Wasilla council reconsiders honor garden budget

An ardent plea from a citizen who volunteered to sell bricks for Wasilla's armed forces honor garden fund-raising effort set the tone at Wasilla City Council's Monday meeting. The honor garden is based on a similar project that paid for amenities to Anchorage's Town Square park by selling granite bricks that could be engraved with a message of the buyer's choosing. Brick sales came up short in Wasilla by about $275,000, city officials say. The project also came up short of its goal in corporate donations, and one plan presented by the city public works department was to delay the dedication of the garden by a year.

"In good faith, volunteers sold the bricks and in good faith people bought them," Deborah Remus told the council, adding that some families of veterans were planning to attend an Independence Day dedication for the honor garden this summer. "I want to know what to tell those people."

The budget was designed based on a sales goal of 4,000 bricks, but residents only purchased about a quarter of that. Benches and trees were also sold for the garden, but the bricks were to carry the bulk of the fund raising.

Wasilla's project goals were scaled back from the Anchorage template. In Anchorage, around 14,000 bricks were sold and $600,000 was raised for Town Square, according to news reports and records provided by the Anchorage parks department.

Wasilla's honor garden is planned as an addition to Iditapark. It's a part of a larger, ongoing effort to turn the old city airport into a park strip. Currently there is a skate park, tennis and basketball courts, a playground for small children and an outdoor amphitheater. A great many volunteers, businesses, unions and civic groups have pitched in on various projects in the park.

City officials say the benches and trees for the honor garden sold well, but the bricks sold less than anticipated and the council was asked to rearrange the honor garden budget. Public works director Don Shiesl said the brick sales came up short by about $275,000. In a memo summarizing the problem for the council, public works staff wrote that the program only raised $50,390 in sales of bricks, trees and benches.

Shiesl presented a new project budget last month when sales came up short. The council was considering that budget for the second and final time at Monday's meeting.

"Obviously we had to drastically cut the scope of the project," Shiesl said.

The new budget also put off completion of the project in order to minimize its toll on the current budget year, and to take advantage of future brick sales. That's a move that would also postpone the July 4 dedication.

"This doesn't have to happen if the city will step up to the plate and appropriate whatever it takes to complete the project," Remus said.

Council members empathized -- particularly council member Dianne Keller, who has been known to give the United States flag as a gift when the city recognizes people for civic involvement. Keller said she also volunteered to sell bricks.

"I was very behind this project," Keller said. "I was in the same position Mrs. Remus was in."

Many people were, including volunteer coordinator Deby Trosper, who headed up the promotion and sales for the project. Trosper started working for the city in August 2000, she said, and stopped in January of this year. Trosper was close to this fund-raising effort -- perhaps closer than anyone -- but even she said she couldn't put her finger on precisely why Valley residents didn't buy 4,000 bricks.

There are two other veterans' memorial projects in the Valley, one at the Mat-Su Visitors Center was recently finished, and the other is under way in Palmer. That could be a factor, Trosper said. She also said the goal might have been too ambitious, despite being scaled down from the Anchorage town square project. There was an unforeseen delay in producing a TV commercial. And there were the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, when the giving patterns among contributors changed dramatically. Trosper said these things could have contributed to the lack of sales.

"Things started out real slow," Trosper said. "Getting it out in front of the public and educating the public on the project tended to be slower than we thought."

The slow start prompted a cut in Trosper's $16-per-hour pay rate. She went to $10 per hour in May 2001. Trosper said she typically worked between 10 and 40 hours a week on the project and volunteered time as well.

"By July of 2001, we were starting to sell the number of bricks per week that we expected, but we were still playing catch-up," she said. By then there were more inquiries into the project and things were going well.

The Sept. 11 attacks all but stopped brick sales.

"It was very dramatic after 9-11, because I think the monies went to an immediate need," she said.

People did buy bricks dedicated to the people who died in the terrorist attacks, but generally sales didn't pick up until the Dec. 31 brick-selling deadline. Like most Americans, the attacks and subsequent war effort prompted soul searching among Trosper and the volunteers.

"I told the group we need to step back because I'm not going to stand on the corner next to someone who's raising money for those families," she said.

By the end of Monday's meeting, the administration and public works had agreed to submit another new budget for the honor garden that will include extra cash from city funds -- possibly about $60,000 redirected from a grant dedicated to Iditapark but planned for another part of the park. Shiesl is also planning a new construction schedule so that a ribbon cutting will take place this year.

Some unexpected things happened at the meeting, including a spin-off meeting between Shiesl, deputy administrator John Cramer, and finance director Ted Leonard, in which the three officials left the room to discuss alternate funding sources from other parts of the city budget.

By coincidence, Michael Smith of Wasilla Concrete was at the meeting to talk about a zoning request he had made on behalf of his company. Smith -- whose family-owned company assisted with Iditapark's skate park -- stuck around long after the zoning change was approved. He offered assistance during audience comments at the end of he meeting.

"I know I can work with my family and we can find a way to do this," Smith said. "It can be done, just get everybody together."

And the bricks are still for sale. Each brick sells for $25 blank, $50 for a one-line message, or $75 for a two-line message. The brick messages can be customized and "sold up" to higher prices for more lines, much like a classified advertisement.