Your legislators’ votes impact our daily lives

The Alaska 34th Legislature is in session and our representatives are voting on our future. Here is a short peek into how our Rep. Sarah Vance has been voting this session.

Sarah Vance voted NO to:

Receiving $12.6 million federal dollars for rural schools and communities — including Kenai Peninsula (HJR 5);

Receiving $500 million for broadband and telecommunication infrastructure critical in health facilities, schools and individuals in rural Alaska — including the Kenai Peninsula (HJR 6);

Increasing per student funding (BSA), which has fallen way behind inflation (HB 69); and

Keeping Denali as the official name of North America’s tallest peak (HJR 4).

While these bills passed the House, if they had failed we could have seen the following consequences:

Funds for school, roads, law enforcement, emergency service and other critical needs in rural area would be jeopardized, placing a substantial burden on local governments. (HJR 5);

220 rural health facilities will lose $220 million; 108,000 students would lose access to communications services; rural households will lose $167 million for connectivity. (HJR 6);

Public school purchasing power would continue to fall further and further behind inflation — Sarah has promised to allow Gov. Dunleavy’s veto on this bill to stand (HB 69).

Please pay attention to how your legislators are voting — their votes are relevant to our day-to-day lives.

Find more information at www.akleg.gov.

Homer Women of Action

Sea of Strings celebrates music and community

On Thursday, April 10, Homer OPUS hosted Sea of Strings, a concert on the Homer High School Mariner stage with nearly 200 students from their violins in the schools and after-school programs. Showcasing work by Homer’s composer Johnny B, students from Paul Banks, Fireweed Academy and Chapman School, along with the Homer Youth String Orchestra Club, representing ages 5 to 50-plus played for close to an hour to a full house of more than 500 community members, a celebration of music, kids, schools and community. This concert happens every other year and is intended to highlight the vision and mission of Homer OPUS which is to build community by creating music together.

Christina Whiting, program manager

Homer OPUS

In Alaska, you can’t fix what you can’t use

I own Cruz Unlimited in Homer. We repair diesel pickups for general contractors, small business owners, and anyone who still needs to get through Alaska in February.

If California’s Advanced Clean Cars II rule goes through, and gas and diesel vehicles are banned by 2035, those trucks go away — and so does my business. The EPA already gave California a waiver to do it, without a vote in Congress. Eleven states are on board. That’s enough to change what automakers build, even for the rest of us.

We see the EVs that do show up. Owners say their range gets cut in half in the cold. Batteries drop fast. Parts are already hard to find. If diesel pickups vanish, there’s nothing left for us to fix.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to stop this. Now it’s up to Sen. Lisa Murkowski to protect Alaska from rules written for highways, not frozen coastlines.

Don’t let the Lower 48 decide how we keep moving up here.

Jay Meltzer, owner/mechanic, Cruz Unlimited

Homer

A nation can and should be kind

I rode the train into Hiroshima, where people’s skin melted and their souls evaporated, mulling religion. Japan is Buddhists but there are Baptists, Jews, Hindis, Muslims …

Most religions can be distilled to two words — be kind. The Japanese are beyond that, not only courteous but out-of-their-way helpful. If you look lost, Japanese will stop their cars and not just give you directions, but drive you two blocks to your lodging. So it’s baffling to hear the leader of the free world’s message, “Kiss my ass” or we’ll bomb you. Physically or fiscally — what’s the difference?

Like the bomb, it’s a quick descent to the gates of hell. It takes a nation to raze a planet.

Gordy Vernon

Homer

Factory trawling an evil that must be stopped

Malevolence can often be well concealed, hidden behind a cleverly curated veneer of morality. This kind of evil is insidious because it’s harder to pinpoint, isolate and rectify. These narcissistic people and entities include greenwashing corporate profiteers, politicians who serve lobbyists and special interests ahead of their constituency, the aggrandizing megachurch pastors who squeeze every possible dime out of their congregation, for instance. To the untrained eye, these unscrupulous, self-serving charlatans escape notice and their practices go unchallenged, unchanged, unrectified.

Factory trawling is another story. Its overt and obvious malevolence is on full display. Any kindergartner can point to this industrial plundering of the ocean, see it and call it out for what it is — evil incarnate, in line with and reserved for Dante’s third, fourth, seventh, and ninth levels of hell — gluttony, greed, violence, and treachery.

For at least 14,000 years people have lived and subsisted from the Bering Sea — one of the most biologically productive and abundant ecosystems in the world. This sea could support Alaskans for another 14,000 years if we used it in a similar manner — for food, for subsistence, for inspiration.

Industrial civilization is killing the living world. Each nation is bound to a terrible myth, the myth of perpetual progress, measured by an annual GDP growth of at least 3% — an exponential number on a finite planet. The living world is being killed by the death of a thousand cuts. Nearly 200 species go extinct daily because of industrial civilization, its insatiable appetite and unsustainable methods. Industrial trawling is the ultimate manifestation, the icon and poster child of this deranged, ecocidal and fabricated fairytale of capitalism and perpetual growth. We must slay this mythological beast before it murders the last of the remaining intact ecosystems — our only life support.

Bjorn Olson

Homer

Thank you for supporting Homer track

Homer High School Track and Field team hosted our home track meet last Friday. We want to thank our community volunteers for supporting our track meet. The Homer community really stepped up with volunteers and support to make this an amazing event. A track meet is very complex with many events happening simultaneously. It takes an army of volunteers working together to keep events moving throughout the day. We also had local business support through donations and specials. There were over 300 athletes and coaches spending two nights at the school, our community stores and restaurants kept them fed and supplied. In total, we had over 40 volunteers, 466 competitors, 30 coaches, and a stadium full of spectators. Our team competed incredibly well, both boys and girls taking the 3rd place titles, just barely losing out to the two biggest track programs in the state. Once again, our Homer athletes are performing at the highest level against the toughest competition in the state. Thank you, Homer, for supporting our youth in such a meaningful way.

Robert Ostrom

Homer

Trump is not the right person to improve our economy

Even if I could set aside the moral and ethical issues I have with Donald Trump’s behavior, I still could not agree that he is the right person to improve the economy. The last two letters to the Homer News supporting Trump’s ability to steer the country’s economics are missing two important points:

1) Trump was born into a very wealthy family and has never known what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck; to live the painful reality of having to choose between paying the rent or buying groceries. Governments are not operated like for-profit businesses, because governments exist to run countries, and countries are where people are born, live and die. During that process, some of us need more assistance than others. People come before profits.

2) Yes, Trump is a business man, but a business man with a history of several bankruptcies! He has left a trail of ruined businesses behind him. Would you choose this person as a business partner or trust him with your personal finances? I think not!

Some people voted for Trump because they believe he will improve the economy, but even if manufacturing jobs do come back to the United States, it will literally take years and billions of dollars to rebuild the infrastructure. That train left over 40 years ago. We can thank greedy corporations for that! As far as I can tell, not much has changed in that regard. I totally agree that the U.S. has dug itself into a financial hole, but supporting Trump makes as much sense as “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” and then exclaiming how clean your house is!

Cindy Bolognani

Homer