HOMER TRIBUNE/Naomi Klouda - Armstrong Cook Inlet LLC built a pad for drilling operations at Holly Lane and North Fork Road. Located in the Bailey subdivision, it will eventually hook to the Homer line.

Gov. Sean Parnell approved funding for the South Peninsula Natural Gas Pipeline Monday, leaving intact the entire $8,150,000 request in the 2013 Capital Budget.
The governor said it made a difference that customers along the Enstar line would help pay for construction through the $1 tariff. “That is what I had requested and I was glad to see it was followed through. I will be glad the people of the Southern Kenai Peninsula will have access to natural gas,” Parnell said during a press conference explaining his budget decisions.
Losing no time, the Homer City Council passed a resolution Monday night to begin the process for obtaining natural gas. A workshop is set for June 4 to “initiate a broad community review process on the merits of public financing for gasline construction.”
“This is what we’ve waited a long time for,” said Mayor Jim Hornaday, who often mentions the town has sought natural gas heat for 40 years. “It’s going to make a tremendous difference in our bottom line, for every business and individual in town.”
A number of questions and answers will be explored in the coming months. City Manager Walt Wrede has asked the council to get started on decisions for developing out the distribution system. The city has access to financing options to help homeowners hook up. It is up to the council and the public testimony process to decide which way they would like to see costs paid by neighborhoods to tap in.
The next step is to figure out which areas to develop a distributions system out from the main trunk line, said Kachemak City Mayor Phil Morris. That next step for Kachemak comes in a July 11 public hearing in which the Kachemak City Council is looking at authorizing a distribution system for the entire town of Kachemak. They are negotiating with Enstar for the price of that distribution system.
Parnell has signed three budget bills for Fiscal Year 2013. The governor also approved a $453.5 million general obligation bond package for statewide transportation projects that will go to the voters in November. 
The Homer area won appropriation for key projects. The budget holds $100,000 to dredge the Nick Fishing Lagoon. It appropriates funds for a Greer Road surfacing project, $150,000; $300,000 for the Halibut Cove Community Organization to use for a Alaska Mussel Farming Demonstration Project and $100,000 for Pratt Museum Building Design and Construction.

Other capital projects include
• Kachemak Roads Repairs $60,000
• The Kenai Peninsula College’s Kachemak Bay Campus $50,000 for the Pioneer Avenue Building addition.
• Kachemak Bay Equestrian Association’s Cottonwood Horse Park, $10,000
• The Kachemak Shellfish Mariculture Association for an Oyster Remote Setting Facility, 60,000.
Cook Inlet Aquaculture receives $699,000 for the Tutka Bay Hatchery.
Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council – Ice Forecasting Network 70,000
• $1 million for Seldovia’s small boat harbor
• A Value Added Manufacturing Plant in Seldovia, $330,000.
The governor vetoed a total of $66.6 million, largely from operating items. 
The operating and capital budgets now total $12.1 billion, including $7.9 billion in state general funds. The budget includes full funding for K-12 education, Medicaid, retirement system unfunded liability, debt service, and employee contracts. The capital budget totals $2.9 billion, including $1.9 billion in state general funds.
Two billion dollars of surplus funds were moved to savings with the potential of up to $3.4 billion going into the Statutory Budget Reserve based on projected FY 2012 and FY 2013 balances.
“Maintaining strong cash reserves and budget discipline are critical components of our long-range fiscal plan,” Parnell said. “Given the steady decline in oil production and the volatile nature of oil prices, we will need cash on hand to provide state services in the future.”
More than $1.6 billion was appropriated for highways, aviation, the Alaska Marine Highway, harbors, village safe water, and municipal water and sewer projects. The Roads to Resources initiative was also funded allowing work to continue on a road to Tanana, the Ambler District Road, a road to Umiat, and improvements on the Klondike Industrial Use Highway to Skagway. 
Another $50 million was set aside in the Vessel Replacement Fund as a down payment on the second new ferry for the Alaska Marine Highway System. 
Direct K-12 education funding increased $50 million in the signed budgets. The total state funded K-12 education and pupil transportation budget for FY 2013 is $1.2 billion. New legislation increased pupil transportation funding and resources to expand vocational education funding from grades 7 through 12. In addition, the state directly funds more than $329 million for school district retirement system unfunded liability for the Public Employees’ and Teachers’ Retirement Systems. The capital budget also includes over $431 million for school and university projects statewide. 
Nearly $12 million in additional resources to combat domestic violence and sexual assault are included in the operating budget for prevention and intervention, support for survivors, and law enforcement.
The capital budget contains over $247 million for statewide energy projects including: $31.5 million for weatherization programs to help Alaskans make their homes more energy efficient; $25.9 million for the Renewable Energy Fund targeting projects in areas with the highest energy costs; and $20 million for home energy rebates.  The operating budget contains $38.2 million to fully fund the Power Cost Equalization Program, and an estimated $48 million for the Alaska Low-Income Energy Assistance Program. In addition, $125 million was appropriated for the new Sustainable Energy Fund to help finance energy infrastructure projects that will reduce the cost of energy to Alaskans.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife - A brown bear, not unlike this Kodiak, has been seen in the Fritz Creek area of Yukon and Greer Roads. The grizzly is attracted by the easy pickings of livestock.

