Farmers oppose fair's land sale

The fair acquired the old Hamilton dairy property across Springer Loop from the fairgrounds five years ago to provide a buffer from subdivisions spreading across some of the most fertile farm soils in the state.

Now, over the objections of some in the farming community, the fair is moving toward selling it for a major new industrial training complex.

In exchange, the fair gets more room to grow -- more parking space in particular.

Palmer-based Northern Industrial Training LLC hopes to start work this summer on a $24 million campus on the 40-acre site to train students for jobs in construction, mining and oil and gas, said Krista Gonder, NIT's chief financial officer. NIT is asking for $16 million in state funding, plus another $8 million in federal appropriations, but expects to shoulder part of the cost, Gonder said.

Plans call for 160-bed dorms, classrooms, labs, a wastewater treatment plant, cogeneration plant and five wind turbines.

The company already operates a commercial truck-driving school at the fair parking lot, as well as other small campuses in the Mat-Su.

While fair officials and NIT called the potential land sale a "win-win," some in the farming community say the fair has ignored other proposals that would keep the dairy property in agricultural production.

Critics cite the fair's history -- it was created more than 70 years ago by Matanuska Valley colonists eager to show off produce and animals -- and point to the scarcity of Alaska's food-growing acreage, especially in the rich glacial soils of the Springer Loop system.

"It's just plum ridiculous," said Wayne Bouwens, 80, who worked the property in the 1930s when it grew vegetables and later when it held a series of dairies. "This is the best ground in the state, out south of town. There's no reason to just keeping putting it into houses and industrial places and moving the farmer out somewhere else."

PARKING POTENTIAL IN PIT

The buffer provided by the dairy property was intended to preserve fair uses such as parking, rather than aesthetics or farmland, fair officials say.

The fair last year parked cars on 10 acres on the Hamilton property, general manager Ray Ritari said. Any contract with NIT would include a provision that parking continue during fair time, Ritari said.

But more broadly, money from the NIT sale would allow the fair to buy back property sold in a 2004 land swap to Alaska Demolition for a construction materials disposal pit, Ritari said.

The fair has first dibs on buying back the Alaska Demo property once the pit fills up, Alaska Demo owner Justin Green said.

The pit is about one-third full now, Green said. He couldn't say when Alaska Demo would be ready to sell.

The fair wants to use the pit property for parking, Ritari said.

The sale to NIT is still in the planning stages. An update is expected at today's fair board meeting, 7 p.m. at fair offices. Only fair members are allowed to comment, though the public can attend.

"It's a really good fit for the fair," said board member Bonnie Quill, executive director of the Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau. NIT provides upgrades and maintenance on fair facilities that the cash-strapped fair can't, Quill said.

She said all but one board member supports the idea.

NIT isn't coming in to destroy farmland, said Gonder.

"We're building a very nice community-oriented training facility that has the environment at the heart of it," Gonder said.

FARMERS FEEL LEFT OUT

Farmer Arthur Keyes posted a sign over the weekend in a yard across from the Hamilton dairy property: "Farmland vs. Truck Lot."

Keyes, who started the South Anchorage farmer's market and farms near the fairgrounds, also sent an alert last week to the more than 500 customers for boxes of squash, corn, tomatoes, eggplants and other produce he sells.

He said in an interview Monday that he "got fired up" when he realized the NIT transaction was practically a done deal. There are other places an industrial training school could go, he said, but only so much rich Springer Loop soils left.

The area is the richest farmland in the state, and won't come back once disturbed, he said. "To pave the soil, it's darn near a crime."

The fair first raised the possibility of selling the land to NIT in September, fair officials say.

Longtime Valley grower Ben VanderWeele, owner of VanderWeele Farms, learned about the sale months later and in January asked the board to give the family the chance to buy, said Roger VanderWeele, his son. The family owns several fields in the vicinity.

The board's reaction?

"Thank you for your presentation and that was it," Roger VanderWeele said. Arthur Keyes is his brother-in-law. VanderWeele said the family never made an offer because the fair didn't follow up with them on their request. Fair officials say they didn't pursue the request because the family didn't make an offer.

At the board's annual meeting last month, board members agreed 5-1 by an informal show of hands to contact an attorney who could start drawing up a contract with NIT, according to a message Monday from board president John Harkey.

The Alaska Farmland Trust, a Palmer-based nonprofit that preserves farmland through voluntary conservation easements, is also monitoring the land transfer. Trust manager Steve Gallagher plans to attend today's board meeting. But Gallagher said he didn't get the sense the fair was very interested in doing a conservation easement.

"I guess they've been talking about (NIT) for months," he said.

Find Zaz Hollander online at adn.com/contact/zhollander or call 907-352-6711.