Letters – Sept. 16

Next week’s issue of the Homer Tribune, Sept. 23, 2009, will be the last available publication of letters to the editor of a local political nature. Please limit letters to 100 words.

Exaggeration
Granted the slack economy and loss of some sales tax will cause the city to tighten its belt. The drastic steps proposed by the city manager are grossly exaggerated. A good bit of Homer’s problem is poor management from the top down to the city council.
Never fear, the city can weather the storm. There may be a few things that will need to be adjusted; however, we will get along fine by retaining the grocery sales tax exemption.
Roy E. Hoyt, Jr.

Breaking the law
Fantasy: A divine revelation, just down the pipeline, “God is a woman” and she wears trousers. Now men in Saudi Arabia and Sudan must have the permission of a woman in order to leave the house. Christian men must now be obedient and subservient to their wives.
Reality: Courageous, beautiful Sudanese journalist and United Nations staffer Lubna Hussein stands up to an absurd, unfair law and is arrested for wearing trousers. She appears at the court hearing in the same tasteful, full-flowing trousers with matched tunic-like top and shawl and is convicted of violating the public decency law.
W. Findlay Abbott

Let freedom ring
No political perspective or social view held by anyone attending the meeting at the Kachemak Emergency Services Fire House on Sept. 12, were discouraged or thwarted. No one charismatic political guru took control of the meeting or attempted to influence the outcome. One of the overwhelming concerns expressed by most everyone rose to captivate the discussion. Why is our government so willing to ignore the “Bill of Rights” and the “US Constitution”?
The government is pointedly moving to change the character of this nation by making it more socialistic. The wonton rush to indebt citizens, without their approval will only create inflation and burden our children for decades. Government waste and graft are sapping the very life blood of this nation. There is hope.
We citizens are strong, we formed this nation. It’s time to speak with authority; party affiliation is of no consequence. We are Americans. Demand your rights by your presence at gatherings, meetings, and demonstrations at home and across the country. Attend the next Sept. 12 meeting to encourage your neighbor, he or she is not alone in this effort to regain their rights. Write or e-mail all your officials and government itself. Tell Acorn you are angry about the use of your tax dollars. This outfit is rife in behaving against your welfare and encourages everyone of their employees to do the same thing.
Arden Jeffries

Vroom, vroom
To the folks who objected to the Hoka Hey Challenge, the 7,000 mile Harley-Davidson race from Florida to Homer, written about in the August 26th edition of the Homer Tribune, please stop that silliness. It is uneducated to assume that Harley riders are lawless, wild hoodlums. They are on average, middle age (45 plus), making a yearly income of 80,000 (Homer is around $30,000 or less), and are extremely skilled and safe drivers. They are lawyers, doctors and business owners. It would be silly to be anything but welcoming to such a large group, especially in a time when tourism is down.
On the KBBI’s coffee table a few weeks ago, peninsula residents were putting their heads together to find some new avenues of tourism —amazingly this opportunity fell right in our laps. The opposing Homer City Council members need to dissolve any outdated prejudices they have about Harley riders and welcome this group with open arms. Maybe we even should apologize for being unreceptive.
To those of you who are skeptical still – 7,000 miles is an extremely long way to ride a motorcycle. Any reckless behavior would be weeded out by the time these folks got up into our neck of the woods. Darwin would back me up on this. The only thing we need to prepare for is some colorful characters, and I think they will probably blend in well here, except for maybe the chaps.
Tela O’Donnell
(Not so much an advocate for Harley riders, just common sense.)
 
Museum madness
I’m gonna leave the hot water heater in my front yard, I don’t have to move it now. I’ll just call my place a “Hot Water Museum,” and when I replace my washer and dryer I will call it an “Appliance Museum.” And, I guess these guys with old cars on blocks can now call their property an “Old Car Museum.”
Michael McKinney

