“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. 

Remember that mysterious “golden orb” government scientists found at the bottom of the Gulf of Alaska in 2023? Was it an egg? A sponge? Remnants of a space alien? 

Scientists were baffled. Two-and-a-half years later, they say they’ve figured it out.

So picture this. Some scientists aboard the research vessel called the Okeanos Explorer are huddled around a screen that shows a remote underwater vehicle prodding at a shiny, golden mass. 

“I just hope when we poke it something doesn’t decide to come out. It’s like the beginning of a horror movie,” one scientist says. “I’m pretty sure this is how the first episode of the X-files started,” another responds.

The “golden orb” was discovered two miles deep by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship while mapping the ocean floor in the summer of 2023.  

“There were jokes about it being a mermaid’s egg or things that also don’t make biological sense, like a dolphin egg or stuff like that. “I think there were some alien hypotheses too,” said Dr. Allen Collins, the director of the NOAA Fisheries Lab at the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C.

He’s nibbled away at the mystery for two-and-a-half years. 

“It just spawned all these kind of crazy ideas, and then media interest,” Collins said. “I was shocked, but it’s always nice when people are interested in the deep sea.” 

Collins said the team on the Okeanos Explorer, as well as scientists all over, were baffled when they first spotted the four-inch-wide golden lump stuck to a rock. But they collected it for further investigation. 

“That’s not the first time that people have been looking in the deep sea and said, ‘What’s that? I have no idea what that is,’” he said.

But, Collins said, it was a bit unusual how long it took to identify. It required what he calls “morphological, genetic, deep-sea and bioinformatics expertise” to solve. Eventually, his team was able to compare it to two other specimens collected by deep sea biologists in other parts of the world. 

The conclusion? The “golden orb” is the base of a giant sea anemone called relicanthus daphneae. The anemones have a deep-colored trunk about a foot wide and pale pink and purple tentacles that can stretch up to six-and-a-half feet. Collins said scientists have documented about 30 sightings in the deep sea, from the Antarctic Ocean to the Aleutian Islands to the Central Pacific. 

“If you look under the base of the anemones, and right on the side, often, you can see this golden colored cuticle sticking out from the bottom,” he said. “We were like, ‘It was right in front of us, kind of like the whole time. [We] never even noticed.’”

He was happy to finally solve the mystery, but also a bit disappointed. 

“I was sort of like, ‘Oh, man, now no one’s going to care,’ because it’s not as interesting as a mystery,” he said. “Now, it’s an anemone.” 

Collins said the discovery has opened up other questions about the species, like whether the golden base is related to reproduction, and whether the anemone died or let go and reattached itself somewhere else. 

He said they’ve submitted a paper on the “golden orb” to a scientific journal for review. But the relicanthus daphneae is just one specimen out of hundreds he works to identify. 

“What we want to do is contribute this and say, ‘Hey, let’s collect more of these weird things and see what they tell us about the deep sea.’”

Next on his plate? The formal scientific identification, naming, and documenting of a carnivorous sponge species and a new jellyfish species, also found in Alaska waters. 

The Sitka Assembly gave the city’s municipal administrator and attorney both “exemplary” reviews for their work over the past year in a special meeting Tuesday night (4-21-26). 

Municipal Administrator John Leach requested his evaluation be held in public. He resigned from his position late last year, but agreed to stay on with the city until this December. 

Assembly Member Kevin Mosher said during his more than six years in the position, Leach has helped lead the city through many ups and downs, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the tourism boom. He said Leach will be missed. 

“I’m very grateful that you’ve given us these years. I know that you put your heart and soul into this job,” Mosher said. “I know you take great pains at supporting your staff, supporting the assembly, and supporting the public. I’ve seen that. We’ve all seen that.”

Leach said he took the job in late 2019 to serve the community he loves. He said it’s been tough at times, but he plans to stay in Sitka and continue to serve. 

“It can be hard to live in the same place that you have to make tough decisions knowing that some of those tough decisions are not going to sit well with some people,” Leach said. “As long as everybody understands that I’m trying to make the best decisions I can with the information I have at the time [while] keeping the long-term interests of the city in mind.”

