Author: Robert Woolsey

The Sitka Historical Society has asked the assembly to double its financial support for the organization. The society’s municipal funding this year is $53-thousand dollars. The Society would like to see that boosted to $120-thousand dollars annually. Historical Society board members and the assembly met in a work session last Tuesday (12-9-08) to discuss the issue.

The Sitka assembly’s triennial debate over purchasing new police cars took a new turn this year. The Sitka assembly Tuesday night (12-9-08) steered clear of its usual discussion of whether the community was over-patrolled or under-served, and instead discussed whether the time was right to try out hybrid patrol cars.

While the Sitka Police Department is hesitant to replace its fleet with hybrids, other law enforcement organizations are giving them a try. An internet search of “hybrid police cars” turns up numerous police departments in this country and abroad that have turned to hybrids. One of the most successful hybrid programs is at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, sixty miles west of Chicago. Bill Finucane is the transportation manager for NIU. Five years ago he bought the school’s first Toyota Prius hybrid for the campus motor pool. A year later, the first Prius entered the campus police fleet. Since then, Finucane has replaced almost every standard sedan on campus with the Prius. Currently, four of the school’s six police squad cars are Priuses. By next year, campus police will be driving hybrids exclusively, including two Ford Escape hybrid SUV’s. KCAW’s Robert Woolsey spoke with Finucane about NIU’s transition to the police hybrid:

Local officials in Sitka will ask the state to take over the campus of the former Sheldon Jackson College as a vocational educational center. At last night’s (Tuesday 12-9-08) assembly meeting, a group calling itself the SJC Campus Redevelopment Task Force said that the idle campus in downtown Sitka could help train the next generation of workers to build the gas line.

Using military-style ammunition to hunt big game will no longer be legal in Alaska, following action expected this spring by the state board of game. At its meeting last November, the board amended a proposal to ban .223 full metal jacket bullets in Southeast Alaska to include the entire state. Extending the prohibition to include all calibers of full metal jacket bullets remains on the table for the board’s spring meeting.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has announced it’s preliminary Guideline Harvest levels for the 2009 Sitka Sound Sac Roe Herring fishery. The 15,308 ton quota is about 800 tons more than last year. Sitka Tribe of Alaska says it will affect the subsistence harvest.

With temperatures still in the low-to-mid forties in Sitka, it’s easy to forget that once in a while winter comes much earlier. On December 5th, one year ago today, Sitkan Bill Foster took advantage of clear skies, sunshine, and 23-degree weather to go ice skating on five different lakes around town. KCAW’s Robert Woolsey spoke with Foster about his five-lake skate:

A painting dating back to 1879 has caused a stir at the Sitka Historical Society and Museum. The painting of the USS Jamestown with Sitka in the background may potentially be one of the first oil paintings of Sitka from the post-transfer era.

On the upper end of the technological spectrum, Sitka High School lacks WiFi internet access. On the lower end of that same spectrum, the bathroom soap dispensers often run short. The Sitka High student council and Sitka school board convened in a joint meeting Tuesday (12-2-08) to discuss the pressing issues of the year. The conversation was far reaching and surprisingly candid on topics ranging from perceived racism toward peers at neighboring Mt. Edgecumbe High School, to statewide drug policy.

While the proposed cut in the Southeast commercial halibut catch next season is distressing news for longliners, many subsistence fishermen will also be fishing under tighter restrictions. Late last month (10-24-08), NOAA Fisheries implemented new rules to reduce the amount of subsistence halibut gear in the water by half in some parts of Southeast Alaska.