Palmer presents projects

PALMER — Surveying the crowd at Thursday’s Capital Projects Fair, city manager Doug Griffin said the city faired pretty well in this year’s state budget.

Three of the city’s top four projects were funded to some degree or another for a total of $9.39 million.

“That’s pretty good,” he said.

The project that was skipped, Griffin said, was one the city that decided to pull back its request for $2 million to drill a new city water well after it came to light that maybe the city doesn’t need to drill a whole new well.

“Maybe we can do a makeover of the existing well and get the flow up,” he said.

As for the city’s success in Juneau, Griffin gave the credit to two people.

“It was helpful having Sen. (Mike) Dunleavy on the Finance Committee,” he said. Also, “the mayor is a good lobbyist.”

He and Mayor DeLena Johnson served as lobbyists this year. In past years, the city has hired a firm to work on its behalf.

At the fair, Dunleavy said the $9.39 million in projects are necessary items that have health and safety implications.

“I’ve got to say that the projects that were identified were pretty easy to put forward,” he said.

As for what’s left on the city’s wish list: No. 5 on the list continues to be a source of a lot of enthusiasm in the community — restoring train tracks into downtown Palmer. The informal voting system — putting little colored stickers on the placards dedicated to the project of each attendees’ choice — quickly showed the tracks as a clear favorite.

Griffin said a grassroots organization has formed to push for the tracks’ restoration. The group even has a name — The Palmer Colony Express Corp. — and its own Facebook page.

It’s also got the support of mayor Johnson, who singled it out from the stage.

“We’re not going to stop until we get a train back to Palmer, and this is just the beginning,” she said.

The city’s wish list, though, is a long one and includes everything from ventilation systems to airport fencing to new parks to new types of parks — a pump track for folks who want to ride bicycles without pedaling. The idea is that as things get funded — like the water mains and fire truck that received funding this year — projects lower on the list will rise to the top.

In practice, though, that’s not how it always works.

“Some of these I don’t think will ever get to the top,” Griffin said.

Some projects simply require immediate action and those tend to jump the line ahead of other projects, however worthy they may be, he said.

Of course, the fair wouldn’t have been a proper fair if it were all dollars and cents and fences and pump tracks. There were also door prizes, candy, miniature golf, and fire trucks and police cars to climb in at the fair. Also, a poster contest that 228 school kids entered, drawing pictures depicting “the best thing about living in Palmer.”

“This is great,” Griffin said of the turnout. “We put a lot of effort into this and just want it to grow every year.”

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