Lazy Mountain not exempt from road tax

PALMER — An attempt by homeowners on Lazy Mountain to escape a local road service area failed to pass muster with the Mat-Su Borough Assembly.

Prior to taking up the matter Tuesday, the assembly asked borough staff for a rundown of what the law says. State law addressing the issue changed a few years back when the Legislature passed a law requiring boroughs to create a process for people who access their property off of state roads rather than borough roads to petition to opt out of the service area.

Fairbanks has been going through the process of identifying people who live on state roads and then bringing them to the assembly to decide whether to let the homeowners out of the taxes or not, said borough Attorney Nick Spiropoulos. But the final arbiter is the assembly.

“Our action is discretionary?” Assemblyman Warren Keogh asked Spiropoulos.

“Correct,” Spiropoulos answered.

Homeowners presented the issue as one of basic fairness.

“It feels like we’re being taxed and taxed for reasons that we don’t feel are necessary,” said Fred Thompson, one of the property owners petitioning to be let out of the RSA.

“Who should be paying the tax? Those that are receiving the service,” said Ray DeVilbiss, another of the property owners and brother of the borough mayor.

One of his neighbors, Jim Sykes, asked the assembly what it would look like if the exemption worked both ways.

“Are you going to allow me to put a tollbooth on Koppenberg Road to collect 10 bucks from everyone who uses it?” he asked rhetorically.

Assemblyman Mark Ewing brought up another, less rhetorical consequence that might come from letting these 14 parcels out of the Lazy Mountain Road Service Area. If these homeowners get an exemption, Ewing reasoned, wouldn’t other people ask for one as well? And why would it stop at road service areas? Wouldn’t homeowners without children ask to be let out of taxes paid for education?

“It’s going to be a long line of exemptions,” Ewing said.

Assemblyman Jim Colver, who got his start in government work as a road service area supervisor, noted that in the past when the state has gone through budget troubles it has done everything it could to hand roads over to the borough. He sees that happening again soon.

“We can predict that state budgets will eventually be tightened and they’re going to try to slough these roads off on us again,” Colver said.

In which case, he said, the exempted property owners would be accessing property through a borough road. And there is no process in place for pulling people back into service areas.

Colver wasn’t entirely unsympathetic to the homeowners’ position, saying that the borough needs to take a long look at how it taxes for road maintenance. Carving out exemptions, though, is not the way to go.

Assemblyman Ron Arvin was probably the most passionate about the issue.

“We simply should not be taxing those people,” Arvin said. “This is the most important job we have is protecting people from government.”

Assemblyman Warren Keogh said that before the assembly voted down the exemptions, “I would like to have a sense that we as a borough are committed to coming up with an alternate solution.”

“I plan to bring it forward on a blanket, borough-wide basis,” said borough mayor Larry DeVilbiss. “I think we might need to rent a gym somewhere to deal with it all.”

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

HOW THEY VOTED

Should certain parcels be allowed to secede from the Lazy Mountain Road Service Area?

Ron Arvin: Yes

Cindy Bettine: No

Jim Colver: No

Mark Ewing: No

Vern Halter: No

Warren Keogh: No

Noel Woods: No