20 years ago

After hundreds of hours of testimony throughout the last year and a half, Homer voters will get the last say on large retail and wholesale development standards with the check of one box. Monday night — technically early Tuesday morning — the city council, in a 5-1 vote, adopted these standards into city code. However, by voting down in a separate 4-2 vote a resolution that would have brought the size cap from 35,000 square feet to 66,000 square feet, the city council effectively put the question to the voters. On June 15, Homer city residents will be asked to decide exactly how large a retail development they feel the community’s market can bear — either the 35,000-square-foot single retail use limit put into law Monday or the 66,000-square foot footprint proposed by the 329 petitioners who brought the initiative to the city.

— From the issue of April 15, 2004

30 years ago

The bad news about lead in Kenai Peninsula Borough school water systems in that new tests returned last week found lead exceeding federal standards at English Bay, Paul Banks Elementary, Homer Intermediate, Homer Junior High and Homer High schools. The good news is that at Port Graham School, where water samples contained much more lead than samples from any other school sampled to date, blood testing revealed no students or adults with worrisome levels of lead in their bodies. In response to the results, borough officials have turned off water fountains at some but not all of the schools. Water coming in from some of the fountains, which were left on, did not exceed federal standards.

— From the issue of April 14, 1994