Sports complex plans presented to Wasilla council

WASILLA -- The city of Wasilla's ambitious plans for a sports complex with a $14.7-million price tag picked up momentum at Monday's meeting of the Wasilla City Council.

There was a presentation prior to the meeting that featured city planners who work for Wasilla under contract, and the introduction of an ordinance that will raise the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent for up to 10 years if voters approve the plan.

The city council passed the first reading of a sports complex tax ordinance unanimously Monday night. Wasilla voters will ultimately decide the issue at a special election scheduled for May 7, 2002. The tax proposal has a sunset clause, so the half-penny tax will expire in 2012 or when the sports complex bonds are paid off, whichever comes first.

"It is an investment in our community and an investment in our youth," said Dr. Curt Menard, who headed the sports complex steering committee. Menard said the steering committee members would work hard to campaign for the proposal, and plugged the sports arena -- which will double as a multi-purpose convention facility -- as a way to reduce the government's criminal justice costs.

"When I was in the Legislature we talked a great deal about the cost of incarceration," Menard said. "I can't remember exact figures, but in the 1980s it was something like $40,000 a year to keep someone in prison or in a youth facility."

Because Monday's meeting was the first reading of the special election ordinance, the council did not hear from the general public before voting. A public hearing at which interested parties may comment will be held at the Dec. 10 council meeting.

If there were any nay-sayers in the room Monday night, they kept silent. The audience was treated to a parade of sports complex boosters before and during the council meeting. Each of the contract planners who spoke and took questions before the council meeting remarked about how excited they are about the project.

Mat-Su Borough assembly member Dan Kelly, whose district includes Wasilla, asked questions about the site the steering committee chose, which is off South Church Road, just east of Wasilla's airport.

The city's long-term plan calls for a multi-modal transportation hub nearby, where trains, planes, and automobiles come together. Kelly pointed out that some land in the area was currently zoned industrial.

"Is that the most appropriate use of the land, with it so close to the railroad and airport?" Kelly asked. "You're taking away industrial at a desirable location and moving it further away."

Scott Hattenburg, of the Hattenburg and Dilley design firm, has worked on Wasilla's airport plans and the city's proposal to move the railroad line south of town. He said Monday night that surveys of Alaskan air carriers had been completed and showed that Wasilla's airport was an unlikely place for an industrial transportation hub.

"Quite frankly we've interviewed all of the statewide air carriers and without exception there is almost no interest in developing this airport as a multi-modal cargo hub," Hattenburg said.

The planners did tout west Wasilla as a passenger hub, though, which prompted Kelly -- a retired state transportation and traffic analyst -- to inquire as to whether there was enough room for both the railroad right of way and a new Parks Highway corridor. Wasilla's plans show the highway and railroad running on a diagonal line, with Lake Lucille to the east and the sports complex and airport to the west.

Hattenburg and land planner Burt Lent, who subcontracts for Hattenburg, both said there was room for both the railroad and the highway, and room for a rail siding for the proposed depot, to boot. Lent also believes room should be made for a highway off-ramp when the building is finally placed on the site.

"It's important that [Kelly] asks those questions," Lent said Wednesday. "The airport master plan involves those other transportation issues, and the land-use patterns in the surrounding area. What you saw [Monday night] is a first stab at the site planning for phase one of this complex, which is the building, but it does show that there is room there for both [railroad and highway]."

The current site plan also takes into account parking and viewing areas for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race restart and the Tesoro Iron Dog snowmachine race starting area. At the meeting, Burt and Hattenburg suggested that the races could start indoors or go through the building for seated grandstands, and that the trails could parallel the railroad siding, where spectators could watch the races from inside rail cars.