Casting for Recovery is a national organization supporting women who have had breast cancer. Carol Butler, a volunteer with Casting for Recovery, joins KCAW to talk about the upcoming Alaska Native Women’s Retreat that seeks to create community and foster emotional healing. The all-expenses-paid fly fishing retreat will be on the Kenai River from Sept. 11 to Sept. 13. Applications are due July 16. Listen to the conversation here:

In a memo, Finance Director Brooke Volschenk said current code doesn’t clearly reflect the full range of business ownership structures. The new ordinance would expand the listed business types and make business owners individually responsible for debts if their company defaults. 

Volschenk said it would align city code with current practice and provide greater clarity and consistency for both staff and business owners. 

In other business, the assembly will consider appropriating more than $1.1 million in federal funds to the Sitka School District on second and final reading. 

The Sitka Assembly meets at 6 p.m. tonight. Raven News will broadcast the meeting live, following Alaska News Nightly. 

Updated 6/22/26 at 4:20 p.m.

Four U.S. Coast Guard crew members involved in a helicopter crash in Sitka Monday morning have been reported safe with “non-serious injuries.” 

Watch standers at the Arctic District command center in Juneau received the initial report of the crash on Harbor Mountain through the activation of the aircrew’s personal locator beacon just after 10 a.m., according to a Coast Guard press release. The MH-60 Jayhawk went down during a training flight.

Rescue crews from Sitka Fire and Rescue arrived at the site of the crash around 11 a.m. and transported all four crew members to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center. 

“We are incredibly relieved our crew members survived with only minor injuries,” said Rear Adm. Bob Little, commander of the Coast Guard’s Arctic District, in the release. “We are grateful for the swift response by the Sitka Fire and Rescue who assisted us during this critical time.”

The cause of the crash is currently under investigation.

Harbor Mountain Road has been closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic to accommodate the crash response, according to a press release from the City of Sitka. The public is asked to avoid the area until further notice.

This is a developing story. 

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Original Post, Updated 6/22/26 at 12:45 p.m.

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter has reportedly crashed in Sitka. No deaths have been reported.

The MH-60 Jayhawk went down just after 10 a.m. Monday morning near Harbor Mountain during a training flight, according to a press release from the Coast Guard. Four crew members from Air Station Sitka were on board.  

Rescue crews from Sitka Fire and Rescue arrived at the site of the crash around 11 a.m. and transported all four crew members to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center.

In a post on X, the Coast Guard said it would investigate the cause of the crash.

“The safety, well-being, and rescue of our crew members is our absolute, immediate priority,” the post said. “A formal investigation will be conducted to determine the circumstances surrounding the event.”

Harbor Mountain Road has been closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic to accommodate the crash response, according to a press release from the City of Sitka. The public is asked to avoid the area until further notice.

This is a developing story. 

Sitka Fine Arts Camp will host Jazz on the Waterfront on June 27, honoring the music of Detroit with a 20-piece band. The sold-out event looks to fundraise for the restoration of North Pacific Hall where campers stay on the Sheldon Jackson campus. Roger Schmidt, the camp’s executive director, and Lucy Poulson, the development coordinator, join KCAW to talk about how these donations will transform the residence hall and what’s in store for Jazz on the Waterfront. Listen to the conversation here:

The Mirage is the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association’s (ALFA) first hybrid electric fishing vessel. With rising fuel prices, the hybrid engine seeks to make fishing more cost- and energy-efficient. Lauren Howard, a policy coordinator at ALFA, and Ben Matthys, a marine electrician at Southeast Sparks, join KCAW to discuss how the hybrid engine came to be and the changes it’s already making on the fishing experience. Sitkans are invited to see The Mirage from 1-4 p.m. on June 20 at Eliason Harbor. Listen to the conversation here:

The Greater Sitka Arts Council is requesting design proposals for multiple murals to sprawl across businesses downtown. XtraTuf is sponsoring this project, which they are calling “Boots on the Ground.” Bette Gray from the Sitka Public Art Subcommittee and Zach Castagnola from XtraTuf join KCAW to discuss their plans for the murals and how southeast artists can submit their ideas. Design proposals are due August 1. Listen to the conversation here:

The clear waters and maritime infrastructure along Alaska’s coasts make for prime conditions for mariculture, the cultivation of marine organisms like oysters, seaweed, and shellfish. Andrew Jylkka and Sara Ebersole join KCAW to discuss what opportunities mariculture can bring to the state and how Jylkka’s organization, Spruce Root, can help local farms get up and running. Listen to the conversation here:

33-year-old Jorge Ruiz-Rivera was convicted by a Sitka jury on three counts of stalking and three counts of violating a protective order earlier this year. 