No more dams
In his editorial last week, Editor Sean Pearson raised some good points that should generate thoughtful local discussion about Alaska’s role in the national effort to develop renewable sources of “green energy.”
Sean noted that a recent radio advertisement quoted Sen. Begich as identifying “wind, tidal and geothermal” sources of renewable energy. Begich’s statement significantly reflects the federal government’s renewable energy policy of not promoting new hydropower dams as part of the nation’s “green energy” portfolio. The administration and congress both recognize that, at least in the Lower 48, most feasible sources of hydropower (rivers and streams) are already developed (dammed) and that, regardless of where they are built, dams typically result in tremendous and long-lasting negative impacts to the environment, fisheries, local communities and to local and regional economies. In the Pacific Northwest alone, hydropower dams resulted in scientifically documented losses of 80 percent of the region’s wild salmon and steelhead populations and caused extinction of 40 percent of its wild anadromous fish stocks.
Unfortunately, Homer Electric Association is pursuing construction and operation of hydroelectric dams on four fish streams near Moose Pass and Cooper Landing which are important to all five species of pacific salmon, rainbow trout, dolly varden and Arctic grayling. HEA has variously and disingenuously characterized its hydro projects as “low-impact” and “small scale,” and suggested to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that project impacts will have a “limited geographic scope.”
The truth is, because the projects are located in Kenai River headwaters, these dams will not only affect the streams where they are located, but affect the integrity of the entire Kenai River. Grant Creek, a strong producer of Kenai River red salmon, also supports king, coho, chum and pink salmon. The average annual run of pinks and chums is small. It is conceivable that changes to water quality, flows, chemistry and temperature, combined with degradation of spawning and rearing habitat resulting from HEA’s dam and appurtenant facilities, could cause the extinction of wild pink and/or chum salmon stocks that have existed in Grant Creek since the Pleistocene. Now, there’s something to think about the next time you stuff an English muffin into your electric toaster: salmon might also be “toast.”
HEA’s dams would produce only small amounts of electricity (probably less than 10 percent of HEA’s annual demand); would provide seasonal power; and would be so expensive to construct ($20-30 million each), that HEA’s general manager admits “creative financing or grant funding” will be needed to build any of them.
In Alaska, electricity-generating technologies for wind, geothermal and tidal (Alaska has more coastline than the other 49 states combined) could function spectacularly on the abundance of these resources. Alaska could, in another 5 or 10 years, be a national leader in renewable energy production without repeating the mistakes of the Lower 48 and without building any more dams on our fish streams.
Alaskans – including the management and board of directors at HEA – should be investigating and developing responsible renewable energy projects that will produce more power with less impact; the Kenai River is simply too important locally and regionally to industrialize and ruin incrementally, one tributary stream at a time. Bluntly put, we cannot afford any more dams like the one at Cooper Creek, which destroyed a world-class rainbow trout and salmon fishery and a biologically important tributary to the Kenai River.
Mike Cooney
Moose Pass

Hello, McFly!
This is a solution the Homer city council has to the city’s money problem? You need to look elsewhere. There are a lot of people who depend on the library. It isn’t like it is open 24-hours a day. For some, Monday is the only day that have to go to the library.
“There is no funding for new capital projects. The old Intermediate
School building housing the College West Campus and the Boys and Girls
Club will be closed beginning Jan. 1.” Now wait a minute. The boys and girls club will be closing in January? OK, sure, are you going to fund a project to clean up all the grafitti and the other happenings of kids who don’t have any where to go or are bored? Shucks, hand them the can of spray paint and tell them it isn’t illegal unless they are caught.
“There is no funding for non-profits other than the Pratt Museum whose contribution is reduced by $20,000.” You think tourism was down this year?  Do you really think this will help it? How many people go the Pratt Museum, or look forward to it when they come here?
Instead of blaming all this short fall on the no grocery tax between September and May, look at city hall and all the big important people who work there.
Once again, I suggest you get a coffee fund going for those who drink coffee. Designate someone to bake sweets for snacks, do a snack fun to go with the coffee fund. You don’t donate, you don’t get any java, or donuts. Then you won’t spend money getting all this. Oh, and did I mention you get it tax free when you do buy it? Why is that?  What else you get tax free? I know you get everything tax free for being part of the govenrment. Next thing, I think you all should look at your salaries. Why can’t you all work for minimum wage or even $9 to $10 an hour at 40 hours a week?  How much do you make a year? Do you need to make that much? Can you not live within your means and cut your expenses?  I enjoy not having to pay tax on groceries. It helps me out. I think the
citizens need to take a long, hard look at your salaries, and see if we
can save a lot of money there. We need the fire department, we need the police department, and the kids need the Boys and Girls club. I just don’t think that the city should blame the budget mishaps on the fact that the people spoke up and voted down the food tax. Quit acting like a baby and get over it. Don’t try to get even with us by closing things down, cutting funding to non-profits, or asking us to vote on it again. We spoke once, why should we repeat ourselves?
Gene Gentry

Clean energy bill
Homer has always been at the head of the pack when it comes to clean energy and energy efficiency. Now it’s time to get the rest of our state (and country) on board, starting with Sen. Begich and Sen. Murkowski and the carbon cap bill that should come to them this fall. As this opinion piece points out ( ‘What does development cost” Sept. 9 edition), energy costs for traditional fuel sources will only get higher over the next few years, and in places like Alaska we can’t afford to pay much more. Capping carbon will flush new investment into the clean energy industry, which will lower energy prices on clean fuels, and give Alaskans more access to the huge range of clean energy sources available in our state. We deserve energy that’s produced in Alaska and provides jobs for Alaskans. Homer has worked on this goal for years, and the clean energy bill will finally provide the investment needed to bring it to fruition.
Lora Marie Sharp

