Anchorage Daily News

Editor's note: This story was originally published October 7, 2007

No politician was more closely associated with the Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex than Mayor Sarah Palin, who was first elected in 1996. For some, it remains a crowning achievement of her mayoral years.

But it's an unusual triumph for a politician who was known as an anti-tax, pro-property rights conservative -- involving, as it did, a tax increase and the condemnation of private land.

Palin urged voters in March 2002 to approve a new half-cent sales tax that would pay off the $14.7 million sports complex bond. She reminded voters how important sports had been in her own life (Palin was a member of a state championship basketball team at Wasilla High).

The tax measure passed by a mere 20 votes. Palin managed to have it both ways after the election, saying the close vote "confirms that we are fiscally conservative out here." She said it would be incentive to keep the project under budget.

The city succeeded at that. But several items, including emergency generators and the kitchen, had to be trimmed. Funds to finish those items were to be sought later from the state, said current Wasilla public works director Archie Giddings.

While the building went up as planned, title to the land beneath the building grew shaky.

The city had tried to buy the 70-acre tract, just off the Parks Highway west of town, from the state office of The Nature Conservancy, which had received it as a donation for resale from Dow Chemical. The city's 1998 offer of $146,000 was accepted, with a few access easement issues still to be worked out.

But an international land developer, Gary Lundgren, made a bid around the same time -- to the environmental group's national office, not its state office -- offering twice as much money.

Palin sued, using the services of Ken Jacobus, the Republican Party attorney she'd hired to represent Wasilla. Early rulings favored the city, but by the end of Palin's term, with the sport complex now eyed for the land, the federal judge indicated he was leaning the other way.

"Her heart was in the right place. But she got bamboozled on that project, to put it on land we didn't own," said local surveyor Steve Stoll, a critic of the sports complex proposal who vowed at the time to "eat his pants" if the arena ever made money.

In December 2002, one month after Palin handed the mayor's office over to her successor, Dianne Keller, the city used eminent domain to condemn the land for public purposes. The judge eventually ruled that the land was Lundgren's, leaving a four-year appraisal process to determine how much the city owed him for the land it took.

The ruling, which became final only two months ago, sets the value of the contested land at $860,000 at the time of condemnation, said Tom Klinkner, Wasilla's current attorney. Along with interest and lawyers' fees for both sides, the bill to Wasilla is expected to come to more than $1.7 million.

"With hindsight, the city might have chosen a different property for the sports complex, had they known all the factors that would eventually come into play," said Klinkner.

Adding a measure of insult to the injury, the state Legislature in 2006 passed a law forbidding cities in the future from condemning land for recreation, as Wasilla had done. The law was primarily a response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed a Connecticut city to seize waterfront homes for a strip mall. It said cities couldn't take land for economic development, but Republican lawmakers in Juneau insisted on a second part barring condemnation for recreational public purposes as well.

The city will pay the final bill out of its emergency reserves, said city deputy administrator Sandra Garley.

BUDGET SHORTFALL

With an ice rink and indoor turf field, the Wasilla complex has been popular and a draw for out-of-town visitors. But Steve Stoll's pants are safe -- the arena has not lived up to predictions that it would break even within a year. The facility continues to draw about $150,000 a year from the city's general fund to fill out its $850,000 operating budget, according to city finance director Susan Colligan.

The complex received an $860,000 appropriation in the state capital budget two years ago to begin work on emergency generators, city officials said. The money this year will help with that project and also build a kitchen.

It will be more of a preparation facility for caterers than a full-fledged kitchen, said arena manager Bruce Urban. He said the kitchen will allow the arena to host a wider variety of events, especially after April each year when the ice comes out.

Keller, the current Wasilla mayor, defended this year's capital budget spending of $630,000 as a public safety expense for the Multi-Use Sports Complex, which she described as a community evacuation shelter. In a letter addressing critics last summer, she invoked memories of Hurricane Katrina.

"Did we not learn anything after evacuees were directed to the Superdome and were stuck there with no food, water, cots, blankets or trained staff to assist with their immediate needs?" she wrote. "We are doing everything we can to make sure the MUSC has the tools, equipment and staff in place for this very necessary support when the need arises."

Palin said she was just doing her job when she advocated for the project as mayor, saying she'd recognized the need for a multi-purpose community center while growing up in the area.

"If anybody wants to throw blame for anything that goes wrong in the city of Wasilla or the Mat-Su Valley, that's what I'm here for. That's what you put your name on the dotted line for when you elect to run for office," she said. "The criticism goes with it."

ADVERTISEMENT