Assembly members decided against a pay increase for Leach in light of a recent bump for his interim work as the city continues to search for his replacement. 

Meanwhile, Municipal Attorney Rachel Jones requested that her evaluation be held behind closed doors. City staff said future pay and benefits will be negotiated.

Sitka’s busy tourism season is about to begin. The first cruise ship — the Volendam — arrives in town this Saturday with an estimated 1,432 passengers. The city estimates 326 ports of call between April 26 and Sept. 30, with 13 days that have no ships in town. According to lower berth counts, this year’s expected cruise passengers total 594,355.

KCAW’s Hope McKenney sat down with the city’s new tourism manager, Judson Rusk, to talk about the upcoming season, his vision for tourism in Sitka, and how his first three months on the job have been. 

TRANSCRIPT:

RUSK: I grew up there in Sitka. I moved there when I was a kid, and all my formative years were there, and I started working in tourism, kind of like a lot of local Sitka kids do, like, started giving tours as a summer job when I was in high school. I went to college in Bellingham, and when I would come back, I would go back to working in tourism to make money, and it wasn’t what I studied in school, but it turns out, it’s always available. So, like, I loved what I did, and I kept doing it more and more, and eventually it became the career. So I’ve been working in tourism in some capacity for over 20 years now, and [I’m] absolutely thrilled to be coming home to take on this sort of role, to be back in the field that I know, in the field that I love, in my hometown, working for meaningful change and progress in a community that means so much to me. So I’m thrilled about it.

KCAW: Okay, so you’ve had a few months on the job. How’s it going so far?

RUSK: I love it so far, like very legitimately. Even though I haven’t been in town for about 10 years, I visit frequently, lots of friends, lots of family, and just because I’ve just always been generally interested, I’ve always kind of kept an eye on the tourism industry in Sitka, because it’s just a topic that interests me. The fact that this position is new and myself and even, you know, my peers and supervisors at the city, we’re kind of building it as we go along, there’s a lot to it that is sort of taking temperature of the industry right now and then kind of figuring out what we’re going to do and what I’m going to do specifically. But that’s a lot of fun for me, kind of building a position that is beneficial to the community.

KCAW: So it sounds like this position is still a little bit in development. But what is your vision for your role and just your vision of tourism here in Sitka?

RUSK: If I were to give you the politicians answer, I would say that the goal is to take the state of the industry, and we as a community need to maximize the benefits of the tourism industry while also minimizing the impacts of it. Right? It’s an integral part of our economy. It’s an integral part of our little hometown flare. But that doesn’t change the fact that, you know, everyone needs to live here, including myself, right? So the industry has to work for us. And again, that’s the 10,000 foot scope view of that. And then sort of the playing the puzzle of my job is trying to figure out how we do that, right? So, what are the benefits? What are the benefits that are the most impactful? What can we achieve short term, long term? And then, you know, there’s always an equal and opposite reaction, right? So, what are the things that aren’t worth the cost? What are the things that are? And then also just kind of down to, like, daily details too. Like, one of the very first things I did when I started within my first few weeks was, had to have the conversation about Lincoln Street and if we’re going to be closing it this season, right? So, even down kind of daily operation things.

KCAW: So in this role, how do you decide, I guess, what or who is a priority?

RUSK: It is a lot of taking stock of the state of the industry, which I don’t need to explain to you or anybody else, has undergone a rather dramatic change in the last three years compared to any other year we’ve ever had. So the priority is a holistic one, right? What are the things in our control right now? What are the things in our control next season, five years from now, right? And then how can we build a project or like initiatives of any kind to shape that industry into what we need it to be? I kind of view it as a blank canvas right now, because of such a boom recently. Now we have, effectively, it’s a familiar industry and in a whole new way, right? So what are we going to do with it? So it’s kind of like, to focus back on your question again, what’s a priority is taking community feedback, industry feedback, kind of any feedback I can get, and finding commonalities about what people in Sitka want, and then just working towards that, right? Because ultimately, I work for everybody, and I’m trying to find level ground for for everyone to benefit here.

