Palmer council ticks through a business agenda, approves hiring city golf course manager

Palmer’s city council ticked through an agenda of routine business at its Tuesday, March 24 meeting, approving payments on contracts, new contracts, a procedural change in the city’a residency requirement for the city manager, and authorization for new positions for employees at the city-owned Palmer golf course.

City finance director Gina Davis presented audited financial reports for the golf course enterprise fund from 2015 through 2024 for the information of new council members who had not heard the annual financial presentations of city auditors. The reports showed the golf course in a negative position in 2015, meaning showing an accumulated loss over several years, which the city had to make up from other funds.

The situation gradually improved over the next nine years, to 2024, until the golf course moved solidly into the black in 2025, Davis said. For 2026 the city has taken over golf course operations and two new city positions were approved, in Resolution 26-008, amending Palmer’s employee pay plan to add the positions of Golf Course Manager and an employee for the golf shop.

In other actions City Manager Kolby Zerkel was authorized to contract with BBRG Real Estate Services for $30,000 for an appraisal of lots at the Palmer airport and, in a separate section, to amend the no-cost lease agreement between the city and the Federal Aviation Administration for airport-related facilities. The city manager was also authorized to make a $30,080 payment to PCN Strategies to support body and vehicle cameras for the Palmer Police Department.

In another action the city council approved the appointment of local resident Albert Steinback to the city Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.

Mayor Jim Cooper, in his report the council, said he would be meeting with other municipal and state members of the Mat-Su Municipal Planning Organization, or MPO, the state-local group that coordinates federal funding for regional transportation projects.

Cooper said he will pitch four projects for Palmer at the meeting.

Wasilla will propose 15 projects and 60 will be suggested by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, he said. It’s important to get projects on the list of recommendations so that when decisions made at the federal and state levels the local priorities are taken into account.

In the audience participation parts of the council meeting, where local citizens are invited to speak their mind on any subject, golf course supporters again gave the city council a tongue-lashing over its decision to end a private contract to operate the city course and switch to having it run by city employees.

This is bound to result in losses from what was a profitable operation for the city under Eagle Golf Course Management, the private contractor, several speakers said. Concerns were also raised about delays already happening with the city gearing up for the summer golf season, it was said.

There were also concerns voiced over a lack of transparency in how the decisions were made to end the private contract. The council had twice approved continuing with the contractor in meetings in December and January, but when the decision was announced by city manager Kolby Zerkel that the contract would be ended there is no record of a public meeting during which the council discussed and approved that.

Zerkel has said the council was kept informed but no decision. was made in public. If it was made in private it might constitute violation of the state public meetings act, which could have the effect of nullifying the decision, it was said during the audience participation.