Growth — is there no end to it? Even humans stop growing at some point. Let me be clear. I don’t live in Homer. I live a few miles out East End Road. Having said that, you can understand when I say a lot of what happens in Homer affects me. I use the grocery stores. I use the library. I use the hospital. I use the hardware stores. I am impacted by the traffic.
You get the idea. So I was appalled when I read that the Homer City Council voted to spend $31,000 to bring more people to Homer, i.e., to grow. I think some members of the city council will not be happy until Homer has a strip maul (my spelling) on every street and stop lights at every corner.
All we seem to ever hear is growth, growth, growth. What is wrong with leaving well enough alone and polishing what we have? The powers that be want to expand the boat harbor, for example. Why not improve what we have? Instead, we could have electricity and water at every slip. I hear complaints about the traffic, so what is the solution — bring in more tourists, more business, more buildings. Does that make any sense?  Then we will need more policemen as we will have more crime. We will need more firemen as we will have more buildings to burn.
I chalk a lot of this up to greed. I know it’s the American way — more is better. But I think we have a great community here and we should stop encouraging more people, more building, more of everything. I think we should appreciate what we have and simply work at improving it.
Louis J Dupree