Some business owners on American Street in Sitka are asking that the city change its status from one-way, back to two-way. The conflict over the downtown route came up at a recent Police and Fire Commission meeting, and commission members weighed in.
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American Street runs perpendicular to the city’s main downtown thoroughfare, Lincoln Street, which was closed to traffic this summer during the biggest cruise ship days. And in early May, the city modified American Street to a one-way heading northbound ‘to preserve parking and assist with traffic flow.’ At the time, a city press release said the change would be in place ‘until further notice, for the summer season.’ But while Lincoln Street opened back up to full use in October, American Street technically remains one-way.

Thad Poulson owns the Sitka Sentinel, on American and Barracks Street. He said the public hadn’t been given the appropriate notice about the closure.

“I was surprised on May 13 this year, to learn, after 53 years living and newspaper publishing Sitka, to learn that a downtown street may be changed from two-way to a one-way with no advance notice to the public or to affected individual property owners, of whom I am one. And that is what happened to American Street on that day,” Poulson said. “As to why I should be surprised? The simple answer is it has never happened before, as far as I know”

But Stedman Insurance owner Carl Stedman said a lot of drivers hadn’t really noticed the change, and just kept driving both ways.

“There’s poor signage, [and] it caused some problems. On American Street intersection with Lincoln Street, there’s a stop sign, still there, facing the wrong way of a one-way street. There’s no one way sign,” Stedman said.

American Street also has parking on one side– Stedman said that needed to be maintained. But he knew there wasn’t necessarily consensus on the traffic.

“There’s not a real good answer to the situation. Doesn’t matter what decision you guys make, it’s probably going to be wrong in some peoples eyes,” Stedman said, and some in the audience laughed. “So, I still feel strongly, it’s worked for 41 years as a two-way street. People just need to go slow, you’ve got to be polite,” he added. “And, you know, when somebody gets a delivery, I can go out the other way and not think I’m breaking the law.”  

When it came time for the commission to consider the item, commission chair Gregg Olson wondered if the street had been reconfigured due to safety concerns and asked if there had been any accidents. Sitka police Lt. John Achee said in the last three years there hadn’t been any accidents reported. As for changing the traffic configuration, Olson said the feedback they’d received from the public was mixed. 

“There’s not unanimity on what people think should happen,” Olson said. “Number one, I don’t know what it is we’re being asked to do. And number two, I don’t know if we know enough to do it.”

Olsen said without more guidance from the city’s Public Works department on why the traffic flow changed, he didn’t know what the commission could do. Commissioner Loyd Platson agreed that some clarification would be helpful.

“Maybe someone from Public Works comes before this body then explains the rationale,” Platson said. “What are the pros for doing it the way that they’re doing? What are the cons for doing it? And explain that to us, if they want us to have the input, and allow the public to be here at that time to ask questions as well.”

Platson however thought the commission could take one step: recommending the street go back to two-way until further information and notice is given to the public. His motion passed unanimously.

Daily Sitka Sentinel co-publisher Sandy Poulson has been inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame — only the third Sitkan to be so honored.

The official ceremony was held online on October 20.

Poulson is one of 12 distinguished women inducted into the Hall’s 2020 class.

Learn more about the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame, and the other 11 women inducted this year along with Sandy Poulson, here.

Sandy Poulson and her husband, Thad Poulson, have been publishing The Daily Sitka Sentinel five days a week for just over fifty years.

They met when she was a reporter for The Oklahoma City Times, and he was an editor for The Daily Oklahoman — both papers published out of the same office.

So that Okie twang you hear in Sandy’s voice is the real thing.

“I grew up over the Southwest, and I loved moving — something like 51 times — and I really liked it,” she told her fellow inductees. “And we wound up here in Sitka fifty years ago, and don’t want to go nowhere else.”

Poulson makes it sound inevitable that she would publish one of the nation’s last independent daily newspapers in a small town in Alaska, but there were many stops along the way — and, in her words, a lot of good luck. Poulson was the middle child in a family of seven children, who earned a scholarship to the University of Tulsa by winning the school’s “Going to College Quiz.” She majored in journalism, and would serve as editor of the campus newspaper — The Collegian — her junior and senior years. Under her leadership, The Collegian was honored as “Oklahoma’s Outstanding Newspaper” by the Collegiate Press Association. 

After her marriage to Thad Poulson, the couple moved first to Salt Lake City, and then to New York City to work for the Associated Press. Eventually, they were offered positions in the AP’s fledgling bureau in Juneau, Alaska, not far from where one of Sandy’s older sisters — Dee Longenbaugh — coincidentally was living in Sitka.

The publisher of Sitka’s newspaper at the time, Lew Williams Jr., also owned the Ketchikan Daily News. In 1969 he lured the young AP reporters over from Juneau to run his Sitka paper, and eventually persuaded them to buy it.

Many people are surprised to learn that Sitka has an independent daily newspaper, and most are downright startled to discover that it is so good.

