Big Lake residents torn over use of old library

BIG LAKE -- With the new Big Lake Library set to open in June, residents there have taken to coveting the current library building which will soon be vacant.

Big Lake Fire Chief Bill Gamble said his department has plans to take over the building and the half acre of land it sits on. The local chamber of commerce has other plans, but little weight to throw around because the library and the fire department are both owned by the Mat-Su Borough.

The chamber has been talking about a multi-use building that could include a chamber office, a visitor's center, a counseling center, and a meeting room that the fire department could also use. The matter discussed last week at the Big Lake Chamber of Commerce's Wednesday meeting.

But Gamble said the chamber's plan isn't exactly fair.

"We had a meeting at the beginning of January, and [the chamber] basically wanted the fire department to be their landlord and janitor, and then we could occasionally use the meeting room for training," Gamble said.

At the Wednesday luncheon, Chamber President Carol Kane introduced a plan to share the building between the chamber, the fire department and Mat-Su Recovery Center Inc., a nonprofit drug and alcohol counseling provider.

"We came up with what we thought was going to be a very viable joint proposal that would be good for all of us," Kane told the audience of about a dozen Big Lake business people.

Kane went on to say the borough's current plan is to grant the old library and the property it sits on to the fire department next door, with rooms for training and a fitness room. So far, borough officials haven't been supportive of the chamber's suggestions.

"We're sort of at a road block, really," Kane said. "But I would think that we still want to move forward."

Chamber members, through a vote of non-objection, agreed to continue lobbying the borough for use of the building.

Gamble told the Frontiersman he was invited to the chamber meeting, but couldn't attend because he was on an ambulance call at the time. He said his department has had plans for the building since 1998, when he was the president of Big Lake Community Council. Gamble said he believes the chamber is doing a sort "end-run" around plans that had been made by the community in the past. The fire department telegraphed its intentions specifically to avoid a political struggle, Gamble said.

Chamber member Doyle Currier said at the meeting the chamber's plan would serve more people than a fire-station fitness center.

"It's just a small, select few people that will get to use it," Currier said. "The rest of us are going to just have to pay taxes on it, and drive by looking for some place else."

Gamble said the fire department volunteers need the whole building, and will likely have it moved to make way for a larger building. The fitness center, he said, is necessary.

"We've been mandated since '96 or '98 to provide a physical-fitness program," Gamble said.

He also criticized the new relationship between the Mat-Su Recovery Center and the chamber.

"They went out and recruited a tenant, because they want the fire department to subsidize their organization," Gamble said.

Daniel Stotler, executive director of Mat-Su Recovery Center spoke to the chamber last week and said his organization was looking for space in the Big Lake area.

As this article went to press Friday, Stotler was unavailable to for comment. His administrative assistant Annie O'Hara said Stotler and Mat-Su recovery will continue to look for space in the area, but do not intend to get into a political quarrel among residents.