BOROUGH VOTE: Voters in giving mood despite low turnout

By Andrew Wellner

Frontiersman

MAT-SU — Mother Nature may have had a hand in keeping voter turnout across the Mat-Su Borough to 14.61 percent Tuesday, where 7,923 of the Borough’s 54,234 registered voters made it in to polling places during the season’s first snowfall.

Nevertheless, voters were in a generous mood, passing bond issues and merging fire service areas.

At the Colony Middle School polling station, election workers said that as of 6:30 p.m., with only an hour and a half to go before polls closed, only 135 people had showed up to vote. At the Palmer Senior Center and Pioneer Peak Elementary, turnouts were similar. The number of voters, most agreed, was nothing compared to August’s primary elections, which in places drew crowds standing in line to cast ballots.

Those who did vote elected Ole Larson to the Mat-Su Borough School District Board of Education, upsetting Seat D incumbent Patricia Purcell 3,984 votes to 3,087. Brian Sullivan and Myrl Thompson were unopposed and elected to Seats E and G respectively.

The school district also got the go-ahead from voters to move forward with $19 million in security and improvement upgrades. Although voters gave the district authority to issue bonds for multiple projects, the district expects to see a 70 percent buy-in from the state.

Voters also revved the Borough’s engines by approving bonds for transportation upgrades around the Borough. The transportation bonds passed 4,334 votes to 3,450.

At Colony, Harry Crippen said he voted for both bond packages.

“I don’t want to raise property taxes, but I think both of those are very necessary,” he said.

A former student at Palmer High School, Crippen said that a replacement for the school’s roof contained in the bond package was likely overdue, if it’s the same roof the building had when he attended in the 1980s.

At Pioneer Peak, voter Ray Kizer took the opposite stance, voting against both bond packages.

“I’d like to see us get through this major election and see how the economy is going to go,” Kizer said, referencing November’s general election. “I’ve always in the past been in favor of schools and roads and fire departments, all those essential things.”

An effort by Matanuska Electric Association to repeal the Borough’s ordinance governing power generation plants failed, 4,311-3,429.

Utility spokeswoman Lorali Carter said it was unfortunate that ratepayers would see plans to build a natural gas fired power plant subjected to more government “red tape.”

On the other side, utility board member Janet Kincaid seemed pleased with the result, saying any project of that magnitude deserves a through, public process.

For residents of the Big Lake and Meadow Lakes areas, borough officials expect fire service and response to become more efficient with a merger of the areas’ fire departments. Voters approved the merger Tuesday by a combined vote of 627 to 454.

In the Caswell Lakes area, residents will have the services of a fire department for the first time, with voters there giving the green light to establishing a Caswell Lakes Fire Service Area, 64 votes to 9.

Reached late Tuesday, the borough’s emergency services director Dennis Brodigan said he was very pleased at the results of both votes.

“That’s wonderful,” he said. But, noting that the results aren’t yet official, he added, “hopefully all of those are the done and those are the final numbers and we won’t have any surprises in the morning.”