Borough assembly chooses 'red' route to extend Bogard Road

PALMER – Before a packed house at the Palmer Train Depot, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly unanimously chose a route to extend Bogard Road from its current terminus at 49th State Street to the Glenn Highway.

The route, dubbed the “red” route on Borough maps and documents, is the most direct of the three choices the assembly had before it. It also runs close to the largest number of subdivisions but, aside from running through the southern portion of Wiederkehr Farms, affects the least number of area farmers.

Tuesday, the majority of comments made to the body favored no route at all. Mayor Curt Menard, in his statements to the body, sided with this faction.

“We’ve gotten too spoiled,” Menard said, noting that folks seeking the route are essentially hoping to shave a couple minutes off their drive times. The money available to buy right of way for the highway might better be put towards existing roads, he said.

He also pointed out that the project is not yet fully funded and expressed pessimism that it ever would be.

“I know I’m not going to have a hope tonight, but I’m laying it out there,” Menard said.

Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine pointed to a Borough survey showing more than 60 percent of residents favor building a new corridor to take pressure off the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“A lot of people from further out of Palmer work in Palmer. That is really what drives the economy in Palmer,” she said.

Pete Houston, who found himself in the minority on a number of issues, proposed a trio of changes to the route, only one of which passed — reducing the amount of right of way in front of Palmer High School from 200 to 150 feet.

In casting his final vote in favor of the red route, Houston’s voice carried a note of resignation.

At the end of the meeting, a majority of the assembly seemed relieved more than three years of study and debate had finally come to a decision. Houston seemed to speak for all the assembly members when he said, “I’m happy that we passed this and I can now sleep.”

A more detailed version of this story will be in Friday’s Frontiersman print edition and online.