forward for the department, and that starts with hiring the right people for the job. He wants to attract more locals to the department, and when hiring from outside, he’s looking for candidates who really want to live in Sitka and become part of the community. 

“I need to see good folks,” he says. “I need to see folks who love each other, [and] want to help each other out. That’s important to me, and I try to instill that to folks who apply here. This is what’s important in life. If you’re out here wanting to fight people, if you’re out here being a police officer because you want the excitement, you’re in it for the wrong reason. If you’re in it to help somebody, yeah, that’s where [it’s] at.”

He says in a town of just over 8,000, it would be easy to overpolice the community, but he doesn’t want to issue a ticket every time someone speeds a few miles over the limit or use jail as a catchall.

“Sometimes you can give a bit of grace, and that grace can go a long way in starting somebody on a new path,” he says. “That’s part of our community policing model.”

Or he says, they could also underpolice Sitka, which could lead to more crime and disorderly conduct. So, he says there has to be a balance.

“We’re trying to figure out what is the Sitka way to police? What is the best way to build trust?” he says. “We go to the same grocery stores, we go to the same restaurants, we fish in the same waters. How do we become part of the community? And I think that’s going to take a little bit while we build that team and figure out a good tempo of how Sitkans want to be policed.”

At the end of the day, Hall says he believes Sitka is small enough with enough good people to accomplish a lot. And although his life wasn’t very quiet before coming here, he thinks he can make a difference in a quiet place. 

Virgin Voyages staff welcome about a dozen representatives from the City of Sitka, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and local organizations as they board the 912-foot red and white cruise ship, the Brilliant Lady, on Thursday.

It’s the inaugural port call for not only the company’s newest “lady ship,” but for the adults-only cruise line as a whole, and is marked by shared champagne, speeches, and the exchange of plaques. 

“Virgin Voyages, as a company, is fairly young,” says Sitka Tourism Manager Judson Rusk. “And this is the first time they’ve ever entered the Alaskan market. This is the first ship in Alaska, and it’s the first time to Sitka, so this is a first on a lot of fronts.”

Virgin Voyages is a relatively new company — an extension of the multi-billion-dollar Virgin Group, founded by business magnate Richard Branson, and Bain Capital.  

Their first ship was built in 2021. The Brilliant Lady, in 2025. And they pride themselves on not being “your average cruise line.” 

Jill Stoneberg, the company’s senior director of sustainability, says for one, kids aren’t allowed. Second, she says they want to give back to the communities they visit by volunteering with local organizations, like Sitka Trail Works. Third, they want their guests to feel connected to the places they visit, so they’ve recently welcomed on board a full-time naturalist to educate about the wildlife and land in Alaska, and a heritage guide from Alaska Native Voices. 

“We recognize there are many different Indigenous groups, and they’re speaking from their experience through art, through storytelling, through dance,” she says. “And we’re just really pleased to be able to offer that authenticity to [the guests’] time on board.” 

Stoneberg wants to show the delegation a bit about what makes this cruise experience unique, and leads them to the dining room of one of the boat’s many restaurants to talk over eggs benedict and mimosas. Then, she leads them on a tour of the 17-deck vessel, which accommodates up to 2,762 passengers and 1,150 crew.  

She leads them through the casino, shopping center, night club, and adult arcade, and even shows them the ship’s tattoo parlor, Squid Ink.  

“We’re the first cruise line to offer a tattoo parlor on board,” Stoneberg says. “It’s actually very popular. If you want a tattoo, you have to sign up for it at the very beginning of the cruise.” 

Then, she takes them “behind the scenes” to the control room and waste room to walk them through some of the environmental measures the company takes as part of its decarbonization initiative. She says Virgin started off with efficient technologies because its fleet is so young. 

“We’re considered a hard-to-abate industry, meaning that it’s very difficult to transition completely to zero-carbon and low-carbon fuels to meet our energy demands,” she says. “But it’s something that the industry takes very seriously, and the goal is to be net zero carbon emissions by 2050.” 

