Homer City Council

The Homer City Council updated the city’s leasing policy for public lands Monday. It hopes to streamline the process and give the council more say in approving leases.

Homer Harbormaster Bryan Hawkins was involved in reviewing the policies, and he said the city council will be more involved in the process under the new code.

“They would give the city manager direction to negotiate and sign a lease," he said. "In the code, we've changed that so that the city manager will negotiate and then bring the final document to city council for signing."

Earlier this year, the Homer City Council voted in favor of allowing workers to live in recreational vehicles on the Homer Spit, but on Monday, the council approved a new regulation that would subject those vehicles to a permitting process and a yearly fee.

The council has not yet decided on a fee structure. The Homer Advisory Planning Commission held a public hearing in April to discuss the fee and suggests at least $100 per year. 

Homer may see new airline come to town this year. Peninsula Airways, better known as PenAir, hopes to lease space at the Homer Airport this summer and begin offering flights by the fall.

The Homer City Council approved a resolution Tuesday that allows the city to negotiate with the airliner. The resolution calls for a 26-month lease and roughly $38,000 annually to lease space for a ticket office and baggage area.

A local bar and restaurant may lose its liquor license because it owes thousands of dollars in delinquent property and sales taxes.

The Alcohol & Marijuana Control Office notified the city last month that Young’s Downtown Restaurant & Inn applied to renew its liquor license. According to the control office, Ock Kyung Lee is the current business license holder.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough’s finance department sent a letter later that month to let the city know that Lee owes about $23,000 in back taxes to the city and borough.

The Homer City Council is poised to create a task force to explore the cost of updating the Homer Education and Recreation Complex, or the HERC, for future use. But it postponed its decision on the matter Monday.

The HERC was previously evaluated as a potential site for a new police station, but that idea was scraped over concerns about hazardous material in the building. The gym is currently the only portion of the HERC the community uses.

The Homer City Council is reinstating regular work sessions on state legislative issues. Every other week on Tuesdays at 4 p.m., City Council members will report on issues in the state Legislature that relate to the city and will discuss following up with formal action on the council agenda.

The council held work sessions last year and the idea came up again after members of the council visited Juneau last month. In her monthly report, City Manager Katie Koester said it will be a way for the council to track issues and provide timely input on legislative issues in the state.

Two resolutions aimed at revisiting water and sewer rates were removed from the Homer City Council’s agenda Monday. Both resolutions said that commercial users were impacted negatively after the city moved to a uniform rate for both residential and commercial users in 2013 and it called for a task force to look into the issue.

The Homer City Council took an in-depth look at a preliminary design for a new police station Monday. The design plan calls for constructing a new facility at the corner of Heath Street and Grubstake Avenue. The $6 million building would be a vast improvement over the Homer Police Department’s current facility, but the plan does come with some drawbacks due to financial constraints.

The Homer City Council made some adjustments to the 2018 draft budget Monday.

The council approved .5-percent cost of living adjustment for city employees. The Employee Committee initially asked the council for a 1-percent raise, but council member Heath Smith expressed concern over the $90,000 move.

He said it would eliminate a portion of future savings the city gained after voters approved using a road-and-trail-construction fund to pay for road maintenance this fall, which will go into effect in 2019.

The Homer City Council got its first look at preliminary design plans for a new police station Monday. The council contracted Stantec to design a rough $6 million layout in August, but the design firm came back with both an $8 million and $6 million option.

A task force recommended building a $6 million or $9 million dollar building at the corner of Heath Street and Grubstake Avenue earlier this summer, but the council has focused on the cheaper option due to concerns over the cost of maintaining a larger building.

The Homer City Council introduced an ordinance Monday that would settle a four-year land dispute between Homer and the Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Office. The Trust Land Office  claims Mental Health owns land at the mouth of Homer’s harbor. If the ordinance is approved, the city would pay about $550,000 for the disputed land.

The disagreement dates back to 2013 when the city requested an easement through a lot on the Homer Spit that the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and Mental Health both own.

A recommendation to open the Homer Spit to the commercial marijuana industry passed through the Port & Harbor Advisory Commission Wednesday.

The Cannabis Advisory Committee pushed the recommendation to the harbor commission and the Advisory Planning Commission back in August, but the Homer City Council will have the final say on the matter.