Mat-Su needs all the help it can get

We’ve noticed lately how the Mat-Su delegation to the state Legislature has increased in strength.

Part of that strength has come from an increase in numbers. We received a new state representative last year, and we’re set to get a new senator, once the newest district lines go into effect.

But the delegation’s more senior members also have risen to positions of leadership. Charlie Huggins is Senate President, a position also held in recent years by former Valley legislator Lyda Green.

Mat-Su Rep. Bill Stoltze, meanwhile, has a chairman’s seat on the House’s influential Finance Committee.

To us, it seems like the Valley is at last coming into its own, and it’s not a moment too soon.

While the state budget belts are tightening, the need for better roads and infrastructure is only increasing in Mat-Su. We’re going to need a powerful delegation to get the work done.

Just about every major road in the Valley — Trunk Road, Seward Meridian Parkway, Bogard Road, the Glenn Highway, the Parks Highway, the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Knik-Goose Bay Road — have been upgraded or will be soon.

A lot of these projects — the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Knik-Goose Bay Road projects stand out in our minds — are just to better accommodate the traffic that is already there. After a few decades of rapid population growth, we’re playing catch-up, not planning for the future.

And while there are some who might balk at the amount of funding included in the governor’s budget for Mat-Su roads — we refer to it as the “budget rough draft” as it never makes it to the end of the legislative session unchanged — we will not.

To us, the upgrade of the road system in the Mat-Su Borough is overdue. Some of these projects have been needed for 10 or 15 years. In that time, the population has ballooned here to nearly 100,000 people. But the road system has not kept pace.

No other community in the state accounts for as disproportionate a percentage of the state’s new home construction as the Mat-Su Borough. Whether they work here in the borough, in Anchorage or the North Slope, more and more Alaskans make their homes in the Valley.

Is there any other school district in Alaska that is presently building a new middle/high school, two new alternative schools, and two new elementary schools? Our district continues to add students while school enrollment elsewhere around the state is shrinking.

We understand that rapid growth is at the heart of this infrastructural challenge, as well as a few others, like affordable housing. So we hope our friends in Anchorage, the Interior, Southeast and the rest of the state will indulge us for a few legislative sessions. We really need this right now.