A brown bear is the suspected culprit of a chicken coup raid and of seriously damaging a spring garden after ripping into a high tunnel off Greer Road, nine miles East End Road in the Fritz Creek area. The bear has also wreaked havoc on Yukon Road before Greer.
Adam Green found all his plantings ruined – carrots, beats, potatoes, greens.
“All trampled,” he said Monday. “The bear came along and put his paws on it and pushed in all the sides every four feet. He ripped open doors on each end – absolutely ripped it apart,” Green said. The damage can be repaired but it’s going to take some work.
The bear made off with one duck and three chickens, before all of them scattered into the trees and needed to be herded back.
“One of the chickens is injured. The bear just attacked them, chewed on them and left them there. He had already gotten into other chicken coups,” he said. “Maybe he was full.”
Since its established itself as a nuisance bear, neighbors on Greer were given permission to shoot it.
“We’ve had a lot of reports about that bear. It’s obviously the time of year when the bears are waking up and they’re a little mischievous and a lot hungry,” said Wildlife Officer David Chaffin. “We’re asking people to keep vigilant and an eye out. If it gets to be enough of an issue – we’ll address it.”
In the case of the Greer Road bear, officials received a lot of calls. But Fish and Game Wildlife Technician Larry Lewis said the department surprisingly hasn’t received many spring calls about bear incidents. “There are a lot of moose carcasses. We’re not getting very many calls around residential areas. They may be finding dead moose and that’s easy pickings for them,” he said.
Fish and Game estimates 135 moose, the majority calves or yearlings, died of starvation this year. That doesn’t count the road-killed moose. “Some we highly suspect were starvation animals. We’ve been looking at the bone marrow, the condition of the bone taken from the femur, which is severely depleted of nutrition (in moose that starved). By the time they were eating spruce needles they weren’t doing real well,” Lewis said.
The deep snows this past winter impacted a number of animals, though the most noticeable sufferers were the moose. The owl populations are high right now, reports Kasilof resident Tom Baxter. That’s largely due to an abundant food source in the snowshoe hare population. But he is warning people after his own painful experience that the Great Horned owl tends to like eating cats.

Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife - Great Horned owl in flight.

“An Anchor Point wildlife trooper told me he has never seen this many owls before. I lost a cat to a Great Horned owl, and I am sure many other missing small pets can be attributed to owl kills,” he said. “Owls are not wise, they are viscous predators.”
Baxter said he watched an owl make off with his cat last year. The Great Horned owls are nesting and populating heavily in the Kasilof-Anchor Point area, he said.
“A wildlife trooper said he went out one night and made owl calls. Within 45 minutes, he had 20 owls around him,” Baxter said.
“The reason is because of the rabbits. But Great horned owls favor cats over rabbits. I was born and raised in eastern Washington where they eat barn cats,” he said. “You can set them next to each other and the owl would chose the cat any day.”
But laws are different for defending domestic animals from owls than they are in protecting from bears. “You can’t legally kill an owl. Owls are federally protected.”
As for protecting domestic animals from bears, Lewis recommends an electric fence.
“If there’s anything you want to protect from a curious or hungry bear, portable electric fences for temporary camp situations are good,” Lewis said. “A good quality hard-wired system is an excellent idea. We deal with an inordinate amount of calls pertaining to livestock.”
While brown bears generally wake up earlier than black bears, there are a number of variables at work on when humans begin to encounter them more.
“Around Memorial Day weekend, you’ll generally see black bear activity. It’s also good to watch out in the late part of May and early June for moose calves. A No. 1 risk for humans is getting between a cow and a calf,” Lewis said. “Be aware when you’re out walking around to give moose a lot of room. Those animals will be very defensive of their young.”
The yearling calves are getting chased away from their mothers, which also causes confusion.
“You’ll see problems there, too. They are getting chased off from what they knew were safe and secure. You’ll see them follow people. They’ll chase people some times, come after people. Just respect them for the big animals that they are, and give them a lot of room,” Lewis said.

HOMER TRIBUNE/File Photo - Lead Research Capt. Jeff Williams, won national honors this year for his work organizing research work in the Aleutians on volcanoes. Here he is pictured by M/V Tiglax.

In a difficult cost-cutting move, the research vessel the M/V Tiglax will sit tied to the Homer dock for two weeks this summer.
The Alaska National Maritime Wildlife Refuge owns the famed research ship, built in 1987 especially for difficult work in the stormy Aleutians. Refuge Manager Steve Delehanty said the move will save the refuge $80,000.
“This will be the most noticeable cut in terms of the public, because the ship will be tied up at the dock for two weeks in the prime of the season,” Delehanty said.
The cuts also mean foregoing or postponing research at Barren Islands, a long-term sea bird monitoring project studying ocean health through bird diets.
The refuge’s annual budget of roughly $4 million goes to all operations throughout the Alaska National Maritime Wildlife Refuge. With increasing costs and budget cuts of 2 percent, the refuge has a budget shortfall of about $400,000.
The refuge is just one agency asked to make cuts as the U.S. government tries to wrestle its massive deficits in the face of $14 trillion in debt. In addition to the Tiglax budget cuts, the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center has cut its open hours by one-hour each day. A biologist position is being left vacant in another cost-saving move. That biologist was in charge of a Chukchi Sea monitoring project.
“We’ve already seen cuts, not layoffs, but shrinking through attrition. We had to reduce support for seabird monitoring projects, so that instead of having all nine this year, we’ll cut one – the Barren Island bird monitoring project,” Delehanty said.
Future studies mean juggling – skipping a monitoring project for a year or two and bringing it back in, through a rotation schedule. But the problem with that is crucial information lost in the off years, he said.
Last year, in a budget cut, the refuge already slashed one camp. That was a study on rats and auklet populations at Kiska Island. It, too, will not be picked back up this year.
“The problem is you miss out on understanding how something has changed over time. For example, if we are looking at changes in a bird colony, their breeding habits or feeding – you miss the chance to see fascinating but unexpected changes,” he said.
The Tiglax, pronounced TEKH-lah which means eagle in the Aleut language, and its crew, work for the refuge as its research and transportation support vessel. In a 145-day season, the Tiglax may sail to islands in Southeast Alaska, the far western end of the Aleutian Chain, and into the Bering Sea, typically traveling, 15,000 to 20,000 nautical miles.
In the short window of time to do a season’s projects, the Tiglax’s schedule of stops is set in the prior winter months. Some of the refuge’s work is on hire for universities and other agencies. But its primary role was to serve the refuge’s 30-some biologists and their programs, Pepper said. The ship was designed by the refuge and built in 1987 after then-Sen. Ted Stevens had gained funding for ship.
Capt. Billy Pepper said it was specifically made to handle refuge research work in the Aleutians at a time when so few ships were going there. An Aleutian Canada goose repopulation project was its first assignment.
“The Aleutian Canada goose came back, so it wasn’t used for that – it evolved into other aspects,” Pepper said. The Tiglax now does a split of 45 days on charter and 90 days to take care of the refuge’s business.
Clients who charter the Tiglax include the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and Anchorage, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Memorial University of Canada, Scripts University of San Diego, the U.S. Geophysical Service, and the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
That’s good news for keeping the Tiglax in operation, Pepper explains, but bad news for fulfilling the refuge’s role if it’s used increasingly for other agency work out of monetary necessity.
“That’s the tricky part. It’s built for the needs of the refuge. Less maritime funding, means that without a charter, we’re tied up this year. We lost funding for our ship,” Pepper said.
The refuge could advertise for more charters. “There is so much demand in the summer for ships. We found that when the budget shortfall came out last fall, we didn’t have time to recoup to find a charter for that two week period,” Pepper said.
But when a government agency veers into the charter business that too presents issues, Pepper said. “It’s a very, very fine line. A lot more focus on science nowadays means there isn’t a lot of ships that do it. It takes a lot – and part of what makes us attractive is because we’re already out there.”
Already the Tiglax began its summer on May 1. It was hired by UAF for a plankton study in the Gulf of Alaska and by Scripts University. A team from Scripts has acoustic buoys in the Gulf to listen for whales, primarily for the rare Right whale. On May 16, the Tiglax starts its season for the Maritime Refuge.
Capt. Pepper said another ramification of the cuts is that they could not hire a relief crew for the summer months. He is on for the full season, as are his crew.
The refuge itself has a staff of 34 full-time employees that swells to 45-50 in the summer months.

