“There were dents in the front right side of the truck, as well as the busted windshield where the patient went on top of the hood,” he said.

Hall said medics transported the bicyclist to the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center with possible leg and wrist fractures. 

“Based on the scene, it was possible that they had a broken leg and they had some cuts, bruising, scratching, road rash,” he said. “But it looks like they’re going to be fine.”

Hall said the driver was arrested for driving with a revoked license and no insurance. He said the accident may have been impacted by low visibility due to weather, and that no alcohol was involved. 

Hall said drivers should be especially careful as the busy summer season picks up and more locals and tourists are buzzing around town on both regular and electric bikes. And he said bicyclists should make sure to wear helmets, use bike lanes, and have illumination on their bikes, even during the day. 

The Sitka Assembly, acting as a quasi-judicial body, denied a second-level public records appeal at its meeting Tuesday night (4-28-26). 

Austin Cranford said he submitted a public records request to the city in February to understand how the city is handling sign-on bonuses and high turnover at the police department. He claims staff’s response included unlawful redactions and denied the existence of some documents. 

“People listening tonight might wonder why I keep fighting the city on these issues, filing appeals and pushing back,” Cranford said. “I do it because demanding that our government follow its own laws is how we protect our home.”

Cranford is a former assembly candidate, and the son of former police sergeant Gary Cranford, who sued the city and settled for over $300,000 out of court. And it isn’t the first time Austin Cranford has challenged the city. He sued the city last year alleging censorship on the city police department’s Facebook page. He also had two public records appeals in February of 2024. 

In his appeal on Tuesday, Cranford asked the assembly to order the release of unredacted records and direct a secondary search for records of alleged communications regarding several police officers who resigned over bonus disputes. 

Municipal Attorney Rachel Jones said Cranford asked the clerk’s office to perform a level of analysis and research of records that’s not contemplated by the Alaska Public Records Act. She compared clerks to records librarians, whose job it is to grab documents that can be quickly identified. 

She said if someone requests a copy of Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, that’s a request for a document that exists. She said requests for the entire works of Tolkien would require a bit more research, but since libraries are organized by author, a librarian can easily locate the information. But in her analogy, she said Cranford’s request took things a step further.

“If somebody comes in and says, ‘I want every record in your library that contains the word ‘hobbit.’ Now we’re looking at the complete works of Tolkien, every academic paper about Tolkien, newspapers, magazines, fan fiction, maybe anthropology reports saying Neanderthals look like hobbits. Maybe political satire saying, ‘This guy looks like a hobbit.’ That becomes research, where the librarian needs to know all of the content of the documents to assess whether this category applies to them or not.”

Jones said Cranford was attempting to get a research and investigation project off the ground by using the public records process inappropriately. 

Assembly members unanimously agreed that the clerks did their duty to produce records that existed and were asked for, and ultimately denied Cranford’s appeal.

“We’re fortunate the law is all about accuracy and language,” said Assembly Member Tim Pike. “And I think that’s the issue that I see in front of us. And as a consequence, I think based upon the language that was submitted, the clerks have supplied that particular information.”

The number of public records requests the City and Borough of Sitka receives annually has quadrupled in the past decade. Earlier this year, the assembly  approved about $21,000 for a two-year contract with an online platform designed to manage public records requests. The city hopes to start using the portal by June.  

Mt. Edgecumbe High School is cutting staff for the second year in a row amid ongoing budget and enrollment issues. While last year’s position cuts were mostly refilled at the end of the summer, administrators say they’ll only re-hire for the cut positions this year if more students enroll. 

The state-run boarding school in Sitka serves students from across the state — the majority of whom are Alaska Native from rural communities without local high schools.

News of deteriorating facilities and an exodus of roughly a quarter of its students over the past year prompted state legislators to visit the campus in February and hold hearings to question school leadership.

In an alumni advisory board meeting on April 23, Superintendent David Langford, who was hired last summer, said that new student applications have slowed to a trickle. 

“Right now, we’re at 37% below where we are normally at this time for new applications coming in,” Langford said. “So yeah, that’s lower than what it has been before, and that’s what’s driving us to look at alternative budget projections.”

The administration has drafted two budget scenarios for the upcoming school year. One is based on near-full enrollment at 375 students. The other is a more conservative estimate at 275 students.

