Simon Lopez

A Homer pilot and passenger from Anchorage died Monday afternoon in a plane crash near the small Kenai Peninsula community of Nanwalek; the Homer City Council passed a series of measures, postponed two items and heard from visitors at its meeting last night; and Homer’s first cruise ship for the season, the Viking Venus, with Viking Ocean Cruises will arrive in Homer on Wednesday morning.

Homer volunteers are working to improve emergency response in Kachemak Bay State Park with a new search and rescue team. Initial training sessions for volunteers began today.

The Cessna 207, operated by Smokey Bay Air, crashed near Nanwalek on the southern peninsula. A second passenger was seriously injured.

Kenai Peninsula Community Choir and the Homer High School choir will perform a premier oratorio for voice and strings composed by Timothy Takach on Friday and Saturday evening starting at 7 p.m. at the Mariner Theatre; and volunteers in Homer are building Kachemak Bay State Park’s first organized response procedure.

This weekend, the first-of-its-kind event will cover topics from soil health to climate-resilient farming at Kachemak Bay Campus.

On Wednesday, student representatives from five high schools on the Kenai Peninsula gathered in Homer for a district wide student council meeting; local growers will dig into everything from compost piles to climate-resilient farming this weekend at the first Southcentral Growers Conference in Homer; and the state board that regulates big game guides and outfitters is one step closer to having a permanent administrator.

Lawmakers are taking public testimony this week on a bill that would raise Alaska’s age of sexual consent from 16 to 18; Alaska’s freshman Congressman, Nick Begich III, hasn’t done much related to fisheries in his first 100 days in office. But during a commercial fisheries trade show in Kodiak last week, the Republican highlighted some seafood-related measures in the works and heard from local fishermen; and some federal workers in Juneau were fired again this month after the Supreme Court declined to reverse the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the federal workforce.

Almost two years after central peninsula voters backed the construction of a new fire station for Soldotna, the building is starting to take shape.

Snowmelt and sunshine typically herald the arrival of spring – but for the Kenai Peninsula’s public employees, it’s also budget season; and the Kenai Peninsula Borough won’t ask state lawmakers to expand its taxing powers – for now.

The City of Homer is moving forward with a long-planned road and water project in Old Town. But at last night’s city council meeting, the project drew opposition from area business owners and residents, who said the timeline could hurt their operations during the summer season; and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration released a long-delayed study on state worker salaries last week.