Over the past two years, Ruiz-Rivera has been indicted several times in Sitka, including once for stalking a couple at their residence, and for attempting to contact someone with a protective order against him after he was in custody. A press release from the state attorney general’s office said that evidence in Ruiz-Rivera’s February trial showed that over several years he “engaged in a course of conduct towards these victims that placed them in fear of death or physical injury for themselves and their family members.”

On May 28, Sitka Superior Court Judge Amanda Browning sentenced him to 8 years and six months in prison. He is currently in custody at Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau. 

37-year-old Gilbert Sam Jr. was arrested on May 16 after he allegedly stabbed a man in the neck several times at the Sitka Hotel. The victim, a 25-year-old hotel employee, had invited Sam, who did not work at the hotel, to help him wash dishes. According to court documents, the two men ended up in a heated confrontation, and Sam allegedly stabbed the man in the neck several times. The man was hospitalized but survived.

On May 21, a Sitka grand jury indicted Sam on three counts of felony assault. He is currently in custody at Anchorage Correctional Complex. A hearing in Sam’s case is set for June 17.

Earlier in the month 47-year-old Michael Harrison was charged after he allegedly destroyed a camera in the Sitka jail while in custody. On May 14, a grand jury indicted Harrison on one count of felony criminal mischief. He is currently in custody at Lemon Creek Correctional Center. A hearing in Harrison’s case is set for June 17.

Also last month, a jury convicted a Sitka man on a sexual assault charge. 32-year-old Jordan Schauwecker was indicted by a grand jury in 2022 on seven counts of felony sexual assault. At the end of a weeks-long trial in late May, a jury found Schauwecker guilty of one count of attempted sexual assault.  On May 27, his attorneys filed a motion to acquit him of the remaining charge. Schauwecker is currently in custody at Lemon Creek Correctional Center. A sentencing hearing is currently set for September 18.

Civil cases against the city dismissed, one appealed

Two civil cases against the city were dismissed last month, but one has been appealed.  

Susan Magie, formerly Suarez was severely injured when she was hit by a car while walking on the pedestrian path alongside Sawmill Creek Road in 2023. The driver, Beth Lang, was later convicted for felony assault and reckless driving, and was sentenced to just over seven years in prison.

Magie filed a civil suit against the city and the Sitka Police Department for negligence in 2025. The suit argued that the accident could have been prevented, since police had several prior contacts with Lang for swerving into traffic and losing consciousness behind the wheel. Claims against other defendants in the case, which included former and current police staff and medical personnel, were ultimately dismissed. According to court documents, a resolution was met between Magie and several other parties in March. The case was dismissed in late May following a joint agreement with the city.

Meanwhile, the City of Sitka is still trying to get a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit in which a local man alleges the city violated his First Amendment rights.

Former assembly candidate Austin Cranford filed the case late last summer, claiming the city’s social media policy — specifically the police department’s restriction of comments on its Facebook page — violated his right to free speech.

In his court filings, Cranford says the city allowed a member of the public to comment on a police department post while restricting the comments of others, including himself. Cranford says that deprived him of his civil rights under the U.S. Constitution.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason granted a motion from the city to dismiss the case in late April [4/29], [WEB: finding that the city didn’t violate Cranford’s First Amendment rights when it allowed the “public administrative query” on the police department post], but left an opening for Cranford to file an amended complaint, which he did on May 5th. The city filed a second motion to dismiss in late May, which Cranford is also challenging [5/29].  

Cranford is a former assembly candidate, and the son of former police sergeant Gary Cranford, who sued the city and settled for over $320,000 out of court in 2025. And it isn’t the first time Austin Cranford has challenged the city. He appealed the denial of a public records request he made to the city earlier this year and had two public records appeals in February of 2024 alleging city corruption and claiming his records requests were being wrongfully denied.

It was unclear, as of Tuesday, when Judge Gleason might issue a ruling on the city’s second motion to dismiss Austin Cranford’s First Amendment lawsuit.