Stoneberg says the company has started to use biofuels and Climeon technology — which converts low-temperature waste heat from the main engine into useful power — to run its fleet. And three of its four boats have shore power capabilities, which essentially means they can plug the ship into a local electric grid when in port. The fleet also makes 97% of its water on board through a desalinization process and doesn’t provide any single-use plastics to its guests, according to Stoneberg.

Virgin Voyages is the newest of about 25 cruise lines operating in Sitka this season, and its arrival comes at a time when the community of just over 8,000 is still grappling with the recent uptick. Cruise ship traffic has more than doubled since before the COVID-19 pandemic. But in 2025, Sitka voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have capped the number of visitors. 

Tribal Council Chair Yeidikook’áa Brady-Howard, who is welcomed up to receive a plaque and say a few words on behalf of the Tribe, says the relationship between the community and cruise companies is complex. 

“We are very much the continued stewards of the lands that we’ve inhabited since time immemoria,” she says. “And when we have basically a floating city coming into our own community, we always have concerns about the impact for us. But also we’re responsible for the economic well-being of our people as well, and so we’re always walking that line between hoping for the best in terms of the impact that something like this can have on our community, as well as understanding very much that we require the economic stimulation that these sorts of things bring.” 

As the tour wraps up, Stoneberg walks the guests to the entrance of the massive boat, plaques in hand. The delegation exits and makes its way back to town as Stoneberg and the crew wait for the Brilliant Lady’s nearly 3,000 passengers to wrap up their time in Sitka and load up again before they head onward to their next destination. Tomorrow, another boat will take its place with more of the roughly 600,000 passengers set to stop in Sitka this season.

The Sitka Assembly on Tuesday (5-12-26) passed the city’s final operating budget and capital improvement plan for Fiscal Year 2027, which starts on July 1.

Municipal Administrator John Leach said this year is closing in a financially stable position, but notably tighter than recent years. He said the gap between what the city brings in and what it costs to operate has continued to narrow and it’s shaped every decision reflected in the budget. He said while the budget doesn’t resolve every long-term pressure the city is facing, it’s a “clear-eyed response” to where things are right now.

“Sales tax remains our foundation, but we’re watching the tourism season closely, and federal funding uncertainty continues to create planning challenges for all of us,” Leach said. “Fuel costs for me are a particular concern this year, and those hit us on both sides of the ledger. So it raises our own operating costs, while it also potentially dampens visitor activity and sales tax revenue that comes with it.”

To balance its books, the city had to cut about $900,000 from the proposed budget. Those cuts include the purchase of two patrol cars for the police department and a police sergeant position, as well as $250,000 for athletic field sand.

The assembly also approved the enterprise fund budgets on Tuesday, which include another round of rate increases to keep up with maintenance and infrastructure costs. While electrical rates will remain the same to give Sitkans a bit of a break, there will be a 6% increase in water rates, 2% increase in wastewater, 2% in solid waste, and 4% in harbor rates. 

Leach said in a memo that the budgets prioritize maintaining the city’s core services, supporting strategic initiatives, and preserving long-term financial sustainability for Sitka.

The budgets were approved by the assembly on first reading. They will review them for a final reading on May 26.

Sitka’s childcare system has the capacity to serve only about half of the young children who need it, according to a childcare needs assessment that was presented to the Sitka Assembly at its meeting Tuesday night (5-12-26).

For years, parents and providers in Sitka have said childcare capacity on the island is at its limit. Now, the assembly is taking steps to address the issue. Earlier this year, the city hired the Southeast Childhood Collective to conduct a study, in an effort to understand and tackle the community’s childcare shortage. 

The 30-page report analyzes the island’s childcare system and outlines three programming options to “improve stability, strengthen the workforce, and expand access to care.”

Blue Shibler, executive director of the regional nonprofit, said Tuesday that city governments across the state are trying to step it up because lack of childcare access is hurting local economies, affecting every sector of the workforce. 

“We hear this from businesses in almost every industry. We hear it from chambers across the state and across the country, that the number one reason they have a hard time attracting employees and keeping employees is because they can’t find childcare,” Shibler said.

The report lays out three main childcare constraints: supply and demand imbalance, workforce limitations, and affordability. 

