Author: Ed Ronco

Jack Ozment says there are several projects that have been started during his time on the Sitka Assembly that he’d like to see through to completion. Ozment is seeking a second term on the Assembly, one of four contenders for two seats.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew from Air Station Sitka medevacked two men from a beach in Lisianski Inlet 80 miles north of Sitka early Sunday morning. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, two men reportedly suffered multiple injuries after their 19-foot skiff ran aground. A third man on board escaped injury. A nearby good Samaritan vessel, the Shoreline Scow, responded to the grounding and called the Coast Guard for assistance. Coast Guard Sector Juneau command center received the call for assistance just before midnight Saturday. The helicopter launched from Air Station Sitka at 12:30 AM. A professional EMT aboard the good Samaritan attended the two injured men until the rescue crew arrived. The helicopter crew safely transported Moss and Strahm to Sitka, where local EMS personnel transferred them to SEARHC hospital. The weather at the time of the rescue was 48 degrees with an east wind of 12 mph, gusting to 17.

Assembly candidate Terry Blake thinks Sitka could extend a warmer welcome to tourists. The physician’s assistant at SEARHC hospital thinks local businesses would benefit from the boost additional visitors could provide.

Terry Blake is a candidate for Sitka assembly. The municipal election is Tuesday, October 5.

A judge on Thursday dismissed a subsistence fishing citation against state Senator Albert Kookesh. It could be the end of a year-plus legal battle that challenged state management of Native subsistence harvests.

Democratic Senate candidate and Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams had his first nationally televised interview on Wednesday night, with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. In it, he called Republican Joe Miller "exactly the wrong person for Alaska." (KCAW has requested an interview with the Miller campaign.) In a separate interview McAdams told KCAW that by calling for less involvement from the federal government, Miller is showing that he doesn’t support one third of the Alaskan economy.

The Hames Center task force says the bond package going before local voters next month puts buying the facility “within the realm of possibility.” In a presentation to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, task force members said that allowing the center to close when its lease expired at the end of October would send the wrong message about where the community was going.

The first poll taken after Senator Lisa Murkowski conceded the Republican senate primary to Joe Miller shows a tightening race between Miller and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams. Since the August 24th primary, McAdams has focused on Miller as his opponent. KCAW’s Ed Ronco spoke to McAdams a few hours before Murkowski’s concession about the campaign ahead.

Three brown bear cubs captured in Sitka this August will remain here indefinitely. Officials with the Alaska Department of Fish & Game report that several out-of-state zoos initially interested in the cubs have found bears elsewhere. Sitka’s Fortress of the Bear is making arrangements with the state to house the bears permanently if no other homes are found.

Thor Christianson says the current assembly may be “charging a little too hard.” The former two-term assembly member has thrown his hat into the ring – reluctantly – for another try. He says he would like to make city hall more friendly to small business in Sitka.