The Aleutians East Borough Assembly is holding a regular meeting on Thursday, September 12th, 2024 at 2pm.
KSDP will air the meeting live & archive the audio here:
https://apradio.org/mp3/2024-09-12-aeb.mp3
September 12, 2024 Regular Assembly Meeting AGENDA:
https://www.aleutianseast.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/september-12-2024-ASSEMBLY_MTG_AGENDA.pdf
2024 NOTICE OF ELECTION-City of Sand Point
2024 City of Sand Point Sample Ballot
NOTICE OF ELECTION
THE CITY OF SAND POINT 2024 GENERAL ELECTION WILL BE HELD
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2024
8:00 AM TO 8:00 PM
Municipal Building, Room 11
(City Council Chambers)
For the purpose of electing the following:
CITY COUNCIL SEAT E………………Three (3) Year Term
CITY COUNCIL SEAT F………………Three (3) Year Term
▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR ABSENTEE VOTING:
Absentee Voting In-Person at the City Clerk’s Office will be open in September 16, 2024 through
September 30, 2024 at 12:00 pm.
Written Absentee Voting By-Mail Ballot Requests will be accepted on September 11, 2024
through September 27, 2024. All By-Mail Ballots must be received by October 4, 2024.
To obtain an application for absentee voting or if you have any other questions, contact the City
Clerk using the information below.
City Clerk
P.O. Box 249
Sand Point, AK 99661
E-mail: cityclerk@sandpointak.org Phone: (907)383-2696 Fax: (907)383-2698
Aleutians East Borough School District
Regular Meeting of the School Board
Tuesday, August 27, 2024, at 6:30 PM
Meeting will be held via Zoom
KSDP will air the meeting live & archive the audio here:
https://apradio.org/mp3/2024-08-27-aebsd.mp3
Agenda+Packet (PDF):
https://www.aebsd.org/page/board-packets
Sand Point City Council will hold a meeting on Tuesday, August 13th, 2024 at 7PM.
KSDP will air the meeting live & archive the audio here:
https://apradio.org/mp3/2024-08-13-sdp.mp3
Download the packet below (PDF):
https://www.sandpointak.com/agendas–packets.html
or
https://www.sandpointak.com/uploads/2/7/6/7/27677223/august_13_2024_city_council_packet-final.pdf
Story updated at 6:53 pm, 8/6/2024:
Ravn Alaska, one of only two commercial airlines offering regular passenger service from Anchorage to the Aleutian Islands, says it’s suspending scheduled service to Unalaska, Cold Bay and Sand Point, effective Aug. 16.
The company announced the decision in an email to customers. A statement posted to the company’s website Tuesday afternoon said the airline was looking to focus on other Alaska destinations.
Ravn is still offering flights from Anchorage to Homer, Valdez, St. Paul Island and Unalakleet.
“This change comes as part of a broader initiative to optimize operations and ensure long-term sustainability and growth for the airline. By reallocating resources and capacity, Ravn Alaska/New Pacific Airlines aims to enhance service reliability and customer satisfaction across its core network,” the statement said.
Ravn representatives declined interview requests.
“This was not an easy decision, but it is a necessary step in our long-term strategy to strengthen the overall success of our airline and this shift allows us to concentrate on routes where we can make the most significant impact,” the company said.
The company’s frequently asked questions page on its website says the airline will issue refunds to ticket holders, which will be processed by the end of the month.
“Refunds will be processed within 14 business days from the suspension date [Aug. 16],” the page says. “The exact time frame may vary depending on your bank or payment method.”
Recent turmoil has plagued the company of late: Ravn laid off roughly a third of its employees earlier this year, then announced in June it had replaced its CEO.
New Pacific Airlines, Ravn’s sister brand, announced in April that it would halt scheduled service to focus on chartering its Boeing 757.
Air travel to the Aleutians has been mired in turmoil since a fatal accident in 2019 led to the bankruptcy of the region’s previous carrier RavnAir. The new Ravn Alaska began operating in the region in 2020 after several months without a commercial airline serving the Aleutians.
