Library Funding Yet Again By Agnes Moran - Every Borough resident, with the exception of the folks in Saxman, pays to support library operations. (If you rent instead of own, your landlord is paying taxes that support the library on your behalf and most likely recouping the cost through your rent payment.) Borough residents residing outside of the city boundaries of Saxman and Ketchikan pay an additional $422,570 or roughly $82 per person for operational support for the library. - More...
Friday PM - October 18, 2013

Re: Bears and Garbage By Bob Pelkey Jr. - Our garbage receptacle (City of Ketchikan provided green trash container) has only been hit twice this year so far in late May. Others in our immediate area are tipped and dumped on average every night or two with-in our Woodland Ave./Deermount St. neighborhood. Here are some simple suggestions to discourage the bears consistent return to the same receptacle time after time. - More...
Friday PM - October 18, 2013

Remember the people that make things work By Dragon London - There are two people in this town that I feel never get acknowledged for what they do... and yet they are so the hub of what really makes our city work... Katy Suiter and Kim Stanker, our Ketchikan City Clerk and Assistant Clerk. - More...
Friday PM - October 18, 2013

RE: Shutdown was orchestrated... By Geoff Offermann - That was pretty funny. Was it a serious letter, do you think? I mean really. Talk about overthinking something. "Designed, specified, requisitioned, bidded, awarded, ordered, manufactured, AND delivered." - More...
Friday PM - October 18, 2013

Alaska Victimization Survey By Diane Gubatayao - October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and on the evening of Tuesday, October 15th, a particularly significant event is occurring here in Ketchikan.   Dr. Andre Rosay of the University of Alaska, Anchorage Justice Center along with Lauree Morton, Executive Director of the State of Alaska Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, will be in Ketchikan to release new data collected this summer here in Ketchikan. - More...
Monday PM - October 14, 2013

Invitation to sing By Rob Holston - Please consider singing with us this year in the Clover Pass Community Church "Singing Christmas Tree." We are typically a group of about 40 Christian singers. We sing basic 4-part harmony and are looking for soprano, alto, tenor an bass singers. Don't worry, all people fit into one of these categories, more or less :) - More...
Monday PM - October 14, 2013

Sealaska President's Retirement By Dominic Salvato - It's not comforting to some Sealaska shareholders in the comments of Sealaska's President and CEO Chris McNeil's willingness to help find a new CEO upon his retirement, as reported here at Sitnews. - More...
Monday PM - October 14, 2013

Shutdown was orchestrated and planned well in advance By A. M. Johnson - The following letter submitted to Senator Murkowski regarding the preparedness of the Obama administration in notifying the public of specific closings of parks and public monuments. - More...
Monday PM - October 14, 2013

Bears eating garbage - By Bryce Mattson - Bears can be nuisances in Ketchikan. We all know about the bear cub that wrecked the produce in Tatsuda's. While bears are cute from a distance, someone has to pick up the mess they make. It is our responsibility as citizens to pick up the mess they make and secure our garbage cans. As citizens in a bear populated area we need to maintain and secure our trash and pick it up after bears. - More...
Monday PM - October 14, 2013

Government Tea Party Time By Norbert Chaudhary - I've got to say that I'm damn proud of the Republican Party. They've done this country a great service battling Obama at every turn and on every issue for the last five years. By defending tax breaks for the rich, reminding us that Corporations are people too and vigorously defending the rights of the mentally ill to own assault rifles, they know what priorities are important to the American people! - More...
Friday PM - October 11, 2013

How much longer will Lt. Governor Treadwell abuse his position? By Andrée McLeod - When will Alaska be rid of its seriously conflicted Lt. Governor? How much longer will Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell abuse his position and continue to pocket his $115,000 salary while he travels nonstop to campaign fundraisers Outside and neglects his duties. - More...
Friday PM - October 11, 2013

What do we deserve? By Duane Hill - I'd say the Obama supporters are getting what they deserve. If you poke around the net, and I recommend Drudgereport, legalinsurrection, and breitbart.com/big-government, you will discover that this fedgov "shutdown" leaves 87% of the fedgov working. Various federal agencies are under orders to do whatever they can to make life miserable for the public and blame the Republicans for it. Ketchikan readers might recall that Ward Lake was shut down in spite of the minimal expense involved with keeping it open, in fact, it cost more man hours to keep it shut down than to keep it open. This is true of many National Parks across the US. - More...
Friday PM - October 11, 2013

Road Terror, Motorcycles, SUVs and the Second Amendment By Glenn Mollette - Everyone who has watched the news has seen the SUV being attacked by a gang of motorcyclists in Manhattan. We watched a husband, wife and baby surrounded by terror whose lives were seemingly going to end right before our eyes. - More...
Friday PM - October 11, 2013

So I don't know? By Mark Curran - I know what Mr Shipp thinks and believes, because, until I read the fine print, I was fooled too. Mr Shipp insists, endlessly, that Fairtax simple REPLACES -- he even uses caps -- other taxes. No increase, no problem. Just a very simple tax you pay at time of purchase, I know the great sounding speil. - More...
Friday PM - October 11, 2013

Gold Discovery By David Boone- Representatives must sift through the ideas of hundreds of thousands of constituents. Each Senator represents literally millions. At least that's the way that it is supposed to work. To my mind it's like panning for gold, moving tons of dross to discover a few tiny flakes. - More...
Friday PM - October 11, 2013

