Dreaming up a better Homer

• Development strategy report focuses on what could be, how it could happen and who needs to be working on it

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

Picture an image of Homer in the year 2020:
Students fill the streets and dorms in Homer’s college district on Pioneer Avenue. Old and new businesses thrive amid a more walkable design. Both business districts and residential areas are connected in an energy efficient shuttle system that canvases the town, easing up parking on the Homer Spit. Locally grown food is more available, with a giant greenhouse in a town center environment. Homer is still an active commercial fishing port through sustainable fisheries practices and a larger infrastructure at the harbor.
Right now, those ideas may seem a bit far off. But they actually represent a vision based on public input during the development of the Community Economic Development Strategy gathered this winter.
The draft of the report, recently completed by VISTA volunteer Carol Bevis, is available at www.ci.homer.ak.us/economicdevelopment. Bevis was hired last year by the City of Homer and the Homer Chamber of Commerce to receive community input and research data to create the report.
The result is a highly readable 45-page report that contains a host of data on the region, as well as discussions about everything from marine and harbor development to education, health, the arts and forestry.
“Homer is a diverse economy — it has so much going for it,” Bevis said. “People want to be here.”
For example, education employs the largest number of people in Homer — not tourism, which is normally seen as the main industry here. Another example is a segment of workers called the “lone eagles.” These, as explained in the report, are people who, because of the Internet, could work anywhere in the country that they chose. Their main requirement is being able to hook up online.
“And they chose Homer,” she said. “These are assets we can capitalize on. We need to look at our assets and strengths.”
Shelley Erickson, director of the EDC, agrees that whatever Homer does now in planning for its economic future “will last the next 20 years.” Homer needs to shed its reputation for not being business friendly, she said. That may be a good goal in the coming years where the message is put out there: “Homer is open for business.”
Erickson pointed out how many goals in the previous economic development report — last published in 1999 — were completed. They included gaining more city walking trails, building a new library, building a hockey rink to host major events and building a new dock (Pioneer Dock was completed in 2002). Another completed goal was helping oyster farmers secure funding for a new building on the Spit.
One plan that figured largely in discussions but did not materialize is a new town center.
The idea isn’t for the city government to make the report a reality in the coming decade, noted Special City Projects Coordinator Anne Marie Holen who worked closely with Bevis.
“One of the challenges we face is that, in fact, a lot of ideas would be impossible for the city to implement alone,” Holen said. “The (Nick Dudiak) Fishing Hole is a good example. It took collaboration between the state, the City, the chamber and individuals to make that happen. Even the new library wouldn’t have been possible from the City working alone.”
In addition to federal and state legislative funding, groups like the Friends of the Homer Library help make things possible, Holen pointed out.
The report suggests future business ideas and offers a number of recommendations. The CED can respond to these by either editing those ideas, or expanding on them in the report.
“We will begin (this week) by looking at the first three chapters in the report on fishing, education and tourism,” Erickson explained. In the first one or two workshops, the CED will formulate a plan of action. Then they will vote on specific issues later this winter.
One way the CED can help lift a good idea off the ground is to support a local program. One suggestion came from Homer High School, which has a coffee cart entrepreneurial program that teaches students hands-on business skills.
“We are open to all kinds of neat ideas,” Erickson said.
HHS Principal Allan Gee has said he would like to obtain a fishing vessel that students could use for learning marine mechanics and nautical skills. It’s an idea that comes with many side benefits for learning opportunities in commercial fisheries, as well as oceanography.
Bevis said the key to success in that case most likely comes from local businesses, individuals and government coming together to help the high school.
“It’s going to take a broad collaboration of those working together, and then the sky’s the limit,” she said.
After the Homer Economic Advisory Commission, the document goes to the Homer City Council, which may amend it again.
The public will get a chance to comment on it at future council meetings.

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Posted by Newsroom on Feb 17th, 2010 and filed under Headline News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.