Crime task force, fire service areas hot issues at Borough Assembly meeting

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly held two meetings on Tuesday.

The only action item for the first meeting was an executive session for union contract negotiations. Executive sessions are not open to the public, so the exact nature of the contract discussion is unknown.

The regular assembly meeting on Tuesday evening was relatively short, lasting around ninety minutes. The two main topics of discussion were the expansion of the West Lakes Fire Service Area and the continuing discussion of crime in the Valley.

The crime discussion was the sparked by a motion from Assembly Member Jim Sykes to task Mat-Su Borough Manager John Moosey with holding public meetings on crime and its impacts in the borough.

The decision on whether to move forward with public meetings on crime was delayed at the last assembly meeting, and Mayor Vern Halter requested that Assembly Member Jim Sykes flesh out his thoughts on crime further. On Tuesday, assembly members remained divided over the motion.

Assembly Member Randall Kowalke said he believes the borough has plenty on its plate right now without delving into topics like crime, where the Mat-Su has little to no direct authority.

“I’d rather see us solving the issues that are in front of us [such as] school funding,” Kowalke said. “He believes that there are, “A number of other things that, to me, are much more critical than getting involved in an area that we can’t do anything with.”

Sykes disagreed, and believes there are things the borough can do with regard to crime.

“This is not going away, and we ultimately, as members of the assembly, are responsible for the welfare of the entire borough,” Sykes said, adding that he has spoken with interested multiple people about the crime issue since being part of a borough-produced video discussing crime and potential options for the Mat-Su going forward.

Sykes wanted to create a committee on crime that would include members from various fields including law enforcement, community organizations, rehabilitated convicts, educators, and drug treatment facilities. The committee would meet between January and March of 2018 to look at options for addressing the increase in crime in the Valley.

George McKee, the Assembly Member from District 3, doubted that the committee would amount to much, since the Mat-Su Borough does not have police powers.

“We need that like Custer needed more Indians,” McKee quipped.

Mayor Halter said the discussion about crime is a good thing, but he objected to putting an additional committee onto Borough Manager Moosey’s plate. Rather, he was looking for more direct potential action or the borough. Halter said he wanted Assembly Member Sykes to, “Bring legislation forward to either add police powers to a class-two borough, or move us to a first-class borough, where we would have inherent police powers.”

The motion to form a committee on crime ultimately passed 5-2 with Assembly Members McKee and Kowalke opposed.

While service area annexations are often placed on the ballot, there are provisions that allow the assembly to approve expanding fire service areas without a public vote, provided that the expansion is relatively small. It cannot add more than six percent to the number of properties in the service area, and the area to be included must contain fewer than 1,000 people. Both of those criteria apply in this case.

Public testimony on the annexation was mixed. Critics of the annexation were skeptical as to whether inclusion in the fire service area would equate to prompt response from emergency services.

“My concern is, our taxes would go up, but we would not be receiving proper fire protection service until they build another [fire] station that is closer,” Sherry Morris said.

Supporters of inclusion in the fire service area told stories of seeing emergency responders who had to watch as structures burned, since they were not part of a service area. Pat Daniels, who also lives in the area to be annexed, said that firefighters had their hands tied when it came to responding to a fire outside of a service area. He stated that, unless the area were added to the existing fire service area, “The fire department will literally sit in your driveway and watch your house burn down in front of you,” he said.

The annexation passed by a vote of 6-1, with Assembly Member McKee voting against.

The next regular meeting of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly is scheduled for Jan. 2.