Southcentral
RSSSouthcentral region news
Cities & Areas
Seward Highway and Tudor Road interchange design study goes to Anchorage hearing Nov. 2
The state wants to rebuild the Seward Highway interchange at Tudor Road. It goes to a public hearing Nov. 2, with most of the funding still unbuilt.

Port of Alaska must ship contaminated soil out of state after storm drain dig
Crews at the Port of Alaska hit soil dirtier than testing predicted. It's now headed out of state, on a project with a grant deadline attached.

Visitors keep walking into Seward's industrial port
Cruise passengers in Seward keep wandering into the industrial port instead of onto the sidewalk. The city is paying $79,920 to sort out the signs.

A free crisis intervention course in Wasilla has 30 seats next month
Thirty free seats in a crisis intervention course in Wasilla next month, and Mat-Su officers and first responders get first crack at all of them.

Eshamy District salmon season closes Friday night
Eshamy closes Friday night on a season in which nobody reported catching anything for two weeks, under a fishing cap set by an allocation formula.

Copper River coho periods stretch to 36 hours next week
Copper River gillnetters get 36-hour openings Monday and Thursday, up from 24-hour periods, after a delta survey counted 40,780 coho above the expected range, following a difficult summer.

Kenai Assembly asks state to ban cloud seeding, on consent agenda
A company seeded clouds over the Kenai Peninsula and the borough learned about it from a press release. Nobody has the authority to require otherwise.

Anchorage Assembly shelves mayor's homebuyer tax break 11-1
Anchorage Assembly indefinitely postponed a 10-year property-tax exemption for first-time buyers of newly built homes on an 11-1 vote, with members questioning the proposal's target and who would benefit.

Anchorage housing overlay hearing carries to Oct. 6 after divided testimony
Anchorage heard nearly 90 minutes of divided housing testimony, then ran out of time. The 30,000-parcel overlay returns Oct. 6

A hydro plant sat on state land five years after its easement expired
A hydro plant east of Palmer has sat on state land for five years with no authorization to be there. The state now proposes to lease it the ground.

An Anchorage firm will run Job Corps in the South Bronx and Brooklyn
The Labor Department tried to shut down Job Corps last year and lost in court. Now it's signing new contracts, and an Anchorage firm got two in New York City.

A jury convicted a former employee in a Trapper Creek killing
A Palmer jury convicted a former restaurant employee of first-degree murder in the 2023 killing of a 21-year-old server at a Trapper Creek lodge.

Cordova council votes 4-0 to negotiate hillside lot sale instead of taking bids
Cordova City Council voted 4-0 to negotiate directly with one interested buyer for a hillside lot instead of seeking sealed bids, overriding the Planning Commission's recommendation

Cordova's code says give the dog back if the owner is standing there
Cordova's code tells an officer to hand the dog back if the owner is standing right there. The council thinks that may be a liability problem.

Chugiak fire chief to ask voters this spring for first mill rate increase since 2005
Chugiak's fire calls are up 27 percent, and the chief says it is not fires driving it. It is people without a doctor calling an ambulance instead.

A fishing advocate warns Kenai over an undersea Cook Inlet data center
A fishing advocate told the Kenai council the federal application for an undersea data center off Nikiski has no thermal modeling, in endangered beluga habitat.

State will bring free heavy equipment training to Cordova crews
Cordova's public works crews will train on heavy equipment at no cost through state-run courses held in town, filling a gap left by last year's travel budget cuts.

Cordova's winter ferry hope hinges on a Whittier dock question
Cordova Mayor Kristin Smith plans to meet with Alaska's transportation commissioner Tuesday to discuss winter ferry service and road safety issues.

After the tow trucks left, one family could reach their own land
Fifty vehicles came off a half-mile of road in Big Lake. One family could finally drive to their own property. It took $42,000 and eleven dumpsters.

Mat-Su picks a pricier road route over its advisors and landowners
Mat-Su picked a $21–31 million road route over a $9–10 million one, against every advisory body and landowners who won't sell, on a vote that first failed.

