Seward council member asks for $75,000 to start making beach fishing spots accessible

Seward City Council Member Calhoon asked Thursday for $75,000 in the city's draft 2027-28 budget to start a project adding access for anglers with disabilities and older anglers along the city beach, where people snag salmon.

Getting to the water there means crossing rocks that people in wheelchairs and older anglers can't easily manage, he said. He wants four or five access points from the parking lot culvert toward Branson Pavilion.

Calhoon said he understands Seward may be one of very few communities with fishing like this, if not the only one, without access for people with disabilities. He said that could expose the city to a lawsuit, and that local builders could do the work.

A former council member said he tried to start the project during his own term. "I watched the man get carried, a one-legged man get carried from the parking lot to the culvert down by his friends over the 1964 rubble that lines our beachfront," he said.

He suggested aluminum stairs anchored to the rocks, like those along the Kenai River. He said he made 46 trips to the beach this summer talking with anglers, including elders and disabled veterans, and that parents of children who use wheelchairs struggle to get them to the water. One older angler told him he wished he could snag one more salmon but couldn't get down to the water.

"From a fisherman's standpoint, that's torment," he said.

The city already has one accessible fishing project on its list. Parks and Recreation Director Melanie Hauze named accessible fishing access at the Spring Creek Day Use Area among her department's top 10 capital projects for the next three years. Calhoon said that project, near Fourth of July Creek, would be great "over on that side," but he wants to start on the town side.

The city had planned to look at fishing access with the new harbormaster building, but building costs rose and a broader boardwalk was pared back, Deputy City Manager Jason Bickling and City Manager Kat Sorensen said. The boardwalk remains in the long-term plan.

The council took no vote. The draft budget's 2027 capital list already comes to about $1.6 million, including $750,000 for sidewalks. The city will revise the budget after its work sessions, with the first public hearing Nov. 9.