Veterans’ memorial could relocate after $1.215-million sale of visitors’ bureau

WASILLA — Members of local veterans groups and a planned transitional care facility appeared set for an apparent collision with economic development in the Mat-Su Valley on Monday.

Spring Creek Capital, LLC, of Eagle, Idaho, approached the Mat-Su Borough in June with a proposal to purchase the existing site of the Mat-Su Convention and Visitors’ Bureau (MSCVB). Doug Clegg told the Mat-Su Borough Assembly he would build a transitional or acute care facility on the site, with the aim of reducing or eliminating hospital recidivism and reducing strain on Mat-Su Regional Medical Center’s hospital beds. The bureau is about 65 percent completed with designing a new building a short distance down the Parks Highway to a former RV park adjacent to the Palmer Hay Flats.

Officials were poised to approve the sale of that property for $1.215 million at the Nov. 3 regular assembly meeting, according to borough manager John Moosey.

“That sale goes through,” he said.

The site is also the location of the Veterans Wall of Honor, a private memorial to local veterans groups, long maintained by a combination of veterans groups and borough officials.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is holy ground,” then-borough mayor Larry DeVilbiss told a crowd which included Gov. Bill Walker and several state legislators on Memorial Day. Ashes of veterans have been scattered at the site, which overlooks the broad, scenic sweeping plains north of the Chugach Mountains, and adjoins the Medical Center property.

However, a borough resolution approving the sale, which has not yet been officially added to an agenda, contains language suggesting the memorial will have to be reconfigured, and proposing changes to the maintenance arrangement maintaining the wall.

“The memorial sits within the prime building area of the lot, so reconfiguring the memorial to a more suitable location will be required,” pending resolution 15-33 reads in part.

Other sections point to the wall staying in place, but under new management.

“The Veterans’ Memorial Wall of Honor and associated memorial improvements now located on Tract B are planned to stay in place at this time, and the current management agreement between the borough and the Areawide Community Service council, who oversees management of the memorial site, will either be terminated or assigned as a condition of the sale of the property,” the resolution reads in part.

Governments in Wasilla — where city council members voted 4-1 to offer part of the city Iditapark adjacent to an existing Memorial Garden for use as an alternative site — and at the borough level said they had no interest in a regional political struggle over the wall’s location. The lease approved Monday night was between the city and VFW Susitna Post #9365, American Legion Post #35, AMVETS Post #9, and Never Forget AMVETS Post #11. The organizations would lease the land for 20 years at $10 per year, with an option for 20 additional years after that.

The approval of the lease didn’t necessarily mean an immediate relocation to the site, said Mayor Bert Cottle. The idea had emerged following discussions with the leadership of several veterans’ groups, he said.

“In no way is this administration going to get in a political fight over the wall,” he said. “I think that’s wrong, and I think that would be doing a disingenuous thing on our part to be getting into a political fight over that. So this is not about a political fight. Somebody come to us and ask us ‘Please preserve the wall, and help us move it to a permanent location,’ because it’s still up in the air and it has not been settled completely about where the wall will be.”

Several city council members said they would consider the wall’s relocation to Wasilla a privilege and an honor.

Covenants and leasing agreements prevented Iditapark from being sold out from under the memorial, said councilman Luke Wall.

“Unlike the land that’s up by the hospital, we’re not going to sell the park,” he said. “That park’s going to be there forever. There’s really not a foreseeable opportunity where that park is going to be sold.”

“But everybody was told that about where the wall’s at right now,” interjected Dio Beligotti, a member of AMVETS Post # 9.

Some veterans, like John and Hazel Schwulst, who have worked to maintain the memorial for a number of years, portrayed a relocation as a done deal.

“According to them (the assembly resolution) they’re going to move the wall, period,” John Schwulst said. “They sold that property, the property, the property owner that bought it wants it moved. We don’t want it moved to just anyplace.”

Asked whether language in the proposed resolution might refer to a relocation within the existing lot, and not a relocation to an entirely new. The four-acre lot was simply too small, John Schwulst said.

“They need a bedroom for each one (patient), they need nurses’ quarters, doctors’ quarters, examination rooms, they need a kitchen, they need a mess hall,” he said.

The move was also prompted in part by concerns that the management of the memorial could be fully taken over by borough officials, though Moosey said the borough had no interest in such an arrangement, and repeatedly said officials were not asking the wall to be removed.

“We’re trying to serve two masters here,” he said. “We’re trying to get this deal done, but we don’t want to leave the veterans out in the cold.”

Even within some organizations named on the approved lease, some disagreements persist. Beligotti told council members that AMVETS Post #9 had voted to reject the lease.

“My feelings are there are plenty of professional architects that can design whatever they want to build around our wall of honor,” he said. “Our wall of honor doesn’t have to move so that they can go ahead and put in a new cafeteria. They can go ahead and design a cafeteria or a place where people can sit down and relax and respect that there’s a bunch of veterans on this wall.”

Commerce shouldn’t trump commemoration, Belligotti said.

“I don’t think we should be moving it based on a business decision,” he said.

Schwulst said he was already focused on future maintenance.

“I’m not even worried about it, it’s gonna move,” John Schwulst said. “If the borough gets it and all of the sudden they say ‘To heck with it,’ it’s just going to deteriorate. It’ll never deteriorate if it’s within the veteran’s organizations. We’re too deep.”

Clegg said he was willing to work with the seniors. However, the wall would have to be relocated within the confines of the current lot.

"We can't leave it in its current position," he said. "It's in the exact buildable center of the lot."

Spring Creek had met with several veterans' groups three or four months ago to discuss the fate of the wall.

"We're happy to do whatever's in the best interest of the seniors," he said.

Contact Reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.