Palmer City Council approves crosswalk, talks signage

PALMER — The Palmer City Council unanimously approved Resolution 18-017 to appropriate $25,000 for a crosswalk across Arctic Avenue across from Valley Way, near the skate park and the YAK. The council also conducted their regularly scheduled business in the short council meeting July 10 at Palmer City Hall.

Palmer City Clerk Norma Alley stressed in her report that the city and Mat-Su Borough are in dire need of officials for upcoming elections. Positions are paid, and after a training session, election officials would earn $200 for a full day of counting ballots and corralling voters. Alley also detailed that the filing period for city elections would open on July 16, and will remain open for two weeks for the three available council seats. Candidates will have to specify if they would like to run for either of the available three-year terms, or the two-year term. Alley said the borough is still short about 30 people for its upcoming elections. Alley was among those who said they are pleased with the five applicants for open Planning and Zoning Commission seats, and wanted some of those who did not win seats to run for the council or other boards and commissions.

Planning and Zoning Commission chair Dan Lucas communicated with the council on the activity on the commission over the last quarter. Lucas thanked Douglas Caruthers and Merry Maxwell for their service on the commission. Planning and Zoning will continue their comprehensive review of title 17 and focus on residential zoning districts. They also heard public testimony on R1 zones concerning commercial rentals, or Air BnB’s.

“I’m not sure where we’re going to end up just yet. The major focus of changes or modifications to R1 residential zones is in the general protections for quality of life versus places for people to stay, even for short periods of time. Where we’re going to end up I can’t say for sure,” said Lucas.

The commission will also review title 14, which deals with municipal sign ordinances. That will be introduced at the July meeting. It was introduced in 2012 but no action had been taken. City Manager Nathan Wallace detailed that the chapter has no intent paragraph, and that cities had problems with enforcing those standards without intent paragraphs. The section just lists what you can and cannot do, and Wallace stated that the intent was to clean up that section of the code.

The only major agenda item of the meeting was the crosswalk The idea had been floated by Mayor Edna DeVries at a spring meeting and since workshopped by city staff. DeVries had proposed a roundabout, but Wallace stated that the city was planning to go with the cheapest option, to paint a crosswalk and install solar panel powered flashing lights to alert motorists of the high pedestrian traffic in that area. The road is maintained by the state, but the deed to the section will be handed over to the city so that it can foot the bill. Wallace intends to purchase two sets of lights and use the second set for a section of Colony Way, which will face similar problems with the completion of the Glenn Highway reconstruction. Without a crosswalk button, the section did not require a full-scale traffic study, and the city was able to avoid extraneous costs.

The motion passed unanimously.

Wallace also detailed in his report to the council an update on the Waste Water Treatment Plant, a $12 million project that is nearing completion. Water is flowing through the WWTP, but still requires EPA overview as to the water quality standards.

“The EPA is confident it will work, but not confident we’ll be able to settle the solids,” Wallace said.

Wallace also detailed a closure at the airport to resurface the runway and do additional testing, the first of its kind in the state. The FAA and engineers were on hand to witness the testing in which a truck ramps up to 60 mph and stops, testing the effectiveness of the surface. That testing was completed on July 3 and Wallace detailed that new FAA grant money may be available in coming years, and wanted to get an idea of if the council wanted to move forward with a new taxiway, and how that funding would be split.

Wallace continued his report with a long-standing issue concerning the council, security cameras throughout the city. One camera is currently up behind City Hall with high quality picture.

“We’ve got an engineer with a sharper pencil in defining what the equipment is we need to buy and have an engineer send out for bid to have somebody else install it. The IT folks said it was cheaper for us to buy equipment,” said Wallace.

The project is not expected to be completed until August, with the monitoring screens available at the Palmer Police Department. Questions of how to get a camera at the skate park are left yet unsolved, as there are no transformers in the area to draw power from. The skate park fence also came up in Wallace’s City Manager report, as the fence has been down for four years. The fence, he stated, was not installed to keep hoodlums out, but to keep the skateboards in. Deputy Mayor Richard Best suggested in jest to Councilwoman Sabrena Combs that MEA may be able to assist with the process, as Combs works for MEA.

The board heard a similar presentation that the Wasilla City Council heard from MEA Director of External Affairs Julie Estey on brush clearing near the power lines and the switching out of meters.

During council comments, Best again joked, hoping that Palmer residents had enjoyed the five days of summer weather that they were privy to last week.

Possibly the most hotly contested of the issues before the council on Tuesday was the introduction of new signage. The new sign for Palmer City Hall is blue, as was stated many times by council members that was long overdue. The sign features a silhouette of the mountains behind Palmer, with Lazy Mountain and Matanuska Peak taking the center. The issue that the council had with the sign was that the word Palmer was used too often. The sign will return for review at a later council meeting, and be displayed in front of city hall and throughout the city once approved.

Contact Frontiersman reporter Tim Rockey at tim.rockey@frontiersman.com