Ravn’s decision to pare back its routes leaves Aleutian Airways as the only airline with scheduled passenger flights from Anchorage to Unalaska, Sand Point and Cold Bay.
from:
https://www.elections.alaska.gov/
Primary Absentee Voting Dates ___ This informs citizens of upcoming deadlines to register and to send in ballots.
English:
Tagalog:
Voters must apply by 8/10 if voting by mail, and they can apply to use electronic and absentee voting 8/5 through 8/19.
Primary Notice of Election Day ___ This informs citizens of the August 20th date and what the voter will need at the election site, as well as what the Primary covers.
English:
Tagalog:
Primary Language Assistance ____ This informs citizens that Language Assistance is available to better comprehend the ballot information and where it can be obtained.
English:
Tagalog:
The Aleutians East Borough Assembly is holding a regular meeting on Thursday, August 8th, 2024 at 2pm.
KSDP will air the meeting live & archive the audio here:
https://apradio.org/mp3/2024-08-08-aeb.mp3
AGENDA:
https://www.aleutianseast.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/August-8-2024-ASSEMBLY_MTG_AGENDA.pdf
BDO Audit Discussion:
https://www.aleutianseast.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Aleutians-East-Borough-2024-Audit-Planning-Doc.pdf
Meg Duff / KDLG
The Peter Pan processing plant in Dillingham, Alaska. (Meg Duff/KDLG)
This spring, Peter Pan Seafoods was put into a receivership by a Washington state court after the company became unable to pay its bills. Silver Bay Seafoods stepped in to operate Peter Pan’s plants in Dillingham and in Port Moller. It also put in a bid for some of Peter Pan’s assets. But then, one of Peter Pan’s owners came back with a counter offer—and an accusation: that the bidding process wasn’t fair. He recently scored a victory in that battle.
Reporter Kirsten Dobroth has been covering Peter Pan for Undercurrent News. She spoke with KDLG’s Meg Duff about this summer’s developments.
Meg Duff: Peter Pan Seafoods was a fixture in Bristol Bay for decades, but last year, the company ran out of money and could no longer pay its debts. It didn’t go bankrupt, exactly; instead, it was put into receivership. Can you explain what happened?
Kirsten Dobroth: Right. So, bankruptcy is typically a voluntary legal process where a company in financial trouble would seek out protection from collections. In this case, Wells Fargo, which is Peter Pan’s major lender, petitioned a court in King County, Washington back in April to place the company in a receivership, which is a way for creditors to recover debt. Another difference is that a receivership is involuntary and allows a court to appoint a neutral party to sell off assets and pay back that debt.
Duff: Okay got it, and that request from Wells Fargo was granted by the court back in April.
Dobroth: Yeah, exactly. Wells Fargo said in its request that Peter Pan had missed payroll and owed tens of millions of dollars, and the court appointed a fiduciary group based in California to be the receiver.
Duff: Peter Pan’s King Cove processing facility is now closed, and Silver Bay is running its Dillingham facility and its Port Moller facility. But Silver Bay doesn’t actually own those facilities. Not yet anyway. What’s going on there?
Dobroth: Well, exactly that so far. Before this all happened, Silver Bay said that its plans for this summer in Dillingham and Port Moller were part of its long term restructuring plan. Since then, Silver Bay has reiterated that it intends to work with Peter Pan’s court appointed receiver on any long term plans for the facilities. But there hasn’t been a lot of news, at least as far as acquisitions from Peter Pan, outside of that.
Duff: This summer, while folks in Bristol Bay have been busy fishing, Silver Bay put in a bid. Then Peter Pan owner Rodger May swooped in to counter bid. Tell us the story of that bidding war.
