A hoped-for and sorely needed real estate deal in Wrangell, which could have brought dozens of housing units to the Southeast community, was killed by the buyer after he said that the Wrangell Sentinel had soured the deal by writing an unfair headline.
Publisher Larry Persily, in a story appearing in public broadcasting’s KSTK, said his headline and story was accurate that Wayne Johnson was buying an old building from the city for just $200,000, when the appraised value was $800,000.
The offending headline in the Wrangell Sentinel read “Hospital property developer now wants borough lots for free.” It pertained to an ongoing negotiation between the borough and Johnson for the Wrangell Medical Center, an aging building that Johnson planned to raze and create housing in its place. Johnson was trying to buy adjacent lots to the building to make his project viable.
The borough offered Johnson the six lots for free if he demolished the asbestos-filled medical center by June 30, 2026, the news story at KTSK said. “But Johnson said that doesn’t mean it’s for free – he estimated the work at roughly one million dollars. Johnson said the Sentinel’s headline was inaccurate which caused him to pull out of his investment.”
“I’m just in a situation where, you know, just my reputation and my intents are very positive towards the city of Wrangell,” Johnson told the reporter. “I felt like the headline, unfortunately, and even portions of the story, misrepresented what the city and I had agreed to.”
Persily, who was the former editor of the Juneau Empire and former owner of the Wrangell Sentinel, repurchased the paper in 2020, using his “Good Journalism LLC” making him a liberal publisher in Trump country, as Wrangell is a politically conservative town.
Read about the dispute over whether Persily killed local housing and economic development in Wrangell at this KSTK link.
