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The Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor’s chief of staff is heading an ad hoc effort to force the school district to bring students back into classrooms for full-time, in-person learning, something that was highly

It appears Homer’s mayor is becoming more comfortable casting his tie-breaking vote. After barely using it at all during his first term in office, Mayor Ken Castner on Monday night cast a tie-breaking vote and threatened a veto.
    The first instance was when the council took up a resolution supporting the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association and opposing proposed changes in the Kachemak Bay State Park management plan that would force the association’s Tutka Bay Hatchery to close.

The weather on January 9th may not be conducive to riding a jet ski in Alaska waters, but that’s the date the State of Alaska has chosen for the return of personal watercraft to Kachemak Bay.
    In an order signed by an aide in Lieutenant Governor Kevin Meyer’s office on his behalf, the state law that prohibited personal watercraft use in Kachemak Bay and the Fox River Flats Critical Habitat Areas was repealed.
    The order came from Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang.

The first public hearings concerning the Kachemak Bay State Park plan were held Monday, online, by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. Among other items, the plan calls for the phasing out of the Tutka Bay Salmon Hatchery.
DNR’s Monica Alvarez said the plan finds that a hatchery is an incompatible use in the park, and that the legal reasons to remove the Tutka Bay Hatchery outweighs all the reasons to have a salmon hatchery in Kachemak Bay.

As Covid-19 case numbers continue to rise, public health officials are finding the transmission of the coronavirus is occurring in all parts of the community. 
“And when you're looking at the numbers and they exponentially pop up for a seven day period, last week compared to this week, that's because it is so widespread,” Alaska Public Health Nurse Lorne Carrol said. “So anywhere where the virus can transmit from one person to the next, COVID-19 is spreading from one host to the next.”

KBBI Bushlines help connect us to loved ones near and far. This Christmas season, KBBI is here to connect you to the North Pole! We invite our young KBBI listeners to send their letter to Santa through the AM airwaves this year.

Here is how:

Three Kenai Peninsula legislators released a statement on Monday afternoon, calling on Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy to join Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's suit asking the U.S Supreme Court to order state legislatures in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to refuse to honor certified election results in their states and choose new presidential electors.

The Texas suit alleges that judicial changes made to voting procedures in the interest of public safety during the coronavirus pandemic were unlawful.

The first shipments of COVID-19 vaccine are expected in Homer within the next two weeks. Derotha Ferraro, spokesperson for South Peninsula Hospital says, vaccines and the protective equipment for administering them are on the way from the State of Alaska.

"When the vaccine arrives for the healthcare employees as well as residents of long-term care, the shipment contains all the PPE for safe dispensing of the vaccine. So, we will not have to use any of our gloves or masks or anything," said Ferraro.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has before it the fate of commercial salmon fishing in Cook Inlet. 
    There is a thousand-square-mile block of waters south of Kalgin Island that is part of the nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone, and therefore subject to federal regulation. Cook Inlet commercial fishermen, unhappy with state management which favored Kenai River sportsfishing, sued to have the waters federally managed. Whether the feds want to manage that water, turn it over to the state, or stop fishing in it altogether, is currently what’s before the council.