KCAW: And so you talk about this feedback. Tourism is a really complicated, contentious issue here in Sitka, it seems. What are you hearing from stakeholders?

RUSK: First of all, there’s a lot of push on the infrastructure, and not necessarily that’s not meaning physical city infrastructure. I mean that again, kind of in like a holistic sense of even tour operators, right? There’s so many more visitors than there were pre-COVID, that even operators are feeling like we wish we could sell more. There’s people who are trying, there’s guests who are trying to go on excursions, [but] things are sold out. And then, you know, it’s pushing on people. Like, do I buy more vans or more busses, or do I start another branch of my company? Do I offer more excursions? Well, that’s more insurance, more staff, right? So it creates a lot of opportunity, but also puts a lot of cost on that. And that’s, again, one of those balancing points. And then, of course, there’s just general community members. It’s a tough five months if you don’t work in the industry. There’s a lot of people in town, and there’s more traffic, and there’s just things to consider. So part of my role is trying to build just information tools, even if it’s just as easy as a dashboard, so people can check and see like, “Oh, what’s the status of town today? Maybe I should do my grocery shopping later in the day, or do my errands tomorrow,” or something along those lines. Just get information out there. But again, I’m kind of off on a tangent here. Hope I’m sorry. What I’m hearing the most is [that] we need to be cognizant of how many people are where at a certain time, and then also that we, like the city and me, specifically, needs to be more communicative about the state of the industry and how that affects everyone in town.

KCAW: Is there anything else I should have asked you or you’d like to share about this role, or about this upcoming season?

RUSK: Once I’m in town and settled and kind of in my role, I understand that tourism is a very important topic for a lot of people. So you can expect me to have public office hours available moving forward, because I want to be that sort of liaison between the tourism industry and anyone in Sitka who wants to talk about it. So I’m going to have that set up, and it’ll be on a weekly basis, and just anyone can put time on my calendar and come talk to me about anything they want. So that’s something that I’m going to work towards, is kind of keeping an open line of communication with anybody. And then, once again, once I’m a little bit more settled here in the role, I do have some, what I think are good ideas about sort of focusing on regenerative and off-season tourism. Because another sort of misconception that I kind of want to get ahead of, is that my role is strictly cruise tourism. And it’s not. It’s tourism in general. And I think Sitka could benefit from sort of smaller scale, more consistent off-season tourism. So I’ve got a lot of plans on how to sort of work on that and build some slow season visitor interest.

The plan is meant to serve as a guiding document for the city’s Historic Preservation Commission in its efforts to identify and protect significant local resources. The previous plan — which was only two pages — was drafted more than three decades ago.

The approval came after lengthy discussion spanning multiple assembly meetings. The sticking point? Appendix G, which outlines the review process for construction projects on historic buildings. 

“The reason why I didn’t want to pass the plan last time is because, without Appendix G correctly indicating for the public what to prepare for when they are involved with this process, I think it is an incomplete plan,” said Deputy Mayor Tim Pike. “Now, do I like the rest of the plan? I 100% like that, the work involved and the clarity of that is awesome, but this is a crucial piece.”

Four members of the Historic Preservation Commission spoke in favor of passing the plan Tuesday, with the caveat that Appendix G would be replaced at a later date. 

Roby Littlefield is the chairman of the commission and has served since 2009. She said the new 26-page plan has been in development for 17 years. It’s gone through at least four revisions, and included multiple opportunities for community input.  

“Our board has spent many hours reviewing and improving it to create the best possible guide for our community, and this plan is meant to help protect what makes Sitka unique, and to guide us into the future,” Littlefield said.

Assembly Member Katie Riley agreed that it didn’t make sense to delay the entire plan over an appendix that’s on track to be improved. She said with the busy tourism and fishing seasons on the horizon, it’s not a great time to call for public engagement. 

“An extensive, extensive amount of that already happened,” she said. “As reported, 17 years of planned development, as well as over 10 opportunities to engage over the past couple of years. So I feel like the people who were passionate about historic preservation probably made their voices heard.”

