Petersburg’s borough assembly Monday voted to offer the top job at the borough’s assisted living and elderly housing facility to a former resident.
The assembly supported the recommendation of borough manager Steve Giesbrecht to hire Derrick Casey of Walla Walla, Washington as the next director of Mountain View Manor.
Casey graduated from Petersburg High School in 1993. Giesbrecht told the assembly Monday that Casey worked as an assistant manager for Walmart for the first part of his career before changing over to assisted living work. Giesbrecht said Casey is currently working at a facility for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
“He’s the director of food services for them but also works on the floor and kind of like Shelyn has had to do for years, you do a little bit of everything. So he came with sterling recommendations from his current boss and absolutely came alive when getting into that environment and asking Shelyn questions. He’d been working very closely with her. We included several members of the hospital staff in the interview team and they all liked him and recommended he be offered this position. I agree.”
The borough has been talking with the Petersburg Medical Center about the community hospital taking over the assisted living portion of Mountain View Manor. However no decisions have been made about that change. Casey would replace Shelyn Bell, who has headed up the manor since 2010 and worked at the facility since 2004. Giesbrecht thought Casey may be able to start work for the borough by the end of August.
In other decisions Monday the assembly voted to update its nominations for a state list of possible transportation projects for the area.
Giesbrecht described it as one of several state databases for potential funding. He proposed removing some projects that have already been completed or are not needed, along with some additions.
“I’m doing this earlier than we normally do.” the manager told the assembly. “Normally this is done towards the end of the year. There’s a lot of money floating around right now so I wanted this thing way up to date right now. I didn’t want to wait too much longer. And I will bring this back to the assembly for the priority side of this.”
Projects that were on that list include shuttle ferries and terminals to connect Petersburg and Kupreanof. Assembly member Jeigh Stanton Gregor, attending the meeting online, agreed with removing those.
“On the off chance we actually receive the money for one of those locally it’d be money that would be much more relevant for some other project,” Stanton Gregor said. “So that’s my two cents on what I’d like removed.”
Both state and federal planners have looked into constructing ferry terminals and running a shuttle ferry between the two islands, similar to the shuttle ferry used to access Ketchikan’s airport. It’s been part of unpopular regional plans in the past to link ferry routes with road connections. The assembly agreed to remove those from the list along with some others that have already been finished.
They also agreed to add others. Now on the list are a boat haul out and new harbor at Scow Bay, dock and ramp improvements at Papke’s Landing, along with upgrades at the Banana Point boat ramp on the southern end of Mitkof Island. Those fall under the category of transportation improvements the borough hopes to do. A much longer list of capital project needs for the borough also includes a new medical center and roof replacement for the upper grades at the school district. The assembly every year ranks projects to give direction to the borough manager.
