Mat-Su Borough: MAYOR POST BLOG ASSEMBLY MEETING SEP15, 2026

Hi, I'm Edna DeVries, Mayor of the Massue Borough, bringing you up to date on the latest assembly meeting, plus a couple of meetings that we had at the port that were very beneficial and rewarding. So at the assembly meeting, we had a report under the manager's report for Peaceful Valley in Big Lake. It was another of the trash cleanups in the area of our borough. And they removed like 50 cars out of there, plus oodles of trash. And so again, thanks goes out to the community and to our staff at the borough that see the need and responding to the need and making our valley much cleaner and safer place to to be.

A couple items on the agenda that took some time. One was, as you know, there's been controversy and a need for better connections of Engstrom Road and Bogard, and that project has been going on for several years. The latest report is that there will be a roundabout, and it should be here within the next year, 18 months, but still a lot of traffic at that intersection. So the borough had proposed a northern route to take from Engstrom over to Trunk, but also on the agenda was a southern route which would do the same, but it's closer to the Bogard Road rather than to the end of Engstrom to Trump. And so there was lots of testimony, lots of support.

Most of the support really were for the southern route, but the assembly did vote 4 to 3 to approve the administration's recommendation for the northern route. And at the end of the meeting, the administration did say currently there is no money because of course both projects are very expensive, uh, so there wasn't going to be any dirt started to be dug today regarding that. Another item that was under reconsideration was whether the assembly should support DNR's allocation of 19,000+ acres to ADA. Uh, in 2 weeks ago, there had just been a letter, and then there— after that letter had been adopted by the assembly, the next day there had been reconsideration by an assembly person. So that put the letter on hold, but that also gave, uh, Deputy Mayor time to do a resolution and get it on the agenda for last night.

So that resolution was passed. What it is saying is we're encouraging ADA to assist us as well as the whole state with the West Sioux Access, um, project as well as the port project. And so that will now today gonna be forwarded to the state. That was adopted. Another question that had been, uh, postponed, uh, for additional information to come to us was Rasmussen grant that we had requested regarding upgrading the water and sewer at the Matanuska River Park.

Also on there, there had been a small emblem connected to the Long Trails, and so there had been some question about if we could do the grant request and receive the money without noting the Long Trail. And word came back from Rasmusen, no, that it had to be all in one. And the assembly did approve that, so we will be seeing some much-needed improvements at the Matanuska River Park, which is in the borough just outside of Palmer. At our next meeting, well, on the 6th of October, will not be as long. We only have 3 public hearings.

I think up to this time we've been having 6 or 7, and so long meetings. But 2 items that did happen at the port that we were very happy with to report to you, if you haven't heard already, and I encourage you to look for pictures for many of these items going on, uh, on our Facebook page. And one was last Friday, a Fairbanks Chamber Committee came down and looked at the port and of course were excited because what that will do for goods and services and export of our resources even from the Fairbanks area. Then on Tuesday we had what they call Industry Day at the port where there was someplace between 70 and 80 people that showed up that are the industry type, the people that either are doing business at the port or are considering doing it, or maybe just want to know if maybe the port would fit in with their business plan. So as you can tell, many exciting things happen at the borough.

Bye-bye.