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      Dry weather paired with an abandoned campfire set about six acres of land in Womens Bay ablaze on Saturday. David Conrad is the assistant fire chief for the Womens Bay Fire Department and said he received a report of smoke from a person driving by the Salonie Creek Bridge Saturday afternoon. 

    The fire was on the Northern side of the Salonie Creek Valley, right by the bridge. Conrad said an unattended campfire was found in the area, which spread onto the dry, dead grass surrounding it. He said the six acres that burned belongs to the borough, but the State Department of Forestry came to Kodiak on Sunday to investigate.   

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    The face of Borough Hill is changing. The new library is slated to open its doors this fall and on Monday the parking lot in front of the Kodiak High School was fenced off to allow for equipment storage in preparation for the renovation and construction project.
    Borough Manager Bud Cassidy said project is moving forward, but folks shouldn’t expect to see too many changes just yet.

    “There’s still a lot of the paperwork, documents to be signed, those kinds of things," he said. "But certainly the fencing off the area where materials will be stored is important. And that’s what you really see right now is all the fencing that’s been put up. But you won’t see a whole lot going on for some time.”
    Earlier this month the Assembly approved a $62 million construction budget for the project. The total project cost is $80.4 million, but as Kodiak Island Borough Assemblyman Aaron Griffin said, that’s not an accurate view of what the borough will actually be paying.
   “For a community our size that’s a huge amount of money," Griffin said. "But you have to remember that we’re getting a 70 percent reimbursement from the state on this."
    He said the borough isn’t even really paying the 30 percent of that bill that’s left. About $4 million in bond money from other projects was rolled into the high school cost and $7.5 million will come from legislative grants.
    When you take all of those into account, the actual cost of the high school renovation and construction project is $21 million, which will be paid for over the next two decades.
    That isn’t the only project on the borough’s agenda these days. Work has already started on the new Long Term Care Facility. That project comes with a price tag of about $21 million, but again, Griffin said that money won’t come directly from the borough.  
   “That’s going to be paid for out of the Medicaid funds. It’s paid for by the people staying there, the beds pay for it through the state Medicaid and Medicare," he said.
    Another item on the borough’s project list is the landfill expansion. That project will run about $25 million, but funding from the state capitol budget should help with that cost as well. The capitol budget was passed during the legislative session that ended in April and now awaits the governor’s signature.

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      Tonight, the major act for the Kodiak Arts Council’s performing arts series will take the stage at the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium. KMXT’s Brianna Gibbs has more.
    Arlo Guthrie lives up to his family’s name. He’s the eldest son of folk legend Woody Guthrie, but stands on his own two feet in the musical arena. Since the late 1960s, the singer and songwriter has released more than two dozen albums and performed at sold out venues around the world.
    Kodiak Arts Council Director Katie Oliver said Guthrie’s visit to Kodiak is part of a year-long tour honoring his late father.

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            When the library moves into its new building on borough hill, much of its collection will go with it. However, one thing will be left behind – its name. Thursday night the Kodiak City Council unanimously voted in favor of renaming the A. Holmes Johnson Memorial Library the Kodiak Public Library once it moves into the new facility.

            For about 45 years the library’s name has memorialized a local physician and outspoken advocate of public libraries. Kaia Converse is the chairman of the Kodiak Public Library Association and said the dropping of the memorial title does not mean the contributions of that individual will be forgotten