Author: Emily Schwing

Water rates in Sitka will go up starting in July. The Sitka Assembly on Tuesday passed the first increase in residential and commercial water rates since 2002 – and more increases could be on the way. The environmental department says it is playing catch-up to repair and maintain an antiquated system and facing new federal standards for water quality. Emily Schwing reports.

A former Sitka baseball standout has been drafted into the majors. 2005 Sitka High graduate Matt Way was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the fifth round of the major league draft yesterday (06-09-09). Way is a left-handed pitcher who just finished his senior year at Washington State University.

The Sitka assembly last night (06-09-09) passed a $54-million dollar budget for next year, but not before tapping into its non-profit grants fund to pay for some ballfield maintenance and library books. The last-minute requests sparked a debate among assembly members about the proper timing for amending the budget.

Strong Southeast competition dominated at the 2009 softball and baseball state championships this past weekend. Sitka High’s women’s softball team and the men’s baseball team matched up against men’s and women’s teams from Ketchikan. KCAW’s Emily Schwing has the results.

If you visited the Sheldon Jackson Museum recently, you might have seen a woman in a floral-print kuspuk teaching a cruise ship visitor to play Eskimo yo-yo. Emily Johnston, a master weaver from Nunivak, is one of thirteen native artists participating in the museum’s demonstrator program this summer. KCAW’s Shaleece Haas spoke with Johnston about her art.

The prolonged warm, dry weather enjoyed by Southeast Alaskans so far this summer comes with a price: increased fire danger in Tongass. The typically damp environment can dry out quickly when temperatures move into the 60’s and 70’s. Land managers are braced for what could be another busy fire season in the rainforest.

The first documented case of the H1N1 swine flu in Southeast Alaska was reported at the SEARHC clinic in Haines yesterday (Thu 6-4-09). The state virology lab has confirmed that a preteen examined at the Haines clinic for flu-like symptoms had contracted the novel H1N1 virus.

The Coast Guard will conduct normal annual service on buoys across the region, but thanks to recent visits from NOAA ships Rainier and Fairweather, the Coast Guard will be fine tuning the location of some of their navigational aids this summer.

After seven years without a professional curator, the Sitka Historical Museum has hired Ashley Kircher to fill the position. Kircher is a native of Colorado and an outdoor enthusiast familiar with small Alaskan coastal communities. She studied comparative religions at Harvard and recently completed a Masters degree in Museum Studies at San Francisco State University. She sat down for an interview with KCAW’s Emily Schwing to talk about her new position.

$228 million dollars in federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be doled out to National Forests in 31 states. $8-million of that will go to the state of Alaska. US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made the announcement on Tuesday (06-02-2009). Some of the money will go to fund a project on the Sitka Ranger District. KCAW’s Emily Schwing reports.