1 word makes big difference

PALMER — How much difference can one word make?

When that word is “motorized” and it’s used in the title of a plan for what to do in the Knik River/Jim Creek area, apparently a whole lot.

The Mat-Su Borough owns a parcel of land in the Jim Creek area of the Butte and is in the initial phases of putting together a plan for what to do with the land.

A lot of ATV riders use it now. So do hikers and horseback riders. The groups are often at odds. ATV riders tend to claim they are getting locked out of some of their favorite places to ride, while hikers lament there are too few trails where they don’t have to worry about fast and loud machines.

When the borough began putting together a plan for that parcel, assemblyman Ron Arvin convinced his colleagues to insert the word “motorized” into the plan.

ATV riders applauded the move.

“Adding the word ‘motorized’ did not eliminate any other user group,” said Craig Saunders, who spoke on behalf of a group of riders that attended a borough assembly meeting Thursday. “We’re tired of getting pushed out of some of the favorite places to hunt and fish.”

The theory is that you can’t exactly keep horses and hikers off ATV trails, but you can keep ATVs off horse trails. So, Saunders argued, “motorized” is actually the all-inclusive word.

Calling the plan one for motorized and non-motorized uses would essentially create two types of trails rather than shared trails for both groups since, at least grammatically but also legally, “non-motorized” implies exclusion.

But that’s not how the hikers and horseback riders see it.

“The consultant hired by the borough specifically stated that non-motorized user groups were to be precluded from the planning process,” Elizabeth Friedman testified.

Some in the crowd, including Borough staff, said that wasn’t quite true.

“I’ll be honest, I thought that I would be in hot water with the assembly if I brought back non-motorized options,” said Eric Phillips, the borough’s director of community development.

Phillips said he was under the impression that motorized trails were also multi-use trails and not exclusively for ATVs.

Assemblyman Warren Keogh proposed adding “non-motorized” to the plan alongside motorized or just deleting both altogether and making the plan agnostic on the topic as it was in the beginning. He said changing the plan in the first place was ill advised.

“We’ve had a predictable response by a large number of unhappy people, some of whom were upset because we made it a motorized plan and now more who are upset because we may now include non-motorized in the description of the plan,” he said. “The assembly has been bombarded with an extraordinary number of e-mails and phone calls, and now a petition, all of whom are concerned about what decision the assembly has made or may make.”

He said he hoped the change would smooth over those differences.

“Words matter and names matter. If the intent is to create motorized and non-motorized uses and access, let’s say so,” Keogh said.

The assembly, though, declined to change the word, with Keogh and Noel Woods were the only members voting for the change. Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss asked borough manager John Moosey afterward if the assembly’s concerns can be addressed in an official way.

Moosey said he believes that intent was made abundantly clear to staff.