Dobroth: I think it’s important to get out in front and say anything we know about these bids are coming from claims made by Peter Pan’s co-owner Rodger May in court documents. So there’s not really a paper trail to look at and say this person offered this much for this processing plant. That being said, Rodger May has argued – again, in court filings – that the process hasn’t fairly estimated the worth of some of Peter Pan’s assets. He says in one instance he learned of a bid from Silver Bay for some of those assets and put in his own offer, which wasn’t accepted. I guess one of the more concrete things I can say is that in the last week, Rodger May asked the court to approve his request to purchase eight Peter Pan assets, including the Port Moller processing facility and the fuel business in King Cove.
Duff: Oh interesting! So May is still trying to get some of Peter Pan’s assets back, but it’s not really clear if he is trying to get everything back.
Dobroth: Right.
Duff: In addition to claiming that Silver Bay had an unfair advantage, May also claimed that Peter Pan owed him money. What did the court say about those claims?
Dobroth: Yeah, again in court filings, Rodger May has argued that he and his wife are also Peter Pan creditors and owed about $40 million. He has also claimed that Silver Bay hired away Peter Pan executives as a way to buy up some of the company’s assets, which Silver Bay very quickly said was not true. The court won’t necessarily rule on all these individual things. But it did amend the receivership order recently upon his request to allow for more time and transparency for the sale of the company’s assets, which he had argued would benefit junior creditors – so people who are owed money other than Wells Fargo.
Duff: So now May can bid on any of Peter Pan’s assets. And so can anyone else. Do we know yet who will wind up running these facilities after the season ends, or is it still anyone’s guess?
Dobroth: Yeah, there’s been some rumors as far as the facilities that are up for sale, but nothing’s been announced. There’s also assets that aren’t real tangible property, like fisheries quota, so it’s hard to say who will end up with what when all is said and done.
Duff: Thanks Kirsten!
Andy Lusk/KUCB │ Theo Greenly/KSDP
A man from King Cove is now charged with murder after his parents died earlier this year in Anchorage following a house fire.
Joshua Gould is facing more than a half-dozen charges including two counts of first-degree murder and a count of arson in the deaths of James and Kathryn Gould.
Rumors of Joshua Gould’s detainment have circulated widely on social media in recent months, but charges were not formally filed until Wednesday.
Gould’s parents were longtime residents of King Cove, an Aleutian fishing community, and lived part-time in Anchorage. Their Anchorage home was burned down in February and their death certificates say they died of smoke inhalation and thermal burns.
Gould has a history of violent offenses, and was put on probation for domestic assault in April.
He’s scheduled to appear in court Friday on the new charges.
Peter Pan’s grounds are normally bustling with workers, but the boardwalks and bunkhouses are now empty.
Alaska’s fishing industry has faced major challenges this past year. Low fish prices and high overhead costs have led some of the industry’s biggest players to sell or shutter their processing plants, sending shock waves through the coastal communities who rely on those canneries.
Perhaps no other community has been harder hit than the small city of King Cove, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, 600 miles from Anchorage, the closest major city.
Its only seafood processor closed almost overnight this spring, and the city is reeling, not only from the loss of 75% of its revenue, but from the larger questions of the city’s survival.
King Cove didn’t even exist until 1911 when a seafood company, Pacific American Fisheries, opened a salmon cannery, and Unangax̂ folks moved in from surrounding villages to work there.
That fish processing plant grew to become one of Alaska’s largest. Peter Pan Seafood Co. employs about 700 seasonal workers at its King Cove facility during a typical summer. That means housing 700 people in company bunkhouses, and feeding those people daily.
The freezers and pantries were packed when the cannery, burdened by debt, closed, just before salmon season, so the company gave the food away to the community.
Ernie Newman, 65, just retired from a lifelong fishing career. Like most folks in town, he’s a company man.
“I fished for Peter Pan all my life, tendered for ‘em,” Newman said.
He was one of about 100 residents who attended the pop-up pantry at King Cove’s old school, filling his shopping cart with canned pineapple and pancake mix.
Community members attended a pop-up pantry on June 14, picking up food left behind by the seafood company’s last-minute closure.
“Peter Pan finally doin’ us a favor,” Newman said. “Oh, dandy.”
