Assembly to discuss permanent vehicle registration Tuesday night

BIG LAKE — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly is set to take up the idea of creating a permanent vehicle registration option in Mat-Su when it meets tonight at the Big Lake Recreation Center.

Vehicle registration is something the state handles but it shares the revenue generated from registration fees with local municipalities. The legislative change allows for permanent registration for vehicles older than eight years, but the rule change doesn’t take affect unless local governments approve the change.

The idea is that owners of old vehicles could pay a slightly higher registration fee to permanently register the vehicle, rather than have to pay registration fees every other year as required now.

If Mat-Su were to make the change, it would be the first to do so. Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Jim Colver said he thinks the borough should make that change. He said he supports the idea strongly enough he introduced an ordinance to move the borough in that direction.

“Philosophically, it’s the right thing to do,” Colver said at a press conference he called to announce the introduction of his ordinance in August.

But, when the time came to approve it on Aug. 26, he asked that it be put off for another week.

“In light of some of the concern that’s been raised by some of our service areas in taking a hit, a reduction in revenue, I’d like to propose bringing this back on the second (of September),” Colver said.

The service areas he referred to are road service areas and fire service areas that receive the money the state passed along to the borough from registration fees. At that August press conference, Colver estimated the change would mean the borough takes in about $2.4 million less in revenue.

At the Aug. 26 meeting he still seemed to think it was a good idea to make the change and told his colleagues on the assembly he’d try to draft amendments before tonight’s meeting and make sure the service areas wouldn’t take a financial hit.

Still, he said, he wanted to create the permanent registration so that, “we’re not taxing vehicles that are sitting in people’s yards and not on the street.”

Assemblyman Steve Colligan asked that prior to tonight’s meeting borough staff come up with the “true cost” of the registration change to the borough.

And assemblyman Vern Halter asked that those numbers broken down to show what the change would cost each road service area. Halter’s district, which encompasses Willow, Caswell, Talkeetna and Trapper Creek, among other communities, tends to have a lot of service areas that struggle for funding since they tend to be spread out, with road maintenance costs on long roads spread out over just a few residents.

Halter then expressed outright hostility to the bill, though he did so in a joking manner, saying he’d support continuing the discussion to the next meeting but, “I’d rather move to continue this indefinitely, to tell you the truth.”

Continuing an ordinance indefinitely is a method that elected bodies often use to kill an ordinance without putting it to a straight up-or-down vote.

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