Anchorage police launch phased pre-arrest deflection pilot Sept. 23
Anchorage's deflection pilot begins Sept. 23. Police make the referral, True North handles navigation and community providers deliver treatment.

Low water slows Seward's youth coho fishery, open through Oct. 5
Kids have four more weeks to catch a silver at Seward Lagoon, where low water has been holding the fish outside waiting on enough rain to get in.

Fish and Game suspends ice house registration in the Copper Basin
Ice anglers in the Copper Basin won't have to register their fishing shelters this winter, after the state found there's no way to do it online.

Prince William Sound noncommercial shrimp fishery will not reopen in 2026
Prince William Sound shrimpers got about five weeks this year and the commercial fleet got none. The state hasn't published a reason for the closure.

Childcare center at downtown Anchorage church set to open Oct. 1 with municipal funding
Alaska's first worker-run childcare center opens in downtown Anchorage next month, with room for 82 kids and $200,000 in marijuana tax money behind it.

Anchorage delays surveillance rules as sponsors and mayor remain divided
Anchorage delayed its surveillance ordinance to Oct. 20. The crime center keeps operating under police policy while lawmakers reconcile rival rules.

Anchorage confirms drone deployment was omitted and checks for others
APD's manual drone log lost at least one deployment. Anchorage is checking for more omissions and owes the Assembly a revised report Oct. 6.

Three students share the Anchorage Assembly's youth representative seat
Anchorage Assembly Chair Anna Brawley appointed three high school students to share the youth representative seat through April 2027, a nonbinding advisory role open to residents ages 16 to 19.

Kodiak Island Borough warns of wire transfer scam targeting zoning applicants
Scammers are posing as Kodiak zoning officials and demanding wire transfers. Nobody in history has ever been this eager to collect a permit fee.

House committee advances bill treating hatchery fish as wild under Endangered Species Act
House committee voted to require federal agencies to consider hatchery fish alongside wild ones in Endangered Species Act consultations, a shift with major economic implications for Alaska's salmon industry.

The Senate questions Alaska's nominee for a long-empty federal judgeship
The Senate questioned Anchorage magistrate judge Kyle Reardon for Alaska's federal trial court, a seat empty since 2022.

Two Anchorage men patented a plier jaw built to stop slipping
Two Anchorage men just patented a plier jaw with V-shaped teeth meant to stop tools slipping off rounded hardware. No company, no product, just the patent.

Soldotna council candidate Conner refiles disclosure on the last day to file
Soldotna council candidate Nicholas Conner refiled his financial disclosure Tuesday, the last day of the filing period, after listing the wrong municipality on his original form.

Cook Inlet Tribal Council runs free career classes toward certification
Cook Inlet Tribal Council runs free 90-minute career classes at its Anchorage campus, each counting toward its ARCTIC Workforce Certification, with Developing a Leadership Mindset repeating at noon Sept. 22 and Sept. 29.

Anchorage School Board spends $3 million on classrooms, deepening next year's deficit
Anchorage's school board voted to spend the $3 million on students this year. Next year's hole grew to $9 million and 20 fewer teaching jobs survive.

Mat-Su kept the Long Trail sign, and the $300,000 that came with it
Mat-Su took $300,000 and kept the trail sign some members worried would invite federal control. The borough's own attorney said it would not.

Housing on the Tozier Tract would likely close off a planned road
Opening a Tudor Road parcel to housing would probably kill a road connection the city has planned for years. The state planner said so and did not object.

Anchorage's own campground isn't allowed under its park zoning
Anchorage's 84-site Centennial campground isn't permitted under the city's own park zoning. A proposed fix would legalize what's already there.

A Big Lake man was killed in Houston. A 72-year-old faces murder charges.
A 43-year-old Big Lake man was shot and killed in Houston on Monday night. A 72-year-old Houston man was arrested on murder and assault charges.

Anchorage teachers say losing building subs cost them prep time and safety
Anchorage teachers told the school board what losing building subs cost them. The board restored $3.7 million — without promising the subs come back.
