Council strife aired

April 15, 2005

KATE GOLDEN/Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - Mark Ewing's having a rough time of it as the freshman city council member.

"I learned some lessons," Ewing said Wednesday.

His recent letter to the Anchorage Daily News, implying that other council members and the city would "crawl into bed with the Alaska Railroad, the state Transportation Department and the big box stores at your (the voters') expense" was not favorably received during council members' end-of-meeting comments Monday night.

Ron Cox did not mention it. Nor did Mayor Dianne M. Keller.

But Diana Straub called the letter "disappointing."

"Council member Ewing, that puts a great stress on the decorum of this body," she said.

Noel Lowe referred to "inaccurate information" and said, "That discussion can be had here at the table and not in the newspapers."

Howard O'Neil read a long response chastising Ewing and rebutting his criticisms.

Meanwhile, Ewing's attempts to defend himself out of order were squelched by the gavel of Mayor Dianne M. Keller.

One of Ewing's gripes: A proposed extension of East Susitna Avenue, which he said would cost the city $4 million and called "a road we do not need."

"Is it just a coincidence that Home Depot is building a commercial subdivision called Home Depot Wasilla that this road will access?"

City employees painted it differently.

Wasilla city planner Sandra Garley said the idea came from the community itself. The city had received numerous inquiries from developers, she said, regarding the triangle of land between Knik-Goose Bay Road, the Parks Highway and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway extension. And while the highways were planned with high volumes in mind, access to them is limited and traffic is already a problem.

In September, Wasilla hosted a focus group meeting between the Alaska Department of Transportation, city officials and property owners to discuss road plans for the area. Participants split into three groups. Each group was given pens and a huge map of the area and told to draw their ideal plan for relieving the traffic problems in the area. Suggestions varied, but all three groups independently came up with an extension of East Susitna Avenue.

Based on the consensus, Garley applied for $1 million from the federal government to cover the entire project, from design to construction. The city, she said, has no plans to bear the expenses of the extension.

Giddings clarified that new multiplex development in the area, not the road itself, causes a need for new traffic lights and patterns. With the extension, traffic from the development can spread and go both ways, not just to Knik-Goose Bay Road.

"We want to give them another way out," he said. "And that has nothing to do with Home Depot."

As for the Home Depot subdivision, Garley said the developers designed it with two ways in and out, as city code requires, and its own light.

She and Public Works Director Archie Giddings both said the corporation has never asked the city for any lights or roads.

While chastened by his numerical errors, freshman Ewing is determined to continue as the gadfly of the council.

"I'm not going to let a little slam dunk at a meeting deter me in any way. I'm going to use that as momentum."

He said his intent was - and is - to hold elected officials and administration accountable: "I want to know why the money's spent and where," he said.

And he's got lots of other ideas: Wasilla should follow Palmer's example of investing in infrastructure, and extend sewer and water along Wasilla-Fishhook Road.

The people should have a public boat launch at Wasilla Lake; perhaps the city could buy Green Acres.

Ewing hopes, he said, that Wasilla will "not just be a one-sided city."

Contact Kate Golden at

352-2284 or kate.golden@

frontiersman.com.