Alaska News

School site should have been studied more carefully

In response to Daily News reporter Rindi White's article concerning the school site selection process audit on the South Palmer Elementary School, I believe that the community at large needs to know some of what has gone on with the borough in this process.

Mat-Su Borough staff -- four employees total -- were tasked with evaluating four different school sites for the South Palmer Elementary School. These staff site evaluations were used to help borough decision-making bodies decide which potential site would be most suitable for the new school and also served as grounds for staff to make a recommendation on a favored site.

One of the criteria that staff evaluated was: "Road and pedestrian facilities construction costs from nearest collector road." Costs were to "include turning lanes, traffic signals, warning (yellow flashing) lights, etc." Another criterion staff evaluated was "Impact on local traffic patterns." Borough staff rated each of the above criteria at a 3 out of 5 for the Ranch site, a score of 3 meaning "acceptable and meets most criteria."

In other words, borough staff claimed that road construction costs, which were supposed to include turning lanes, traffic signals, etc, at the Ranch site were acceptable and met most criteria. This is the information staff presented to decision-making bodies when they recommended the Ranch site for the South Palmer Elementary School.

Obviously, judging by the millions of dollars tax payers may be forced to dish out to build a road to the Ranch site, construction costs to the Ranch school site were not "acceptable." Staff certainly should have known that access wasn't acceptable before recommending the Ranch site (there's only two ways to get to the new school site, and both are obviously not adequate).

Borough engineer and Ranch school site evaluator Bill Klebesadel wrote in correspondence with other staff members, "If a new school opens at the Ranch site with dozens of school buses and hundreds of cars blasting through Garden Terrace AND stopping at the AKRR crossing, we may suffer some very bad press." In the same correspondence, this staff member also mentioned problems that may be encountered with the railroad changing alignment in the Ranch site area, saying, "Even if Nelson Road gets connected to Fairview, the railroad crossing at that location may cripple Fairview Loop traffic." This correspondence, dated Sept. 25, 2006, clearly demonstrates staff's knowledge of road access issues to the Ranch site before the school site was selected.

Staff scored road construction costs on the Ranch site as acceptable. Staff clearly knew that there were major access issues with the Ranch location before scoring the site. Now road construction is looking to cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

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The Matrix audit claims that this costly oversight is due in part to staff assuming that access was present without looking carefully enough at access issues. Yet another potential school location for South Palmer Elementary, the "Wilder" site, was turned down due to access issues. Borough staff say it was going to require the installment of a traffic light. Why weren't the Ranch site access issues looked at as carefully as the Wilder site? It is unfortunate that the costly Matrix audit did not shed more light on these obvious discrepancies.

Monika Swan is a lifelong resident of the Valley.

By MONIKA SWAN

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