State to begin phase 2 of Glenn Highway rebuild this summer; City sets April 19 for recall election of three council members

State highway engineers laid out their plans for the second phase of Glenn Highway reconstruction through Palmer at the city council meeting Tuesday, Feb. 9.

“This is going to affect us all for the next couple of years,” Palmer mayor Steve Carrington said.

Work will begin this summer on utility relocations and a contract for the construction will also be let, said Dennis Linnel, planner for the project for HDL, a consulting company working with the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, or DOTPF.

Phase one of the Glenn Highway rebuild is now complete. Phase two will involve sections of four-land highway divided by a grass median, like phase one. There will be openings across the median every half mile, a new intersection, traffic signals and a frontage road.

An important part of the project is the combining of three railroad crossings into one that will reduce traffic being impeded by train movements, Linnel said.

In another development the DOTPF will open a Mat-Su regional office this spring to help coordinate state projects in the region. Clint Adler, who will head the office, introduced himself to the council.

Adler will be be project engineer on the Glenn Highway work we well as other projects. Previously, work in the Mat-Su was managed out of the agency’s offices in Anchorage.

In another development, Palmer city clerk Shelly Acteson said April 19 has been set for a special election to recall three city council members, Brian Daniels, Sabrena Combs and Jill Valerius.

Petitions circulated for the recall by local conservative activists gained the needed number of signatures.

Early voting will begin April 4 for the election, with local voters able to cast ballots at Palmer city offices 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, Acteson told the council.

Polling places on April 19 will be at the MatSu borough building, borough assembly chambers for Precinct 11-070 and the Mat-Su borough gym for Precinct 11-075.

The three council members ran afoul of their critics after having conversations with a community group, Mat-Su Moms for Social Justice, in a social media group platform that turned out to be closed, meaning it was open to members only.

That constituted a violation of the state Open Meetings Act, said attorney Scott Brandt-Erichsen, because what was discussed amounted to city business in meeting that was not open to the public. Brandt-Erichsen was retained by the city to investigate the charge against the three by conservative activists.

In a legal opinion written Sept. 15 Brandt-Erichsen recommended no penalties against the three council members but did recommend that council members refrain from communicating in forums like social media that not not be available to the public.

While the violation provided a reason for the recall drive the matter is really another chapter in a running fight between local conservatives and politically-moderate members of the community, including the three council members targeted.

Organizers of the recall have labeled Mat-Su Moms for Social Justice a socialist and “leftist” group.

In discussion at Tuesday’s council meeting the question was raised on the procedure for appointing replacement, temporary council members if one or more of the three members targeted are voted out.

City attorney Sarah Health said the council itself would name the temporary replacements to serve until the regular municipal election set for this fall.

It isn’t clear why the activist group pushing the recall decided to push for a special election not too far ahead of a regular municipal election. The special election will cost the city about $10,000, Shelly Acteson, the city clerk, said previously.

The council meeting’s open “Audience Participation” period Tuesday for citizen comments, a regular feature of council meetings, provided a platform for critics of Daniels, Combs and Valerius to lambast three as well as commenting on other issues.

One person speaking in the session called face mask mandates, “a leftist program that will ruin the country.” She also playing a recording from Fox News where the commentator claimed Canadian prime minister Justin Tradeu’s father was Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader.

It wasn’t clear whether the claim was to be taken literally or that Castro was Trudeau’s father only figuratively. The speaker also called a “No Recall” facebook page organized by defenders of the three council members “typically leftist.”

Comments made by others labeled Mat-Su Moms for Social Justice a “closed hate group.” This prompted a council member to upbraid the speaker over making personal attacks in a public meeting.

On a more upbeat note, Mayor Carrington and police chief Chad presented a “Certificate of Bravery” award to 9-year-old Jackson Gerard, the son of Rachael Gerard and Kevan Katkus, for reacting quickly when he detected smoke in his family’s home and alerted family members to danger.

“The city thanks you for your courage,” Carrington told Gerard in presenting the certificate before the council. Gerard is a student at Academy Charter school.

The mayor also said that Palmer’s Fire Department is organizing a Fire and Rescue Explorers group for young people to lend help to firefighters and emergency medical technicians and to receive training.

In other business the council approved a $47,000 contract for Green Garden Services to maintain public green spaces in Palmer this summer, and formally accepted a $42,050 grant from the state Department of Health and Social Services to help develop a public “wifi” system in public facilities in downtown Palmer to aid local residents and visitors.