HoPP will be recruiting building volunteers and helpers for its Karen Hornaday Park Playground Project starting Sunday and running through to May 27.
The old Karen Hornaday playground was taken down by the City of Homer this weekend, leaving open ground for creating the ambitious nature-themed playground for Homer’s children.
Organizer Miranda Weiss said the Sunday-to-Sunday building schedule still needs to be filled in with people geared toward one of three tasks.
“There are three ways to help out: On building, helping with child care or helping to serve or donate meals,” she said.
Free child care is provided at the Community Christian Church down Bartlett Street from the park.
Building a new playground is the result of more than a year’s work on the part of local parent organizers. It includes a sand pit featuring an historic boat, a slide, a salmon-leaping sculpture. A forest and tree fort will feature climbing paths and an observation site. A pirate ship, tire swings, mosaics, a lighthouse, a handicapped accessible trail and other natural trails are to incorporate with the playground.
So far, HoPP has more than 100 people signed up to help. But, it is a massive effort squeezed into one week, so there is a need for more people. For example, on May 26, close to the end of the project when many pieces of equipment and features are close to completion, they will need 150 for that Saturday alone.
Some 12 building captains will be organizing their sets of workers for special projects. Each shift runs four hours long, with a free meal provided at the end of each shift. And, there are about three shifts a day.
HoPP needs people to sign up in advance.
“We need to meet volunteer quotas,” Weiss said. “Right now we have holes everywhere. We need hundreds of people.”
To sign up to help, go to www.homerplaygroundproject.org and follow the prompts.

Image Provided - Karen Hornaday Park playground, when completed with its new design (ABOVE), will feature natural elements like trails, a sand pit and an historic boat. HoPP is currently in need of volunteers to help with construction and landscaping beginning Sunday.

David Boone

A Homer man has died in a construction accident off West Hill Road Friday when an excavator he was operating flipped and crushed him.
David William Boone, 57, was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:07 p.m.
The Homer Police Department received the call to Rebar Road off West Hill on Friday afternoon. First responders from the Homer Volunteer Fire Department found that Boone had been pinned by the equipment and could not be revived.
Boone’s son, Corey, said his dad was helping a friend. “His friend is moving to Homer, and Dad was clearing a lot for a potential building site,” Corey said Monday. He owned the backhoe, which he had used in a land-clearing project several years before. “Then he just kept it, and used it mostly to help friends,” he said.
Boone was a commercial fisherman and captain of the 22-ton Bracor Bay, a Bristol Bay gill netter. The boat’s name was a combination of his son’s names: Brady and Corey. With his wife, Marcia, he settled in Homer in 1978 after Boone received his degree in Fisheries Wildlife Management from the University of Idaho. They raised their sons in Homer.
“It’s very sad. He was killed helping out a buddy,” said his friend and 25-year hunting partner Gary Elmore. “That was absolutely the epitome of Dave, too. If he had extra game – he always took care of people. There were a lot of friends and elderly friends. He was always good at taking care of himself and his family, but he was an amazingly generous friend. He died helping a friend, and that sums him up very nicely.”
Though he held a degree in fisheries management, friends said Boone was more interested in participating in the many activities of the outdoors than he was in building a career studying it. He was an avid hunter and fisherman.
“He hunted in Homer and all over Alaska. He was so passionate about hunting and fishing. He was always an outdoorsman,” Elmore said.
Boone held the fifth largest trophy moose in the world, which he had shot on the Alaska Peninsula. He held trophies for rams and other big game animals, as well.
Boone had sought a permit to hunt a big horned sheep in New Mexico. For the past 16 years, he applied for the difficult to obtain permit without success. Some apply many times in a lifetime and never get drawn in this highly-restricted hunt, Elmore said.
“Then, Dave was notified on that morning of the day he had the accident. He had won the permit after 16 years of trying,” Elmore said. “He was pretty happy about that.”
Though he had built a home in Arizona for he and Marcia to spend some winter months Outside, Boone was reluctant to be away from Alaska from spring to fall. Vicki Sarber, a family friend, called him “the quintessential Alaskan.”
“He was not just a hunter, but a world class hunter and fisherman, where he holds hunting records and was a highliner in the commercial fishing world. He never, ever did something half way,” Sarber wrote of him. “He did it right, he did it with precision and always with research.”
But for Boone, “research” didn’t include a computer. He didn’t even have voicemail.
“Instead, it meant lots of phone calls to people and friends and really, really long … detailed lists on sticky notes. Lots of sticky notes,” Sarber said.
No friend lacks a story about how Dave Boone pulled them out of the ditch.
“Or they called him because they needed to borrow a trailer or gear of some kind, or times when Dave would generously share salmon or moose meat with others or give the opportunity to hunt and fish to young and old, who otherwise wouldn’t have that chance,” Sarber said. “And, when I say that he helped people, I mean not in a fleeting way, but in a way where he would spend hours planning and figuring out how to make it happen, a way to make it great for somebody else. He made ‘moments’ for people, memories that will last forever.”
Memorial Services for David William Boone will be held at 4 pm., Saturday, May 12, 2012, at the Homer United Methodist Church, 770 East End Road, in Homer. All friends of Dave and the family are invited to share in the celebration of Dave’s life. The family plans to spread some of his ashes over the many places that he loved and enjoyed.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in memory of Dave can be made in his name to the non-profit organization, Hunt-of-a-Lifetime, (www.huntofalifetime.org), whose mission is to grant hunting and fishing dreams for children who have been diagnosed with life threatening illnesses.

