Zoning placed on the back burner

MAT-SU -- Borough residents anxious to speak out in favor of placing work on the proposed Euclidian zoning proposal on the back burner -- or quashing it entirely -- were frustrated Tuesday when the Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting ran until midnight and the issue never reached the table.

One meeting attendee, when Borough Mayor Tim Anderson adjourned the meeting at 11:59 p.m. -- one minute before the mandatory midnight adjournment time set by borough code -- pawed at the air and snarled. Others, in a throng outside the assembly chambers, claimed the assembly was deliberately stalling on the issue.

After the meeting Borough Clerk Sandra Dillon said it was simply the pace of public process -- a process that, toward the end of the fiscal year, tends to get a little bogged down.

"It was a very atypical agenda," Dillon said. "We had several other agency reports that we generally don't have. The assembly also had questions … and that eats up a lot of time. It's important, but it eats up a lot of time."

The assembly heard five groups under its "persons to be heard" section of the agenda at its Tuesday meeting, and went through nine public hearings. Dillon said more than one person to be heard is pretty rare, and some of the issues addressed in the public hearings that followed happened to generate a lot of community response. About 15 residents spoke about the potential placement of a pedestrian tube under the Parks Highway near the Willow Area Community Center, more than 10 spoke about the potential lease of property on Shulin Lake near the Kahiltna River, and more than five spoke about classifying land in the Talkeetna Lakes area as public recreation land. In addition, Dillon said, there were three items in "unfinished business," another part of the agenda that is not often used.

"It was a number of things that all came together on the same agenda," Dillon said.

After Tuesday's meeting adjourned, Anderson realized he did not announce the postponement of the zoning issue. It will be brought back to the assembly at its next meeting, he said.

"The one resolution we didn't get to, Resolution 02-041, will be put under unfinished business on the May 21 agenda," Anderson said.

But it may not be likely the assembly will be able to direct the planning commission to put the issue on the back burner and concentrate on bringing forward a conditional-use ordinance that would address nuisance uses within the borough's core area.

The borough planning commission, last month, sent a memo to the assembly stating its intent to bring forward a finished draft of the Euclidian zoning proposal for assembly review by mid-May. Borough Planning Director Sandra Garley said the commission will discuss the issue at a special work session May 13 in the assembly chambers at 6 p.m., and any remaining loose ends can be tied up at its regularly scheduled May 20 meeting. Just in case the work is not finished at that time, Garley said a third meeting was scheduled for May 30.

If the assembly were to pass the resolution directing the commission to pause the work on the zoning proposal at its May 21 meeting, Garley said the commission would have a few options.

"They have only one meeting scheduled after that," Garley said. "They would have to decide then whether they would indeed stop and let the last two hours of tinkering go by … or send it forward to the assembly."