City of Wasilla to help fund school resource officers

WASILLA — The Wasilla City Council will hold a public hearing on Ordinance 18-27 at its next regularly scheduled meeting on Sept. 10 to add two new school resource officers at Houston Middle and High schools and Colony Middle and High schools.

Mayor Bert Cottle also issued a proclamation recognizing September as Recovery Month in Wasilla, and the council moved to postpone their vote on Resolution 18-19, updating the Hazard Mitigation Plan, to the Sept. 10 meeting.

“Overwhelmingly, the community responded positively to increasing a formal armed presence in buildings. As a result, the district worked with the Wasilla and Palmer Police department to expand the School Resource Officer Program,” Mat-Su Borough School District Superintendent Dr. Monica Goyette wrote in an email.

The seasoned officers will be placed at Houston and Colony to serve both the middle and high schools. The Police Officer 1 positions will be 75 percent funded by Mat-Su Borough School District and the other quarter will be paid for by the city. Wasilla budgets $187,440 over the two-and-a-half-year contract with the SRO’s. Goyette hopes to add SRO’s at Redington Jr/Sr High School, Mat-Su Career and Technical School and Teeland Middle School in the spring. The city of Palmer will be funding an SRO position for Palmer Junior Middle School and Palmer High School.

Michael Carson, who serves as chair of the opioid taskforce and as vice president of MyHouse, spoke on behalf of the proclamation recognizing September as recovery month. Carson stated that more than 72,000 drug overdoses have resulted in death in the last year in the United States, and that 1,000,000 children were living with grandparents as a result.

“Three very important things, detox can be safe, treatment is effective and people recover,” said Carson.

The council also presented for public hearing at its next meeting a $139,810 amendment from the Water Fund to upgrade 560 water meters.

“The old meters we have, they don’t even make parts for anymore. We’re going to replace all the water meters and they should be good for another 20 years, so it’s just basically maintenance costs,” Cottle said.

The meters will be readable via radar.

Recreation and cultural services director Joan Klapperich noted that the Menard Sports Center had 46,000 more people through the doors than at this time last year, and reminded the council of the Transportation Fair and Emergency Services Fair at the end of September. Finance director Troy Tankersly stated that sales tax revenues were $72,000 under what they were in 2017.

Burchell Student Representative Louise Eaton gave her report, stating that BHS had 200 students enrolled, 33 over projection. BHS will have representation on the Student Advisory Board, which serves as the Student Government for the MSBSD, for the first time. Eaton invited council members to Community and Family Engagement at BHS during the first two weeks of September.

Wasilla Police Chief Gene Belden detailed in his report that there had been a fire at the Wasilla Police Department when a battery got too hot under the carport and damaged one of the WPD motorcycles. Councilman Stu Graham asked about switching dispatch services over to the Palmer Police Department. Belden said that there were deficiencies.

“If this should happen again then we will transport our dispatchers by the quickest route and the quickest means available over to Palmer,” Belden said.

Belden additionally detailed that the SRO’s will travel to Atlanta for training to become SRO 1, SRO 2, and then Senior SRO in three summers of training.