Letters to the editor
Published 1:30 am Thursday, May 7, 2026
Cleanup a howling success
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the magic of HoWL DiRtBaG Clean-Up Week!
This year, 122 youth participated in DiRtBaG Clean-Up Week and picked up 175 bags of trash across 22 miles of roadway, trails and beach! Congratulations to our award winners who picked up the most trash, got the dirtiest, picked up microtrash, and carried the heaviest bags.
Thank you to this year’s 2026 business sponsors, who supported DiRtBaG scholarships, and to Alaskans for Litter Prevention and Recycling (ALPAR) for supporting DiRtBaG Clean-Up Week through the Youth Litter Patrol program.
HoWL also wants to thank all of the adult volunteers who helped chaperone youth crews, the Lions Club for helping with the clean-up celebration, and Two Sisters, The Bagel Shop, Save-U-More, Fat Olives, and Twisted Goat for providing food for the crews!
HoWL DiRtBaGs celebrated Earth Day, had fun, were stewards of their community and contributed to a cleaner Homer. Thank you DiRtBaGs!
HoooooooooooWL!
Molly Mitchell, HoWL Program Director
Homer
Thank you for supporting youth athletes
I am writing this letter to thank the following Homer organizations and businesses for supporting my participation in the 2026 Arctic Winter games, playing for Team Alaska Futsal — The Homer Foundation, HUFC, Porcupine Theater, Homer’s Jeans, The Kachemak Bay Lions Club, Grace Ridge Brewing and Bubbles.
The Arctic Winter Games is a nonprofit international sporting event and multicultural event for youth athletes from northern latitudes. Our team won the bronze medal for futsal. Thank you again for the support, I learned a lot and I had a fun time in Canada.
Wolf Trejo, Grade 10
Homer
Trawlers present an issue for fishing
I have lived in Homer since I was a little girl and have heard many stories about how we used to have loads of fish. Now I’m hearing more and more stories about how fisherman, including my family, are finding less, and smaller fish than they used to. Trawlers are a huge part of this issue.
Trawlers scrap the bed of the sea to catch their fish. This disturbs the ocean floor and causes unnecessary debris. During this process they catch many other sea life that they do not use. By the time they throw these poor creatures back into the water, most are already dead. The animals they catch include salmon, halibut and crab, marine mammals including seals and sea otters, and forage fish like pollock, herring and capelin. These fish are all crucial to our ecosystem.
Forage fish are food to many different animals including sea birds, salmon, seals and other marine wildlife. Without them, our food chain will crumble.
Alaska is full of people who are subsistence harvesters and use salmon, halibut, and other fish and animals to feed their family. My family are commercial seiners and use the money they get from fishing to feed and sustain their family. The number of fish they have been catching has become less and less than the years before. These people are slowly losing their way of life and support for their families, so that these massive industrial companies can sell fast food and imitation crab.
Sarah Schweitzer
Homer
Good job, Lindsay
In the April 30 Homer News, Lindsay Wolter submitted an opinion piece. When I read it I said to myself, go girl go!!!!! She called out what I would call a predatory insurance salesmen looking to pad their checkbook while soliciting an older crowd.
From my personal experience knowing the grim reaper is chasing us all, me and my wife engaged Lindsay to help with our estate planning six or seven, possibly eight years ago now. We at times joke with Lindsay about the idea that we were going to get the trophy for the longest unsigned estate plan. She smiles and says, no not yet.
All the time it’s taken is all on myself and my wife, because we worked very hard at gathering assets. Now here we are with three legally adult children, all with vastly different maturity levels. Just about the time we think they are ready to be the next in charge of our holdings, they take a detour from the path they were on. We don’t want them to discard what we worked so hard to accumulate, while not really understanding the sacrifices we made to gather what we have gathered. The challenge is real!
All during this process Lindsay has been extremely helpful and patient with us. She has given us some suggestions when we have asked for help, but never imposed any self-serving dialogue on us, of which we are very thankful. Her fees on our somewhat indecisive journey have been surprisingly reasonable and, along with her pleasant personality, is making our estate planning journey much easier than it would be otherwise, I’m sure. For Lindsay to call out a predatory snake oil salesman speaks volumes of her character. Good job, Lindsay, and thank you for exposing the snake oil salesmen!!!!!
Dan Anderson
Homer
Difference of opinion is not bad or wrong
Recently, Rep. Sarah Vance has been severely and unjustly criticized by Suzanne Downing, the publisher of “The Alaska Story,” for her position on SB64 and her vote to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. Rep. Vance worked diligently to improve our election system. She was criticized for working with a Democrat to advance the bill. And not just criticized, but in my opinion, she was slandered by Ms. Downing who wrote very nasty and demeaning things about Representative Vance.
I initially thought SB64 had enough good points and made sufficient improvements in the election system that I supported the bill. However, after studying the bill more and speaking with people who have much more political experience than I do, I changed my position. I wrote Rep. Vance and spoke with her to explain my change of heart. We agreed to disagree. That didn’t make Rep. Vance wrong or a bad person. We simply disagreed.
Rep. Vance has been an excellent, conservative legislator who has worked very hard to represent her constituents and improve our state. I intend to continue working with and supporting her. I hope you will too.
Charlie Franz
Homer
‘Yes Man’ Dan
Senator Dan Sullivan is a retired Marine Corps Colonel. I am a Marine Corps veteran who asks how he can support the One Big Beautiful Bill Act when it removes veteran privileges for federal food benefits. In one case an elderly veteran in the Fairbanks area who is on oxygen signed up for Meals on Wheels because the food bank is too far away to safely drive frozen winter roads. He does not qualify under OBBBA.
Under the new OBBBA, a veteran must now work, volunteer or participate in job training for at least 80 hours per month unless they are 64 years old. Alaska State Senator Scott Kawasaki, who co-chairs Alaska’s Joint Armed Services Committee, called the new work requirements “misdirected policies that would deny veterans benefits they have already earned through their sacrifices.”
Alaska’s population is 10-10.5% veterans (68,985 people in fiscal year 2023). More than 35% are 65 years or older. Where is Sullivan’s sense of duty and compassion for fellow veterans?
Sen. Sullivan addressed the joint session of the Alaska Legislature in February. He bragged about how the OBBBA would benefit the state’s health care system, but Alaska Rep. Genevieve Mina cited that up to 12,000 Alaskans were at risk of losing medical coverage. In addition, Alaskans would have to comply with eligibility checks every six months instead of annually. Such a burden would collapse the state’s already struggling Division of Public Assistance. Sullivan’s response was he was unaware of that information. Was this a lie of omission to fail to mention the negative impacts of OBBBA?
While Sen. Sullivan praised the OBBBA, he failed to mention that the Trump Administration cancelled $280 million in previously awarded Alaskan environmental and renewable energy grants. A lie of omission, or he simply didn’t know?
Other critics of the bill describe the OBBBA as a “massive transfer of wealth,” noting the top 1% of earners get an average tax cut of approximately $100,000 while the lowest earners see a reduction of $120.
Sen. Sullivan is among the top 1% of wealth earners in America! Between 2018 and 2025, his wealth went from $2.37 million to $8.6 million. Did he have illegal insider stock trading knowledge?
In his military uniform, “Yes Man” Dan stands tall, but his answers fall short. Either lies of ommission or he doesn’t fully understand the consequences of what he votes on. In either case, Alaska needs a senator whose integrity is beyond question, and that’s why I’m voting for Mary Peltola!
Michael McCarthy
Homer
