Wasilla City Council approves Spirit junior hockey lease

July 15, 2005

KATE GOLDEN\Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA -- The Wasilla City Council introduced and approved a lease of part of the city's Multi-Use Sports Complex to a new local amateur hockey team, the Wasilla Spirit, the day before the lease was to begin.

Head coach Dean Larsen spoke on behalf of the team, encouraging the council to approve the lease for office space and ice-rink time.

The Junior A team of the North American Hockey League is moving from Springfield, Mo., where it was called the Springfield Spirit. Its 27-game season begins in October, though the schedule has not yet been released. The city expects 1,000 to 1,200 people to attend each home game.

Recreation and Cultural Services Manager Bruce Urban wrote in a memo to the council that he expected revenues for the space, ice rink and concessions -- including alcohol sales -- to be at least $60,000 for the year.

But not everyone was comfortable with the lease. Rob Sande had come with a list of questions.

He noted that the $205-per-month lease for office space, which works out to about 12.5 cents per square foot, ran "far below" market value, and below what the team would use in utilities and services.

Citizens were concerned that the sports complex should have a zero-balance operating budget, he said, and this wasn't good enough.

Mayor Dianne M. Keller and Urban eventually assuaged Sande's fear that the lease would be a net loss.

Keller, pushing for the lease, said the economic impact was larger than that on the city; other businesses would benefit, she said. And she noted that the lease was for less than one year.

"We do need to remember that this is a startup team," Keller said.

"Ask any small-business owner in the city if they got a break when they started their business," Sande countered later.

Sande also noted that dating the lease for the next day "didn't give the council any chance to react to it."

He wondered why the process was so rushed. Councilors were given six days, since the previous Wednesday, to peruse the lease.

"Ticket sales," was Keller's response.

Approval of items on the agenda requires the yea-vote of at least four out of six councilors, as opposed to a simple majority.

Thus, with the recent resignation of councilor Noel Lowe and current councilor Diana Straub's unexpected absence for family reasons, the four councilors present -- Sande, Howard O'Neil, Ron Cox and Mark Ewing -- had to unanimously agree on any agenda item for it to pass.

Cox shared Sande's reservations about a lease that could be a loss, but was willing to support the team's first year. O'Neil and Ewing approved it more wholeheartedly.

Ultimately, Sande voted with the rest of the council to approve the lease.

"I haven't talked to anybody in the public that thinks this isn't a good idea," O'Neil said.

Contact Kate Golden at 352-2284 or kate.golden@frontiersman.com.