While Dwayne Nustvold Jr. technically became a city resident in May 2016, he’s no stranger to Homer and its surrounding areas, and hopes to leave the city better than he found it should he be elected to the Homer City Council.

Now retired and volunteering at the Alaska Bible Institute, Nustvold has been involved in rental properties in Homer. He’s currently working on building a duplex.

A Minnesota native, Nustvold first lived in Alaska in the 1980s before leaving, then making the move permanent back to Alaska in 2008, though he and his family lived outside Homer city limits. While in Minnesota, he had trucking, cement casting, asphalt and landscaping businesses.

“There was a lot of things that really bothered me that happened last February, and I was really concerned,” Nustvold said of his decision to run. “It’s mainly for my grandkids … and my kids that live up here.”

Nustvold said he would use his knowledge of the business world to help tackle the issue of shrinking funds at the city level, and would like to brainstorm some new streams of revenue for the city. All in all, he’d like to create a more economically stable Homer for future generations, he said.

“I see so much potential in Homer,” he said. “I look at the port expansion (and) it really excites me.”

Now 60, Nustvold said that when he owned businesses and his revenue dropped, as a business owner he looked for new ways to bring in money. He’d like to apply the same tactic to Homer.

“That Spit is a goldmine for bringing infrastructure here into Homer,” he said. “I would like to see shipping containers, a shipping port come in here.”

Nustvold said he wants to explore the idea of completing a deep water port on the Spit and potentially a facility to do maintenance on large ships, both to create jobs and get a better handle on potential pollution. Since Homer is closer to Kenai, Soldotna and Seward than Anchorage is, he said, the city ought to capitalize on bringing in infrastructure when it comes to shipping.

“That will in turn bring in more tax revenue, and we won’t be fighting so much over police stations and different things like that,” he said.

In terms of quality of life in Homer, Nustvold would like to see more investment in the Jack Gist Ballfield, and in outdoor activities in general. He emphasized the potential to bring more people into the city, who would in turn spend money in the city, by investing in outdoor facilities where events and tournaments can be held.

When it comes to sitting on the council, Nustvold said he is for making compromises, as long as they make sense. He’s not a fan of putting tax burdens on people, he said, and would likely make a hard stand against that if it were to come up at council.

“It’s going to be up to the voters to push the direction that we want to see, where we want to go,” he said.

While not a cannabis user, Nustvold said he has used it in the past.

“I have seen two people in my life that have gone through cancer, and I’ve seen the effects that cannabis has, and my view on cannabis has changed,” he said.

He’s not in favor of small-time operations in residential areas, which he said would give those living in residential areas too many nuisances.

“It’s a law, this state chose it, and I just want it done right,” he said.

Generally, Nustvold said he thinks there would be less tension among residents if there was an economic uplift to take some of the burden off of them. He’d like to ask voters if they’d be willing to pay into an inheritance fund in order to set up future generations in Homer to be in a good place financially.

“I look at this place, and I think this place can economically throw ripples through this state,” he said. “And I don’t mean bad ripples, I mean ripples that will affect the whole state and raise the economy of the state itself.”

For candidate profiles on Sarah Vance and Varoline Venuti, see pages 10 and 13.