Mat-Su voters will decide whether the borough can tax valley-wide for big road projects

Mat-Su Borough voters will decide Nov. 3 whether the borough may use borough-wide tax money to buy road rights-of-way and to design and build roads, streets, sidewalks and drainage — powers that now belong only to individual road service areas. The Assembly adopted the measure Tuesday over one member's objection.

The borough manager said the change wouldn't alter how road service areas maintain their own roads; it would let the Assembly put road projects into the annual capital budget and pay for them with borough-wide revenue. The current structure, he said, can't carry large corridor work — pointing to the Bogard-Seldon corridor, where one service area would otherwise shoulder a divided four-lane highway serving traffic from across the valley. "We still have over 300 miles of unmaintained roads in this borough, and we haven't done anything to improve that in years," he said.

The debate turned partly on who pays and who benefits. Assembly member Nowers, who supported sending the question to voters, noted that most borough-wide money is raised in the urban parts of the borough; if it were spent disproportionately in rural areas, she said, "that I think would be sort of a transfer of funds" that a future assembly should watch. Assembly member Bowles tried to narrow the measure — swapping "rights-of-way" for "easements" so a landowner could keep farming or living on ground the borough might not need for 15 or 20 years — but the borough attorney warned that "if you said easements in this ballot question, you would not be able to acquire the land." That amendment failed with only Bowles in support.

Supporters made the practical case. Michelle Heun testified that buying rights-of-way before roads are built costs less than waiting until land is developed, and that providing local match and project design makes the borough more competitive for discretionary grants. The ordinance itself, she noted, doesn't impose a tax increase. The large road service area board voted to put the question on the ballot, with one member abstaining.

The cost of major road work has worried some residents. At the Assembly's May 19 meeting, Meadow Lakes resident Esther Huddleston estimated that rebuilding Meadow Lakes Drive would cost her service area $10 million, and Meadow Lakes Loop another $5 million — money the service area doesn't have.