Another tale of 2 cities

Having parents in both Alaska and Washington meant a lot of traveling to both Wasilla and a little town in Washington called Port Orchard while growing up.

The transition was made a little easier, though, since the two towns were so similar. Although a wee bit larger and the county seat, Port Orchard was still a small town in the 1970s and early 1980s. The only traffic light was one in the middle of town that just blinked yellow or red depending on which direction you were coming from. Traffic was pretty much the same whether or not it was morning, mid-day or afternoon and you could judge how long it would take to get somewhere by the distance and not the traffic. We never locked our car doors and frequently just left the keys in the ignition when we parked them for the night. Port Orchard had two chain fast-food restaurants; Kentucky Fried Chicken and an old A&W drive-in that still had the trays that rested on the open window of your car. The closest “big town” (Bremerton) was 20 miles away, which is where we had to go to buy just about anything. If it wasn’t in Bremerton, we made the longer trip to Tacoma or Seattle.

I spent my summers, winter and spring vacations and even a few school years with my dad in Wasilla. I liked listening to the older generations that had arrived here before we did talk about the town when it was even smaller. I remember the airplanes landing behind the Chevron station and Kentucky Fried Chicken being the only chain restaurant in town. If we needed anything, we had to drive to the big town of Palmer to get it. If it wasn’t in Palmer, it meant a trip to Anchorage. Obviously, the transition from Port Orchard to Wasilla was easy, but for reasons that don’t seem to make as much sense now as they did then I chose to finish school and graduate from South Kitsap High School in Washington.

Sometime in the 1980s, Port Orchard and the rest of Kitsap County got “discovered” by Californians looking to escape the big city, high taxes and skyrocketing housing costs. A write-up in some magazine called the area the “most live-able in the country.” It seemed overnight we saw a huge wave of cars arrive with California license plates on them. Apartment complexes were built. Trees were cleared out as new homes went up. Schools swelled and new ones had to be created. Property values rose quickly and so did the assessed taxes on everybody’s homes.

Homes that had been in families for generations were sold as it became harder and harder for many to afford living there. The county couldn’t keep up with the zoning demands and two- or three-story homes were put up along the beaches where they blocked the views of some people who had lived in the adjacent homes for years. Large retail stores, restaurants, hotels and fast-food restaurants began to sprawl all over the city in a disorganized manner that wreaked havoc on traffic flow that was already backing up to the increased number of residents.

We started seeing crime that we hadn’t seen before in either severity or volume. Old trails in the woods were made into paved paths with hand-rails and warning signs to ‘stay on the approved path.’ Port Orchard starting looking dirty, crowded … and just like every other city. The local, small-town charm was gone. If the name rings a bell, Port Orchard was in the national news about a month ago when there was a shootout in the Walmart. Sound familiar? When I made my frequent trips and stays in Wasilla I watched the same thing happen here. In fact, the similarities are almost eerie. And in both cases I hear the old cliché that “you can’t stop progress” and I have to ask, “this is progress?”

When my family and I decided to move back to Alaska we chose Palmer. We like the fact that although there has been some growth, it’s still a small town and has a lot of the small-town personality. But again, I occasionally see a call in Palmer for the services that can be found in Wasilla, Eagle River and even Anchorage which makes me wonder why these people chose or choose to live in Palmer. If you like what those places have to offer, why not move there?

Reading through some of the comments I’ve seen in the Frontiersman over the past year it seems there are many people who want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want the small-town atmosphere of Palmer while, at the same time, they also want the services larger cities have. What they don’t seem to understand is that you can’t have both. They’re not going to build a large movie complex, Walmart and the like just for you and a few of your friends to frequent. If you begin building those types of stores to satisfy the people who already live here, you can expect it will draw more people here who will, in turn, drive up demand for more stores and services, it spirals and soon Palmer becomes Wasilla II.

And why do we need another Wasilla only a few miles from the one we already have? I’m astounded by the people who complain about having to drive “all the way” from Palmer to Wasilla. That’s a long drive? What happened to the Alaskans who used to measure how long it took to get somewhere by hours instead of miles? I would think a quick hop over to Wasilla would be nothing. And again, if you must have Wasilla’s services closer to where you live, why not consider moving? I guess I just can’t grasp the logic of voluntarily choosing to live where you do and then complain that the services you want are too far away or expecting them to come to you.

I can’t agree with the axiom that logging, clearing, paving, building and filling every square inch of someplace is always “progress.” What’s wrong with slowing it down in some cities? Otherwise, what’s next after we level Palmer? Shall we move on up the highway and begin bringing “progress” to Sutton, Talkeetna and Glennallen?

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column under the tagline “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.