Palmer accepts park strip grant from railroad

PALMER -- The Palmer city council recently accepted a $178,505 urban revitalization grant from the state of Alaska to design a multi-million-dollar park strip along the seldom used Alaska Railroad Corp. (ARRC) right of way through the center of town.

The money originally came from the federal government, and was passed through the state of Alaska before it made it to the city coffers.

"I don't mean to sound crass, but it's just our turn," Palmer council member Tony Pipple said. Pipple was talking about the federal funding, and the position Alaskans are in via the seniority of their congressional representatives. Specifically, Pipple was talking about U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Pipple is part of a small group that carries the acronym PARCS, for Parks, Arts, Recreation, Culture and Sports. Pipple and the group have targeted urban revitalization grants for Palmer with the help of Stevens' staff.

PARCS meets once a week at a Palmer coffee shop and has little else to it except a name. There are no bylaws, no board, no executive director and no mailing list, according to Pipple. PARCS doesn't even bother to register its not-for-profit intentions with the Internal Revenue Service.

PARCS doesn't plan to incorporate, Pipple said, the group simply plans to seek federal funding and direct it specifically toward projects that improve the quality of life in Palmer. PARCS has targeted the railroad corridor, a three-mile stretch of track that splits the town lengthwise and is seen by many people as an eyesore, if not a nuisance.

Last year, three shipments of poles for Matanuska Electric Association were unloaded at the Palmer depot. Those were the only trains that used the downtown tracks.

MEA spokesperson Mike Pauley said the utility has a spur line into its property from downtown, but that it's not maintained. There is no spur from the tracks south of downtown into MEA's yard.

Pauley said MEA doesn't decide whether the poles are delivered by road or rail. The utility leaves that to the pole vendor.

"For the last two years we've gotten 100 percent of our pole deliveries by train because that's the mode of transportation that works best for our vendor," Pauley said, "What may go on next year could be completely different."

A few blocks north of the depot, a tank car has been sitting for years with weeds growing up and around it. Railroad spokesperson Patrick Flynn couldn't say for sure who owns the tank car, but the scuttlebutt around Palmer is that the car's owners went bankrupt and simply left it there.

"We would love to get rid of that tank car, but we don't know how to do it," said Palmer Mayor Henry Guinotte

Three blocks north, across Arctic Avenue, the tracks are overgrown with first-growth alders and cottonwoods instead of weeds. North Valley Way, the unpaved street serving the neighborhood, sits in the railroad's right of way.

It's possible for residents on North Valley Way to petition for street improvements and direct their own property taxes toward the street. That's how pavement and sidewalks are paid for in Palmer. But those taxes are ordinarily levied in proportion to the length of frontage along the street each property owner holds.

Along North Valley, the Alaska Railroad doesn't just hold half the street frontage, it owns the street itself.

"The railroad holds all the cards," Pipple said. "There's also a law that says they can't alienate any of their property without an act of the (state) Legislature."

The PARCS group hopes to devise a plan in conjunction with the city that will protect the railroad's interests, Pipple said. PARCS members have been looking for ways to get this done for five years, according to Pipple.

The $178,505 accepted by the council last week will go to planning. That could lead to another $1.1 million from the federal government for three miles of trail and landscaping development along the corridor. That's phase one, Pipple said. Over the next five years there are more than $4 million dollars in amenities that various people have recommended for the revitalization plan, and which the PARCS people believe Palmer can have for the taking.

"It's like manna from heaven," Pipple said.

Administrative fees are collected by "pass-through" agencies, which take their toll on grant funding long before construction workers start moving the dirt. In this case the federal appropriation was $200,000 to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), earmarked last year. The FHA took a small percentage, and passed the money to the state of Alaska. The state of Alaska took its cut and passed the money to the city of Palmer.

Now there's $178,505 left.

Railroad management has been cooperative so far.

A July 2000 letter to Pipple from ARRC's vice president of real estate Jim Kubitz spells out the railroad's intent to grant permission for development along the right of way, as well as its intention to spend $15,000 on "in-kind engineering review services."

Of course, those reviews will also serve to protect the railroad's interests.

The railroad had total assets of $251 million as of December 2000, and net earnings of $15.7 million out of a $94.2 million gross, according to ARRC press releases. The state-owned corporation also has a new CEO this year, Patrick K. Gamble, a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general. According to ARRC spokesperson Patrick Flynn, Gamble is ready and willing to work with local governments.

"He wants the railroad to be involved in planning," Flynn said, and added that the railroad needs to be involved with planning along its right of way in order for projects to go through. "We cannot only bring the obstacles that we have to deal with so that people can work around them, but we can bring knowledge and strategies for that."

At the council's direction, Palmer City Manager Tom Healy has said he will draft a letter inviting railroad management to meet with the council in Palmer. "It sounds encouraging," Flynn said. "We look forward to that letter."