By Willow Hetrick
Turnagain Times
Moose Pass Correspondent
Moose Pass Summer Solstice Festival
We celebrate the beginning of the summer with the annual Moose Pass Summer Solstice Festival. This year the Festival will be held June 18-19. This annual event not only welcomes summer and the longest day of the year, but also is the largest fundraiser for the operation of the town’s Community Center, Volunteer Fire Department and EMS team.
The festival is filled with gift and craft booths, games, food court, auction and a variety of music occurring throughout the two-day festival. On Saturday the community will be at the town center from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
The Moose Pass ladies donate their famous baked goods to be sold at the bake sale, which will last all weekend. The town center will be full of vendors offering a variety of one-of-a-kind goods.
There will be locally made arts, crafts, and jewelry not often found anywhere else! The kids will be able to play carnival games for prizes, paint their faces, and make a variety of crafts if they so please. Locals will be running the BBQ and will be cooking up burgers, hot dogs, and chicken served with homemade side dishes. T-shirts and beer mugs designed by local artists will also be for sale on both days.
Moose Pass Summer Solstice Kayak Race
Teams of two and singles alike are welcome to enter in the race from downtown Moose Pass to the railroad trestle and back to Moose Pass via kayaks on Trail Lake. The race will be on Saturday June 19 at 2 p.m. Participants must provide their own boats. There is no entry fee, and there are great prizes to be won! Please contact Marion Glaser at marionglaser@gmail.com or Willow Hetrick at willowhetrick@gmail.com for more information about the race.
Chugach National Forests ‘Vantastic’ Schedule
The Chugach National Forest, Seward Ranger District’s Vantastic Program is up and ready for another wonderful summer. The roadside information station will be setup Friday-Sunday weather dependent. Friday and Saturday you can find the Forest Service at Tern Lake from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday’s at Resurrection River Trail/Exit Glacier overlook from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The times and locations may change due to weather conditions, but this is the goal. The Vantastic Program will once again be offering campfire programs on Saturday evenings from 7-8:30 p.m. A campfire will take place from 7-7:30 p.m. as a meet and greet and at 7:30 p.m., the program will begin. All programs will be held at Quartz Creek Campground at the Day Use Pavilion. These will begin June 18 and go through Aug. 20. A flyer with schedules dates and program titles will be out in the next issue.
U.S. Forest Service Trail Updates
By Stephen Hmurciak and Irene Lindquist
The upper end of Russian Lakes Trail has been cleared of fallen trees to Res River junction, five miles in. The lower end has been cleared up to Aspen Flats. This entire trail is snow free and dry. The Iditarod Trail between Bear Lake and Divide has been cleared.
There are some patches of snow remaining on the higher sections. Carter Lake Trail has a few patches of snow remaining up by the lakes but is otherwise dry. Crescent Lake is free of ice and Carter Lake is breaking up. Johnson and Bench Lakes are ice-free and the upper part of Johnson Pass Trail has patches of snow remaining. Crown Point Trail has been cleared.
There are still some areas of snow near the top. All trails are clear of fallen trees except for the north end of Resurrection Pass Trail above Caribou Creek (this will be completed later this month with handsaws) and the upper part of Resurrection River Trail (will be completed by mid-summer).
Based on the low amounts of downed trees on our trails this year, travel on these uncut sections of trail should not pose too much of a problem. Resurrection River Trail from the trailhead to Martin Creek will be brushed next week.
Crews are beginning work on a half-mile-long reroute bypassing a flooded section of trail 2-3 miles in on the upper end of Russian Lakes Trail. Most of the work will be taking place away from the existing trail but ATVs and other motorized equipment will be traveling this first part of the trail to access the construction site.
The first 3/4 miles of the Ptarmigan Creek Trail is currently undergoing reconstruction. ATV’s and other motorized trail equipment are being used. This section of trail is quite muddy and messy. This is part of the Iditarod Trail extension that will travel over Fall’s Creek. Eventually (years?) there will be a route from Seward to Nome.
The Forest Service segment will end at the Forest Boundary on Glacier Ranger District. Sorry for the inconvenience on this section of Ptarmigan Creek Trail. I have posted the Trailhead Bulletin Board with this information, thank you very much to a dedicated trail user who had no clue what was going on here and he was willing to share with me.