In response to dwindling enrollment, Langford said the school has cut several positions, and he’s not sure how many they’ll be able to refill. 

Langford said as of now, six teachers won’t be returning: two are retiring, one is moving, and three non-tenured teachers were given the option to either resign or be “non-retained” — which means they’re not being offered a contract for next year. Non-retention can often be seen as a mark on a teacher’s record. If a teacher gets a non-retention letter, they have to disclose that when applying for future teaching positions.

“It’s important to note that nobody’s getting fired,” Langford said. “That’s a whole different category, which means we don’t want you to ever teach anywhere again, basically. And we’re not doing that to anybody.”

In an interview with KCAW, Langford said if enrollment exceeds their projections, they may look at hiring all six positions back. 

“We live off of enrollment, and that’s how we get funding,” he said. “So if we don’t have students coming in, we can’t fund teachers.”

Matt Hunter, president of the union representing teachers (Teacher’s Education Association – Mt. Edgecumbe), said a non-retention can happen for any non-tenured teacher for any reason. He said the cuts that happened last spring and the upcoming cuts for next school year are strictly budgetary. 

“This year’s reductions came from some budget issues that we ran into last year,” Hunter said. “We had some overspending, and were relying on COVID funds that had expired and weren’t there any longer. That’s why we had such big cuts between last year and this year. And looking forward, in order to budget wisely, you have to look at how many applications you have and how many kids you’re likely to have, or you’ll promise a job to someone, and then find out in August you can’t afford it, which would be terrible.”

Hunter said when families hear bad news about the school, enrollment goes down, but recent news coverage of Mt. Edgecumbe’s challenges only tells part of the story.  

“We have students who are some of the most genuine, kind people I’ve ever met, and we have good stuff happening in our classrooms. We offer some really neat classes,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a good school next year. We’re still going to have good teachers. We’re going to have wonderful students. We just need people to come.”

Langford said the biggest priority moving forward is rebuilding enrollment by showcasing how special Mt. Edgecumbe is.

“Yes, we might have fewer students next year than normal, and that would be a rebuilding year to build back culture and pride and all the kinds of things that maybe we’re lacking this year,” he said.  

Mt. Edgecumbe lets out on May 8 for the summer break, and reconvenes in late August. Langford said despite current enrollment numbers, he’s optimistic about the year to come. 

In a memo, Municipal Attorney Rachel Jones says Cranford’s request asked the clerk’s office to perform a level of content-based analysis and research of records that’s not contemplated by the Alaska Public Records Act. Nevertheless, Jones says the clerk’s office made a good faith effort to grant Cranford’s initial records request, QUOTE “despite the inappropriate nature of the request.”

Cranford sued the city last year alleging censorship on the city police department’s Facebook page. He is the son of former police sergeant Gary Cranford who settled a lawsuit against the city in 2023. 

In other business, it will consider several updates to city code, including updating the policy for accepting donations and naming places. Then, at the end of the meeting, the assembly will convene behind closed doors to discuss a civil lawsuit filed by Susan Magie, formerly Suarez, against the city in 2025. Claims against other defendants in the case, which included former police sergeant Gary Cranford, current police staff and medical personnel, were ultimately dismissed. According to court documents, a resolution was met between Magie and several other parties in March. 

Two candidates for the city’s top job advanced to a second round of interviews last week. In two public interviews, the Sitka Assembly dug deeper into the backgrounds of municipal administrator candidates Steven Dahl and Jenny Alber to consider how they would fit in with the city government team.

Dahl, who has worked as a city administrator in Oregon, said he has conducted more research on Sitka since his first interview. He said, if he gets the job, he would want to collaborate with Sitkans to develop a solution to balance tourism and the needs of locals, but he’d have to learn more first.

“What exactly [is it] that people who don’t want tourism [in Sitka], what they really don’t like about it? Is it more people invading their town? They don’t feel like they can go shopping on a Saturday, or they feel limited about that, or they feel like their hometown is being invaded?,” says Dahl. “I need to understand that part of it before I can come up with a good solution for that.”