It estimates that around 485 young children in Sitka require regular childcare. The licensed system has the capacity to serve about half of that. The report also says local childcare workers face a persistent wage gap that limits recruitment to the field, and estimates monthly tuition in Sitka far exceeds the federal threshold for affordable childcare. Federal benchmarks define childcare as affordable when it does not exceed 7% of household income. Based on Sitka’s median household income of about $101,200, the affordable monthly cost of childcare is $590. In practice, monthly tuition in Sitka averages approximately $1,600 for infants and $1,450 for toddlers, according to the city.

Shibler said the private market can’t increase the childcare supply on its own. A sustained public investment is needed, and strengthening childcare is a long-term investment in Sitka’s future. 

“It’s important to note that the impacts of supply shortages extend across the community, in terms of reduced workforce participation, employer recruitment challenges and ultimately, population decline,” she said. “That has been talked about throughout the Southeast region quite a bit — that we’re losing families and the workforce age demographic in general because they can’t find childcare.” 

The report suggests several program options that could cost anywhere from $277,000 to $2 million. They range from workforce incentives to subsidies and scholarships.

Program Model 1 — the least expensive option — is a workforce incentive program to address low wages. Model 2 provides a subsidy, or per child operating grant. And Model 3 blends the first two, and adds a family affordability component, like need-based scholarships from the city. Shibler said the program proposals are largely based on what has been successful in Juneau.

But how the city would pay for the programs is still unclear. 

Three options were put forward to raise the necessary funds, including a 2% alcohol tax, a 1% seasonal sales tax for the winter months, or an additional 1% summer season tax. 

Assembly Member Katie Riley said she’s “extremely uncomfortable” with a winter sales tax increase. She said it would be a burden that the working families in the community simply can’t afford. 

“That doesn’t mean that they’re not thinking long term,” Riley said. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t know the importance of this. That means that right now, cost pressures are insane, and people do need to look out for their short-term costs in addition to thinking about that long-term picture.” 

Assembly members agreed they want robust community input and further discussion before moving forward.

“I’ve heard the word ‘cost’ a lot,” said Assembly Member Tim Pike. “I actually think the right word is ‘investment.’ Right? We’re investing in our children as a community, and I think it’s important for us to keep that in front of us as we look at this funding process. It’s not a cost, it’s an investment, and it’ll pay dividends for us down the road, and it helps our community go forward.”

The assembly plans to hold a public work session in the next month to further discuss the issue. 

A handful of kids from the Sitka Spruce Tips 4-H rifle club gather at the local Sportsman Association on Friday night to review the safety tips they learned at their first meeting a week ago. Things like:

“Never keep your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. Always keep the gun at a safe position. Never point [it at] anybody, because that’s gonna be bad. You need to have your safety on if you’re not shooting. And remember that when you shoot your bullet, there’s no way you can get that back,” recounted two of the rifle club’s youngest members, 9-year-old Andy and 8-year-old Izzy.

Sitka’s youth rifle club has been dormant for several years after the previous instructor stepped down in 2022. But this year, Andy and Izzy’s dad, Pedro Diaz, revived the program. 

A specialist from Kodiak flew down in February to train five local volunteers to teach marksmanship, safety, and responsibility with firearms. The volunteers and kids all came into the program with varying degrees of shooting experience. Some had never touched a gun before joining. Others, like Andy and Izzy, have their own rifles at home, and they say they came into the club already knowing how to clean their guns and how to aim.

“But we still need to learn a little bit. We haven’t learned all it, just a little bit,” Andy said.

He says their dad, Pedro, hunts and wants to teach everyone how to shoot safely. 

“What if you want to go shooting or hunting, or it’s just like a hobby, you need to learn how to hold it, how to shoot it, and all [that] stuff,” Andy said. “And there’s rules to it.” 

Pedro says the desire to run the club came to him last year during the Sportsman Association’s annual turkey shoot, where Andy won a turkey, but Izzy didn’t. 

“That ignited some kind of flame in her to want to get a turkey next year,” he said.

So Pedro relaunched the rifle program to instill confidence, safety, and skill in not only his own kids, but about 17 others participating in this year’s program.  

