Assembly overrides DeVilbiss' road bonds veto

PALMER — Voters will decide on more than $30 million in bonds for road projects after the Mat-Su Borough Assembly overturned a Mayor Larry DeVilbiss veto of the package.

The assembly decided Tuesday to put road bonds on the ballot, but the mayor vetoed the measure, but his roadblock didn’t last long, with the assembly voting Thursday 5-2 to overturn the veto. It was the latest in a back-and-forth debate about what type of bond question to put on the Oct. 4 ballot.

Here’s what has happened so far with the bonds:

On Aug. 2, the assembly took up the bonds and whittled a $32 million package down to $25 million on the assumption they should follow Anchorage’s successful formula.

On Tuesday, Assemblyman Jim Colver moved to reconsider the bond package and the assembly put projects back in the package that had been cut for a new total of $31 million. Colver said some of the cuts made the projects less feasible.

“You just have to have the right amount in there. If you’re going to do it, do it right,” he said.

DeVilbiss has vetoed the measure.

Assemblyman Mark Ewing said that as far as he can tell, the mayor was acting on advice from Anchorage officials.

“The mayor’s down in Sitka right now and he’s talked to (Anchorage) Mayor (Dan) Sullivan and they’ve scaled their bonds back to $25 million. We’re really in a dilemma, we’re down to the 11th hour and the mayor’s out of town,” Ewing said by cellphone from his job with the Matanuska Telephone Association, where, he said, his office is short-handed and he’s been putting in extra hours.

As for how he’ll vote, Ewing, who voted to uphold the veto, seemed ambivalent before Thursday’s meeting.

Assemblyman Noel Woods was the other minority vote.

On the one hand, he said the bonds might not even pass at the ballot box given that voters are essentially being asked to raise their own taxes in tough economic times.

But on the other hand, he said it’s hard to turn away state matching funds. And the jobs infrastructure improvements would provide in this tough economy.

“There’s something in there for the whole borough and it’d be a shame to see it go by the wayside over arguing,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.