Collaboration was also a recurring theme in Alber’s interview. Alber, who currently works as the deputy director for the City of New Orleans department of safety and permits, said harnessing local institutional knowledge is essential to best plan for emergencies like natural disasters. 

“Probably being as isolated as Sitka is, I’m sure FEMA can’t just show up tomorrow with trailers. So I think it is very much all hands on deck. Here’s the community. Who’s essential?,” says Alber. “I think those are all things that you really have to take the time and prepare for, and have the hard conversations, and get the right people in the room, and then go to your community and say, ‘Okay, do you have a plan?'” 

Over the course of each two-hour interview, assembly members took turns asking the candidates questions from how they would approach the job’s responsibilities, to solutions for issues like housing, education, and navigating city budgets. 

The assembly convened behind closed doors in executive sessions after both interviews to discuss each candidate. After the final interview on Friday (4-24-26), Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said the assembly will take more time to consider Dahl and Alber, before getting back to both of the candidates in due order.

Remember that mysterious “golden orb” government scientists found at the bottom of the Gulf of Alaska in 2023? Was it an egg? A sponge? Remnants of a space alien? 

Scientists were baffled. Two-and-a-half years later, they say they’ve figured it out.

So picture this. Some scientists aboard the research vessel called the Okeanos Explorer are huddled around a screen that shows a remote underwater vehicle prodding at a shiny, golden mass. 

“I just hope when we poke it something doesn’t decide to come out. It’s like the beginning of a horror movie,” one scientist says. “I’m pretty sure this is how the first episode of the X-files started,” another responds.

The “golden orb” was discovered two miles deep by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship while mapping the ocean floor in the summer of 2023.  

“There were jokes about it being a mermaid’s egg or things that also don’t make biological sense, like a dolphin egg or stuff like that. “I think there were some alien hypotheses too,” said Dr. Allen Collins, the director of the NOAA Fisheries Lab at the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C.

He’s nibbled away at the mystery for two-and-a-half years. 

“It just spawned all these kind of crazy ideas, and then media interest,” Collins said. “I was shocked, but it’s always nice when people are interested in the deep sea.” 

Collins said the team on the Okeanos Explorer, as well as scientists all over, were baffled when they first spotted the four-inch-wide golden lump stuck to a rock. But they collected it for further investigation. 

“That’s not the first time that people have been looking in the deep sea and said, ‘What’s that? I have no idea what that is,’” he said.

But, Collins said, it was a bit unusual how long it took to identify. It required what he calls “morphological, genetic, deep-sea and bioinformatics expertise” to solve. Eventually, his team was able to compare it to two other specimens collected by deep sea biologists in other parts of the world. 

The conclusion? The “golden orb” is the base of a giant sea anemone called relicanthus daphneae. The anemones have a deep-colored trunk about a foot wide and pale pink and purple tentacles that can stretch up to six-and-a-half feet. Collins said scientists have documented about 30 sightings in the deep sea, from the Antarctic Ocean to the Aleutian Islands to the Central Pacific. 

“If you look under the base of the anemones, and right on the side, often, you can see this golden colored cuticle sticking out from the bottom,” he said. “We were like, ‘It was right in front of us, kind of like the whole time. [We] never even noticed.’”

He was happy to finally solve the mystery, but also a bit disappointed. 

“I was sort of like, ‘Oh, man, now no one’s going to care,’ because it’s not as interesting as a mystery,” he said. “Now, it’s an anemone.” 

Collins said the discovery has opened up other questions about the species, like whether the golden base is related to reproduction, and whether the anemone died or let go and reattached itself somewhere else. 

He said they’ve submitted a paper on the “golden orb” to a scientific journal for review. But the relicanthus daphneae is just one specimen out of hundreds he works to identify. 

“What we want to do is contribute this and say, ‘Hey, let’s collect more of these weird things and see what they tell us about the deep sea.’”

Next on his plate? The formal scientific identification, naming, and documenting of a carnivorous sponge species and a new jellyfish species, also found in Alaska waters. 

Neish Ken Hoyt guides over 200 attendees in blessing the newly-completed medical center on Japonski Island. Elders and speakers are seated in rolling chairs stationed in front of the building’s entrance — the rest of the attendees are packed like sardines behind them in the cool shade. A white ribbon with green and blue designs blocks the glass entrance, alongside the podium where Neish speaks from. 

For Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium CEO, Charles Clement, the completed hospital is deeply meaningful. 

“My board knows that I was reflecting this morning… and I actually got a little teary eyed,” says Clement. “This is a pretty emotional thing for me. This has been a 10 year endeavor.”

What’s most exciting for many of the speakers and attendees about the new hospital is the ability for Sitkans and residents of surrounding villages to access necessary medical care closer to home. Amidst concerns over limited transportation between villages, Sitka Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz addresses how the city plans to work with the hospital to resolve that. 

“We know that the ferry service is diminishing. We all see the effects on that,” says Eisenbeisz. “But on the plus side, the community of Sitka is investing heavily in their airport. So those citizens that need to get to health care from the larger planes can. And we’re investing in a float plane base as well. So those from the smaller towns that don’t have large plane access, they can fly in basically at the doorstep [of the hospital].”

SEARHC took over the World War II-era Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in 1986, and has been the only hospital in Sitka since it purchased Sitka Community Hospital in 2019. The new facility was built with support from the Indian Health Service, a federal agency within the department of health that supports Native American and Alaska Native patients. The organization’s deputy director, Ben Smith, says he’s thrilled with the finished product. 

“The Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center stands as a powerful example of self determination and action, where partnership empowers local leadership to design and deliver care that is responsive, culturally grounded and centered on patient families,” says Smith.

After the ribbon is cut, the wide-eyed attendees enter the new building for the first time, following the Sheet’ka Kwaan Dance Group and Gajaa Heen dancers, documenting every moment while they perform an entrance song.

Bill Spivey is the administrator for the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center. He stands proudly as he looks up at the hospital’s tall ceiling as visitors wander around the facility and photograph Mt. Edgecumbe volcano seen through the glass walls. He says there are already set plans to bring in patients and medical staff. 

“It’s very [exciting] that we’re going to be bringing two pieces of the medical center here,” says Spivey. “We’re going to bring our behavioral health team and our physical rehab team here to start on May 4, so that will for us be the first patient day.”

Spivey says that the rest of the facility will open on June 27th.

The Sitka School District approved a budget Thursday night that cuts 8.5 positions, half of which are certified teachers. Like other districts across the state, Sitka’s revenue hasn’t met higher costs in recent years. But the cuts are far fewer than were proposed.

Listen to the story:

Sixteen staff positions were on the chopping block, including several certified teachers. The proposal followed the district cutting 16 positions in 2024.

For this round of cuts, the administration proposed several options. Board member Courtney Amundson was not satisfied with any of them.

“Every time you cut a teaching position at a secondary level, elective and specialized courses disappear,” she said. “This affects students who may be disengaged from core academics but thrive in arts or career technical education.”

Amundson proposed an amendment – decreasing savings – keeping just about $200,000 dollars in reserves. She argued that it’s manageable and would save three certified teachers and half a secretary’s position.

“I have hope that under new [state] leadership, we will have an increase to funding in general,” Amundson said. “Will that keep up with inflation? I don’t know. Will that be sufficient to cover our needs? I don’t know. Does this balance our budget for the long term? No, it doesn’t. It gets us through this year until we have more information under a new leadership regime.”

Hope. That’s what the decision hinged on – how much hope the school board has in getting future funding from the state and federal governments, and how little they can get by with in their savings account.

School Board President Phil Burdick said the district has managed its finances well and is doing the best it can.

“I hate hope sandwiches, because there’s really nothing in them. It’s just like air,” Burdick said. “It’s not that we’ve always done it this way, and we need to change. It’s that we are handcuffed and we can’t change if the Legislature doesn’t forward fund us, we don’t know how much money we have.”

They’re also hoping for federal money through the Secure Rural Schools program, which funds communities near national forests. Districts in Alaska didn’t get the money last year, but President Donald Trump has approved the funding for three years.

However, promises weren’t enough for a few board members, who voted against fewer staff cuts. Tom Williams said that having only $200,000 in savings wasn’t enough for the what-ifs.

“You’re hoping that we’re going to get those from the Legislature, a one-time amount for this year. I find that budgeting in that manner is irresponsible,” he said. ” It’s going to get us to a point where we’re going to have a failure, and somewhere we’re going to need a bailout.”

