20 years ago

City officials told a tale of two cities to guests at a luncheon hosted by the Homer Chamber of Commerce this week. On one hand, Homer’s economy is healthy and growing. On the other hand, without new revenue this year and next, residents face almost-certain cuts to city services. “This is a serious situation,” Walt Wrede, Homer’s city manager, said Tuesday. “Sometimes people don’t believe it until cuts are actually made. The message we’re trying to get out there now is that this is serious, and cuts are going to be made.” That, said Mayor Jim Hornaday, could mean basic services — fire protection, police and harbor patrol — would be cut.

— From the issue of March 17, 2005

30 years ago

Since the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, villagers at Port Graham have been afraid to eat shellfish — an interruption of a subsistence way of life handed down from generation to generation. Now, Chief Elenore McMullen says, villagers can see light at the end of the tunnel. Port Graham shellfish tested free of contamination this fall for the first time since the spill. Most villagers will collect bidarkis, clams and mussels — shellfish that have sustained the village since its beginning — for the first time since the spill during minus tides this week, she predicted. Meanwhile, the federal government is preparing a Cook Inlet oil-lease sale it says will almost certainly lead to a major oil spill if developed. Villagers are worried.

— From the issue of March 16, 1995