“You can see the kids that have obviously been grown into this sport, and you can also see their interest and eagerness to pursue it further,” he said. “And it’s really cool seeing the kids that are first nervous or afraid of going into the firing range. Once they pull that trigger for the first time, you see this glow in their faces like, ‘Did I just do that?’ And next thing you know, they just want to fire off more rounds and get better at it.” 

Carrie Sipple is a parent of an 11-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy in the club. She and her family moved to Sitka from Anchorage last year. 

Sipple says guns are nowhere near her family’s comfort zone. But because of the prevalence of firearms on the island — from people hunting, subsisting, or just shooting for sport — she wants her kids to feel confident and prepared to encounter them. 

“You don’t want to be casual with your introduction,” she said. “You don’t want to get your introduction to the rifle from the kid down the street who also didn’t get a good introduction, right? So this kind of structure, this kind of deliberate approach, I think it’s kind of necessity at this point. What they decide to do with it is up to them, right? I’m not going to make them ever use it again, but I think this is a really great starting point for living here.”

4-H rifle coach Raven Waltemyer agrees. They came to Sitka from the Lower 48 last year as an Americorps artist fellow. 

“I think that learning [rifle safety] from an early age is honestly best practice,” they said. “When I was in outdoor education as a garden educator, we say that even getting infants and preschoolers exposed to dirt and nature as soon as possible makes them less scared of nature later on. And when they’re less scared of nature later on, they’re more encouraged to take risks and to feel more confident and independent in their actions. And so it’s not just that they’re learning the skill of shooting the rifle, but they’re learning the other skills that come with learning the rifle.”

Although there are still many weeks to go in the 4-H rifle program, Pedro says the confidence and skills the students are already picking up is impressive, and he’s one proud coach and dad. And when asked if Izzy’s going to win a turkey this year:

“She’s gonna totally win a turkey,” he said.

And Izzy agrees that she has a shot. But she says if she doesn’t get one, that’s okay, because she can always try again. 

Five hours before prom starts, the common room of the Mt. Edgecumbe High School girl’s dorm is filled with the smell of hairspray and roses, and sounds of girls chatting, hairdryers buzzing, and music playing from a speaker in the center of the room.

Like many high schools around the country, Mt. Edgecumbe throws a prom for its students shortly before graduation. But the state-run boarding school in Sitka has a unique program to help out its many students from villages across Alaska: the Prom Prince and Princess program.

For the past 14 or so years, Alaska Airlines employees — known as “glam faeries” in this instance — fly to town to help the teens get ready for their big night. They do hair, nails, and makeup, provide jewelry, shoes, corsages and boutonnieres, and even do alterations on the many donated suits and dresses. 

“I love doing hair and makeup,” says Lisa Lynch, one of the many volunteers helping in the crowded room. “I have a full face of makeup and a tiara on, even though I’m not going to prom, I thought it’d be fun, and I’m curling hair right now. I was doing some makeup and I was also playing music. So a very important job.”

Lynch’s mom, also doing hair nearby, is an Alaska Airlines employee, and Lynch decided to tag along. She remembers her own prom, getting ready at home in Anchorage with her mom, cousins and friends nearby. 

“That was really important to me, because I enjoy that part of hanging out with my friends [and] doing each other’s hair and makeup, my mom helping and making dinner and everything for us. So I’m happy to be able to do this for other kids whose families can’t be here to help them like that.”

Alonza Topcock just finished her turn in the makeup chair. She’s a senior from Teller, Alaska. She says her prom look is inspired by the 2001 Mariah Carey cult classic “Glitter.”

“I wanted shimmer and I wanted glitter, and that’s exactly what they gave me,” she says. “You can show them inspo pics, and they’ll do their best to recreate it. I’m planning on getting my hair curled and maybe a half up, half down [hairdo]. And then they’re also going to help me with some body glitter.”

Topkok is going to wear a beaded black and gold strapless gown with high heels speckled with metal and flowers. She says she’s going “all out” for her final prom.

“Well, it’s senior year. You kind of have to,” she says.

