Assembly tackles tall order

PALMER — In a squeaker of a vote Tuesday, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly voted to reinstate some rules for towers.

Introduced by Assemblyman Warren Keogh, the ordinance includes provisions for public notice of impending tower projects and outlines a process for granting permits,

The vote at the assembly table was tied at 3-3 until Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss stepped in with a vote in favor of the regulations to break the deadlock. He said later in his regular podcast that some people found his decision surprising, but he hadn’t had a chance until then to put his opinion on the record.

“I never thought that it was right to have nothing,” he said, referring to the borough’s former tower code that was repealed in its entirety in November 2011.

Although he has pushed for months for reinstatement of tower rules, Assemblyman Keogh didn’t meet with any success until Tuesday. He said the ordinance was an attempt to “correct a mistake.”

“In my opinion, we made a mistake when we voted by a 4-2 margin to toss the existing tall tower ordinance,” he said. “Since then, predictably, there has been a growing number of people that are upset, if nothing more than, with a lack of public notice.”

There also has been a proliferation of towers, since the move to toss out the rules came at the same time that numerous wireless telephone companies were building out their 4G networks. It also came soon after a big national provider, Verizon, had announced plans to enter the Alaska market.

Keogh’s ordinance began as a hybrid of the old code that the assembly tossed, plus the proposed revisions to that code, which were being considered when assembly members instead decided to toss the whole section of code.

The ordinance then went through the borough’s aviation advisory board and its planning commission before winding up at the assembly.

“I have heartburn with the way that this ordinance is presented and the changes that the planning commission made. I’d like to see a more stringent fall radius, but we have what we have and I’ll accept this,” Keogh said.

A half-dozen community members testified at the meeting Tuesday, nearly all of them in favor of passing the ordinance.

“The current situation is unacceptable. It’s kind of like the Wild West out there. I think we would all agree that if somebody put a 100-foot tower 10 feet from your property line the value of your land would not go up,” said Jim Faiks, who served on a commission that studied tall towers. “You really have to ask your neighbor why he should be able to benefit by the diminishing of the value of your property.“

Ken Slauson was the only voice opposed, but he wasn’t opposed so much as he thought the issue deserved more scrutiny.

“There are plenty of regulations that it would be wise to step back and take a thoughtful look at,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s a crisis in the next month or two.”

When it came time to vote, Jim Colver had already recused himself, leaving six assembly members at the table who voted three-three, with DeVilbiss breaking that tie.

DeVilbiss said this as a starting point. At the next assembly meeting, he said, the towers board he created would be seated. And they, in turn, would take a look at the tower rules, and again recommend any changes necessary.

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