Senior center membership meeting next month

The annual membership meeting for the Homer Senior Center is Thursday, May 16 at the Center’s Silver Lining Café at 1:30 p.m. This is an opportunity for all seniors who are 55 and older and who are members of the HSC to vote in four new board members to help guide this very important facility in a new, positive direction to make it one of the best in the state. A group of over 20 people who are working for positive change at the Homer Senior Center recommends the following slate of Board candidates: Alana Greear, Shirlie Gribble, Colleen James, and Jon Kulhanek.

You can read a brief introduction of these candidates at this public Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6in1558469372167.We are excited to have such accomplished folks willing to serve on the board. Each of these candidates has decades of experience in either health care, nonprofit management, or has had a family member at HSC.

If you have not yet joined, please stop by the Homer Senior Center office to pay your annual membership fee, pick up your membership card, and request a ballot if you are not planning to come to the annual meeting.

Nina Faust

An open letter to Gov. Dunleavy and the Alaska Legislature

With all the tax money this state reaps from visitors, a little more focus needs to be on the Alaska Marine Highway System.

What were the odds that I could have two vacations two years in a row ruined by the AMHS schedule cancellations?

Pretty darn good, apparently. I traveled over 4,000 miles to get to Homer from the Jersey Shore. I’m drawn to the mountains, volcanoes, glaciers and wildlife. I had hoped to visit Kodiak Island on the May 2 sailing of the Tustumena. But that was not to be.

Residents and visitors alike NEED the Alaska Marine Highway System working in a reliable, functional fashion. And that has not been the case. So many people have been disappointed.

Many years of underfunding in the AMHS has led to the demise of a decent dependable schedule with reliable vessels.

I listened to the AMHS Long Range Plan Open House meeting on April 22. Maybe in the future I can make plans to try again and go to Kodiak Island. In the meantime I hope that the island residents of Southeast Alaska can get where they need to go when the ferries are finally out of the shipyards for repairs.

Respectfully submitted,

Regina Discenza

Forked River, New Jersey