The assembly unanimously approved the Historic Preservation Plan, with the contingency that the permit review section sunsets after a year and is replaced before then.

NSRAA lease

The Sitka Assembly on Tuesday voted against a proposed lease agreement between the city and a regional salmon hatchery nonprofit, which requested a well-below-market rate for the lease. The lease would combine two lots that the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) is already leasing at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. 

The park’s board recommended an $800 a month fixed rate for the next 50 years, effectively subsidizing the nonprofit, citing the value their fish hatcheries provide for the fishing fleet. The rate would be adjusted based on land value increases every 10 years.

Assembly Member Kevin Mosher said he was 100% in support of the agreement because the value NSRAA gives to the community cannot be measured.

“My position, it’s more of a policy decision,” he said. “Because even though they’re paying money, we’re effectively subsidizing them. And I believe that we should, because I believe we get that money back many, many, many times over, incalculably.”

However, several assembly members were concerned over where, or which city fund, the subsidy should come from, while still providing long-term stability for NSRAA. 

The industrial park’s enterprise fund is only a couple thousand dollars in the positive, according to Finance Director Brooke Volschenk.

Deputy Mayor Tim Pike suggested the subsidy come from the city’s general fund, which, as it currently stands, would require the nonprofit to come before future assemblies to ask for another rent subsidy.

“NSRAA made their case about their economic impact in the community. I’ve known this for years. And I totally agree with it,” he said. “They just asked the wrong group. They need to ask us. I don’t really think that an enterprise fund should be subsidizing things. We don’t want the electrical department to decide to give a cut rate to somebody just because they do good things.”

Assembly members were unanimous in their support for a low and stable lease rate for NSRAA, but said they hoped the park’s board would take up the issue again and propose revisions. 

The assembly ultimately voted against moving forward with the suggested lease in a 2-4 vote, with just Mosher and Thor Christianson voting in favor. 

The park’s board is expected to discuss revising the agreement at a future meeting. The assembly will separately consider extending NSRAA’s current lease, which is set to expire in May, to give everyone more time to find a solution.

Sitka’s local bookstore celebrated its 50th birthday on Saturday. Throughout the afternoon, locals wandered into the downtown shop to buy a book, eat a cupcake, and reminisce on five decades of the community hub.

50 years ago, to buy a book, Sitkans had to call up the bookstore in Juneau and have it mailed to the island. So in 1976, three families came together to start Old Harbor Books  — a place where Sitkans could gather and find nearly every genre of book: from philosophy and classics to best sellers and Alaskan authors. 

“The vision was to have books, and to make sure that Sitka had an opportunity to be a literary community. Sitka deserved to be a literary community,” said board member Roger Schmidt, who grew up in the bookstore.

His parents helped open the place when he was seven and his sister Laura was nine. They spent weekends selling seashells out front and screenprinting tote bags with the bookstore logos still used today. And they spent their down time reading every book they could get their hands on. 

“My dad had this passion, everybody had this passion, which was: people need to read books, and they need to have access to lots of books, and they need to have access to lots of different ideas,” Schmidt said. “So not just, ‘We’re gonna have the best sellers,’ but whatever the subject, books are so critical to learn. Living on an island, books were our pathway to knowledge.”

Schmidt says a large part of the mission of Old Harbor Books from the beginning was to give back to the community. Instead of taking a paycheck, the owners made the decision to use the profits to support local organizations, by doing things like subsidizing — or making free — their rental space upstairs.

“The vision for the business was never to make money,” he said. “It was to pay employees well, and then it was to be able to support the community in every way it could, and it’s done that for 50 years in all kinds of ways.”

Bookstore manager Ashia Lane says the bookstore continues to work with the Sitka Public Library and schools, sells tickets for local events, and for years, even had the “Book Boat,” which traveled to surrounding communities like Tenakee Springs, Angoon, and Kake to deliver titles to folks who didn’t have access to a local bookstore. 

“We’re trying to continue community service via the bookstore,” she said. “We will deliver books to the jail if you find yourself unfortunately over in the Sitka local lock up for the weekend. We’re really trying to not just be for private consumers.”

