Letters to the Editor

Published 2:30 am Thursday, March 26, 2026

Where are our tax dollars going?

I am writing as a resident of Homer who is increasingly concerned about how our tax dollars are being used here in Alaska. Anyone who drives East End Road after a hard freeze knows the reality: potholes large enough to damage suspensions, crumbling shoulders, and winter wear that goes unrepaired for months.

Small business owners depend on safe roads for tourism and deliveries, and families rely on them for daily commutes. Yet the condition of many of our local and state-maintained roads suggests infrastructure is not being prioritized.

At the same time, our schools are facing devastating uncertainty. Families in Homer have watched programs be reduced, staff stretched thin, and discussions of closures or consolidations become routine. Parents worry about increasing class sizes and fewer opportunities for their children. Teachers are leaving for more stable districts, and students are left to deal with the consequences.

We were told that cannabis tax revenue would help support public education. Legal sales have been ongoing for years, and storefronts operate openly in our communities. That revenue was supposed to ease the burden on schools and provide stable funding. Instead, we are now seeing budget gaps so severe that schools are being considered for closure. It is fair for residents to ask: where is that money going?

Homer is a hardworking community. We contribute through property taxes, sales taxes, and state revenues generated from multiple industries. We simply expect transparency and responsible budgeting in return. Our children’s education and the safety of our roads are not optional expenses, they are core responsibilities of government.

Alaskans deserve clear answers and a budget that reflects the priorities of its people.

Gina Wong

A Concerned Homer Resident

Thank you for supporting ski club project

The Kachemak Nordic Ski Club thanks the Homer Kachemak Bay Rotary Club for its generous donation of $800 towards the Baycrest Equipment Building project. These funds were the proceeds from the recent Cranium Cup sponsored by Rotary. This building will provide an indoor heated storage and maintenance building for our ski trail grooming equipment.

The KNSC really appreciates the support of the community in its efforts to provide groomed ski trails and the promotion of Nordic skiing for our members and visitors.

Bob Glen, President

Kachemak Nordic Ski Club

What has happened to elected Republicans?

Fifty years of supporting “states’ rights” and our Alaska Constitution has disappeared. The Lt. Governor and Governor gave all your personal voter data including your Social Security number, Alaska driver’s license, date of birth, voter ID and even confidential address to the federal government, overriding your Alaska Constitution’s right to privacy. They even allow this database to be retained and shared with contractors! Rep. Sarah Vance defended this action as “secure” in the House hearing. Congressman Rep. Nick Begich III voted for the SAVE Act which would require all states, including Alaska, to share the data which violates our Constitution. That Act would also disallow anyone without a passport or an actual certified birth certificate with their exact matching name from registering to vote. U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan is co-sponsor of this act. The Senate is considering an amendment to require everyone to show those actual documents each time to vote. Almost half of Alaskans don’t have a U.S. Passport and over half of married women don’t have a name matching their birth certificate. How many Alaskans would lose their right to vote?

We need to elect new people who will protect our Alaskan Constitutional Rights.

Paul Seaton

Homer

America last

In December 2025, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, in a Vanity Fair interview, referred to Trump as having an “alcoholic’s personality.” Also, “he operates with a view that there’s nothing he can’t do … nothing, zero, nothing,” and so thinking that he’s been elected the King of the World, he requires unconditional surrender from Iran and says that he must be involved in picking Iran’s next leader. Such is the thinking of a malignant narcissist who must be obeyed.

The American people on the other hand just want their infrastructure rebuilt. They want quality affordable health care. They want to be able to afford groceries and want to be able to afford a home.

Instead the U.S. has spent $2.89 trillion taxpayer dollars in the Middle East since 2003, while Americans have watched much of their country become rusted, dilapidated, and poor.

Apparently we are near sending our sons and daughters, brothers, and sisters to enrich oil executives. Do you know whose boots will not be on the ground ? Netanyahu’s family, Barron Trump or any other wealthy offspring.

Armageddon for thee but not for me. After all, someone must be left behind to tend to the Bitcoin corruption.

Michael A LeMay, Veterans for Peace

Homer

When fools rush in

When fools rush in…. Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on…. Everyone else suffers. The Trump and his MAGA bubble can’t see past their ego, libidos, and profiteering to realize, in spite of repeated and continuing failures (with U.S. nukes in their arsenal and 450+ nuclear power plants on the planet at risk — recent attack on Bushehr nuke power plant ) that Iran is not a pushover. Iran has existed in one form of another for a very long time. And Iranians do not forget the C.I.A.’s and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.’s complicity in the 1953 coup d’ètat of democratically elected Mosaddegh and his nationalization of Iran’s oil, which led to the support and strengthening of the unpopular Shah Pahlaviof .

Nor do Iranians forget the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when the U.S. gave sanctuary to the deposed Shah, angering students who then kept 52 Americans hostage for almost one and a half years, when Ronald Reagan, promising a better deal convinced the captors to refrain from dealing with Jimmy Carter’s efforts until after the election, which helped Reagan defeat Carter. At each step of Iranian people’s efforts to overthrow its terribly repressive regimes, the U.S. has contributed to weaken those efforts, including arming both sides in the Iraq/Iran war.

The Carlyle Group, Dick Cheney, et. al. were working on Iran for at least ten years before Bush II was appointed. Why would one think that all that wouldn’t matter and be forgotten? Would this country forget Pearl Harbor (Trump’s quip to Japan’s Prime Minister Takaichi?), or the Alamo, or the Cuban missile crisis, different as they are? We have submissive grown men cravenly walking around in oversize shoes made in China, like toddlers in their daddy’s footwear in these bubbles.

And bigger bubbles are being blown. The coming elections are under dire threat with the corporate Democrats playing a version of the Shumer, Jeffries, DNC Vichy game. It’s a Ben Franklin “A republic, if you can keep it.” moment. Fair and just elections are at the very core of such a republic. Citizens being murdered in our streets. Environment made toxic and being destroyed. Huge genocidal bubbles for money and monomania. The “end of days” and the so-called “rapture” is driving Hegseth, et al. Apparently some MAGA’s are unhappy to a minor degree —Trump and his ilk have been blatantly apparent in their behavior since the first “YOU’RE FIRED” hit the airways.

“Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake,” said Viktor Frankl. So here here we are, way out in the blue, riding on a wing and a prayer.

“Show me the way to go home; I’m tired and I wanna go home. I had a little taste of sanity an hour ago and it went right to my head…” Right…to…my…head….

George Harbeson Jr.

Homer