FairTax Poison By Stephen C. Eldridge - This is in response to 2 Letters published by FairTax (“FT”) marketers Fred Walker & Glen Terrell, who are part of a national FT campaign of writing Letters to the Editor, like this one, in an effort to “sell” us the FT poison. - More...
Friday PM - October 11, 2013

BC mine proposal on Unuk headwaters By Victoria McDonald - Since 2008, Seabridge Inc of Toronto, Canada has been compiling studies and engineering plans, into a 42 volume, 3,100 page document concerning the KSM mining proposal on the headwaters of the Unuk River. Seabridge was in Juneau in late August to talk to State and federal officials and met with a few tribal officials to give an hour and a half power point presentation. Water quality issues that will result from this massive project were described as one-of-a-kind technology that will be used to treat huge amounts of storm water, ground water and millions of gallons of water expected from three huge pits, all expected to produce acid mine drainage. The EA describes the seismic threat as moderate, but did not address how a seismic event could affect the drainage tunnel s power supply or the power plant necessary to protect downstream water quality. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

Don Young Asked to Sign Clean Continuing Resolution By Matt Moore - The Federal Government dominates the news because no budget exists.  No short term budget measure or clean continuing resolution has been put on the floor.  Our Congressman could end the shutdown if he and others got to work and ended the shutdown.  Don Young’s office says he will sign, but his Facebook page says otherwise. Don Young’s office has made no public comment as to whether he will sign a Clean Continuing Resolution. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

We deserve better than the shutdown By Thomas Schultz - We deserve better than the government shutdown we are currently enjoying.  Ted Cruz has every right not to support the Affordable Care Act but he and a minority group of Tea Partiers are way out of line when they shut down the government over a law they don’t like; a law by the way, that passed both houses of congress, was signed by the President, upheld by the Supreme Court and apparently approved by the voters who gave the president who pushed it through a second term.  The only reason they are shutting down the government is that they don’t have the votes to play by the rules.  Apparently they thought they could derail the Affordable Care Act, but early signups proceed, shutdown not-with-standing. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

The Humpty Dumpty Government Shutdown By J. Leo Baldwin - All the president's horses and all the president's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. -- What need have we of bi-partisan systems if this is what it produces? Let's look at party motives: fear and greed or love, caring and compassion? - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

Nonessential -Yep! By A.M. Johnson - You can not improve on this newspaper headline: "Across the country the first signs of a shutdown began to appear, with National Park Service property being shuttered and hundreds of thousands of nonessential federal employees staying home." - More..
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

Why is library closed on Sunday? By Mimi Eddy - I am wondering why the Ketchikan library is closed on Sundays. It would seem to me that school aged kids would be using it to do research and the weekends would be the perfect time for them to do so. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

Protect and serve By Duane Hill - To specifically address who the police "protect and serve", the answer is "no individual". Their duty is to the community as a whole, as they interpret their instructions. Get online and search; you will find that the courts have ruled, repeatedly, that police are not required to assist any individual. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

RE: 9-11 By Marshall Massengale - Thank you Arick for asking about 9/11. It is indeed a pleasure to read your comments and to answer your questions. -- In 2001, I was fifty years old. Harry S. Truman was President of the United States the year I was born. On 9/11/2001, I was working a temporary job--between stints of regular employment but glad to be working just the same. Being on the east coast of the US in the same time zone as New York and Washington, I arrived at work in time to hear the news as it happened. Sensing how America would react to the unbelievable events that were unfolding before our very eyes and ears, our management sent everyone home for the day. I was at work when I heard the first news reports and when the second plane hit the tower. I reached home in time to turn on the television and watch live as the first tower fell . . . and then the second. Over the next several days, as more news and pictures came in, the truth began to sink in. We, as a nation, were at war. The horror of it all was incomprehensible. There were the images of people in sheer desperation plunging from the sides of the buildings, the sound bites of bodies hitting the side walks, endless replays of video of the planes plunging into the sides of the twin towers, glass and debris showering down. You couldn't help wondering what you would have done in the very same situation that people at the scene found themselves in that day. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

Replace The IRS With A National Sales Tax By Glen E Terrell - Every American citizen; male, female and transgender; religious and not; gay and straight; democrat, republican, libertarian and independent; every skin color; should be telephoning, emailing, snail-mailing and sitting in the office of their congressional representatives and senators' offices demanding they support the FairTax. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

Consumption tax By David Shipp - With regard to Mark Curran and his opinion of the FAirTax: Let's keep this simple for Mark Curran's sake. Mark does not seem to understand that the FairTax, H.R.25 is a replacement for the income tax. As such, Federal , State, City, and any other employer, are already paying tax. They pay the required tax for the privilege of having employees. the matching of social security, FICA, the cost of keeping track of all the wages they pay, sometimes needing an entire wing of employees just to accomplish this, and the tax they pay called corporate taxes. All of these taxes and a few others are eliminated by the FairTax. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013

FairTax: HR 25 By Fred Walker - I have to disagree with the fine print statement of MR. Currans' letter. There is no fine print in HR:25. The sections you seem to be referring too mostly fall under sections 701 704 around page 89 of HR:25. You are somewhat correct in your statements about Governments being subject to taxation under HR:25. However this is a good thing! Talk to anyone who has to compete in business with a Government that is exempt from the taxes imposed on private business and you will understand. This is a very unfair advantage and has lead to much of the hi-cost of Government. - More...
Monday PM - October 07, 2013