Despite community involvement, it wasn’t always easy keeping the doors open. Just like bookstores across the country that found it hard to compete with the dawn of online shops and e-books, so did Old Harbor Books. So they pivoted, and expanded their local inventory to include games and puzzles, book-themed items, cozy candles and blankets, and even art supplies. And according to Schmidt, they began to rely more on rental income to keep the bookstore going. 

“The most encouraging thing is that it seems like people love books again, and thank goodness for that,” he said. “We were so worried around 2000 when it just seemed like people were turning away from books, and they were not passionate readers. And it just feels so hopeful that people want to read books, and they want to read books in their hand. It’s just really great.”

The bustling anniversary party is a testament to that fact, as dozens of adults and children mill about the space sifting through book titles and looking at posters speckled with collaged photos of the bookstore throughout the years.

For Sherry Foster, a retired third grade teacher, the bookstore is part of the reason she chose to live in Sitka. 

“We moved here in ‘76 and when we saw that there was a bookstore, we said, ‘Well, that’s it. Then we’re gonna stay.’” she said. “It was a given. If there’s a bookstore, it’s an okay place to live.”

And Foster isn’t the only one who thinks Old Harbor Books is a local treasure. Rhiannon Guevin’s first job was working at the bookstore, tidying shelves and ringing people up at the register. 

“Old Harbor Books is one of my happy places in Sitka,” she said. “Like the minute I walk in the door, I just feel a welling of joy.”

She describes herself as “anti-Amazon” and made a vow to herself years ago that if she’s going to buy a book, it’s going to be from Old Harbor. 

“And I think that there’s like a weirdly large number of people for such a small town who feel the same way,” she said. “Especially in these times, I think supporting local businesses is of the utmost importance. If you want to have something in your community, you have to support it.”

Many rural communities throughout Alaska don’t have a local bookstore. For a town of about 8,400, Sitka is pretty unique. 

Karen Hegyi first supported Old Harbor Books 30 years before she actually moved to the community. It was the summer of 1983, and she was visiting Sitka on a kayaking trip with a friend. 

She’s lived all over rural Alaska, and she says it’s wonderful that she gets to live in a place like Sitka with such an incredible bookstore.

“The fact that it’s endured for 50 years is a testament to the people who run the bookstore and to the community too, that it’ll be here for another 50 years,” she said.

If these party-goers have anything to say about it, it probably will be.

Sitka students will have to wait a bit longer for their summer break this year. District staff made the announcement to parents on Thursday. They said the school year will be extended by two days to make up for unplanned closures this winter. 

Sitka — and communities across Southeast Alaska — saw persistent snowfall over the past several months, prompting school officials to close Sitka schools for three days. 

The adjustment will make up for two of the three snow days in March. The district has been granted a waiver from the state’s department of education for the third day.

Students’ last day of school is now May 22.

The Sitka Assembly interviewed two candidates for municipal administrator during a public meeting Thursday night (4-9-26).

The city has been advertising for the role since current administrator John Leach submitted his resignation in October. He will step down from the position later this year.

The two candidates interviewed Thursday were Jenny Alber and Steven Dahl. 

Alber currently works as the deputy director of the City of New Orleans, Department of Safety and Permits, according to her application. She has a law degree from Charlotte School of Law in North Carolina, as well as a master’s in public administration from Auburn University in Alabama. She also earned an associate’s degree from Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka in 1993. 

Dahl has worked most recently as a city administrator for two cities in Oregon, Dundee and Drain, according to his application. He has a law degree from Willamette University College of Law in Oregon, as well as a master’s in business management. 

The assembly had intended to interview a third candidate Thursday night, but he withdrew his application for the position. 

Assembly members took turns asking the candidates questions ranging from how they’d address differing community perspectives on tourism to their history working with labor unions and budget deficits. 

Assembly members held a 45-minute executive session to discuss the two candidates after the public meeting. They didn’t choose a replacement yet, but will be reaching out to both applicants to schedule further interviews.