Breaking ground

WASILLA — As a result of a question on the 2017 ballot to ask Wasilla voters to raise taxes by 50 percent, Wasilla city officials, construction workers and police officers broke ground on the new Wasilla Police Department near the corner of Nelson Avenue and North Wasilla Fishhook road. The vote on the 2017 ballot passed by wider margins than those for the sports complex or the library.

“I was really excited when we started working on this project. I think it’s desperately needed,” Deputy Mayor James Harvey said.

Harvey works as a reserve officer for the Palmer Police Department, and wore his favorite tie to turn dirt. Harvey’s blue lives matter tie was accentuated by his blue tie clip. Harvey noted the location of the new Police Department as an asset, as well as the close proximity to the largest concentration of students in the Mat-Su Borough.

“Response time altogether I think is going to be dramatically improved which will help public safety,” Harvey said.

Police Chief Gene Belden was brief, but overjoyed. Belden noted the various locations of the WPD in its previous iterations. The Police Department was formerly located in what is now the city hall building when it took over the current Police Department on the Parks Highway. The building currently housing Wasilla’s police was formerly a bank and when WPD moved in, there were only 16 officers.

“That’s really I think what’s great about the borough and the cities is being open to kind of partner and put these things together as opposed to building walls between each other,” said Borough Manager John Moosey.

The $12 million police department has the capacity to house 70 officers. Currently, 64 employees work for WPD with 28 uniformed officers. Collins Construction has begun work and the building is scheduled to open in July of 2020.

“With the location of that building, getting in and out for high priority calls when they need to get there and get there now, it’s during rush hour. Getting anywhere in that area is not going to happen easily and it creates a lot of safety issues so one thing we’re lucky to have here is it’s pretty easy to get out on Wasilla-Fishhook you’ve got the great access both sides and once the downtown couplet is complete, it’s going to be better access to streamlining out to the Parks Highway,” Harvey said.

Josh Waisaman is the project designer for Collins Construction and brought his 3-year-old son Axel out to dig his shovel in as well.

“This is going to be obviously a building that is going to protect our community and be a state of the art platform to assist the police officers, so I just wanted to be a part of it as well,” Waisaman said.

Wasilla High School was the first Mat-Su Borough School District school to have a Safety Resource Officer and Palmer added an SRO this school year. Cottle mentioned the school district as the first partner they approached when inquiring about the land for the new Police Department on the site of the old Iditarod Elementary. The Veterans Memorial Wall of Honor was opened in November on Veterans Day adjacent to the road in front of where the new Police Department will be.

“It’ll be a good thing,” Belden said.

Officials from the Mat-Su Borough, five out of the six Wasilla City Council members and MSBSD Superintendent Dr. Monica Goyette attended.

“Our school district has been so lucky to have an outstanding relationship with the Wasilla Police Department. They were leaders in the SRO program and we are going to be extending that next year to be able to offer on site armed presence in the Colony area and the Houston area,” Goyette said.

Cottle praised the voters for supporting public safety.

“We have the best Police Department in the state, bar none,” Cottle said.

Contact Frontiersman reporter Tim Rockey at tim.rockey@ frontiersman.com.