Kayla Desroches/KMXT The City of Kodiak’s Marijuana Advisory Committee held its first meeting last night and used the opportunity to talk about its role over the next six months. Councilman Randy Bishop and Councilwoman Laura Arboleda sit on the committee as city council representatives. As Bishop said at the beginning of yesterday’s meeting, the committee’s job is to give recommendations …

Two bears on Kodiak scout for salmon. Photo by Lisa Hupp/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Kayla Desroches/KMXT This past winter, bear specialists wrapped up the fourth and final year of a partnership between the University of Montana and the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge which aimed to track how bears respond to salmon runs in southwest Kodiak. Will Deacy, who just …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT GCI cell phone subscribers in Kodiak will see some improvements in their service. Local system manager, John Burnett, says GCI just unveiled its upgrade to 4G LTE, which it began roughly a year ago. He says it’s a software change that allows for higher speeds and it will have two major impacts. “The first part of that is …

Kayla Desroches /KMXT The U.S. Coast Guard medevac’d a man from a fishing vessel north of Cold Bay Thursday morning. According to a press release, the 21-year-old crewmember lost consciousness and the Coast Guard was notified of the medical emergency aboard the Seafreeze Alaska a little after 7:30 a.m. The vessel was located about 195 miles north of Cold Bay, …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT The Kodiak City Council debated the postponement of a five-year rate structure for harbor fees at its regular meeting last night. The rate structure would apply an across-the-board cost increase of 6 percent intended to build revenue needed for harbor facilities replacement and maintenance. That means 6 percent of the current rate rather than a compounded rate based …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT The Kodiak Fisheries Work Group got together for the first time since the North Pacific Fishery Management Council met in Kodiak earlier this month. Kodiak, in addition to being the hosting community, sent the council a letter of input on the developing trawl bycatch management program. At its meeting Wednesday morning, members of the work group shared their …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT The Kodiak City Council is approaching the deadline for its final fiscal year 2017 budget, and will continue putting the final touches on its fee schedule at its regular meeting tonight. That includes an amendment to harbor fees and a dockage and moorage fee rate increase of 18.5 percent for commercial fishing vessels. For example, for vessels up …

Kakangaq game pieces from the Karluk One site. Photo courtesy of Alutiiq Museum Kayla Desroches/KMXT An event at the Alutiiq Museum this weekend will give kids a chance to learn a game Kodiak children have played for hundreds of years. It’s called kakangaq. Amy Steffian, Alutiiq Museum chief curator, says they know the disc-throwing game is at least 600 years …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT The Kodiak City Council is in the process of gathering facts about a building code change the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly recently passed without the council’s knowledge. The assembly made the switch from the 2012 building code to the 1997 uniform building code in an attempt to relax engineering requirements for home owner / builders in the borough. …

Juvenile magpie. Phil McIver / Flickr Kayla Desroches/KMXT It’s summer in Kodiak, which means the flowers are abloom, the salmonberries are ripening, and there might be a magpie screeching outside your door. A magpie sounds the alarm every time I leave my house. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now. It yells at me on my …