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Pinks
Tee it up
Catch ‘em before the run is over
Woods ready for PGA tour
Tightlines/A-10
Sports/A-8
CLARION
Cloudy, rain 65/54 More weather on Page A-2
P E N I N S U L A
THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2014 Soldotna-Kenai, Alaska
Vol. 44, Issue 265
Question Do you think victims of the Ebola virus should be transported into the United States? n Yes; or n No. To place your vote and comment, visit our Web site at www. peninsulaclarion. com.
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Assembly upholds mayor’s veto By KAYLEE OSOWSKI Peninsula Clarion
The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly stood behind the borough mayor on his veto of the body’s decision to ask voters if they want a 3 percent borough-wide bed tax. The assembly discussed and voted on overriding the veto at
its Tuesday night meeting. Four assembly members voted to override the veto. For the override to pass, six of the nine assembly members would have had to vote in favor of it. Borough Mayor Mike Navarre vetoed the proposed bed tax Monday. When it was first proposed, Navarre said he didn’t have a
problem with the bed tax, but he hadn’t considered all of the nuances associated with the tax. “There was a lot of angst that was discussed (in public testimony),” Navarre said. When public testimony first began, Navarre started to realize all of the issues with the proposed tax, he said.
He said the assembly could authorize the first class cities in the borough to implement their own bed taxes. “And I think the city governments ought to make the determinations about how they’re going to tax their residents on their own,” Navarre said. He said he found the “most troubling aspect” to be if the
1 injured in Nikiski house fire
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— Staff report
By KELLY SULLIVAN Peninsula Clarion
Photo by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion
A firefighter lights a pile of hay with a flare at the beginning of a Central Emergency Services training drill Wednesday in Soldotna. Crews spent the day in training drills in a new CES facility off of Arc Loop Road.
Taking the heat
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In a gravel lot on Arc Loop road, four men with nearly a century of firefighting experience among them stood hunched over in the noon sun, struggling to breathe. Each had climbed out of a burning building where teams of Central Emergency Services and ConocoPhillips firefighters took turns running inside and searching for bodies during a training drill. It wasn’t the flames, but the heat that finally got to the four men. They were among the first
to use the newest CES training facility — the first to light it on fire, the first marked by ash and soot that left long, black lines on walls and the first to learn that the new building holds smoke and heat well. A little too well, said Kenai Peninsula Borough Health and Safety Officer Brad Nelson as he stood with the group of trainers who’d left the building after the drill. Each bent at the waist toward the ground, inhaling deeply, attempting to breathe and recover from the first drill of the day. “We (built) it a little tighter than we thought,” Nelson said as sweat dripped steadily down his face. “It’s good be-
A coalition of experts and more than 60 Kalifornsky Beach Road residents gathered at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex Tuesday to determine what is the next step in combating the level of the rising water table. By the end of the two-hour community forum, facilitated by Randy Daly, interested residents were asked to petition Alaska Commissioner for the Department of Health and Social Services William Streur requesting the official formation of a task force dedicated to solving the area’s destructive flooding. Sen. Peter Micciche R-Soldotna and Kenai Peninsula BorSee FLOOD, page A-7
Judge spikes Resetarits charges
Firefighters train in new CES facility By RASHAH MCCHESNEY Peninsula Clarion
Index
See TAX, page A-7
K-Beach residents talk flood task force
In the news A man at his Nikiski home sustained severe burns from a house fire Tuesday morning and was transported to an Anchorage hospital by LifeMed, according to a release. In the first few minutes of Tuesday, firefighters responded to a residential fire on Groleske Avenue. The home was fully engulfed when responders arrived, and the blaze threatened to move into the nearby wild land area as well, according to a release from the Nikiski Fire Department. Nikiski and Kenai fire departments responded with eight apparatus and more than 15 personnel. Due to the home’s remote location, Bud Sexton, Nikiski Fire Department public information officer said responders could only reach the fire with a brush truck, so crews had to take the truck back to a tanker after emptying it on the blaze repeatedly. He said the fire was out within about 30 minutes and mop up took a few hours. Sexton was unable to release additional information about the injured resident. The cause of the blaze is under investigation, according to the release.
borough passed a bed tax, Homer, which mostly opposed the proposed tax, would be forced to have a bed tax. “It was not an easy thing to veto because we have literally sat through three separate meetings where it has been discussed in great detail,” he said. Shanon Hamrick, executive
Photo by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion
Bob Pressler, 42-year veteran firefighter and firefighter trainer from Delaware, talks about ways to enter and exit burning buildings after live fire training drill at the new Central Emergency Services structure on Arc Loop Road Wednesday. For more photos of the training visit peninsulaclarion.com.
cause a lot of Alaskans build really tight, so this is a realistic situation our guys would get into.” Nelson and other CES administrators teamed up with two other trainers from New York State fire departments to run several drills for 21 firefighters Wednesday and, in the process, test out the new-
est CES facility. “The heat is what fatigues guys,” said CES firefighter Josh Thompson. The heat is also what makes the new facility and training drills more effective, he said. When the firefighters do drills without fire, it’s easy to overestimate their strength and See FIRE, page A-7
By MICHAEL ARMSTRONG and RASHAH McCHESNEY Morris News Service-Alaska
Superior Court Judge Carl Bauman on Wednesday dismissed second-degree sexual assault charges against two brothers alleged to have assaulted a teenage boy with an object at a September 2012 party in Homer. Bauman had set a date of Aug. 4 in Homer for the jury trial of Anthony Resetarits, 22, and Joseph Resetarits, 19, but canceled that trial in a pretrial hearing on July 30 when he announced he would be issuing a decision on defense motions See COURT, page A-7
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