A 3 percent average price hike is expected to offset sagging volume in Bartlett’s 2013 operating budget. Even with decreases in operating expenses, the hospital expects its budget to just break even.

At the Bartlett Regional Hospital board of directors meeting Tuesday, Dennis Stillman, interim chief financial officer for Bartlett said the cuts will not be spread evenly.

“Some places we might even see lower prices,” Stillman said. The 3 percent bump is the lowest increase since at least 2000, he said.

Tlingit Elder Elaine Abraham shared stories of her ancestors’ relationship with their environment at the Alaska Rainforest Center's symposium at Centennial Hall, Thursday.

The three-day event encouraged collaboration between organizations with a stake in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.

Abraham spoke particularly of her people’s connection to trees.

It takes a community to understand a rainforest.

This is the new mantra on collaboration between scientists, resource development corporations, environmentalists, Alaska Natives, and local, state and federal resource managers. Those disparate groups met for three days to find ways to work together, build on each other’s understanding and shape the study of temperate rainforests. Their goal is to do so in ways which avoid and discourage litigation.

The Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center hosted the Coastal Temperate Rainforest Symposium at Centennial Hall, April 17-19.

During the second session of the 27th Legislature several business and natural resources-related legislative bills moved through the House and Senate, and some didn’t find their way out.

This wrap-up covers the outcomes of some of these, and other related bills.

Two health related Senate sponsored bills moved through committees right up to the end, but finished without passing out of House Labor and Commerce Committee.

The bills were Senate versions of bills sponsored by local legislator Rep. Cathy Muñoz.