Photo by Carla Stanley - Western Sandpipers arrive in large flocks of over 15,000 this week in Kachemak Bay, along with many other shorebirds, surfbirds and seabirds. Since the festival was founded in 1992, more data has been accumulated to help with habitat conservation. Biologist Poppy Benson will talk about the originations of the festival 2-2:20 p.m. Friday at Alaska Island and Ocean Visitors Center.

When the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival was conceived, Homer was only a few seasons outside the doldrums of the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
It was a time of concern about the future of Mariner Lagoon, the habitat where shorebirds rested and ate – locals talked about filling it in for a park.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service occupied offices in the small mall by the Best Western Bidarka Inn – it lacked the presence of the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center that later, once constructed in 2004, would combine many federal agencies under one scientific roof. It lacked an auditorium for the big-name featured speakers.
But that didn’t much matter at the time. They had a million shorebirds, said Poppy Benson, one of the festival’s originators.
“I was at a training session, and I remember someone was talking about putting on a festival – a carp festival. And I thought, Really? A carp festival?” Benson recalled.
Kachemak Bay filled with surfbirds, seabirds, shorebirds in the early spring. Biologists knew this to be a rich area of nutrients where birds bulk up en route to distant locales way up north and points in between.

Photo provided - U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Poppy Benson, public programs supervisor, helped form the first Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival 20 years ago, along with Johnny Bushell, Sally Oberstein, Celeste Fenger and Charlotte Rogers. Here Benson is pictured with Rogers holding Cedar Cloyd, Benson's newborn son.

“I thought, we should have a shorebird festival to celebrate this,” she said.
A Homer Chamber of Commerce tourism committee bandied about ideas for bringing in more visitors. At that same meeting, Benson mentioned a shorebird festival – but she foresaw starting it the future. Not that same year. Only John Bushell, himself the chairman of the committee, grabbed hold the idea and liked it.
“In that next year I was expecting a baby with a March due date – that was the year Cedar was going to be born. I thought we could have it sometime in the future when I have time,” Benson said. “But by then there was no stopping Johnny.”
Bushell said the committee had been puzzling over how to find more events for visitors as a way to draw them to Homer. It needed the shoulder season economic development.
“Poppy’s idea was an enlightenment to me at the time. Local people who knew the birds were involved – I was in on the art gallery migration.
One reason I got so involved is that I had a bed and breakfast,” Bushnell said. “The chamber at that time received so many letters – not emails in those days – from people interested in what could you do in Homer. And nobody was doing anything with those.”
Before long, an art walk was organized as one of the first Shorebird Festival events. A bus took visitors from gallery to gallery where they could look at art. There were bird viewing opportunities, and informative talks.
Then they needed a keynote speaker. A professional storyteller came but didn’t fill the entire alloted time. Since it was a Mother’s Day Brunch, Benson reasoned, there were some thematic opportunities in the topic. “We were new in the festival business. He told one story and went back and sat down. So now I needed to expand my talk.”
“I spun philosophical stuff about motherhood – I was in a glowing new-mother period when Cedar was 6 weeks old. I talked about the future and children and birds coming back for our children and the children’s children. We were homegrown but boy did that take off,” Benson said.
The event has evolved from a one-sheet schedule to a small booklet of detailed events numbering close to 100. Certain trips to the head of the bay and to the Barren Islands are offered at no other time of the year, offering rare opportunities for visitors and locals alike, Benson said.