Please if you notice something in your travels out and about that you think is odd or you have questions, please do call 907-288-7748. Thanks, and have a most fabulously, wonderful adventure on your next outing on Seward Ranger District.
All major trails on the Seward District are now free of snow and dried out except for the higher parts of the Lost Lake and Primrose Trails. There are still areas of snow though some of the ridge tops have melted out. Expect this area to be snow free some time before the end of June.
Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly Meeting Report
By Sue McClure
We began on June 7 with committee meetings at 1 p.m. and went to our limit time of midnight, beginning again at 9 a.m. on June 8th, ending about 11:30 a.m. We had a large agenda and heard from many borough residents during public hearings, especially on the FY 2012 budget.
We passed the budget in the morning. Some items added to the mayor’s budget were: $40,000 for EDD, $25,000 for CARTS, $105,000 for SBDC, and $300,000 for KPTMC, thereby funding the “non-departmentals” which had been cut. The votes were either unanimous or 8-1 in favor of the funding. Other changes included elimination of the position of Special Assistant to the Mayor, and adding $104,992 to the Anchor Point Fire and Emergency Service Area budget.
We also approved, in our area, an additional $7,114 for the Bear Creek Fire ESA for supplemental funding for the new tanker truck hose bed. The borough landfills and transfer stations now will be closed on Sundays between October 1 and April 30, saving about $128,000 per year. The Finance Director will compute the final budget totals, and the entire budget should be available on the website soon.
We set the mill rates for the year, with only two of them changing: Anchor Point Fire and Emergency Medical Service Area increasing to 2.25, and Lowell Point Emergency Service Area decreasing to 0, pending a vote on dissolution of the service area. In his report, Mayor Carey stated that the Hope Land Sale is still being finalized, but there are 5 parcels that had no sale, due to the bidders accepting other properties. He also stated that the Central Peninsula Hospital bonds will be re-bid in the fall, in addition to other bonds.
We had three items to complete from the last meeting. We unanimously approved Resolution 2011-051, which cancelled the junk vehicle removal project and returned the unused $190,000 to the FY 2012 solid waste capital project fund, and approved the purchase of property by the Central Peninsula Hospital for their expansion.
During public hearing on ordinances, we approved raising the monthly surcharge for 911 for each telephone from $1.15 to $1.50 to cover costs. We ultimately postponed several ordinances. Ordinance 2011-12, adding additional water bodies to the anadromous stream habitat protection was postponed to the 6-21 meeting, as we ran out of time in the evening for public hearing. Ordinances 2011-10, 2011-13, and Resolution 2011-062, all dealing with salaries and health coverage of either Appendix A personnel or the assembly were postponed to the 8-16 meeting, pending review by our new General Services director.
Ordinance 2011-15, substitute, amending the code to allow the mayor to acquire easements for road improvement maintenance projects without assembly approval, was postponed to the 6-21 meeting. Resolutions that were passed on the consent agenda included one awarding the bid to Metco for the road project at Moat Way, Excalibur Way and Camelot Drive in the Seward area. In addition to the items above, Ordinance 2011-18, which amends code to prohibit the borough mayor from holding positions in an entity that receives a financial benefit from the borough, will be up for public hearing on June 21.
At the July 5 meeting, we have several ordinances for public hearing: Ordinance 2011-20 authorizes the sale of some land parcels, including one in Cooper Landing; Ordinance 2011-23 would increase the borough sales tax from 3.0 to 3.1 percent, with the additional .1 percent to be used for economic purposes (to be put on the October ballot); and Ordinance 2011-24 ,which would amend code to limit the terms to be served by the assembly members to 3 terms, with a break in services of at least 180 days, also to go on the October ballot. Our next meeting is 6-21. There is a reapportionment committee hearing in Seward on June 15 at 7 p.m. at the KM Rae Building, which involves the re-drawing of assembly district boundaries, due to the 2010 census figures.
As always, I can be reached at 224-6784, or suemccl@gmail.com. The borough website is www.borough.kenai.ak.us. Information is available at the Seward Annex office in the SeaView Plaza as well.
Sue McClure is an East Peninsula Assembly Member.
