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PALMER — It didn’t happen without a fight, but the Mat-Su Borough Assembly has agreed to buy the development rights to 80 acres of farmland.

The land will remain the property of its current owners — Debra and James McCormick — but the terms of the deal do not allow anyone to use it for anything but agriculture. The borough will spend $297,000 for the development rights on one 40-acre parcel and $290,550 for another 40-acre plot. The federal government has agreed to match those funds, bringing the total sale price for the development rights to slightly less than $1.2 million.

Steve Gallagher with the Alaska Farmland Trust, the organization that facilitated the deal, said the farm will be the second the trust has helped to preserve. He described the property as a Colony-era farm, part of the original New Deal program to populate the Valley. It is also home to a rare type of soil, among the best for farming in Alaska.

This was the second time the assembly had been asked to approve the deal. In the meantime, Gallagher had heard the criticisms of the plan. So he had some things to point out.

“This is one-third of 1 percent of the tax revenue that the borough brings in,” he said.

And to concerns that the trust hadn’t done enough to seek private funds for the program, he said most grant-giving organizations want to see some form of local support, that the community has chipped in with its own funds. Private money will come.

“We’re kind of in this infancy stage right now,” he said.

Members of the farming community showed up to Tuesday’s assembly meeting voice their support. Todd Pettit, who runs the Pitchfork Ranch, was one.

“We’re asking for an investment in the future of this Valley. This is a true investment. This is something you are securing in perpetuity for a multitude of generations,” Pettit said.

James McCormick, one of the owners of the farm, also spoke. He said he’s constantly fending off offers for his land. A real estate developer offered $3.5 million.

A gravel miner, he said, once told him, “’You are setting on an excess of $50 million worth of topsoil and I want to purchase it from you.’ I said, ‘no.’”

Yes, he said, the farm is currently producing hay. But if tomorrow a market for potatoes arose, he’d tear down fences and do what it took to put in potatoes.

On the other side were a handful of vocal fiscal conservatives, including Jennie Bettine with the Conservative Patriots Group.

Farmland preservation is a noble goal, “but it is not the government’s place to spend $1.2 million for 80 acres,” she said. “Thank you for your wonderful thought, but it’s not your money. It’s the taxpayers’.”

Another opponent, Roy Carlson, agreed that having agriculture in the Valley is a good thing.

“Our only opposition is the public funding. All of the virtues that they’re (describing) can be accomplished without the public funding,” he said.

The opponents found compatriots on the assembly in Mark Ewing, Verne Halter and Ron Arvin, all of whom voted to nix the deal.

“I get that this program effectively reduces the future acquisition price of the property,” Arvin said. “My problem, however, is that I can’t fundamentally support that property tax money is being put to this.”

Halter spoke of what he saw as an inconsistent stance at the borough, which seemed willing to tear up part of one farm to push Bogard Road through to Palmer, but was rushing to save farmland in another spot.

“I just don’t think this is going to get the job done over the long haul,” he said.

But supporters of the measure carried the day. Cindy Bettine pointed out that the assembly didn’t blink in spending thousands of dollars at a clip to upgrade fish passages in the borough. Fish streams and farms have something in common — both produce food.

“A lot of our crops are used statewide and I want that to continue,” she said.

Assemblyman Jim Colver said he’d had a change of heart on the issue after talking to constituents.

“What I’ve been hearing from folks is this is our heritage. This is our community. This is what’s important to our community,” Colver said. “I have also been contacted by some very large taxpayers in our community and I was very surprised that some of the folks in the business community would be so supportive of this.”

Reached by phone Friday, borough Mayor Talis Colberg, whose fiscal views tend to run to the conservative and who has, at least once in the past, vetoed an assembly action he felt was not a good use of borough money, said he’s going to let this one stand.

“I had thought about it and I’m not going to,” Colberg said. “The thing is, I think it is questionable as public policy but the reality is that the assembly has been putting money into it for several years now. It is a program that has been out there for several years waiting for someone to participate in it, someone finally did. “

Colberg said he didn’t think it right to walk all the parties through the process, set the money aside in the budget and then, at the last minute, toss the deal out. A more proper way to deal with it if the borough intends to get out of the farmland preservation business would be to address it when the budget comes up again.

Which, conveniently enough, will begin soon. On April 19, the assembly will hold a work session on various pieces of the budget. Borough Manager John Duffy will formally present his proposed budget April 27.

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