Shelly Erickson took over as Homer’s mayor Monday night, at the same city council meeting where members certified voters’ decision to keep the HART sales tax.
The swearing-in came near the end of the meeting after the council certified the results of the November 3 city election. Members amended the resolution to update the count on Proposition A. Under the amended count, voters approved it 1,606 to 406. It keeps the city’s three-quarter percent Homer Accelerated Roads and Trails sales tax in place for up to 20 more years. The tax pays for road and trail work.
City Clerk Amy Woodruff swore in council members Caroline Venuti and Bradley Parsons, who both won reelection, to three-year terms. She then swore in Erickson to a two-year term as mayor. Erickson read a recognition for outgoing Mayor Rachel Lord, who joined the council in 2017 and won the mayor’s seat in 2024. Lord did not seek another term.
Earlier in the meeting, Lord recognized Kelly Cooper for nine years on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, representing Homer. Cooper’s last assembly meeting was Tuesday.
On the consent agenda, the council approved a letter to Aleutian Airways. It asks the airline to rethink its Homer schedule and set one it can keep. The letter says delays and cancellations have cost the airline many people’s trust and that people are driving to Kenai to catch a flight, driving to Anchorage or taking a bus instead. It also invites the airline to send someone to a council meeting.
The council also introduced three ordinances on the consent agenda. One would accept about 152 thousand dollars in state money for the early design of a new public works campus. Another would update the budget chapter of city code. The third would accept a state grant of about 5 thousand dollars for library internet. The council will hold hearings on all three on November 23.
Two ordinances were up for public hearing. No one testified, and the council passed both. The first puts 20 thousand dollars from the HART roads fund toward finishing the design for repaving Heath Street. A public works memo says the city plans to bid the project this winter and build it next summer. The second spends 50 thousand dollars from port reserves to design repairs to the mooring dolphins at the harbor’s deep-water dock. Large ships tie up to those piling structures. A memo from the port director says the city already has about 143 thousand dollars in state grant money for the repairs themselves.
Under ordinances, the council put 150 thousand dollars from the HART trails fund toward the design of a hiking trail on an old roadbed above Karen Hornaday Park. The council postponed that vote in August. Lord said members wanted to see how the HART vote went first, and Council member Donna Aderhold said they held off in case the tax didn’t pass.
Under resolutions, before the election certification, the council approved next year’s insurance contracts for city employees. Council member Jason Davis pulled that item from the consent agenda, then amended it. A memo from Davis says the city paid its insurance broker, USI, a flat fee, set in 2015 at 25 thousand dollars a year. In 2021, the city switched to a commission based on a share of premiums. Under the current plan, the memo says, that’s four percent of medical premiums. The memo says the city clerk found no record that the council approved the switch. Davis said the broker has now agreed to a flat fee, which cuts the cost of the contracts by more than 30 thousand dollars. City Manager Melissa Jacobsen said the broker offered the change. Davis said he hopes to bring a resolution to the next meeting so the city can seek proposals from other brokers willing to work for a flat fee.
Erickson’s election as mayor leaves her council seat open. The city is taking applications for the vacant council seat until 4:30 p.m. Monday, November 16. The next regular council meeting is Monday, November 23 at six p.m.
