Dear Editor,
As a community member of the Kenai Peninsula since the mid 1980s, I have seen the influence the commercial salmon fishery in Cook Inlet has had on the economy of the peninsula. Early last December the North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to close a very integral part of the fishery. As you are aware this was done basically for the reason the State of Alaska is not interested in joint management with the feds, in the Cook inlet salmon fishery. They do so in other fisheries around the state — cod and crab for example.
I was one of the individuals selected to represent the drift fishery during the stakeholder committee process. Nearly three years of meetings, not once in those somewhat spirited meetings at times, was closing most of the inlet put on the table, as an option.
Since the meeting I have taken another look at the economy of the peninsula. With all the uncertainties in our future (virus, oil price, tourism to name a few), the peninsula’s checkbook looks cloudy to myself and I’m sure others.
I for one have not given up and I am asking you to also not give up. The process is slowly moving forward with opportunities for input. Please make a phone call or two, write a letter, send an email to our governor, senators, representatives, Assembly members, other city councils and mayors. Ask whatever question that comes to your minds, but be sure to include, how at a time of so much uncertainty does this make any sense? I see the many lost opportunities for jobs, and taxes that are critical to our communities, schools, city infrastructure, etc.
Thank you ahead of time for your attention in this important issue,
Dan Anderson
Dear Editor,
As a multi-decade fisherman and recreator in the Homer region, I do hope that recent negative comments I’ve read about Sen. Lisa Murkowski don’t reflect the thinking of most Homer and Halibut Cove residents.
Sen. Murkowski has always served all Alaskans quite well, going way back to her days in the Alaska House of Representatives through today. There is no way she is going to lose my support when she stands on her principles, and still keeps working for all of us as well as she does.
I hope other Alaska Sunday fishing and tourism industry feel the same way and will also keep supporting her.
Clay McDowall, Halibut Cove
Dear Editor,
It is with deepest appreciation that I write to thank the City of Homer for supporting the non-profit sector. Sprout Family Services was a recipient of the 2020 City of Homer Grants Program through the Homer Foundation. The operating funds contributed by the City of Homer allows Sprout to maintain the various programs that we offer to families wherever we need it most.
This past year, funds were used to hire an Alaska consultant to complete strategic planning so that our organization is best situated to adapt to the needs of the community.
Thanks to the City of Homer, we can give more families the opportunity to grow up with Sprout.
Jillian Lush, Executive Director
Facts matter; truth matters
Donald Trump as President clearly deceived, encouraged and incited a mob to violently attack the U.S. Capitol for the purpose of harming Legislators and stopping them from doing their sworn Constitutional duty to certify Joseph R. Biden as duly elected President.
In today’s political climate it sadly seems to also take courage to look at facts and truth and then vote to uphold Democracy.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski called it right. She voted for Democracy.
Integrity also matters.
Arlene Ronda
Where have we seen this before?
I had an interesting conversation with a fellow conservative this week. We both agreed that conservatives feel abandoned by both the system and the Republican Party. Here are some examples why we feel this way. In 2016 election fraud was alleged and then investigated by an independent special counsel. In 2020 there were similar allegations of election fraud, but no independent investigations were allowed.
There also now appear to be different standards for punishing rioting, depending on the cause that inspires it. The rioters of the summer were largely unprosecuted. For the Capitol rioters of Jan. 6, the full force of the FBI is being used to track down and punish every single one of them. Some are even using that event as an excuse to label all 75 million Trump supporters as domestic terrorists.
We hear the military is currently doing a 60-day stand down for the purpose of removing undesirables, like some sort of Soviet style purge. We worry when social media violates the fundamental principle of the First Amendment by removing the ability to speak freely, but only for conservatives.
We try to make sense of a government that will tell us “walls don’t work” and halt construction on the border wall, while simultaneously building one to surround the Capitol Building. We see a partisan unconstitutional impeachment of a president after he is out of office, and Republicans are mostly silent on Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s support for it.
In our conversation, we agreed that our system of government no longer appears to treat people equally. I do not know if anyone else gets it, but things feel very odd right now. I bet this is how Russia must have felt in 1917, or Germany in 1934 and that should concern us all.
Respectfully,
Greg Sarber
Applause
For her courage to put justice, morality and conscious before party loyalty, I stand and applaud Sen. Lisa Murkowski for her vote to impeach Mr. Trump. The fractious split in the Republican Party is sad. Bullying and loudness are the tools of juveniles who lack the words and critical thinking to properly discourse and debate their positions. For some reason many people like this method of leadership, so the Republican faction embraced it as the previous president modeled it, all with their eyes on power and re-election no matter the cost or lack of morality.
Then came conspiracies, violence and gun toting to further push their beliefs, similar to the Mafia and drug street gangs, none of which survive long as they kill one another off. A majority of people do prefer peace and the liberty it affords to speak and move about without fear. Now we have a state Republican radical branch pushing to have Sen. Murkowski censured for voting her conscience. This new branch has no conscience?
I also applaud Gove. Mike Dunleavy for issuing a statement condemning Sen. Lora Reinbold for her publicly made statements attacking his policies during our COVID-19 pandemic. His juggling of people’s extreme views on safety protocols with basic common-sense safety tenets must be a nightmare. Reinbold, shockingly the chair of the State Judiciary Committee, has used her state office to pedal her personal beliefs against vaccines and the Governor’s protocol handling. His statements covered in the news are beautifully put. She abused her oath of office and should be censured and removed from her committee chair position.
I stand and applaud the 10 Republican senators who voted their conscience to impeach Mr. Trump for the crime of calling for violence among citizens, between party members, in the Capitol. Like the loving God I believe in, we should be moved by acts of strong humility, not those motivated by wealth and power.
Therese Lewandowski
Dear Editor,
Last Week’s headline article about the Hilcorp proposed oil and gas well caught my eye.
The Whiskey Gulch area is very near the area where the Sterling Highway is slowly falling away.
I sincerely hope the powers that be will look closely at this proposal, the idea that the road and someone on it like Humpty -Dumpty might take a mighty fall does not sit well. The Department of Transportation and Public Facilities did do some work, and at the time McKibben Jackinsky interviewed Ed Berg for an article printed in the Homer News, in November 2013. I quote from that: “Local geologist Ed Berg described the features that make this area vulnerable to liquefaction.” Basically, according to Berg, a water-saturated sand layer sits on an impermeable concrete-like glacial till. Given those conditions, the speed of the erosion could be magnified in the event of a seismic shake.
“An earthquake lifts up the ground and would take the pressure off the sand grains so they are essentially floating in water,” said Berg. “Something like that would take out hundreds of yards of the bluff. There really isn’t much you can do about that.” Could the drilling be like a small earthquake?
Sounds like a need for a follow up article for the Homer News As I drive by the site, it looks to me like more has fallen away since DOT did that work.
Scary proposal …
A concerned citizen,
Milli Martin