What it takes

Christina Whiting, now in her 8th year of organizing the event, said it takes a full nine months to plan out the annual Shorebird Festival. “That’s like giving birth and the same amount of time,” she noted. It also takes more than 100 volunteers.
Enrollment is slightly up this year over last. The core audience is from Anchorage with about 20 percent from the Lower 48. In previous years, people came from Europe and Asia, but not so many in recent years.
It’s organized for fish and wildlife experts to coordinate educational events. Local operators are coordinated in as well to supply visitors with transportation. Van tours are offered also by other agencies, such as the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust to show areas designated for conservation. And, there are the nonprofits and art galleries who get involved to provide entertainment opportunities in concerts, art shows, bird calls and poetry events linked into the bird migration.
“The events, if you notice, are organized around the tides. That’s the first thing we do when we’re getting ready to schedule events,” Whiting said. “And it’s timed around the peak migration of birds arriving on May 9.”
Benson explains the best time to view birds is at high tide, generally speaking.
“You can see birds easiest at high tide, and Mud Bay is one of the best places. That’s when people can see the most birds, about a half hour after high tide exposes clams and invertebrates, and they feed following the tide out.”
Low tide is sometimes good for viewing birds at Beluga Slough and below Lighthouse Village. But essentially you need to be there at high tide.
“You don’t want to put the keynote speaker at high tide, because then we’re drawing people away from the birds and that’s what they are here to see.”
Since the mission is educating the public about these fragile, athletic birds and the many challenges they face in a changing climate, much of the festival focus is on raising funds to pay for the education events, Whiting said.
“Every year we have collectible T-shirts, mugs, fundraising events. This year we have Carla Stanley’s 20 Birds for 20 years,” Whiting said. In addition to the $10 posters of Stanley’s work, the t-shirts, hoodies, hats and cups, there is also a silent and live auction that culminates Friday night at the Homer Council on the Arts.
A quilt raffle this year features 20 years of t-shirts sewn into a quilt by Donna Hinkle that will go to a lucky winner. All these funds help support the festival, bring up keynote speakers like the internationally famous George Archibald and the bestselling writer, Mark Obmascik, author of “The Big Year.”
And attendance has grown to match the ambitions of the festival. From a few dozen that first year, 1992, to well over 1,500 attendees, the Shorebird Festival has become the largest single Homer event.
“When you have something good, and if you have people who care, it is going to keep growing,” Bushell said. “It has grown to such a wonderful place, thanks to fantastic coordinators. As long as the chamber gets funds to fund a coordinator, that’s what it takes. It will be growing as long as the birds keep coming back.”

HOMER TRIBUNE/Sean Pearson - Homer school teachers rallied at “Honk for Education,” an event April 30 during contract negotiations.

As Kenai Peninsula Borough School District funding settles into a rosier outlook than expected, the district is hoping to get its expenses squared away in its budget, as well, before the 2012 fiscal year calendar turns a page to 2013 on June 30.
A big part still up in the air is ongoing negotiations with employee unions over three-year contracts to start in fiscal year 2013.
Negotiation teams for the district, the Kenai Peninsula Education Association and Kenai Peninsula Education Support Association, meeting since January, had not come to agreement by the end of April, prompting a two-day session of mediation May 1 and 2 that also ended without agreement on the big remaining sticking points — salary and health care. Generally, the next step after mediation is for the parties to enter advisory arbitration, which would occur in the fall.
However, as soon as mediation concluded the district invited the union teams back to the negotiations table, and on Friday announced a financial carrot to encourage agreement on the contracts before the fall: Settle by June 30, and all KPEA and KPESA employees will get a one-time payment of $600, for most employees, or $1,000 for the longest-serving, highest-educated employees at the far end of the salary schedule.
“Through mediation we were able to settle a number of outstanding items, and the process allowed us to make progress with several unsettled items by exploring new and different solutions. I look forward to continue working toward the settlement of all items and coming to agreement on a new contract,” stated Dave Jones, assistant superintendent for instructional support, in a KPBSD press release issued last week.
As of May 2, the unions had not accepted the offer to return to the table.
“Given the fact that the mediator had barely ‘left the building,’ the associations did not see that going back would produce any favorable results. A request for arbitration has been submitted by the associations. This arbitration will more than likely take place in the fall,” stated LaDawn Druce, KPEA president, in a May 2 update to employees.
The previous Saturday, April 28, found school district employees and supporters on busy street corners in Kenai, Soldotna and Homer waving signs and hands at passing vehicles in support of public education and the associations’ negotiators heading into mediation.
“Basically, we’re just showing support for our bargaining team. They’ve got staff behind them, and they’re supporting them. And, as we go to mediation, raising awareness in the community,” Druce said April 28 while holding a “Honk if you love teachers” sign at the “Y” Intersection of the Kenai Spur and Sterling highways in Soldotna. “We’re staying positive and we’re out here with positive messages that the community supports education and our employees. We just wanted an opportunity to be out here this weekend and show that, and hopefully make the team feel encouraged.”
State funding for education — still pending the governor’s signature — actually ended up bestowing an unexpected windfall on the district.

Showing the numbers
The district started out its projected fiscal year 2013 budget expecting about a $2.4 million deficit, but now is looking at having a bit of extra money to spend, thanks to a few boosts in funding — $1.75 million in one-time capital funding in the governor’s budget, and changes from the Legislature in the state’s education “Foundation Formula.” The Legislature changed the formula for figuring how much local governments could contribute to their school district, which lowered the amount the Kenai Peninsula Borough could provide to the district by about $2.7 million. Now there was no net loss for KPBSD.
The district also stands to get an increase of about $413,000 in funding for career and technical education targeting 7-8 grades, and a boost in transportation money. Last year the district dug $750,000 out of its general fund budget to cover a shortfall in the transportation account when busing costs with provider First Student came in higher than anticipated.
Since the district no longer has to spend money from its general fund on transportation, it has some extra money in the budget for the current fiscal year. That’s where the money is coming from for negotiations.
“Because of the funding by the Legislature, we will no longer need to do that transfer, that means we now have $750,000 that we did not expect to have in the general fund, that has allowed us to offer some items in mediation and negotiations that we ordinarily wouldn’t have been able to,” Jones said during a school board meeting Monday in Seward.
The district’s most-recent offer to the associations included an annual raise built into employee contracts, based on longevity and education, of 1.78 percent to 4.82 percent for certified employees, and 3.44 percent to 12.34 percent for classified employees, as well as a 1 percent salary increase each of the next three years. The district also is offering two additional paid workdays with no school in session, and a 1 percent, per year for three years, increase in extracurricular salary schedule ranges.
In health care, the district’s most-recent offer amounts to an $840 annual reduction in the amount employees contribute to health care, with the district shouldering more of the per-month cost. Any health care expenditures that exceed the set, proposed contribution levels, will be split with the district paying 60 percent and employees 40 percent in the first year of the contract. If an employee participates in the district’s Wellness program, that split would change to the district covering 65 percent of those additional costs in the second year of the contract, and 70 percent in the third year, or 50 percent both those years if an employee does not participate in the Wellness program.
The unions have been holding out for “inflation-proofing.” The associations’ most-recent offer asks for a 3 percent raise each year plus whatever the consumer price index for Anchorage is for that year (currently it’s 2.8 percent). In health care, the associations would like a cost sharing of a $160 per-month employee contribution (that would cover the employee and their dependents) and $1,400 per-month district contribution, with any costs exceeding that split 90 percent from the district and 10 percent by an employee.
As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, it had not yet been announced whether the offer of the one-time $600 and $1,000 payments would change the associations’ minds about coming back to the table. Druce on Tuesday said the associations’ team was discussing whether to return to negotiations but had not yet decided. The district is hopeful to have its invitation accepted.