Sandy Poulson’s listing in the Hall of Fame articulates what most Sitkans have known all along:

While it is one of the smallest circulation dailies in the nation, the Sentinel maintains the very highest standards for journalism with comprehensive, even-handed, accurate coverage of local government, issues and events by two full-time reporters plus coverage by other staff. This comes from Poulson’s and Thad’s commitment to the ideal of journalism as essential to an informed public, fundamental to a functioning democracy. As a journalism professional who came of age before the Watergate scandal, Poulson’s idea of the press is not a glamorous or dramatic profession, but a vital service that depends on diligent effort.  

Lisa Busch, nominator

Poulson had five children of her own, all while working full-time at the Sentinel. The kids played in the reams of wire copy coming out of the teletype, or bounced on Sandy’s knee while she laid out pages and crafted headlines. As soon as the kids were old enough, they’d hit the streets every afternoon after school to sell newspapers.

Despite all this, Poulson says she was shocked when the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame called to tell her she had been selected to join the ranks of its honorees, who include notables such as Iditarod champ Susan Butcher, former Supreme Court Justice Dana Fabe, and Indigenous Rights Activist Katie John. “I thought they had the wrong Sandy Poulson,” she says, “but then I realized I was probably the only one!”

Poulson has never sought the limelight at the paper. Although she’s a fierce editor, she doesn’t editorialize. Her humility and decades-long dedication to a profession that is under political assault at the highest levels is remarkable — and rare. She feels very thankful and privileged to join the Hall.

“I have the good luck of having women include me in this really amazing group of women,” she said. “I just have to remind myself to smile modestly.”

Sandy Poulson is the third Sitkan to be inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame, which was established in 2008. Alice Johnstone and Teri Rofkar were inducted in the class of 2018.

After a comprehensive search and recruitment effort over the winter, KCAW found a candidate to fill the demanding shoes of full-time reporter — and we never had to look too far.

Katherine Rose became our full-time reporter on March 18. Her successive tenures as summer intern (2016), winter fellow (2017-18), morning host (2018), and interim reporter (2018-2019) gave her an impressive portfolio of work to back up her superb on-air skills. Emily Kwong will be a tough act to follow, but Katherine has slipped seamlessly into the role, taking over municipal assembly coverage, the hospital transfer, herring, and the role of mentoring our current fellow, Enrique Pérez de la Rosa. Katherine is also our digital/data maven, and a skilled multi-media producer. “As much as I may represent the old school of radio journalism,” said news director Robert Woolsey, “Katherine represents the new school of reporter: Skilled in many content platforms, versatile, forward-thinking — but disciplined and dogged in pursuit of the story.”

Woolsey added, “I’m extremely happy she’ll be sticking around Raven Radio for a while.”

Rose joins Woolsey and Daily Sitka Sentinel publishers Sandy and Thad Poulson, as a member of the “Oklahoma Media Mafia” — all former Okies who have relocated to Alaska to work in the press. Rose hails from Langley, Oklahoma, a small town in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. She attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman (BA in political science), and after a few years teaching in the rural South, attended the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she earned a Masters Degree in 2018.

Thad Poulson, the editor and publisher of the Daily Sitka Sentinel, published an editorial Monday night citing the Sitka charter, which states that “A vacancy shall be filled by the Assembly which shall elect a qualified person within 20 days after the vacancy occurs.”

As originally scheduled by the municipal clerk’s office, filling the vacancy created by Terry Blake’s departure was to have occurred tonight (Tue 6-26-12), while Blake was still seated.

Poulson told KCAW that he confirmed with the clerk’s office that Blake was indeed scheduled to vote on his own replacement. That’s what prompted the editorial.

“It just suddenly struck me that this is rather unusual: That you’ll have the person who’s leaving the assembly actively voting on his replacement. And as I noted in the editorial – and I hope you took note of – I’m sure that no one intended to influence the outcome of the appointment by having the departing member vote. But, nonetheless, it appeared to me improper, and so that’s why I spoke up.”

The clerk’s office responded promptly. Municipal Clerk Colleen Ingman notified media this morning that the vacancy will now be filled at the start of the next regular meeting on July 10. The five candidates who have applied for the appointment will all receive packets on July 6, so the lucky winner can get right down to business – if the lucky winner happens to be among the five who have applied. The Assembly – as noted above – can appoint any qualified replacement.

Reached for comment, municipal administrator Jim Dinley says the scheduling issue was a simple misinterpretation. After he heard from Poulson, he consulted with municipal attorney Theresa Hillhouse – who’s been on sick leave – and learned that the timeline for replacing Blake wasn’t quite right.

Dinley says there was “no harm, no foul.” Poulson agrees. He was not out to make anyone look bad.

“I don’t believe in Gotcha Journalism, or such things as that. But I thought that this is something that should not pass unnoticed.”

And finally, for anyone unclear on why Sitka’s local newspaper editor should have flashes of insight into the municipal charter, there is this fact: He helped write it. Poulson served on the elected charter commission that was formed in the 1970s to unify Sitka’s two governments – city and borough.

Poulson has a reputation for civic-mindedness, but this early duty was more practical. He and his wife Sandy published the Sentinel with few staff in those days. Thad was the only reporter, with two local governments to cover.

“Which meant for me, a newspaper reporter, one government meeting each week. And it seemed as if sometimes I was the only bearer of tidings from one to the other.”

Sitka became a unified home-rule municipality in 1971.