A tower is a tower is a tower?

Apparently, all towers are not created equal. For certain, not all the rules that govern towers are equal.

After more than a year without any rules for tall structures in the Mat-Su Borough, we were just beginning to cover the opening rounds of sparing between Matanuska Electric Association and the city of Wasilla over a conditional use permit for a string of 80-foot towers connecting Eklutna Generation Station to the Herning Substation down Knik-Goose Bay Road.

MEA had an open house introducing the proposal in October 2012 and it was set to appear on the Wasilla Planning Commission’s agenda Jan. 8. But shortly before 5 p.m., Monday, MEA spokesman Kevin Brown called to say the utility will instead pursue other, more expensive routes.

“We had proposed the least-cost option,” he said. “This will increase the price of the project for everyone.”

Now the utility will look to run the line from the new power plant near Eklutna to a different substation along a route that avoids the city of Wasilla.

“It’s clear the planning staff and mayor oppose the plan,” Brown said.

So why does it help to run the powerline outside Wasilla city limits?

The borough has different rules for towers. At just 80 feet, the poles MEA plans to use don’t qualify under a new towers ordinance passed late last year by a divided borough assembly that needed a vote from ceremonial mayor Larry DeVilbiss to break the tie. And the borough doesn’t require conditional use permitting for projects of this nature.

But Wasilla requires a conditional use permit for the project to proceed.

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright voiced concerns about how MEA’s proposed towers would tarnish the city’s viewscape and send property values into a tailspin. But outside city limits, around the assembly table members say towers do not reduce property values or sully views. In the borough, towers are lauded as vital infrastructure and anyone who doesn’t like the look of them looming over their house is told to do without their phones and microwaves.

But enter the city limits of Wasilla and towers are toxic.

“That’s essentially it,” Rupright said. “Christ, almighty, that’s just not acceptable. That will ruin the property values. This beautiful viewscape will be ruined by these 80-foot towers.”

Certainly the Valley is home to spectacular scenery, but what doesn’t pass the smell test here is the idea that Wasilla’s mile after mile of businesses, stoplights, towering streetlights, signs, signs and more signs equal a viewscape that is more important than supplying affordable power for our whole region.