Photo provided - HoWL's DiRtBaGs (Discount Rates to Boys and Girls) program involved 45 kids collecting trash and recycling products for pledges to raise money for summer camp scholarships.

They’re dirty, they’re stinky, and they’re picking up your trash. For six days, the HoWL DiRtBaGs have been wading through ditches and trudging through town, picking up litter to raise money for their HoWL summer camp scholarships.
The DiRtBaGs picked up 4,444 pounds of trash this year. They took home the top prizes at the Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Clean-Up Day for both litter picker-uppers and recyclers. The DiRtBaGs hauled in 386 bags of trash, 66 of which were just recyclables. They also rolled over two dozen abandoned tires up and out of the ditches.
How did they do it? With a LOT of help from the community of Homer. Forty-five kids, called DiRtBaGs, and a dozen more adults collected trash last week, April 30-May 5, weighing in their haul each day and storing it at their mountain of trash. The community has been supporting these kids by giving them pledges to encourage them to pick up more litter.
Why did they do it? To climb mountains, of course. That’s what DiRtBaGs do. (And not just the mountain of trashbags they’ve collected.)
DiRtBaG stands for Discount Rates to Boys and Girls, and it’s HoWL’s way of providing scholarships for kids to go on wilderness expeditions this summer. HoWL ensures that every kid can go across the bay to camp and hike and learn leadership and survival skills, regardless of how much the trips cost. By picking up trash, the DiRtBaGs earn their trips and clean up Homer too.
HoWL’s mission is to provide outdoor experiential education to young people in Alaska and they offer multi-day expeditions and day trips to kids all summer long. Information about HoWL can be found at www.howlalaska.org.

Photo by Chris Pallister Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Coast Guard and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation survey the debris swept along the coast of Montague Island, as well as every other island within a 50-mile area.