It means a lot to Topkok that people volunteer their time and donate clothes, makeup, and jewelry when she and her friends don’t have their family members nearby to help out. 

“I would have had my mom do my hair, like she’s [done] for every other dance, and I know she would have loved to be here to do it,” she says. “But these ladies are so amazing, and it’s very meaningful that they took their time to do this.”

The Mt. Edgecumbe High School prom is open to all class years. Angelina John is a freshman from Kwigillingok. She says she’s excited for her first prom before she heads home for the summer. 

“We call our hometown ‘Kwig’ and I go there for summer, for berry picking, fishing, and preparing for the winter,” she says.

John is wearing her hair half up and half down, with a natural makeup look. Her dark burgundy nails with flowers and wave designs are painted to match her floor-length strapless purple gown.

“Getting ready and putting on a dress, it feels like a birthday party, but like it’s not your birthday,” she says.

But John isn’t the only one excited — and maybe slightly nervous — to get glammed up for prom. 

Freshman Andrew Adams, from Mentasta Lake, is hovering at the entrance to the common room with his friends Calvin Jennings and Kacin Byayuk. They’re hoping to get their eyebrows trimmed, and maybe some haircuts, before they suit up for the dance, but they say they’re slightly intimidated to walk into the room full of girls getting glammed up. 

Adams went to a middle school prom a couple of years ago, but this is his first high school prom. He says he asked two girls to dance at the eighth grade dance and he plans to continue with that tradition.

Despite some nerves, Adams and his friends eventually ask one of the volunteers to help them get ready. Refreshed and ready to head out, they say they’re feeling handsome and ready for the night to come.

“There were dents in the front right side of the truck, as well as the busted windshield where the patient went on top of the hood,” he said.

Hall said medics transported the bicyclist to the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center with possible leg and wrist fractures. 

“Based on the scene, it was possible that they had a broken leg and they had some cuts, bruising, scratching, road rash,” he said. “But it looks like they’re going to be fine.”

Hall said the driver was arrested for driving with a revoked license and no insurance. He said the accident may have been impacted by low visibility due to weather, and that no alcohol was involved. 

Hall said drivers should be especially careful as the busy summer season picks up and more locals and tourists are buzzing around town on both regular and electric bikes. And he said bicyclists should make sure to wear helmets, use bike lanes, and have illumination on their bikes, even during the day. 

The Sitka Assembly, acting as a quasi-judicial body, denied a second-level public records appeal at its meeting Tuesday night (4-28-26). 

Austin Cranford said he submitted a public records request to the city in February to understand how the city is handling sign-on bonuses and high turnover at the police department. He claims staff’s response included unlawful redactions and denied the existence of some documents. 

“People listening tonight might wonder why I keep fighting the city on these issues, filing appeals and pushing back,” Cranford said. “I do it because demanding that our government follow its own laws is how we protect our home.”

Cranford is a former assembly candidate, and the son of former police sergeant Gary Cranford, who sued the city and settled for over $300,000 out of court. And it isn’t the first time Austin Cranford has challenged the city. He sued the city last year alleging censorship on the city police department’s Facebook page. He also had two public records appeals in February of 2024. 

In his appeal on Tuesday, Cranford asked the assembly to order the release of unredacted records and direct a secondary search for records of alleged communications regarding several police officers who resigned over bonus disputes. 

Municipal Attorney Rachel Jones said Cranford asked the clerk’s office to perform a level of analysis and research of records that’s not contemplated by the Alaska Public Records Act. She compared clerks to records librarians, whose job it is to grab documents that can be quickly identified. 

She said if someone requests a copy of Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, that’s a request for a document that exists. She said requests for the entire works of Tolkien would require a bit more research, but since libraries are organized by author, a librarian can easily locate the information. But in her analogy, she said Cranford’s request took things a step further.

“If somebody comes in and says, ‘I want every record in your library that contains the word ‘hobbit.’ Now we’re looking at the complete works of Tolkien, every academic paper about Tolkien, newspapers, magazines, fan fiction, maybe anthropology reports saying Neanderthals look like hobbits. Maybe political satire saying, ‘This guy looks like a hobbit.’ That becomes research, where the librarian needs to know all of the content of the documents to assess whether this category applies to them or not.”

