Bonds on the rebound

PALMER — Regular voters might experience déjà vu reading Proposition 3 on next month’s Mat-Su Borough general election ballot.

The school district bond question last appeared on the 2009 ballot, when voters shot it down by a relatively narrow margin. District spokeswoman Catherine Esary said that result wasn’t totally disheartening, considering the same ballot included a hugely unpopular proposal to create a borough sales tax. That measure also failed.

In hard dollars and cents, the bonds total $34 million, 70 percent of which the state will pay. Esary said they would bump up property taxes on a $209,445 home — what the borough considers to be its average — by $22.90 per year.

She said the district just wants to encourage everyone to vote and to make sure residents have all the information they can.

“Not just on bond issues, but on every issue in every campaign,” she said.

The projects targeted this year are identical to the 2009 question. Here’s a rundown:

• Fire alarm upgrades for Colony middle and high schools, Houston Middle School and Finger Lake, Pioneer Peak, Sutton, Tanaina, Trapper Creek and Willow elementary schools.

• Roof replacement or repair and asbestos abatement for Wasilla High School, Palmer Junior Middle School, Houston and Wasilla middle schools, the district administration building and Finger Lake, Snowshoe and Butte elementary schools.

• Americans with Disabilities Act parking improvements for Big Lake, Pioneer Peak and Snowshoe elementary schools.

• New floors and asbestos abatement for Palmer High School, Colony Middle School, Palmer Junior Middle School and Butte, Cottonwood, Finger Lake, Snowshoe and Tanaina elementary schools.

• A new boiler for Swanson Elementary School.

Those ADA improvements pencil out to an estimated $300,000 to straighten out problems with the locations of handicap parking at the affected schools, Esary said.

“Right now, some our ADA parking you have to cross oncoming traffic from where the ADA parking is,” she said. “It’s not in compliance, for one thing, and it’s also not safe.”

There has been some talk that maybe Wasilla High School doesn’t need a new roof since it’s had a replacement project within the last 10 years. Esary said that’s true, in a sense. The school was built in stages and one section does have a relatively new roof.

The portion on this bond proposition was not re-roofed 10 years ago, she said.

As for why these types of projects have to show up on a ballot rather than get their own line-items in the district’s budget, Esary said they’re just too big and needed too infrequently. Smaller maintenance projects are routinely taken care of in the district’s budget.

“They are large and they’re more like one-time kinds of costs,” she said. “It’s not a maintenance or a repair issue.”

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