Author: Robert Woolsey, KCAW

The boards are off the windows on the historic Sheldon Jackson Campus in Sitka. Roger Schmidt, the executive director of Alaska Arts Southeast, says his organization plans to have the former college ready to house five hundred students and eighty staff when the Sitka Fine Arts Camp opens on June 1st. Schmidt told the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday that the campus was on a ninety-day plan.

There are some modifications to be made, but a new bear-resistant trash can tested Wednesday in Sitka appears to be a success. That’s the word from city and state officials who watched as two captive brown bears took a crack at breaking into one of the cans.

For the past few weeks, listeners to public service announcements in Sitka may have been wondering why a local scientist is collecting old coolers and ice chests. Jon Martin, an assistant professor of Biology at the University of Alaska Southeast is NOT hosting the biggest tailgater of all time. Martin and colleagues at the University of New Mexico are compiling a genetic database of Southeast mammals, to learn how living on isolated islands may alter a species over time.

It’s unclear whether the federal government will appeal a judge’s decision to apply the roadless rule to Southeast Alaska’s Tongass Forest.A federal judge on Friday lifted an exemption to the nationwide logging-limiting rule that had been in place since the Bush administration. Plaintiffs say the ruling will protect fishing and tourism jobs. Critics say it will hurt the timber industry, as well as mining and hydropower development.

The city of Sitka will be required to release a confidential letter from Dove Island Lodge’s attorney, under a decision announced today in Sitka Superior Court.

I’m Mim McConnell, and this is my opinion. This is about Sitka's long-range planning process. I became a member of the Long-Range Planning and Economic Development Commission in 2008 and changed my membership to Assembly liaison in 2009. I am presenting this information to you in that current capacity. The Assembly's prevailing opinion on long-range planning is different from my own.

Friends and family members mourned the passing of Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tribal Council member George Ridley over the weekend, during a ceremony at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall.

I'm Linda Blankenship and this is my opinion: Have you ever noticed how beautiful the old wooden fishing boats are? There are several reasons for this: Their graceful curves are shaped the way wood likes to bend. Also, the low-powered propulsion of the past encouraged slender, smooth hullforms. The fishing boats of Sitka and this region are about the most shapely, elegant and refined in the entire world. The demanding ocean of this area tested boats to the limit and only the best could survive.

A Sitka man is in critical condition at Harborview Hospital in Seattle after sustaining injuries in a fall off a dock Wednesday (3-2-11) afternoon. Longtime resident and commercial fisherman Jay Clifton was carrying mail down the ladder at Seafood Producers Cooperative when he slipped and dropped the remaining twenty or twenty-five feet into his Carolina Skiff.

46-year-old Jane Reth received a sentence of 55 years in prison, with 19 years suspended. That leaves 36 years to be served, but with good behavior, she could be released in 24 years. The grisly 1988 killing was solved by state cold-case investigators who used a combination of a recorded phone call and DNA evidence.