Borough to build addition

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly is set to spend $6 million to build an addition onto its downtown headquarters.

In a meeting last week, the assembly chose to go ahead with a preliminary plan drawn up by Wolf Architecture in Palmer. The building as it stands now is essentially C-shaped. The addition would fill in the cavity of that C, making the building a continuous block. The new piece would contain a larger assembly chambers capable of seating 300 people and offices for borough administration. There would also be something of a one-stop shop for borough services where employees who can answer questions and conduct business the public usually brings to the building are collected in one spot regardless of the department they work for.

Borough Manager John Moosey said he appreciates the design’s inclusion of greater meeting space. In addition to extra conference rooms, the assembly chambers will contain partitions that can be rolled out to break the room up into three smaller rooms.

“You could really have three meetings going on in that big assembly space by having those partitions there,” he said. “We could have two or three breakout sessions right there and then have the extra meeting space upstairs, which we do not have right now.”

Borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos said the addition would save him from having to find secure, private space to take statements from people and do mediation work. Legal work sometimes requires privacy, he said, and there’s none in the cubical he currently inhabits.

“I can’t talk to anybody on the phone because we never know who’s standing out there,” he said.

The addition also contains things like air conditioners and heaters that will hopefully fix problems borough staff have had with keeping the building at a tolerable temperature.

When borough assemblywoman Cindy Bettine moved to postpone the measure, assemblyman Jim Colver, who started the project rolling in the first place, spoke against that. In the current economy, he said, there are a lot of contractors starving for work. The borough could get a good deal on the project. But mostly, he said, the maze of offices, cramped spaces and temperature problems need to be addressed.

“We’re here to get stuff done. Delay is not getting it done,” he said.

Two people offered opinions from the audience on the project. Real estate developer Butch Moore urged delay because of financial uncertainty in the current economy.

Palmer City Manager Doug Griffin voiced support.

“The city of Palmer is very supportive of the borough and takes pride in being the seat of government for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough,” he said.

As for the assembly, the measure eventually passed 5-2. The two votes against it, Bettine and assemblyman Mark Ewing, had different reasons to oppose it.

“It’s $6.8 million. I’ll be surprised to see it go for that. It’ll be pushing $10 million,” Ewing said. “I’m against growth in government and I’ll be voting no because of that.”

For her part, Bettine said she liked the plan but opposed the location.

“I think that this facility is going to serve Palmer very well and I think it will serve the borough well in the short term, but when we look out 10 to 20 years I think we’re investing in the wrong area,” she said.

If the borough was really looking to the long term, she said, it would build a meeting space closer to the center of the borough’s population.

“That is on the other side of Wasilla or up (Knik-Goose Bay Road),” she said.

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