Chris Pallister’s worst nightmare came true over the weekend when he took a first look at the outer islands of Prince William Sound on a flight to check for snow thaw.
Beaches were exposed from ice, but a whole lot of other flotsam – large chunks of wall insulation, hundreds of gas canisters – were there as well.
For 50 miles or more, massive amounts of debris litter the beaches. Black snarls of fishing nets and canisters that may still contain oil, fuel and kerosene. Carcasses of urethane foam torn out of buildings in the Japanese Earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck last spring also washed ashore.
On May 5, the Gulf of Alaska Keepers had planned to get started cleaning beaches. This is why Pallister was checking on the progress of break-up. He is the president of the Gulf of Alaska Keeper Organization, a group that monitors 17 beach cleanup sites and 122 miles of coastline. Over the past 10 years, GOAK gained an idea on what constitutes the normal haul of heaved up trash – they’ve collected 1 million pounds.
“What we are seeing is magnitudes more. In my opinion, this is the single greatest environmental pollution event that has ever hit the west coast of North America,” Pallister said Tuesday morning. “The slow-motion aspects of it have fooled an unwitting public. It far exceeds the Santa Barbara or Exxon Valdez oil spills in gross tonnage and also geographic scope.”
Homer’s Alaska Center for Coastal Studies Special Projects Coordinator, Patrick Chandler, is helping Pallister organize efforts in the massive task ahead. Chandler’s group has been at work on marine debris pick-up for 27 years, and has some of the most comprehensive experience along Cook Inlet.
The goal is to get the toxic products off the beach as quickly as possible so it doesn’t wash back into the water. The two beach debris experts, Pallister and Chandler, are talking about this kind of a scenario: the debris will need to be picked up and dumped in piles above tideline, then barged to port, most likely Homer, and disposed of properly from the Kenai Peninsula.
In order to do that, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Coast Guard is asking Pallister to train his crew in hazardous material disposal. “This means, we won’t get out to the beaches May 5 like we planned,” he said. “It will set us back at least a week or more.”
GOAK has a crew of 10 full-time people, but there is no funding to provide more than that, he said.
All summer long, AGOK scours beaches from Montague Island to Gore Point. “We may need to clean strategically, because of the problems with this stuff, the toxicity of it. We’ll have to change our strategy to get Styrofoam off and chemical waste products picked up and taken away from the surf zone,” Pallister said.
NOAA officials are careful to call found-beach trash “suspected tsunami debris,” and are still urging the public to document debris in photos and by indexing specific sites.
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council received information over the weekend from Cordova based Dave Janka of Auklet Charters that pilots are reporting the outer coast of Montague Island being hit hard by Japanese tsunami debris.  
“The Prince William Sound Science Center and NOAA have also received reports of larger than normal amounts of marine debris for this time of year,” PWSRC Stan Jones, director of administration and external affairs. NOAA has requested that if anyone sees debris they believe may be from the Japan tsunami, that they report sightings to disasterdebris@NOAA.gov.  Include what, when, where and as much detailed information, including pictures, you can.
Since so many state and federal agencies tend to get involved in an environmental catastrophe, Pallister said it will be important to think logically in the days ahead.
“Especially the agencies are loathe to say for certain this is tsunami trash, but there is no question. We clean 17 monitoring sites every year and another 122 miles of coastline. We have a really good idea of what is coming in. What we’re seeing is magnitudes more. A tremendous amount more,” Pallister said. “Then into the kinds of differences – cherry red fuel cans – kerosene canisters – we’ve never seen those before. All over the place – hundreds of them.”
Japan allows floats made of Styrofoam, something not seen much of among American mariners. These vary from five to 30-gallon size floats.
“There are thousands of them when you look along the coast,” Pallister said. In a typical year, GOAK finds the big black egg-shaped floats, about 20-30 of those. This year, Pallister saw more on one beach then in his entire life.
“The thing that stands out to me is the amount of Styrofoam. Great big chunks – eight feet long to small broken up pieces. Urethane foam from walls that were destroyed. It’s an obscene mass. No way, in hell, that this is not tsunami debris,” he said.
GOAK believes the debris is the work of a winter process. “But other than some of the broken up stuff, the big stuff hasn’t been hammered yet. That makes me think it hasn’t been there long. Bears chew that up and spread it all over the place. It’s very toxic.”
The amount of chemical waste has been slow to dawn on coastal people, he warns. The cannon-sinking of the unmanned floating Japanese vessel Ryou Un Maru was a particularly unwise move on the part of officials, Pallister said.
“That was so ill advised to sink that ship. There’s lots of fuels, Styrofoam, insulation, freezers, microwaves, all that plastic will pop to surface,” he said. “It was stupid to sink it like that. It might take take 50 – 100 years, but eventually it will float to the surface.”
A sustained cleanup – not one that sweeps in like Exxon officials after the Valdez Oil Spill – will be needed, Pallister warns.
“We need a cleanup that is economical and environmentally friendly. It would be good to increase NOAA’s marine debris grant program. That’s a 1-1 match for leveraging local funds. The money can go further that way. We would have people on the ground for as long as we it takes,” he added.
The geographic scope from California to the Aleutians means the potential for much greater tonnage than the toxic effect of the Exxon Valdez, he believes.
“This is more hazardous than oil. Entire communities went into the ocean, industrial, household chemicals, anything you can think of in your garage and it’s all coming here,” Pallister said. “This is like a great big toxic spill that is widely dispersed. It will take a long time to clean. If not, it will be with us for generations.”
Editor’s Note: Patrick Chandler, the Center for Coastal Studies project coordinator, was able to get back to us only after deadline, since he was leading a field trip at Kasitna Bay Lab. He wants Homer and area residents who have asked how can they help to keep this mind:
“We need to find a use for these buoys. They are in perfect shape. They have great floatation – they floated across the Pacific Ocean – they’re going to last a while. We need to find a use for these things,” he said.
“If we need to dispose of the debris, then it’s better than having them in the marine environment. But if we could find any use for these buoys, either a person putting them to use on a boat or on a business project. Chris and I were talking about designing a dock out of them. I really want to figure that out, how to use this debris in a creative and positive manner that keeps it from cluttering up already much-needed landfill space. That’s how people can help us out for now.”

