A letter to publisher John Carr
Dear Mr. Carr,
I am a Homer resident and subscriber to the Homer News. I want you to know how much I and many others appreciate and value the work of reporter Chloe Pleznac and editor Erin Thompson. I hope you stand behind these two professionals. Vance is unethically misusing her office to threaten your paper. It is certainly within her right to find fault with an article and to criticize it. It is wrong for her to use the weight of her office in an attempt to bully your company with a thinly veiled call for businesses and readers to boycott it. Freedom of the press is in jeopardy nationally and internationally. To save our democracy, we all need to stand up to anyone holding government office who attempts to use that office to control the press — period.
For those of us who have had the privilege of witnessing Ms. Pleznac’s professional growth and Ms. Thompson assuming the role of editor following Michael Armstrong’s long tenure, we feel strongly about our community’s investment in them. I hope you value that investment as well, and that you won’t allow Rep. Vance, or anyone, to threaten their work or the financial future of the Homer News.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Carssow
Homer
Homer Foundation supports youth theater
Pier One Theatre would like to thank the Homer Foundation Opportunity Fund for their continued support of our summer Youth Theatre programs! This year we served 67 students with 6 camps in Homer and Seldovia, and reached over 500 audience members. Youth Theatre is a core part of our mission at Pier One Theatre. Developing a love of theatre in our youth has proven to be an enriching and sustaining experience for our organization and the community. Our students don’t just come for one short summer camp and then move on. Most return year after year, deepening and expanding their skills. As they grow, they blend with the larger theatre community, becoming avid performers, directors, technicians, and audience members. Support from the Homer Foundation helps us to offer financial aid to students, and hire dedicated and experienced instructors each year. Thank you for helping us keep this program on its feet!
Jennifer Norton, executive director
Pier One Theatre
PFD isn’t a government bailout
I have lived in Homer now for 31 years, and I was just wondering does anyone remember the year our PFD became a bailout fund for our Government that apparently does not know how to handle money or balance a check book. I don’t think our PFD was set up to pay the government bills, but to help those people that live in this wonderful state. If anyone remembers the year or maybe why our government can’t pay their bills without taking our PFD. Just a thought. THANK YOU.
James Nelson
Homer
School board candidate committed to student voices
As a long time Homer resident, I have witnessed the hard work that the school district’s staff does to adhere to its mission: “to develop productive, responsible citizens prepared for success in a dynamic world.” Our school district is complex and diverse with communities spanning a geographical area, comparable to New England. The school board is a major player in how that mission statement is delivered.
I have attended two community forums which offered the candidates for the school board, District 9, opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge of our school district. I was very impressed with Ash-Lee Waddell’s working knowledge of the current issues (i.e., students’s well-being, funding, staffing, BSAs, etc.) facing our district. Ms. Waddell is committed to making sure the voices of all students and schools are heard.
Ash-Lee is devoted to making our community a better place to be and thrive. In May 2025, she received First Lady Rose Dunleavy’s Volunteer of the Year award. She will bring the same level of dedication to her position on the school board. Ash-Lee will be accessible to all and will carry our various communities’s concerns to the school board, advocating for every student and every school. A true commitment to public education!
Karen Murdock, proud to say my child was educated in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, K-12
Retired educator and recipient of BP’s Teacher of Excellence award
Medals of Honor awarded to Wounded Knee cavalrymen are an injustice
We gave 10 Medals of Honor to U.S. troops who landed in Normandy and fought the Germans on D-Day. We gave 20 Medals of Honor — twice as many — to U.S. cavalrymen who killed hundreds of Lakota, most of them, women and children, at Wounded Knee. That’s absurd and absolutely racist.
Congress awarded this huge number of Medals of Honor to soldiers who fought at Wounded Knee in order to try to change the narrative around this massacre. But 135 years later, we shouldn’t be pretending that this genocide deserves any medals. This past week, our current, so-called Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, says that this matter has been decided for all time and that those 20 Medals of Honor remain in place. But we believe and Martin Luther King Junior said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” In the future we look forward to this great genocidal injustice visited upon the American Natives at Wounded Knee will someday be rectified and acknowledged as inhumane. Until then racism and cruelty remain the order of the day in the Trump administration.
Michael A LeMay
Homer
Homer Foundation helps Homer hockey keep it cool
The Homer Foundation has a long track record of supporting capital projects that make an important and lasting investment in our community. Homer Hockey Association would like to thank the Homer Foundation Opportunity Fund for being the leading donor of our Keep It Cool! campaign. We are proud to announce the completion of the Keep It Cool! — condenser replacement project at Kevin Bell Arena. This project involved the replacement of the aging condenser with a modern, energy-efficient model, ensuring optimal cooling performance. The project successfully modernized Kevin Bell Arena’s refrigeration structure, setting a benchmark for energy conservation and operational excellence in our community. Because of Homer Foundation’s generosity, residents of the southern Kenai Peninsula will continue to benefit from the on-ice programming at Kevin Bell Arena.
Lacey Velsco
HHA/KBA President
Legislature stands up to governor
I read with growing disbelief (and scoffed at) the Sept. 23 ADN opinion piece by Alaska Senate Republican Caucus members entitled “Spending money on spite.” They obviously haven’t read the Alaska State Constitution, or are just plain ignoring the very clear separation of powers to create new departments in state government (in this case a Department of Agriculture).
It’s the legislature that holds that power and the governing majority are rightly suing the governor who is attempting to abrogate that power by using a questionable emergency order. If there’s spite involved it’s because the governor is a stubborn, unreasonable man.
In these times of rampant emergency orders by various executives in government I’m delighted someone is standing up to Governor Dunleavy.
Jim Lavrakas
Homer
