Votes restore all but $150,000 for youth shooting range

PALMER — Following the eleventh hour raft of vetoes from Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss, assembly members vote to restore library block grants for cities, paint for the Houston Fire Hall, funding for the Big Lake Lions’ Community Center, as well as funds for Youth Court and a team designed to help rape victims.

They also restored a $100,000 principle payment for the Willow Fire Station May 27.

Members could not muster the votes to fund a land purchase for a youth shooting range, which was the only one of seven mayoral vetoes that stood. The Alaska Scholastic Clay Target Program received votes from four assembly members, but fell short of the five votes needed to override a mayoral veto.

The borough assembly had originally sought to sell a piece of land to the volunteer program at less-than-fair market value for a youth shooting range. When property owners living near suggested parcels in two different areas (Big Lake and Wasilla) objected, borough assembly members proposed a donation of $150,000 for land as a compromise measure, which would allow the middle and high school student shooters to seek land on the private market amenable to local owners.

Program director Neil Moss told assembly members he had come to praise them for playing a role in a youth activity, but instead found himself asking the assembly to stay the course.

“Kids in the Valley need a facility of their own and a less expensive place to shoot,” he said.

Margie Kirby had two children participated in team shooting sports this year, she said. But while she supports shooting sports, the shooting range is a want, not a need, Kirby said.

“We have a lot of needs that will impact people that sounds like we’re having a difficult time funding,” she said. “So we have the resources, let’s use what we have here in the Valley.”

As a result of the veto, the funds will be restored to the $1 million borough building renovation fund.

District 3 Assemblyman Ron Arvin challenged the veto, saying the borough should stick to a compromise designed to help youth.

“Most of the borough’s property that wouldn’t have objection is very far outlier land, much of which isn’t even accessible by road,” he said. “So the idea for finding MSB land for a shooting facility and conveying a piece of property is easily said, but it’s not easily done.”

Critics, like District 1 assemblyman Jim Sykes and Mayor Larry DeVilbiss, argue the borough needs an application process for program-specific grants like these. During budget deliberations, Sykes suggested that approving a grant for the shooting program could open the door for infinite programs, like a curling program, to receive taxpayer money just by showing up.

The grant process is “a wide open door that needs change,” DeVilbiss said.

The compromise measure was not something the program had asked for, Sykes said. Other groups typically make specific requests for funding or property, which the assembly can then either approve or deny, he said.

“Every single one of us at this table believes this is a great program. But I don’t think this is the way to go about it, and it is unique among all of these measures,” Sykes said.

Ultimately, assemblymen Dan Mayfield, Vern Halter, Steve Colligan and Arvin voted in favor of the override measure, while District 6 Assemblywoman Barbara Doty, District 2 Assemblyman Matthew Beck and Sykes opposed the override.

In the veto document, DeVilbiss framed his vetoes as aimed at two areas of “bad policy.”

“One is government largess, and the other is government oppression,” he wrote. “We are moving into a new era of budgeting where we anticipate less revenue from both the state and federal governments for years to come. We must prepare for that by disciplining our spending.”

DeVilbiss singled out the Willow Fire Service Area mill rate — raised from 1.34 to 2.75 — as one example of “oppression.”

“My studied opinion is that big government is rolling right over the taxpayers of Willow,” he wrote.

Borough Attorney Nick Spiropoulos has ruled that the mayor can’t use line-item veto authority on a mill rate increase. As a result, DeVilbiss instead tried to veto a $100,000 payment to the state revolving loan fund against the principal of a loan amount approved earlier in the year.

DeVilbiss vetoed a total of $690,500 in funding,though only $150,000 of that stood.

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