Borough to take homes for Bogard extension

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough is taking a rare step in its efforts to acquire the last few houses it needs in order to connect Bogard Road to the Glenn Highway.

Tuesday, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly voted to exercise eminent domain for the project.

Eminent domain is familiar in development circles but not one the borough has had to exercise frequently.

Borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos told the assembly that after the body declared eminent domain over the properties, the borough would file paperwork in court seeking title to the land in question. If the landowner doesn’t protest in something like 20 days, he said, the borough gets the title and the fight continues over how much the land is worth. If the landowner does protest, it goes to a judge.

“I’m pretty sure we would win that,” Spiroulos said, noting that eminent domain in Alaska can only be used in the case of projects that serve a public need.

A shopping mall wouldn’t fit the bill but a road definitely does. And even though the legal process could stretch out over years, the borough gets title right away, he said.

“The Legislature, in developing this, recognized, yes, you could have a long drawn out process where you argue is the property worth $300,000? Is it worth 500,000? Is it worth a million?”

In the case of Bogard, it’s down to seven properties, which the borough estimates are worth from $18,200 to $676,500. Some of the property owners are asking double those estimates or more.

“There were nine parcels outstanding of the 45 that we needed to acquire,” borough public works director Shaune O’Neil told the assembly in May. “We closed on two. Two landowners have used rather colorful language in telling us to take it to court, one has told us they have retained an attorney and we have not heard from that attorney.”

Talking about eminent domain brought back memories of the fight back in 2008 when the borough assembly was deciding on what route to take to extend Bogard. Two assemblymen — Vern Halter and Mark Ewing — were on the planning commission then. That body recommended against building the road.

“We couldn’t agree, so it went to the assembly, the assembly made the decision to go with (this) route and I didn’t feel it was right,” Ewing said.

Halter said that even though he didn’t support the project, what’s done is done. The borough has set this project in motion and needs to see it through.

Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine was on the assembly then. She said she would have preferred a different route, a more northerly one.

“I don’t think we can go back that way because we’ve already bought homes. It’s really easy to sit here in your chair and say, ‘I don’t like eminent domain.’ I don’t think any of us like that,” she said. “We can’t go back.”

Assemblyman Ron Arvin said he didn’t like the idea of forcing people out of their homes when the borough didn’t have money to construct the road. But O’Neil had an answer for that — not having acquired the homes is one of the main obstacles to getting state funding to build the road.

“When I met with the (State Department of Transportation) folks, one of the first things they wanted to know was, ‘well, do you have all the right of way?’”

Arvin came to the assembly after the decision was made. He was the lone vote against eminent domain Tuesday.

“Just because it’s done doesn’t mean it’s right,” he said.

Spiropoulos said that just because the borough assembly gave staff the right to take the homes didn’t mean they will. Since the borough doesn’t do use eminent domain a lot, Spiropoulos said, they brought in an outside attorney to handle this one. And since winter is upon us, he’ll have a couple of months before construction could start.

“I know it’s his intent to go back to the landowners at least one more time to try to work it out. Sometimes the threat of it actually happening can knock some things loose,” Spiropoulos said.

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