Debate over Parks Highway upgrade gets personal in Wasilla

WASILLA — Animated debate about the state Department of Transportation’s plan to upgrade the Parks Highway from Lucus Road to Big Lake Road is taking a personal turn here.

As the DOT prepares to implement its preferred plan to create a four-lane highway with a center median that includes access turns every half-mile, Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright and some in the city’s business community are lobbying for an alternative plan that calls for a five-lane highway with a center turn lane.

It’s that position that prompted Valley resident Bill Bruu at an April 23 council meeting to allege that the mayor, administration and Wasilla City Council are working for developers rather than residents. Bruu brought his opinion to the council again Monday.

“I don’t plan on being very polite tonight,” he said April 23. “What I want to know is who on this council, or in the mayor’s office, is getting the payoff to get this thing disapproved?”

Bruu goes on to say that “it’s common knowledge” that the mayor and Deputy Administrator Bert Cottle have met with Wasilla-based Avanti Corp. real estate development owner Pete Zamarillo “many, many times, and Mr. Zamarillo wants a five-lane. He wants a five-lane to serve a non-existing hotel and an existing restaurant.”

Directly to Rupright, Bruu questioned his relationship with Zamarillo, saying, “I want to know, sir, what are your political ambitions and how does Mr. Zamarillo play into those ambitions?”

Asked about Bruu’s allegations before Monday’s council meeting, Rupright said he was taken aback when they were made during a public meeting with no evidence, other than Bruu’s own suspicions.

“I guess you call those accusations of felony crimes,” Rupright said. That meeting “was the first time I’ve heard anything like that. … It was a surprise. It’s like, where is that coming from? Where’s the evidence, not a scintilla of evidence. We have lunch with business people and people from the community weekly, not just one guy. Every Friday, I’m sitting in Evangelo’s with nothing but a table of those people.”

Rupright has been vocal about the Parks Highway upgrade and his point of view that the DOT’s preferred plan would have negative financial impacts for Wasilla-area businesses.

Several property owners in the affected zone spoke at Monday’s meeting echoed that point of view, including Paul Gardner, registered agent for Avanti Corp.

A divided highway will basically kill access to valuable commercial properties along the Parks, Gardner said.

“If you’re leaving a property, your business, your subdivision and you want to make a left turn onto the Parks Highway, you cannot do that because you can’t go across the median,” he said. “It is not conducive to good business practices to have your access cut off, and this design is the DOT’s plans for Knik-Goose Bay Road (as well).”

He encouraged the council to adopt a resolution against the four-lane plan.

Avanti Corp., which does business as Mat-Su Real Properties in Wasilla, currently has three parcels of land advertised on its website in that Parks Highway upgrade corridor. One is 11.59-acres within city limits on the Parks across from Spenard Builders Supply, another is listed as 1,495 feet of highway frontage on the north and south sides of the highway. The third is the parcel mentioned April 23 by Bruu, which encompasses 53 acres and includes Denali Family Restaurant on the south side of the highway.

A telephone message for Zamarillo at Avanti Corp. was not returned as of press time. At Monday’s city council meeting, Gardner declined to address Bruu’s accusations.

Rupright wasn’t the only one surprised by Bruu’s comments. Councilwoman Dianne Woodruff also was “shocked” the council and administration was called out. She also said that, while she wouldn’t make inflammatory statements without something to back them up, she has had some of the same doubts.

“I guess when you think about it, (Bruu’s) is a reasonable question to ask,” she said. “I was a little startled at the way it was presented. It’s a question I’ve definitely had, but I’m not going to go making accusations.”

She also said that lost in the brouhaha over Bruu’s comments is that she would like to hear Rupright’s answer.

“I would love to hear the answer to that question,” she said. “I was concerned myself when Vern was down in Juneau in February. He was in a couple of meetings I was in and was advocating not for our projects, but for that project. … I have questions because it smells funny to me, but I can’t prove anything so I’m not going anywhere until someone shows me that proof. But, it’s a question I’ve had in my mind as well.”

Off-hand remark

While he still feels strongly about the Parks Highway debate, Bruu was at Monday’s meeting for a different reason. He gave each member of city council a copy of the audio record of the April 23 meeting. And then drew their attention to a barely audible remark from the mayor caught by his microphone.

After Bruu has his say, Rupright thanks Bruu for his testimony, then calls the next speaker signed up for the public participation part of the meeting. While that person takes his seat, Rupright mutters an expletive followed by the phrase, “I’ll kill you.”

“I would ask each of you to listen intently to the latter portion of the recording,” Bruu said Monday. “After my remarks … Mayor Rupright can be heard to make some very disparaging and threatening remarks that I have taken to be about me.”

Rupright said he’s aware of the comment, but that it wasn’t directed at Bruu or anyone else in particular.

“You have to turn the tape way up (to hear it),” he said. “I don’t direct it to anybody, so it’s not published to the public. … I don’t remember saying it, but I didn’t say it about him.”

Rupright said that during the pause when the next person was coming to the microphone, he looked over to the city staff table and found the person he was looking to for some feedback wasn’t there.

“I look over at my staff and (he) isn’t where he’s supposed to be,” he said. “It’s a frustrating thing, I was looking for some reaction (to Bruu’s allegations) and didn’t get it, so I just muttered something. It wasn’t directed at anybody.”

Woodruff said she heard the comment on the meeting tape a few days afterward and, like Bruu, she said she thinks the remarks were directed at him.

“Well, it’s absolutely out of line,” she said. “As a public official, you have to have a thicker skin than anybody else. … You need to learn to deal with it in a constructive way. It’s threatening and I don’t think it’s OK, ever.”

Rupright said a public calling-out alleging he’s a public official on the take didn’t sit well.

“Somebody impugns your reputation, your integrity and your honesty with no proof?” he said. “It’s never easy. … Fault me for being human, I guess.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.