Talkeetna residents prepare for AST post closure

TALKEETNA — Residents and business owners say they are concerned about the closure of the Talkeetna Trooper post here Wednesday, particularly in the wake of a murder-suicide shooting in the Montana Creek area April 18.

Residents were primarily concerned about the level of service, and said trooper responses, particularly late at night, when the post is usually unmanned, could take as long as an hour. Of particular concern, they say, is the frantic summer tourism season, when the town’s population — estimated at about 1,300 year-round — swells by thousands with the arrival of tourists, mountaineers, and seasonal workers.

The Division of Public Safety plans to close the post — located along South Talkeetna Spur Road, near the intersection with the Parks Highway — at the end of May at the expiration of the current lease, according to trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters. Instead of operating a post in the northern Susitna Valley, she said the plan is to designate one trooper on each shift to patrol the area, along with the Girdwood post, which also is slated for closure.

The closure will save the Alaska Department of Public Safety about $80,000, Peters added. The nearest trooper posts will be the Mat-Su West Post in the Meadow Lakes community, an hour to the south, and the Cantwell community, the southernmost post of the D Detachment headquartered in Fairbanks, more than two hours to the north.

Residents were primarily concerned about possible effects to trooper coverage in the area.

Jane Steere said she has heard residents discussing the possibility of regularly carrying firearms, a practice that was relatively common before troopers’ arrival, she said.

“I’ve heard people saying that said ‘I’m going to start carrying my gun again, like the old days,’” she said.

However, James Kellard questioned the relationship between firearm use and public safety.

“If you wanted to carry a gun, why would you say ‘We got troopers now, they’ll be here in an hour and a half so I don’t need a gun now.’ It just doesn’t sound like logic to me,” he said.

Residents said they were accustomed to long waits for services as a result of off-duty troopers responding from Trapper Creek and other distant communities and because of the sheer size of the area they are required to cover. Responses are much faster when the situation is life-or-death, they said.

“They (troopers) are spread so thin, they have to triage,” Steere said. “Do we go to the barking dog complaint, or do we go to the somebody-has-a-gun complaint? There’s not enough manpower to investigate every single incident that happens.”

Business owners along Talkeetna’s Main Street recalled a 2013 incident in which an intoxicated man broke in and vandalized the Talkeetna Roadhouse.

Trisha Costello, who has owned the Roadhouse since 1996, said during the break-in, guests barricaded themselves in their rooms. She said the incident still comes to mind when she thinks about public safety, alongside more frequent safety concerns, like snowmachines operating without headlights. Troopers are a welcome part of the community, and their presence will be missed, Costello said.

“They (troopers) are kind of part of my team here,” she said. “As a business owner I feel very responsible for my end of the town, I guess. If I’m an early baker coming home at 2:30 in the morning, I definitely have my eye out for things that might be going on, or people passed out or things happening in the community. I like to think that when, or if, something were to happen I’d have back up of some sort.”

Mountain High Pizza Pie owner Todd Basilon also recalled the 2013 Roadhouse incident, (he restrained the person who broke in, and joined others in calling troopers, who arrived about 3 a.m.) but said he understands the economic pressures which have led to the closure.

“If I looked at the books and saw what it cost to run that, I probably wouldn’t have it open myself,” he said. “We always dealt with the same amount of troopers that were in our area before that post was there.”

He said he doesn’t anticipate a change in the level of emergency service.

Officials are still evaluating how the changes could affect service, according to Peters. The existing post isn’t manned 24 hours, she said, which is what leads to the delays associated with emergency responses.

“It’s hard to say how it’s going to affect it (service),” she said. “The reason why I say that is while we have troopers that operate out of their normal timeframes, there are times when there’s no one at the post because nobody’s on duty.”

Officials have committed to having at least one trooper per shift patrolling the area, which actually lead to more coverage, Peters said.

“With us pulling out of Talkeetna, one of the things they’re also gonna do is try to dedicate one trooper per shift patrolling out there,” she said. “Technically, that would be a 24-hour coverage instead of what was there before.”

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.