KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska

Jay Barrett/KMXT Come October, you’ll be paying one penny on the dollar more for purchases in the city of Kodiak, but the cap on taxes will not change. There was no public comment and very little council debate at last night’s Kodiak City Council meeting before the vote on the sales tax increase. After rejecting one amendment and accepting another, …

A trawler sails out of Kodiak harbor past the grounded U.S. Army Reserve landing craft Monterrey Sunday, as the civilian landing craft Cape Douglas stands by with more oil spill containment boom. Jay Barrett/KMXT photo Jay Barrett/KMXT The U.S. Army Reserve landing craft Monterrey, which has spent all week aground in Kodiak after striking a rock and taking on water, …

Held up by Sealife aquarist Jemma Battric, Claude weighs a mighty 15lbs and measures 15 inches wide – when he is fully grown he will weigh a whopping 30lbs and gain an extra three inches.Daily Mail photo Coming up this week, the trawlers in the Gulf will see a 15 percent reduction in allowable halibut bycatch; to err is human, …

Jay Barrett/KMXT With a sales tax hike on the Kodiak City Council agenda tonight, there could very well be a large number of people exercising several elements of the First Amendment, such as the rights to peaceably assemble, to free speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. There will be a public hearing before the council …

Jay Barrett/KMXT Alaska’s new legislative districts will stay in place for this year’s elections unless a new legal challenge succeeds or the U.S Justice Department doesn’t agree. Kodiak Senator Gary Stevens says it appears there are a number of instances with two good candidates – sometimes both incumbents – being forced to run against each other.

Maggie Wall/KMXT Coast Guard aircrews and a Good Samaritan fishing vessel crew responded to a 70-foot landing craft taking on water more than 100 miles south of Cordova early Wednesday morning. A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew, forward deployed to Cordova from Kodiak, and an Air Station Kodiak HC-130 Hercules crew arrived on-scene at 6:30 a.m. The helicopter lowered …

Associated Press via KYUK Some residents in Bethel, may have thought their pleas of, "Yo quiero, Taco Bell!" had finally been heard. Yellow flyers announcing the opening of the fast food restaurant started showing up in this southwest Alaska community of 6,200 people last week, complete with instructions of how to apply for a job. KYUK reports that it turned …

Jay Barrett/KMXT Kodiak Senator Gary Stevens was in Dillingham last week for a hearing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on its Draft Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment concerning the potential effects of large scale mining in Bristol Bay. He said the testimony there was different than that heard in Anchorage the day before. The public comment period on the EPA’s …