Author: Andi McDaniel

Devoted paddlers from Sitka and beyond donned their spray skirts Saturday (6-14-08) to compete in the second annual Sitka Sound Ocean Adventure Race. Andi McDaniel brings back this report.

A proposed minor subdivision of Sheldon Jackson campus property, that could become the site of a residential treatment program, won the approval of the Sitka Historic Preservation Commission Wednesday night. It now heads back to the Planning Commission for final approval. But while the project made it through another administrative hoop, it has sparked a community-wide discussion of how college property is disposed of.

Summertime means the arrival of another crop of broadcasting interns in Alaska. KCAW is pleased to welcome UC Berkeley journalism student Andi McDaniel. The first test for a Raven Radio intern is to master digital recording and editing; the second is to produce a finished story, no matter how trivial – all within a week. McDaniel has passed both benchmarks with exceptional style, and has demonstrated that by using reliable sources and a strong technique, even a trivial story can still be a good story. She got the following scoop just hours after stepping off the airplane in Sitka.

Three local fisheries programs have received a small financial boost from the Sitka fish box tax. The Sitka assembly last Tuesday divided up over $37-thousand dollars from the tax, which is collected by charter operators when they package fish for clients. The final amounts were $2500 Armstrong-Keta, $25,000 NSRAA, and $10,000 Sitka Sound Science Center

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. issued a temporary restraining order on June 3rd against the one-halibut-a-day bag limit imposed on the Southeast Alaska charter industry.

A sales tax exemption for residential renters will stay on the books. On a split vote, the assembly last night (Tue 6-10-08) left in place the one-year old rental tax break, even though it has cost local government a half-million dollars. Most assembly members felt that now was not the time to shift a financial burden on to renters.

The sale of the former pulp dock and warehouse at Sawmill Cove has become a $3-million dollar proposition. In a purchase agreement approved last night (Mon 6/9/08) by the Sawmill Cove board of directors, the city of Sitka will still refund the $1-million-dollar purchase price of the property – but Silver Bay Seafoods will be compelled to invest another $2-million of its own money for additional repairs within the next ten years.

High gas prices won’t be an issue for at least two more Sitka motorists – and neither will the vehicle registration problems that have dogged the first electric car owner in town. Students in a community schools class are mid-way through retrofitting a Nissan pickup truck and a Geo Metro passenger car with high-power electric conversion kits. When these two vehicles roll out in a few days, there will be no telling them apart from any other car on Sitka’s roads. For complete information about the kits used by the class, visit http://e-volks.com/index.html

Naturalist Richard Carstensen thinks that the conservation movement’s emphasis on protecting roadless watersheds in the Tongass may have come at too high a price. The Forest Service in January released an amendment to the Tongass Land Management Plan that calls for re-opening timber harvests in the remaining old growth stands in previously-logged watersheds – areas Carstensen calls “hammered gems.” In the second part of a two-part interview, Carstensen talks with KCAWs Robert Woolsey about why he believes logged areas should be conserved, and why that opinion presents a challenge to the environmental community. Part 2 of 2. To read the 29-page essay by Carstensen, and co-author Bob Christensen, go to http://www.seawead.org/content/view/31/9/

The state Department of Education and Early Development has named Sitka resident William Hutton as Director of the state-run boarding school in Sitka, Mt. Edgecumbe High School. Hutton will take over the helm on July 1st. He replaces Bill Denkinger, who announced his retirement in February.