Bridge bill clears House

JUNEAU — Valley legislators’ attempts to pave the way for a bridge connecting Anchorage to Point MacKenzie cleared one house and headed to another Wednesday.

The Knik Arm Bridge has been a high-profile bone of contention lately. Supporters call it a vital link between Alaska’s largest population center and its fastest growing community. Detractors call it costly and unnecessary.

The latest plan to cross Knik Arm calls for a private company to finance the project, recoup its costs through tolls and eventually hand the bridge to the state.

The bill, whose main champion was Mark Neuman (R-Big Lake) does three things — sets aside $150 million to cover shortfalls between tolls and construction costs, says the bridge and connector roads are exempt from property taxes and ups the amount a private entity can borrow from $500 million to $600 million.

The bill passed the state House without debate, with 12 Democrats and one Republican — Chickaloon’s Eric Feige — voting against it.

On Monday, one of those Democrats, Les Gara, tried and failed to amend the bill to say explicitly that the financial risk for the bridge doesn’t fall on the state.

“The state is not in the business of socializing the risk and privatizing the project,” Gara said on the floor of the House.

He said he didn’t have good numbers on how much risk that actually was, but said $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion was what he saw as potentially at stake.

“They want to develop the Knik area, but for this price tag I believe the people in the Knik area have two very vibrant communities to get their supplies from, to attach their economies to, and that’s Palmer and Wasilla,” Gara told his colleagues.

Rep. Mike Doogan (D-Anchorage) also spoke in favor of amending the bill.

“(The original bill) says that the liability to the state doesn’t exist. As I’ve said, I don’t believe that,” Doogan said. But, “you can’t assess the liability at this point because we don’t know what it is. … What this amendment says is you’ve got to not authorize something, particularly when the cost is not known.”

Neuman said that yes, the project will be risky. He said that though this is going to be a public-private partnership, when all is said and done the state will own the bridge.

By amending the bill to say the state isn’t liable for the costs, “we’re going to say, ‘hey private industry, you take all the risk,’” Neuman said. He doesn’t think that’s right. “The state needs to take a little bit of the risk.”

Neuman also came armed with billion-dollar figures — $1.2 billion he said the bridge will bring to the state after tolls start flowing into state coffers instead of into paying off the developer and $3 billion the state won’t have to spend to upgrade the at-capacity Glenn Highway if there’s another route relieving the pressure.

“We’re talking about the ability for the state to grow its infrastructure,” Neuman said. Yes, it’s risky, but “is that risk any more or less than any other road projects that are going on in the nation right now? No, it’s not.”

Having cleared the House, the bill moves on to the Senate where Sen. Linda Menard (R-Wasilla) has been its champion. Both Menard and Neuman sit on the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority’s board of directors.

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