Anchorage Daily News

Fireworks to light up Palmer Saturday

WASILLA -- Palmer will be lit up this Saturday with a fireworks show thanks to Stan Guthrie, the owner of Country Cutts hair salon. Guthrie, for the ninth year in a row, is sponsoring the professionally produced show, which will start at 7:19 p.m. and last about 20 minutes. The show is produced by Alaska Pyrotechnics. The fireworks are launched in downtown Palmer, but are typically visible for miles beyond city limits. Guthrie said he sponsors the show as a community service.

Meadow Lakes gains $10,000 grant

WASILLA -- Meadow Lakes Elementary has received a $10,000 grant from the Fred Meyer Fund for the Take-Home Reading Program that encourages, supports and rewards students and their families reading at home together.

The Meadow Lakes Take-Home Reading program was initially implemented under former principal Mary McMahon, according to a write-up in the school district's newsletter. Current principal Carl Chamblee has since expanded it to include a parent component.

According to the newsletter, the grant will be used to purchase books for students and buy rewards such as pencils, bookmarks and T-shirts to encourage students and their families to reach a goal of 100 days of reading at home.

Prison bonds get high Moody's rating

WASILLA -- Moody's Investors Service gave the Matanuska-Susitna Borough an Aa3 rating for the $245 million in bonds being sold in December to finance construction of the Goose Creek Correctional Center.

The bonds are planned for a Dec. 3 sale.

The rating generally puts the bonds in an "excellent" category but is slightly lower than the state's past rating of Aa2. The level is slightly higher than the borough's general obligation bond rating of A1, however.

According to Moody's, the rating is based on the state's credit standing and factors in the need for the state to annually appropriate money to cover principal and interest payments on the prison. The state has a stable outlook, with "reliance on volatile oil industry revenue balanced against a record of conservative forecasting."

The Moody's opinion cited several concerns, including that the state may have to next month revise its $83.09-per-barrel projection for oil prices and that the Petroleum Profits Tax method legislators adopted in 2006 to tax oil revenues means state revenue declines quickly when oil prices decline.

As strengths, the Moody's opinion cited conservative oil pricing projections and volume forecasting and credited the state with growing the Alaska Permanent Fund by 50 percent in the past decade.

Hazardous waste program wins award

WASILLA -- A household hazardous waste program run by the Mat-Su Borough Public Works department earned an award of excellence in public works programs from the Alaska Municipal League this month.

The program operates in a new, 6,400-square-foot facility built at the Central Landfill last year with $1.5 million in grants from the state Department of Environmental Conservation Clean Water Loan Program and from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration.

Residents can drop off automotive fluids such as used oil and transmission fluid, cleaners, pesticides, poisons, chemicals, batteries, fluorescent light bulbs and other hazardous materials there at little or no cost.

The program has expanded significantly with the new building, which allows material to be transferred indoors where it's warm. Residents dropping off used oil, for example, don't have to wait for the slow-moving fluid to drain in sub-zero temperatures.

"The construction of this facility has allowed us to establish several programs that would otherwise be impossible, given the Alaska environment," said Greg Goodale, Solid Waste division manager, in a borough press release.

"We have a re-use program that returns usable materials to the public at no cost, such as paint, wood stain and heating oil. The program also reduces our overall disposal costs."

The program, open from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays each week, has an operating cost of $350,000 with all funding generated through user fees.

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