Palmer council hammers out capital budget

PALMER — As the 2012 state legislative session draws near, the city is working on its wish list for state funding. Palmer City Council winnowed its list of desired capital improvement projects this past week and will continue that work Oct. 25.

At the top of the list is the final phase of the city’s project to replace its steel water mains. The last ones are in the area of Sherrod Elementary.

Jon Owen, the city’s public safety director, was sitting in for city manager Doug Griffin, who was on leave Tuesday. In addition to water mains, the city also needs to update its system for dealing with storm water, he said.

“Our storm water infrastructure is already behind the eight ball,” Griffin said.

The city’s public works director, Tom Cohenour, suggested maybe adding to the water main project.

“If we’re going to dig up the street to put in the water main we should do the storm drain as well,” he said.

Owen had another project high on the list — fixing the ventilation system at the shop where the city’s Public Works Department works on its vehicles. He said that air quality in there is terrible and an Occupational Safety and Health Administration report backs him up.

“I’m here to tell you it’s a dangerous workplace for our employees and I’m very passionate about this,” he said.

The city put $42,000 toward the project, Owen said, and the last public works director had spent that to buy the needed equipment. He was going to install it, but kept putting it off and eventually left the city.

Now, Owen said, Public Works has looked into hiring someone to install it and found that it would cost something on the order of $115,000.

Councilman Brad Hanson said he’s fine asking for state money for those kinds of projects, but there’s a category of projects he doesn’t think are appropriate for state funding.

“I don’t believe that we should be requesting state funds for operational-type expenses,” he said.

On that list he included a request for money to buy new police cars, new trucks for the public works department and a new garbage truck. Those are costs the city should meet itself, he said. And if the city can’t, it needs to look at rearranging its books. The council unanimously agreed with Hanson’s move to strike all of those vehicles from the list.

Another project that drew Hanson’s scrutiny was the idea of running electricity to “the quad” — that area of grass between Mat-Su Borough headquarters and the Palmer Library.

“Can I ask about electrifying the quad and where the heck that came from?” Hanson asked.

He said a lot of people feel strongly about that patch of grass and the idea of running power out there with a $150,000 state appropriation might be a little controversial. He met no opposition when he moved to cut it.

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