Kathleen Gustafson

Coffee Table is celebrating Black History Month with a visit from local storyteller and activist Skywalker Payne.

Sea star wasting syndrome has been observed and documented in Kachemak Bay since 2013. The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies in Homer, Coastwatch Alaska and other local research groups have watched and noted as sunflower sea stars declined by over 90%.
Last month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the sunflower star as critically endangered. Even after seven years of study, scientists have not been able to determine the cause of the wasting disease.

The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies takes the wheel on the Coffee Table this morning. 

Click on the audio below to hear host, Kathleen Gustafson and panelists from CACS: Beth Trowbridge - Executive Director, Katie Gavenus - Program Director, Henry Rieske - Wynn Nature Center /CoastWalk Coordinator and Shannon Moore. School Coordinator/Peterson Bay Field Station coordinator.

On this mornings Brief, Pegge Erkeneff, representing Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, talks about new scheduling protocols for schools, and reviews numbers for enrollment, attendance and the District's food program.

Federal oil and gas leases coming up for sale in Cook Inlet are in the same area as the new North Pacific Fisheries Management Council restrictions on commercial salmon fishing. State and federal agencies could cooperate to keep the fishery open, but the State of Alaska declined to do so.

Homer's healthcare and social service organizations will be connecting local homeless people to material support this Wednesday all across the Kenai Peninsula through Project Homeless Connect. The national, day-long event is a Peninsula-wide effort, though only in its second year in Homer and Anchor Point. 

This morning on The COVID-19 Brief, Derotha Ferraro from South Peninsula Hospital, Jenny Carroll - Information Officer for the City of Homer and Pegge Erkeneff from the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District answer questions from the listeners and KBBI's Kathleen Gustafson talks about the Borough's new call center to assist seniors who want to register for a vaccine.
In Homer, the number to call is (907) 235-4636.

Teachers in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District have to approach the new semester in a variety of ever-changing ways, sometimes from home, sometimes in their classrooms.
KBBI's Kathleen Gustafson hosted a roundtable discussion with KBPSD educators on New Year's Eve.
Click on the audio to hear:
Winter Marshall Allen - Special Education and Intensive Needs Coordinator Homer High School,

On this morning's COVID-19 Brief, panelists:

Nurse Aaron Walbrecher from the Homer Public Health Center, Derotha Ferraro, Spokesperson for South Peninsula Hospital and Jenny Carroll. Information Officer for the City of Homer, share the latest on CARES Act mortgage and rent relief funding and answer questions from the listeners about healthcare workers and first responders refusing the vaccine, and about who will be next to receive the vaccine. 
 

This week on the Coffee Table, review the Kachemak Bay State Park Draft Management Plan with Monica Alvarez, from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Parks Superintendent, Jack Blackwell and Robert Archibald, Chair the of Kachemak Bay State Park Citizens Advisory Council..