Jones said Cranford was attempting to get a research and investigation project off the ground by using the public records process inappropriately. 

Assembly members unanimously agreed that the clerks did their duty to produce records that existed and were asked for, and ultimately denied Cranford’s appeal.

“We’re fortunate the law is all about accuracy and language,” said Assembly Member Tim Pike. “And I think that’s the issue that I see in front of us. And as a consequence, I think based upon the language that was submitted, the clerks have supplied that particular information.”

The number of public records requests the City and Borough of Sitka receives annually has quadrupled in the past decade. Earlier this year, the assembly  approved about $21,000 for a two-year contract with an online platform designed to manage public records requests. The city hopes to start using the portal by June.  

Mt. Edgecumbe High School is cutting staff for the second year in a row amid ongoing budget and enrollment issues. While last year’s position cuts were mostly refilled at the end of the summer, administrators say they’ll only re-hire for the cut positions this year if more students enroll. 

The state-run boarding school in Sitka serves students from across the state — the majority of whom are Alaska Native from rural communities without local high schools.

News of deteriorating facilities and an exodus of roughly a quarter of its students over the past year prompted state legislators to visit the campus in February and hold hearings to question school leadership.

In an alumni advisory board meeting on April 23, Superintendent David Langford, who was hired last summer, said that new student applications have slowed to a trickle. 

“Right now, we’re at 37% below where we are normally at this time for new applications coming in,” Langford said. “So yeah, that’s lower than what it has been before, and that’s what’s driving us to look at alternative budget projections.”

The administration has drafted two budget scenarios for the upcoming school year. One is based on near-full enrollment at 375 students. The other is a more conservative estimate at 275 students.

In response to dwindling enrollment, Langford said the school has cut several positions, and he’s not sure how many they’ll be able to refill. 

Langford said as of now, six teachers won’t be returning: two are retiring, one is moving, and three non-tenured teachers were given the option to either resign or be “non-retained” — which means they’re not being offered a contract for next year. Non-retention can often be seen as a mark on a teacher’s record. If a teacher gets a non-retention letter, they have to disclose that when applying for future teaching positions.

“It’s important to note that nobody’s getting fired,” Langford said. “That’s a whole different category, which means we don’t want you to ever teach anywhere again, basically. And we’re not doing that to anybody.”

In an interview with KCAW, Langford said if enrollment exceeds their projections, they may look at hiring all six positions back. 

“We live off of enrollment, and that’s how we get funding,” he said. “So if we don’t have students coming in, we can’t fund teachers.”

Matt Hunter, president of the union representing teachers (Teacher’s Education Association – Mt. Edgecumbe), said a non-retention can happen for any non-tenured teacher for any reason. He said the cuts that happened last spring and the upcoming cuts for next school year are strictly budgetary. 

“This year’s reductions came from some budget issues that we ran into last year,” Hunter said. “We had some overspending, and were relying on COVID funds that had expired and weren’t there any longer. That’s why we had such big cuts between last year and this year. And looking forward, in order to budget wisely, you have to look at how many applications you have and how many kids you’re likely to have, or you’ll promise a job to someone, and then find out in August you can’t afford it, which would be terrible.”

Hunter said when families hear bad news about the school, enrollment goes down, but recent news coverage of Mt. Edgecumbe’s challenges only tells part of the story.  

“We have students who are some of the most genuine, kind people I’ve ever met, and we have good stuff happening in our classrooms. We offer some really neat classes,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a good school next year. We’re still going to have good teachers. We’re going to have wonderful students. We just need people to come.”

Langford said the biggest priority moving forward is rebuilding enrollment by showcasing how special Mt. Edgecumbe is.

“Yes, we might have fewer students next year than normal, and that would be a rebuilding year to build back culture and pride and all the kinds of things that maybe we’re lacking this year,” he said.  

Mt. Edgecumbe lets out on May 8 for the summer break, and reconvenes in late August. Langford said despite current enrollment numbers, he’s optimistic about the year to come.