She recently told the Homer News the city needs to get younger minds engaged in what's going on by organizing more community-oriented events. She said the city should organize and promote a monthly party at City Hall, maybe a potluck, so that people can talk about what's going on. If local leaders can't find a way to get young people involved, many will want to leave.

If they did, it could impact the city's health, both physically and economically, she said. Economic growth and environmental health are both important for all communities and for the whole world, and promoting them can all start at the local level, she said. Like the bumper stick says, Cesarini said, "Think globally, act locally."

This is certainly true in a place like Homer, she said.

"We have a higher percentage of intellectual, inquisitive, civic-minded people than anywhere," she told the Homer News. "I don't think anyone can argue with that."

Cesarini said she is satisfied with the level of services Homer currently provides and hears similar sentiments from others. Taxes pay for those services, she said, and as such, they go for a good cause. The sales tax increase being proposed would hit the poorest people the hardest, though, and she said it would be best to put it off for a year until the city knows what it wants to do.

When she was growing up in Michigan, Cesarini said her library charged a fee for cards, and it made people feel a sense of ownership. She sees user fees as a way to make people see the investment they are making in their community and encourages the city to think about using them.

"If you are paying any kind of tax, it obliges you to vote and think about what the government is doing with your money," she said. "We need to be intelligent."

She would like to see the city encourage more agricultural activity as well, possibly by offering tax rebates to those who grow some of their own food.

Cesarini owns the Rainbow Hemp Farmstead and is an advocate of industrial-grade hemp, which she says can be substituted for petroleum products in many cases.

"Everything you can do with crude oil, you can do with cannabis sativa," she said.

Cesarini said that more people might be interested in what was happening in the world around them if they were exposed to more in-depth coverage of human-interest subjects such as human stress levels, geography and astronomy, and other issues outside of their immediate, average-day thoughts.

"We are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience," she said.

Chris Eshleman