Daniel Hasche, Rachel Lord, Caroline Venuti and Joni Wise participate in a Homer City Council Candidate Forum at Homer Public Library in Homer, Alaska, on Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)

Daniel Hasche, Rachel Lord, Caroline Venuti and Joni Wise participate in a Homer City Council Candidate Forum at Homer Public Library in Homer, Alaska, on Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)

Homer City Council hopefuls tackle housing, transportation, harbor

The forum was the fifth of eight being held throughout September heading into the Oct. 3 municipal election

Candidates for Homer City Council gathered Monday in the Homer Public Library to talk about their bid for public office and issues facing city voters as part of a candidate forum hosted by the Peninsula Clarion, KDLL 91.9 FM and KBBI 890 AM public radio.

The forum, hosted in partnership with the Central Peninsula League of Women Voters and the Homer Public Library, was the fifth of eight being held throughout September heading into the Oct. 3 municipal election.

Over the course of about an hour, candidates fielded questions from forum moderators Ashlyn O’Hara, the Peninsula Clarion’s government and education reporter, and Kathleen Gustafson, host and producer at KBBI.

ADVERTISEMENT
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
00:00
00:00
 

Participating in Thursday’s forum were incumbent city council members Rachel Lord and Caroline Venuti, as well as Daniel Hasche and Joni Wise. Homer City Council members serve three-year terms.

Rachel Lord, who has served on the Homer City Council since 2017, owns Alaska Stems, a flower farm and shop in Homer, and has previously served on the Homer Economic Development Commission, the Homer Farmers Market Board of Directors and the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust Board of Directors.

Caroline Venuti, who has also served on the Homer City Council since 2017, taught in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District for 30 years and now works as the Learning Resource Center coordinator at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Kachemak Bay Campus.

Joni Wise is a former employee of Homer Middle School and West Homer Elementary School who is now an Indian Child Welfare Act worker with the Seldovia Village Tribe and a Guardian Ad Litem for the State of Alaska. She is also the financial manager at Wise Electric and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

Daniel Hasche has a background in construction and tourism and has lived in Homer for six years. He describes himself as fiscally conservative and has said preservation of grassland on the Homer Spit, regulating bed and breakfasts and promoting the city are among the issues that are important to him.

Harbor expansion

In response to news last week that the City of Homer will have to put up more money for the long-awaited expansion of the Homer harbor, candidates offered different takes.

Hasche said the city should ensure that it has the infrastructure to accommodate the influx of new visitors such an expansion should bring, while Venuti said its as much a public safety need as it is a need for a city experiencing commercial growth. Wise said she didn’t have any concrete ideas regarding fundraising, and Lord said the expansion, while needed, will be a slow process.

“I know there’s been a lot of energy and excitement about it happening now and a lot of feeling like there’s all this federal money with these infrastructure bills … but at the end of the day, I mean, a large project like this is going to have a longer timeline,” Lord said. “We are really out of the starting gate of it and when it comes, we and our federal partners need to be on board.”

Transportation plan

More than one candidate expressed concerns about how the city should regulate e-bike use in the city, particularly regarding a transportation plan on which the City of Homer is currently soliciting public comment.

Venuti said regulation of electric bicycles is something that the city has discussed, including whether or not any motorized vehicles should be allowed on city trails. Hasche said that electronic bikes are motorized and should therefore potentially have their own lanes such that they do not obstruct pedestrians.

“I think that needs to be addressed,” Hasche said. “These things can be 35 miles an hour and they are motorized vehicles.”

Lord said more generally that, when it comes to transportation, she’d like to see Homer shift away from a model that puts cars and vehicles first, noting that she wants to be able to travel safely by foot with her children or while running.

“I think that’s one of my biggest goals, looking at the transportation plan of the city moving forward in terms of movement infrastructure, is making it be accessible to all people and all modes of transportation and trying to at least shift a bit away from (being) fully car-centric and making sure that it’s a safe place,” Lord said.

Affordable housing

On the topic of Homer’s lack of affordable housing, Venuti said it can be a difficult problem to talk about because the word “affordable” can mean different things to different people. Lord said she’s had employees who struggle to find affordable housing in Homer, and said the city “absolutely” has a role in helping address the problem, whether through planning and zoning regulations or limiting short-term rentals.

Hasche called a lack of affordable housing “the biggest problem in Homer right now.”

“As far as the BNBs go, maybe put a cap on that or incentivize in-state residents instead of the out-of-state people,” Hasche said.

Wise said the city should pursue balance with regulating short-term rentals and residential structures that are used for business purposes.

“Those things are concerning to me, not because I don’t think that it’s everybody’s right to sell their house and do what they want to do with it,” Wise said. “That is their right as a citizen of Homer or a citizen of the United States. However, we do have to figure out how to get to a place where we’re not overinflating these houses.”

