RAISE THE ROOF

MAT-SU — Warm weather and deserted hallways make summer prime school-improvement time, but a raft of safety and security projects has made this an exceptionally busy season.

Indeed, there’s enough work going on that when any Mat-Su Borough student returns to school in the fall it’s more likely something in the building or on the school grounds will be different, whether it’s noticeable or not.

Right now there are crews replacing roofs, installing cameras and keyless entries, and paving new access routes, said Shaune O’Neil, borough director of public works.

“We’ve got quite a bit going on,” O’Neil said, looking over this week’s status report from her department.

The keyless entries, duress buttons — less artfully described as “panic buttons”, which are used to quietly summon help in an emergency — and video cameras came as part of a $19-million bond package voters approved in 2008.

O’Neil said the electronic systems constitute the internal-improvements segment of the bond projects. The external-improvements category includes things like fencing, gates, doors and lighting.

“That work will get done this summer, but just not yet,” O’Neil said.

One thing that might make Valley motorists a bit happier, at least in the early morning and mid-afternoon, is happening at Cottonwood Creek Elementary, which is notorious for traffic backups it produces on Seward Meridian Parkway.

“We’re putting in some longer lanes so traffic can get off the road and onto the school site,” O’Neil said.

Which is to say those queues that often form on the road will now form on the school site. The borough is also going to segregate passenger cars from school buses.

In Wasilla, the borough is similarly fixing up the access routes to Wasilla High School. That project includes the installation of fire hydrants.

“That work is actually not physically happening right now. We need to move a little bit of money around, but it will happen this summer,” O’Neil said Thursday.

And last on the list of big-ticket projects in that bond package is a new roof for Palmer High School, though budget constraints kept the borough from doing as much as it would have liked.

“The whole roof is not being replaced, but a big portion of it is,” O’Neil said. “They looked at the worst part and the oldest part and that’s what’s getting taken care of this summer.”

The borough will seek money to do the rest as soon as it can.

A couple of projects going on that didn’t fall into that bond package are repairs to the roof on Trapper Creek Elementary, which should begin sometime this fall, and football field lights at Houston High School. The borough received money to do part of that job, and installed bases for the lights. This year, the state came through and made up the shortfall.

“We got additional money in this budget process from the state, but we haven’t started spending that money yet,” O’Neil said.

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