Author: Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

A longtime resident and the city maintenance man of Port Alexander passed away last week (Friday 9/05/08), after an apparent heart attack. Fifty-One year old Richard Maciel, better known around town as “Hydro,” was pulled from the harbor in PA after falling off his boat. He had been complaining of chest pains for at least a couple of weeks, now his death has left a big hole in the town where he lived for over twenty years.

The Sitka assembly is split on whether the referendum process needs to be fixed. Twice in the last two years citizen initiatives have wound up in court when the municipal attorney found legal deficiencies. The two court cases have lent to the appearance that local government is unfavorable to citizen initiatives, and to accusations on the editorial pages that the assembly has instructed the attorney – who is their employee – to oppose them. Concerned over public perception and the amount of money and time spent on legal battles, assembly member Jack Ozment suggested tweaking the process to involve the assembly earlier, and to avoid potential conflict. Here are some of Ozment’s remarks last night (9-9-08), followed by responses from his fellow assembly members Reber Stein, Nancy Cavanaugh, Marko Dapcevich, Heidi Raffaele, and Cheryl Westover:

The Alaska small Business of the year award will go to a very small but very well known business in Pelican, a town of about 163 people. As KCAW’s Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock reports, the Bill Bivins small business of the year award from the state chamber of commerce has been awarded to Rose Miller, of Rosie’s Bar and Grill:

"Sustainable Sitka" is trying to get Sitkan's thinking about alternative ways to get around; get to work; get fossil fuel free.

With cooler weather right around the corner, homeowners in Sitka converting to electric heat may face a couple of problems. The first is that some neighborhood electrical services may not be able to bear significantly increased loads, which could result in burnt-out transformers and other costly repairs. The second problem will affect all Sitkans, regardless of how they heat their homes: there may not be enough inexpensive electricity to go around. KCAW’s Robert Woolsey spoke with Charlie Walls about what Sitkans should do to keep electric rates low until there’s more power to spare:

The state of Alaska is throwing in an additional $12-hundred dollars to each Permanent Fund dividend check this fall. The governor pushed for the one-time payout as a form of energy relief to offset the high cost of fuel. While many Alaskans will do just that with the money -- pay fuel bills – others will try to leverage this temporary relief into something more permanent. As part of CoastAlaska’s series on how people are adapting to high fuel prices, KCAW’s Robert Woolsey recently met with a couple of Sitka residents who have made large investments in lowering some of their energy costs:Click on "more" to hear other reports in our series.

Republican candidate John McCain’s announcement of Sarah Palin as his Vice-Presidential pick came as a surprise to just about everyone, including visitors to Sitka, many of whom hadn’t even heard the news until KCAW’s Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock hit the cruise ship dock to ask people from Outside what they thought of the nomination. Many of them had never heard of the Alaska Governor before.

Governor Sarah Palin’s selection as the GOP vice-presidential candidate came as a surprise to most Alaskans – none more so than John Stein, the former Wasilla mayor who encouraged Palin to run for the local council over a decade ago, and was later unseated by her. KCAW’s Robert Woolsey spoke with Stein about how the future governor and eventual vice-presidential candidate got her start in politics:

Sitka mayor Marko Dapcevich failed to win a single precinct Tuesday night (8-26-08) in his bid to serve as representative for District 2 in the Alaska state house. His opponent, political newcomer Lily Herwald, took every precinct in the district on the democratic ballot, and out-polled republican incumbent Peggy Wilson everywhere but Wrangell.

Sitka voters bucked statewide trends on two of the four ballot propositions, but otherwise were in lockstep with the rest of Alaskans on their preferences for other key races. Local democrats also favored Diane Benson as their candidate for the congressional seat currently held by Don Young.