Duffy looks to future as he closes out tenure at borough

PALMER — John Duffy saunters into Vagabond Blues Wednesday morning and takes a seat at a table.

He’s clean-shaven — he hasn’t yet gone full-on Al Gore — but he’s wearing a T-shirt and looks relaxed. Palmer City Councilmember Mike Chmielewski hands him a napkin and jokingly asks for Duffy’s autograph.

“It’s worthless now, man,” Duffy jokes back.

Though his post-borough-manager life hasn’t quite started yet, Duffy hasn’t been in his office on a permanent basis in about a week. His departure as Mat-Su Borough manager is almost like an amicable divorce. He’s in the phase in which he steadily disentangles himself from his former life.

Duffy is doing some research for a couple of assembly members. He’s also preparing material to bring along when he travels with some assembly members to Washington, D.C., next week to meet with people he’s worked with to find federal funding for borough projects.

“I’m going mountain biking for four days, so I’ve got to get that done,” he said.

Duffy’s 24-year tenure, the last 10 as borough manager, has seen staggering change in the borough. When he arrived on the scene there were 17,000 people in the borough. Now that number is pushing past 88,000. Miles and miles of roads and trails have been created in that time, as well as acres and acres of subdivisions and retail and commercial space.

As for his next move, Duffy said some federal agencies have talked to him about consulting work, but it would require a move out of state, which doesn’t interest him. He’s kicking around the idea of maybe doing fill-in work for municipalities that need interim managers. But his absence from a permanent position in the municipal government scene, he said, will be a long one.

“I have no intention of re-entering anytime soon,” he said.

As for his yet-to-be-located successor, Duffy said there are a few “sleeper” issues with which whoever steps into the manager’s shoes will have to be aware.

First is the wastewater treatment facility. The borough is looking to consolidate Palmer and Wasilla into some kind of a regional treatment center. Both cities have trouble staying in compliance with federal regulations, but the center has a staggeringly large area to cover and the price tag is a doozy — $110 million.

“You have to quickly make a decision of where it goes,” Duffy said.

Wasilla and the borough are in agreement for a location. Palmer’s not on board yet. The $110 million will have to come from the federal government, Duffy said. That procurement is also no easy task.

“You’re competing with Chicago and Detroit and New York,” he said.

Next on the list, he said, is drinking water. A lot of people don’t realize that areas of the borough on the Fishhook system and Farm Loop Road have wells that go dry if rain doesn’t fall regularly.

“There are places where you could, as they say, drill to China and not find water,” Duffy said.

Also on the list is law enforcement.

Years ago, the borough conducted a study asking if residents felt the borough needed more police protection, Duffy said. It turns out a majority did. The survey also asked how that should be accomplished. The most popular option was an expansion of Alaska State Trooper presence in Mat-Su. The second most popular was building a borough police department from scratch.

The issue has died down recently, but he sees it rearing its head again soon.

Fourth on the list is establishing a Metropolitan Planning Organization. The rules say when a municipality hits 100,000 people, it has to set up an MPO to do regional transportation planning. Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions is an example of this kind of body.

The rule is, Duffy said, that if a new MPO abuts an old one, it has to join the old one. He thinks the borough could conceivably be exempted from that rule and not have to join with Anchorage. But creating such a body out of scratch is tough.

Who is on the board?” he asked. Usually, it’s local politicians, but the Mat-Su has three city administrations as well as a borough one.

“If you haven’t sat back and thought about it, then it becomes pants on fire, hair on fire,” Duffy said. “No good decision is made then.”

Which brings up the last two items on the outgoing manager’s punch list. Duffy said he predicts that in three to five years there will be some kind of a vote to consolidate local government into one body.

And lastly, he said, his successor will need to give some deep thought to how the borough manages long-term issues while still fielding day-to-day concerns.

“The day-to-day stuff is killing the long-term stuff,” he said, which might have at least something to do with staffing levels at the borough. “We’re lean. We’re probably a little too lean.”

Which, he said, is where breaks come in. As manager, he was able to take time off here and there to go on vacation. He never fully unplugged, though. He used that time to think about long-range issues.

“If you don’t watch yourself you get completely focused on the day-to-day stuff,” Duffy said. Operating that way, he said, tends to make crises more frequent. “You’re not able to step back and see how do you not have the day-to-day crises.”

Stepping back is what Duffy’s engaged in now, for however long it lasts.

“I’ve been working since I was like 12 years old. I think the biggest break I had was like four weeks,” he said.

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