Field of dreams
I am not against folks and their dreams of success. If they want to transform their property into a tourist attraction, more power to them. I know that if I owned three acres on the Homer Spit, I would be racking my brain for money-making schemes in order to take advantage of the tourist trade. Bob Cousins has such a piece of property on the Spit which is an ideal spot to display his collection of boats.
It’s a great idea. I think people would pay a modest fee to wander from boat to boat arranged in a semi-circle, connected by gang planks, with historical seamanship information for each one. One boat could even be a gift shop where he sold postcards, T-shirts, hats and antique fishing artifacts.
But, it seems, Mr. Cousins is lacking an eye for artistic display and obviously lacking the money to get this project finished. It has looked disheveled for over 15 years, and I believe that is what this community is sick of. Those same tourist who glimpse his collection only once or twice in their life would probably grow tired of it if they saw it every day. A work in progress is one thing, but there has been no obvious progress to his Spit property except for the accumulation of what looks like more junk.
If Robert Cousins believes tourists want to see the “survival business of real fisherman,” then why does he insist on displaying what looks like, to the rest of us, his interpretation of hurricane Katrina on the Homer Spit? And what does a foam castle that once had a Rapunzel-like thing hanging out the window have to do with fishing? All in all, sounds like just another Homer fairy tale with no moral to the story.
Candus Cornett

Term limits
Milli Martin was first elected to the borough Assembly in 2,000. Her term was shortened to two years by reapportionment.  She was then elected to a one year term. With the conditions imposed by the term limit ballot proposition, she would have been term limited at three years of service and prohibited from running again for a minimum of three years.
I was first elected to a one year fill-in term and then to a full three year term. I will now be term limited after serving four years on the assembly.
In the ballot proposition, a “term” is defined as any part of a term. An additional restriction is added via a required minimum of three years ineligibility after being term limited. When we hit reapportionment in 2012, more assembly members will be term limited at four years and, due to staggered terms, some will not have an opportunity to run again for five years. Call me if you want more details.
To lay to rest a misperception: No assembly member elected after June 2006 receives any retirement benefit.
My work with long term assembly members has given me an appreciation for the accumulation of knowledge and contacts by the senior members. They know borough history, they know their way around state politics and state bureaucracy, and they know how to work with the Alaska Municipal League, NACO & WIR. This extensive knowledge has brought large benefits to the borough. New assembly members bring their own strengths to the assembly and that mix of old and new provides a robust vigor to the assembly. All assembly members are elected to a limited number of years and all I have worked with are quite serious about doing a good job of representing the borough residents.
The term limits proposition is designed to bring maximum turnover to the assembly. This will shift influence to the borough administration and away from our elected representatives. It will also limit the voters right to vote for representatives of their choice. The ability to choose who you will vote for is the essence of democracy.
Bill Smith

Freedom of choice
I would like to give my sincere thanks to Millie Martin for her service on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly to the lower Peninsula residents.  She has been a great listener and a great advocate for our communities and educational system.  She is currently president of the assembly.  She is competent, honest, hardworking, and knowledgeable of borough government.
The problem is, she is now termed out.  She could not run again for the assembly even if she wanted to because of Term Limits!  Her considerable expertise and natural talent as a public servant will now be lost because of a  law that prevents her from seeking another term.  I personally feel cheated, because my freedom to vote for the candidate of my choice has been taken away.  Losing Millie Martin is an unnecessary loss for all of us.
On Oct. 6 voters will have a chance to weigh in on the Term Limits issue.  I urge everyone to vote no on Borough Prop. 1 and thus preserve our freedom to vote for the candidate of our choice.
Deborah Smith

Indian Dinner a success!
SPROUT Nicaragua wants to thank the nearly 200 Homerites who turned out for our 2nd annual fundraiser. Through your support and generosity, we just about reached our goal of $6000 needed to sponsor 150 Nicaraguan school kids this year. Thanks also to all of you who helped us pull the event together, especially our cooks, Gita, Ajay, and Clemencia. We’ll do it again next year!
Lauren Scharf
SPROUT Nicaragua

 
Thanks for the tow help
The Kachemak Ski Club and all the users and volunteers at Ohlson Mountain Rope Tow would like to express thanks to the Homer Foundation for financial help with buying tools and power equipment for the rope tow’s operation and upkeep. Tools bought with Homer Foundation funding will help keep the mountain safe and fun. We are also on the lookout for any individual donations of hand tools that can help us build a rounded tool set for general hill maintenance – if anyone has doubles or tools collecting dust we would love to have them.
The ski hill has several projects in line for this year, from clearing brush to roofing and building. If you have volunteered in the past or are interested in helping the hill, contact us through homerropetow.org and we will keep you informed on dates and projects.
George Overpeck
VP Kachemak Ski Club

Flying the flag
I would like to thank the Rotary Club of Homer for their beautiful flag display on the hill by McDonald’s, and everyone else who flew their flag proudly on Friday, Sept. 11. We have become too complacent again and seem to forget what happened to our country on that sad Tuesday morning eight years ago. Do you remember how you felt on that day?  Do you remember how united our country was?  Do you remember seeing flags flying everywhere? I hoped we would stay that way, united in grief, but so proud of our country.  Remember the quote from George Santayana, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Please let us never forget.

Lara Fleenor

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