The district is counting on funding yet to come. However, Superintendent Deidre Jenson said that’s always the case.

“We always budget approximately from the year prior, and then we don’t get it until May. That’s just the way Secure Rural Schools work,” Jenson said. “We always operate off of what’s anticipated.”

The district considered another way to save money: making health insurance for employees more expensive. That didn’t gain any ground with the board.

Ultimately, they approved the budget scenario that cuts 8.5 positions on a 3 to 2 vote, with Tom Williams and Amanda Williams voting no. They wanted to cut more positions to keep more money in savings.

The Sitka Legacy Foundation has awarded local organizations with a one-time grant to support food security projects in Sitka and Port Alexander. 

Chris Kowalczewski is the Chair of the Grants Committee for the local nonprofit. She says the Alaska Community Foundation, which helped fund the grant, gave them a lot of freedom in determining which projects would be eligible. 

“They gave us leeway in defining what food security meant,” says Kowalczewski. “So there was a discussion in the committee about that, and we came up with these two categories of either increasing food production locally and hopefully sustainably, and distributing food more in the community.”

Five Sitka organizations, including the Sitka Food Coalition and Sitka Homeless Coalition, were awarded grants ranging from $1500 to $3000. The funds will support projects ranging from a food pantry to providing free community dinners. The City of Port Alexander was also awarded $1500 to support community garden plots. 

These projects are incredibly exciting to Robin Sherman, who is the chair of the Legacy Foundation’s advisory board. 

“One of the things that I think is great is that we funded a number of different solutions to the problem of access to healthy food in our communities,” says Sherman. “And that’s always good.” 

In an email exchange with KCAW, foundation Program Manager Jennifer Mac Donald says that the grant distribution checks have already been mailed to grantees. She says that each recipient has a year to complete their project and report outcomes to the organization. 

Kowalczewski says they were unable to sponsor three proposed projects due to lack of funds. But she says organizations shouldn’t lose all hope. 

“Based on the fact that we got quite a few applications, there is a need out there for this kind of support,” says Kowalczewski. “So it’s very possible that we would set that as a priority for funding in the future.”

The Sitka Legacy Foundation’s regular grant cycle will be starting in late August. Kowalzewski anticipates there will be a larger pot of funds to issue grants from due to additional City of Sitka funding. 

The Raven Radio newsroom brought home five Alaska Press Club awards this year, with former News Director Robert Woolsey taking home the first-place prize for Best Profile, Audio and former Sarah Evangeline Hughes News Resident Meredith Redick picking up a first-place win for best reporting on Science, Audio.

All told, the KCAW newsroom captured five awards at the annual conference of the Alaska Press Club including:

1st place, Best Profile, Audio – Robert Woolsey: After five decades, Sitka’s pro bono veterinary practice closes its doors

1st place, Best Reporting on Science, Audio – Meredith Redick: ‘Stubby squid’ saved by savvy science center aquarist

2nd place, Best Reporting on Health, Audio – Katherine Rose: As world TB cases rise, a former Sitka nurse recalls Alaska epidemic

2nd place, Best Headline Writing, All Media – Ryan Cotter: Pet first aid course empowers Alaska’s firefighters to keep animals ‘Stayin’ Alive’

3rd place, Best Same-Day Feature, Audio, Video – Katherine Rose: With quick thinking and a garden hose, mother and son extinguish Sitka house fire

KCAW was not alone in bringing home Alaska Press Club Awards to Sitka. The Daily Sitka Sentinel earned honors as well. Co-publishers Thad and Sandy Poulson were recognized with the Alaska Press Club Howard Weaver Award for Journalism Leadership. The award “recognizes journalists who, over the course of their careers, have devoted substantial time and effort to Alaska journalism and have been leaders or mentors in their newsrooms, making their organizations stronger through their own reporting and editing while also sharpening the skills of their colleagues. It celebrates those who used their journalism to embody Weaver’s mantra (and the title of his memoir), Write hard, die free.”

The Sentinel also won a 3rd place award for Best Short Feature for Shannon Haugland’s story “Canoeists Escape Disaster in Sitka Bay Collision” and a 3rd place award for James Poulson’s feature photo “Whale Watching.”