Prop B will fund new facilities

MAT-SU — Local voters who haven’t been paying attention to the state’s bond package labeled Proposition B might want to spend some time mulling it over.

For the Valley, the proposition would mean $23.5 million for a new building on the campus of Mat-Su College. The building would include things like classrooms and laboratories, but also a 500- to 800-seat auditorium.

“Mat-Su College is really trying to create a cultural and educational center in the Mat-Su,” said Palmer’s Lorali Carter, who is working on the Yes on Proposition B campaign in her capacity as a member of the University of Alaska Anchorage Alumni Association. “Certainly this project is critical to realizing that vision.”

Also in that building, she said, will be a full-sized working model of an ambulance for use in training paramedics.

“We know that there is a shortage in the health care industry for employable workers,” Carter said. “Part of this money it will go to upgrading the health care instructional facilities out in the Valley.”

As for how the bonds get repaid, Carter said the whole $397 million kit and caboodle will take 20 years to pay off with yearly $30 million payments from the state’s general fund.

Josh Applebee, who is director and spokesman for the Yes on Proposition B campaign, said that, as he understands it, the Legislature decided to go this way for a few reasons. First is that it’s more democratic.

“This gives the people of Alaska the opportunity to decide how the state money gets spent, instead of just piling it into an appropriation with a couple of hours of hearings here or there,” he said. And there’s also the issue of interest rates. Right now, Applebee said, they’re remarkably low. The proposition when it came out of the Legislature pegged them at 4.2 percent. Since then they’ve dropped.

“It’s never going to be cheaper to build these,” he said.

In addition to the Mat-Su project, the package contains:

• A new school in Kipnuk.

• Additions to the schools in Kwigillingok and Alakanuk.

• A pool for Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka.

• An addition to a building at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

• An arena and physical education center for the University of Alaska Anchorage.

• Renovations for the Prince William Sound Community College in Valdez.

• A new academic building and student housing for Kenai Peninsula College.

• A study on the feasibility of building a vocational education center in Klawock.

• A fisheries research facility in Kodiak.

• Consolidating the state library archives and museum in Juneau.