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City Council candidates take on Homer's questions

Aaron Bolton, KBBI News

With Homer’s local election under two weeks away, six of the seven candidates for two Homer City Council seats met Thursday at Kachemak Bay Campus for a town-hall style forum. Candidates took questions from the audience as well as Homer News and KBBI. Topics ranged from capital projects to the budget and jobs.

When it came to capital projects, the police station, a new harbor and a haul out facility for large vessels topped the list. The city still needs to secure about $4.5 million to complete the haul out facility and the price tag for a new harbor is about $100 million.

Dwayne Nustvoldt sees those projects as an opportunity for the city.

“One of the ways I would really like to start out with is harbor expansion, I would like to see us be able to bring in shipping containers,” Nustvoldt said. “I would like to see a distribution dock set up so we can have shipping here and that would lower prices of goods that come into Homer.”

Nustvoldt was not the only person excited for a more developed harbor. Sarah Vance sees it as an additional revenue source.

“The large vessel haul out has been moved up in priority with the capital improvement projects, and I’m excited for that,” Vance noted. “Because not only does it meet the needs of the community, it will also bring in revenue from the surrounding area.”

A new police station currently tops the city’s capital improvement list, and every candidate agreed that is should remain there. The council was presented with a $6 and $9 million option for a new building at the corner of Heath Street and Grubstake Avenue this summer, and it’s also revisiting a build-out of the HERC building off Pioneer Avenue.

However, most candidates left what site to use, or which price tag to go with up in the air. Some offered creative solutions for how to alleviate costs. Kimberly Ketter wants to expand the existing station, an option the city has considered.

Nustvoldt suggested having a gun range open to the public for admission to generate revenue, but Andy Kita summed up the gravity of issue.

“There’s a 100% possibility that two of us will maybe make a final decision on the situation,” Kita noted. “So as long as we keep doing research and studying and talking to people and finding out what is actually happening, we’ll be able to figure it out.”

Candidates also fielded questions about how the council could support small business owners. Rachel Lord says that while the city doesn’t have money to offer financial incentives for businesses, it is helping in other ways.

“I sit on the city’s Economic Development Advisory Commission, and we are currently conducting a business expansion program,” she explained. “Asking businesses ‘What’s hindering you? What’s a challenge and how can the city help?’”

Nustvoldt does think the council could incentivize local businesses in other ways to boost the economy. He wants the city to look into giving business owners a reason to hire locally first and in general wants the city to work towards job opportunities for young people.

But, both Vance and Caroline Venuti think that there are enough jobs around town to support young families.

“Our college does a wonderful job providing people, C&A, there are jobs in the hospital, we have our nursing program here, we have the marine industrial program here,” Venuti said. “My first job at the college was a job-training program. I worked with David Lewis on that for a couple years, and we found jobs for every student that came through there.”

Ketter also stressed that Homer’s cost of living should be affordable to those that aren’t business owners, married or retirees.

Candidates will square again at the Elks Lodge on Sept.28. The forum will be hosted by the Homer Chamber of Commerce. Election day is on Oct 3. Polls will be open from 7:00am to 8:00pm.

Tags
News Homer City Council 2017Municipal Election 2017
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