City Clerk Cora Rocili helped organize the food drive. Another lifelong resident, her parents met at the cannery, and she grew up living in company housing and hanging around the fish plant with the other workers’ kids.
“They called us the Peter Pan Brats,” Rocili said.
Just about every business in town revolves around fishing. Rocili moonlights as a bartender at MC’s Bar, near the harbor. But she says the bar is empty these days.
Everybody’s affected by what’s going on with Peter Pan. It’s sad to see. It’s definitely something I never expected to see,” she said.
Local business-owner Lillian Sager runs a food truck, and she said her business has been cut in half, forcing her and her husband to make a tough decision.
“We’re moving,” Sager said. “This is our home. This is where you know, our ancestors lived and we want to stay here, but we’re moving to Washington [State].”
Many of the folks in town are direct descendants of the Unangax̂ and European families who founded the town. That includes Mayor Warren Wilson, a third-generation King Cove fisherman who also runs a boat welding service. He said one of his welders has also moved away to find work, a trend he finds troubling.
Mayor Warren Wilson is a third-generation King Cove fisherman. He hopes the city can attract another seafood company to buy the Peter Pan facility.
“Once you start losing your population, you lose your school, and once you start losing your school, you lose children. Once you start losing children, you lose smiley faces, and then you don’t hear the laughter anymore. That’s when your community is going to die,” he said.
Wilson hopes the city can convince another seafood company to buy the Peter Pan facility. An Alaska-based company took over some of Peter Pan’s other facilities earlier this year, but didn’t purchase the King Cove plant. The town is hoping that someone comes along soon. Nobody made an offer in time for the summer salmon season, so folks are hoping it happens in time for fall.
The Aleutians East Borough Assembly is holding a special meeting on Wednesday, July 17th, 2024 at 1:00 PM.
KSDP will air the meeting live & archive the audio here:
https://apradio.org/mp3/2024-07-17-aeb.mp3
AGENDA+PACKET:
https://www.aleutianseast.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/July-17-2024-ASSEMBLY_MTG_AGENDA.pdf
https://www.aleutianseast.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/July-17-2024-Special-Assembly-Meeting.pdf
Aleutians East Borough School District
Special Meeting of the School Board
Wed., July 10th, 2024 at 12:00PM
Meeting will be held via Zoom
KSDP will air the meeting live & archive the audio here:
https://apradio.org/mp3/2024-07-10-aebsd.mp3
Agenda+Packet (PDF):
https://www.aebsd.org/page/board-packets
Updated at 11:49 p.m. on July 5, 2024.
The cause of a fire at Eagles View Elementary School on July 4 remains unknown but does not appear suspicious, according to a Thursday night statement from the City of Unalaska.
“The cause of the fire is currently under investigation, but does not appear to be suspicious in nature,” the statement said.
The Unalaska Fire Department responded to an automatic fire alarm at the school at approximately 11:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Firefighters did not observe visible signs of fire from outside, but discovered smoke and elevated carbon monoxide levels upon entering the building.
A power outage originally complicated the response, but firefighters still managed to pinpoint the fire’s location.
“Fire crews successfully located and extinguished the fire, which originated in an air conditioning unit,” officials wrote in the statement.
The fire was extinguished and the building turned over to UCSD Superintendent Kim Hanisch.
Updated at 8:55 p.m. on July 4, 2024.
The City of Unalaska released a statement Thursday evening saying the cause of last night’s elementary school fire did “not appear to be suspicious in nature.”
The Unalaska Fire Department responded to an automatic fire alarm at Eagle’s View Elementary School around 11:45 Wednesday night.
Original story published July 4, 2024 at 12:35 a.m.
Firefighters responded to a fire at Eagle’s View Elementary Wednesday night shortly before midnight.
As of 12:35 a.m. the fire was still active in the elementary school’s ceiling, with five firefighters inside the building, according to Unalaska Fire Chief Ben Knowles.
The fire’s cause is unknown at the time of reporting and there is no reason to believe anyone was inside the building, as the doors were locked.
