Meta Rose Square may have a buyer

WASILLA — It appears Meta Rose Square finally has a buyer.

The building currently owned by the City of Wasilla has an offer placed on the table by Sung Son Yu for $975,000. The Council will put the ordinance up for public comment on April 9 at their regularly scheduled council meeting. No further comment was given by the council during their regularly scheduled and only Council meeting in March on Monday.

In other actions Monday night, the council debated at length ordinance 18-06, “To Enhance Administrative Procedures For The Collection Of Sales Tax And Revise Sales Tax Exemptions, Business Licenses Generally, To Establish Additional Procedures For City Business Licensing And General Penalty, To Provide Penalty For Sales Tax Violations.”

Councilan Tim Burney proposed not charging the $25 for business licenses. Council staff stated that would result in $25,000 of lost revenue from the collection of business licenses.

“If you’re going to have a business license, I would hope you could justify $25 to have a business with us, because there’s a fee associated with us,” said Wasilla Mayor Bert Cottle.

“It’s another increase and then another increase and I caution that we look at kind of limiting these expenses on businesses that are in our community. I’m not looking at tomorrow; I’m looking at next year two years from now,” said Burney.

Just before the Council voted to pass the ordinance unanimously, they praised Director of Finance Troy Tankersly for the work of he and his team on the ordinance.

“All we’re trying to do on that is recoup some of the cost. Business licenses are a required evil, as you were, if you were against all taxes, but someone has to pay you know for the advantage or the opportunity that is being given to someone and the right person to pay for that is the person that’s taking advantage of it,” said Councilman Stu Graham.

Kirby Coleman instigated the rousing discussion on cannabis inside the Wasilla City limits. Coleman leads efforts to clean up the Alcantra facilities and Larson Elementary and praises the taxation possibilities should Wasilla adopt cannabis industry inside the city. The People’s Paper publisher Josh Fryfogle also spoke in favor of cannabis, saying the plant has been unfairly stigmatized. One public commenter did state that cannabis can create complacency. Coleman returned to the public comment table to defend the plant.

“I’ve talked to troopers out in villages, and in some rural villages that have had legal access to cannabis; you’ve seen huge decrease in alcoholism, domestic violence cases and alcohol-related cases,” said Coleman.

Councilwoman Gretchen O’Barr has had a change of heart on the subject.

“Fortunately or unfortunately for the cause, I have a husband now with some very serious chronic health issues and some serious pain and I have to admit that he has tried some CBD oil and a few other things and it works pretty well. So it’s kind of hard when you’ve been in a situation where all of a sudden you have a bit of an eye-opening experience with a different situation being old and in pain. So we’ll keep discussing it and seeing what goes on,” said O’Barr.

Discussion during the meeting ranged far and wide. New Burchell High School Student Representative Justin Krueger mentioned a two-year grant from the Mat-Su Health Foundation that Burchell plans to use to expand drug and alcohol counseling programs. Krueger also detailed the Core path students work around the ‘Sons of Thunder’ Iron Dog snowmachine race team. Students solved three challenges, a safety, technical and physical problem.

April was proclaimed as child abuse awareness and prevention month. The Council’s second proclamation was to recognize Education and Sharing Day on March 27. Ordinances 18-11,12, and 13 were heard for the first time before receiving public comment. 18-11 would amend the library budget, 18-12 would approve definitions and criteria for various livestock, including bees and poultry.

Tom Stearns gave public comment concerning the WASI closures on Saturdays. Stearns praised volunteers as the driving force behind WASI and their activities.

“It’s great to see what the organization does with volunteers. Although things are not going the way we would like with all the money that we used to have, we are still doing what we are called to do because of volunteers,” said Stearns.

Tom Roberson asked for a letter of support from the Council to take to the Borough for the addition of a pipe from the Wasilla Pool to the curb outside. Roberson, a retired firefighter, proposes a 12” emergency stad pipe to travel to the road so that, especially in the event of a natural disaster, such as an earthquake or fire in the winter, when lakes and streams are iced over, there may be an emergency source of water to fight fires with.

During Council comments, Cottle detailed his activity with the Commuter Rail Taskforce.

“Our first meeting went about hour and a half. I think everybody wants to get from point ‘A’ to point ‘B.’ It’s just how we do it and to make sure we have money. If we get everything set up, we’re still short $2 million; it’s a $6 million price tag with $4 million identified. The next meeting is here in Wasilla. I’m hosting the meeting, so we will do public testimony because they didn’t have it on their meeting in Anchorage. The first meeting went very, very well,” said Cottle.