Budgeting

On the topic of the city budget, Hasche said he’d like to see the city spend money on anything that helps promote tourism, while Wise said she would take a fiscally conservative approach that was informed by input from city staff. Venuti and Lord pointed to deferred city maintenance projects that are eating away at some city finances, with Venuti emphasizing the costly nature of updating the city’s fleet of vehicles.

“If anybody has purchased one car, imagine replacing all of our police cars, or all of our fire trucks … you can’t do it at once,” Venuti said.

Candidates were also asked about their vision for the future of the Homer Education and Recreation Complex, or HERC, buildings, which have long been known to be contaminated with hazardous material.

Hasche said Homer should look to other cities, like Fairbanks. Lord said the city is making slow progress on the project, while Venuti said the longer it takes for demolition work to begin, the more hazardous material and work the city is going to find.

Wise said the city has been talking about the HERC buildings for years with little actual action taken.

“I would like to see … the council, the people in charge, those who are able to make these decisions … make the decisions and stick with the plan and go for it,” Wise said. “I see a lot of a lot of talk, a lot of questions, a lot of studies and not a lot of movement on certain areas. I’d like to see some more definitive things.”

Building community

Candidates had different opinions on what they think contributes to a high quality of life in Homer. Hasche pointed to the tourism industry and local arts scene as among Homer’s strengths, while Wise and Lord emphasized the city’s rich community fabric. Venuti pointed to the city’s local businesses and said she’s a big proponent of shopping local.

“I’m so happy that Pioneer businesses — I see the same people there all the time, same workers, same dedication of service,” Venuti said. “I encourage everyone to shop locally because I think that is the beauty of this town is that we do support the town.”

Candidates also talked about how the city helps communicate emergency notifications and were given the opportunity to make opening and closing statements during Monday’s forum.

Monday’s full candidate forum can be streamed on the Clarion’s Facebook page, on KDLL’s website at kdll.org or on KBBI’s website at kbbi.org. The next forum will be held on Thursday, Sept. 21 at the Seward Community Library and will feature candidates for Seward City Council.

Election Day is Oct. 3 and absentee in-person voting started on Sept. 18.

Reach reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.

More in News

A map of the Johnson Tract Mine exploration project. Photo courtesy of the Center for Biological Diversity
Inletkeeper, partners file lawsuit against Cook Inlet gold mine

The Johnson Tract Mine is located on CIRI-owned lands inside Lake Clark National Park.

A sockeye salmon is carried from the waters of Cook Inlet on North Kenai Beach in Kenai, Alaska, during the first day of the Kenai River personal use dipnet fishery on Thursday, July 10, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Kenai River dipnet fishery open 24 hours beginning Friday night

Per fish counts available from the department, 471,000 sockeye have been counted so far this year — with 108,000 counted on Wednesday alone.

Attorneys Eric Derleth and Dan Strigle speak to Superior Court Judge Kelly Lawson during the opening arguments of State of Alaska v. Nathan Erfurth at the Kenai Courthouse in Kenai, Alaska, on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Opening arguments offered in Erfurth trial

The trial is set to continue for around two weeks, into early August.

Evacuees in Seward, Alaska, walk along Adams Street following a tsunami warning on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Tsunami warning canceled following 7.3 earthquake near Sand Point

An all clear was issued for Kachemak Bay communities at 1:48 p.m. by the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management.

The Ninilchik River on May 18, 2019, in Ninilchik, Alaska. (Photo by Michael Armstrong/Homer News)
Ninilchik River to remain closed to king salmon fishing

It was an “error in regulation” that would have opened the Ninilchik River to king salmon fishing on Wednesday.

A table used by parties to a case sits empty in Courtroom 4 of the Kenai Courthouse in Kenai, Alaska, on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Nikiski woman sentenced to 4 years in prison for 2023 drug death

Lawana Barker was sentenced for her role in the 2023 death of Michael Rodgers.

Alaska State Troopers logo.
Seward resident arrested after Monday night police pursuit

Troopers say she led them on a high-speed chase on Kalifornsky Beach Road for around 7 miles.

Concert-goers listen to The Discopians at Concert on the Lawn on Saturday, July 12, 2025, at Karen Hornaday Park in Homer, Alaska. (Delcenia Cosman/Homer News)
‘Dancing at the end of the world’

KBBI AM 890 hosted their annual Concert on the Lawn Saturday.

Most Read

You're browsing in private mode.
Please sign in or subscribe to continue reading articles in this mode.

Peninsula Clarion relies on subscription revenue to provide local content for our readers.

Subscribe

Already a subscriber? Please sign in