At the end of hearing from about a dozen water taxi and charter boat operators on a proposed $2 head tax, the Homer Port and Harbor Commission nixed the idea entirely.
They also crossed off the proposal to build a new $2 million Harbor Office to replace the ailing building. And they put a ceiling of $4 million on the amount of the revenue bond.
The commission took public testimony at its Wednesday meeting on four proposed fee increases toward helping to pay for $12 million in harbor improvements. They were looking at fuel wharfage, moorage increases, fee rates at the Deepwater Dock and the head tax as ways to raise funds toward debt payment on a $6 million revenue bond. The other $6 million would be paid for in grants available to the City of Homer. A grant deadline looms in July, so the idea was to have the financing figured out ahead of time, said Harbormaster Bryan Hawkins.
But the first number to change in the request is the amount. Instead of $6 million requested of Homer in the form of funding a revenue bond, the commission voted to lower it to $4 million.
It’s ultimately up to the Homer City Council to approve any bond requests, but it will not need to pass voter approval.
At the public meeting Wednesday, the main focus was on a head tax, though there were some questions raised about the harbor’s role in helping to fund city services. One person objected to raising fees when the city “siphons off something like 20 percent” to pay for other services like roads and police.
But this is not true at all, Hawkins explained later.
The harbor pays the city a standard amount each year.
“It’s part of the operation budget – $393,483 – to the city administration for our public works, fire, police, attorney – we pay for our services. We also pay separate for water – we get billed like others,” Hawkins said. “We pay a flat rate and whatever else is excess of our spending goes into our reserves.”
The harbor has a fund reserve at $1.6 million in savings. The City of Homer doesn’t access this or any of the harbor profits, Hawkins explained.
Of the amount in savings for 2012, the harbor plans to deduct $330,000 set aside for projects.
“These were budgeted ahead of time. Crane rebuilding, corrosion protection on the fish dock, repairs of the deep water dock, just to name a few.” Hawkins said.
At the meeting, the public succeeded in convincing the Port and Harbor Commission that the head tax wouldn’t just hurt their bottom line – it would be bad for Homer and impossible to enforce.
Tim Cashman, owner of Alaska Coastal Marine Charters, who takes out multiple passengers at a time, called it a terrible idea during a time when tourism and the economy struggle. Adding $2 can mean a lot to the casual traveller and to families of four.
“A family of four might decide not to take the trip,” he said.
Unlike other Homer purchases that top off at $500 for city sales tax, marine transportation services do not have a ceiling. So a $1,000 charter already supplies nearly $75 to the city in revenue.
Rick Swenson, one of the owners of Homer Ocean Charters, said already marine transporters taking people on excursions across Kachemak Bay are hit by a whole menu of fees: For every $100 spent, $4 goes to Kachemak State Park, $7.50 in city and borough sales tax, with another $2 added on per person. “It costs us that much to administrate that… You’re killing us. That’s a full time job for someone,” Swenson said.
As for a solution, Swenson acknowledged Homer’s port has some big needs.
Homer missed out on revenue from a generous $450 million state bond package to fund a backlog of harbor and transportation projects around the state. The money will be available to communities already listed if the bond passes.
“Let’s work together and chase the money down,” Swenson said. “We have (as a state) $13 billion in the savings account. If the legislature can find $1 million for the orphan moose relocation project, they damn well should have something for us.”
Kate Mitchell, owner of Nomar and the chair of the Marine Trades Association, said the local economy counts on a healthy harbor and strong services there. In looking at how to pay for improvements, she encouraged the commission to find the most equitable way.
“How would you raise the fees to do the job that needs to get done? Approach it as a business. You have to make the improvements, so what’s the most equitable way to do it?” Mitchell asked. “How did we miss the state boat (in funding help)?”
Keeping the harbor maintained “is the cost of doing business,” she added.
The biggest objection from the operators was that a new head tax targets them in a discriminatory manner.
Greg Sutter, president of the Alaska Charter Association, said the head tax would greatly differ among the operations from small water taxis to ferries and over night charters.
“To give an example, they may charge $50 to take people across the Bay. A charter charges $250 – so the person with water taxi pays a disproportionate amount. Then there are administrative costs. What are they?”
Gerri Martin, owner of North Country Charters, warned the head tax sends an unfriendly message on top of the newly installed parking fees and a looming one-halibut fish limit. More of the harbor users need to be impacted, rather than the limited charter fleet, she said. The head tax will discourage visitors from coming to Homer.
There’s also a lot to track when customers pay half by credit card before they get here and the balance in cashier’s check, noted Gary Alt of Inlet Charters. “It (presents) a nightmare of keeping track of these individual targeted taxes and fees – a lot of room for error in there,” he said.
Mako Haggerty, owner of Mako’s Water Taxi, called the tax arbitrary and capricious. “We’re living in the margins right now,” he said. The more charter operators must charge customers, the less they can charge for their own cost recovery in an attempt to keep prices down.
Daniel Donich, owner of Personalized Guide Service, questioned how would the head tax be enforced?
“Water taxies don’t have a log book. There’s no way to enforce it – it’s not the same across the board like a sales tax or a slip fee,” Donich said. There are other areas the city can better chose to address such as slip fees.
“We have the cheapest slip fees in the nation. I’ve been in a lot of harbors, Florida, Seattle… These are privately owned arenas and they pay twice, or six or seven times more than we do. We get our boats checked on twice a day. Where else does that happen?” Donich said.
As soon as the last person had spoken to the commission, Chair Cathy Ulmer called for a discussion on how they should proceed with the tax.
Pete Wedin, a commissioner, made a motion to strike the head tax idea from the list. A vote was taken, and passed unanimously.
Afterwards, Cove Country Cabins owner Tammy Jones, who with her daughter Chelsey Horn, had testified on the head tax’s unfairness, said she was surprised at how soon the commission got rid of the bad idea.
“I am really pleased with how quickly they made a change in there. And I felt badly I didn’t get a chance to say thank you at the end of it,” Jones said. “They were very responsive. They listened and took immediate action.”

Ice fees
The commission then continued on with a discussion about other increases. A motion was made by Steve Zimmerman to exclude the ice tonnage purchased by commercial fishermen. These fees would not be raised, he proposed, and the motion passed unanimously. His reasoning was that ice is purchased by a small portion of harbor users.
Wedin had another reason, but agreed.
“Our ice is better than anyone’s else. Commercial fishermen who come here say they like our ice better, they like our bars better, our grocery stores and our harbor,” Wedin said. “But we’ve slipped from being the Halibut Capital. This might be a small way to encourage (use of our port.)”

Deepwater Dock
Homer’s charges at the deep water dock are currently on a schedule fee, such as a ship that is 100-200 feet pays a certain fee, graduating on up to the largest vessels of 800-900 feet. Instead, ports like Anchorage charge on a per-foot basis, Harbormaster Hawkins noted.
He recommended switching 100 percent to the Anchorage Port’s fee structure. This takes rates from 100-foot vessels paying $254.13 to $338 per dockage. Vessels such as the cruise ship Amsterdam go from paying $1,800 to $7,459 per dockage.

Fuel Wharfage
This fee is charged on fuel deliveries at the dock, impacting people who purchase fuel at the dock and companies offloading fuel.
The commission debated raising the .0103 percent to .025 percent, a proposal from Commissioner Bob Howard. But the majority objected, voting to keep that fee to the proposed rate of .020 percent on the grounds that fuel costs are already rising exorbitantly.

Moorage fees
Bob Howard proposed raising moorage fees 20.05 percent instead of the 15 percent. His reasoning was to make up for the loss of proposed funding that would have been netted from the head tax.
A rise of 15 percent would bring the linear footage from $34.19 to $37.86 in 2012 and $40.50 in 2013.
Commissioner Wedin responded that he was comfortable with 15 percent but not more. Commissioner Glen Carroll said he was sympathetic to the small transporters, but to turn in another direction and aim the rates at stall owners wasn’t fair either.
They proposed a rate study to compare options.
A few floats and docks at the Homer Boat Harbor date back to the 1964 Earthquake, infrastructure put in place that in the many decades since were bolstered and band-aided to keep them afloat.
Between dock corrosion and retaining wall sinkholes, there’s a backlog of maintenance issues that need to be addressed,” Harbormaster Hawkins said.
Now that the harbor building is off the list, and its current request is at $10 million, Hawkins said it is possible to bond for $4 million and raise the rest in matching funds toward $8 million.
“This is a work-in-progress,” Hawkins added. “We may need to make more eliminations.”