Powell wants more borough land in private ownership

After seven years on the borough assembly, Bay Co. manager David Powell is running for another three-year term. Powell's desire to get land out of the borough's hands was what first motivated him to pursue an assembly seat, and he is running again in hopes of seeing his goals completed.

If elected, his primary focuses will be selling or leasing the 6-Mile mill property, which the borough purchased this summer, and the former Wrangell Institute property, which was the site of a federally operated Native boarding school from 1932 to 1975. "Land is my biggest thing," he said. "I've always been trying to push the city to sell any lands, get them on our tax rolls."

Now that a ground survey of the Institute property has been completed, Powell hopes that the borough can begin to sell or lease portions of the property within the next year or two. He would like to see the land turned into housing units and a gas station for the convenience of people living out the road.

The development cost for streets and utilities for 20 residential lots on the Institute property was estimated over a year ago at around $2 million.

His plans to develop the property have fallen through in the past - he once supported building a new boarding school through the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, though he now admits that the project was "a pipe dream."

He'd also like to sell the former hospital property, an asbestos-contaminated building which costs the borough almost $100,000 in yearly maintenance, heat and insurance. Since the building has attracted no bids at its current $830,000 asking price, Powell supports getting it off the borough's hands at whatever price a buyer would be willing to pay - even if that means giving it away for free.

"With SEARHC, we basically gifted the land for that," said Powell, referencing the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium's deal with the borough to create the Wrangell Medical Center. Powell would support "just about gifting the land to somebody if they could come up with a plan and get as many jobs as SEARHC has been doing."

The last piece of land Powell wants to see developed is the former 6-Mile sawmill property. Though the Port Commission discussed using the land for tourism during their meeting last month, Powell would prefer to see the Wrangell barge ramp moved out to 6-Mile and the valuable downtown property that the barge ramp currently occupies used for tourism. "I will try to steer them more into tourism over here in town."

Regardless, he hopes the borough can diversify its development at 6-Mile by selling or leasing the land to a variety of buyers in a variety of industries.

Powell's desire to make the Institute, hospital and 6-Mile properties taxable is motivated in part by concern for the borough's finances. The borough has only recently started saving money to replace pieces of its infrastructure in case of emergency, and Powell hopes that it will continue to shore up its accounts by raising utility rates in accordance with Wrangell's growing infrastructure costs.

Letting utility rates stagnate, Powell said, was "a terrible way to run a business. Because the borough is a business. It's a government, but it's still a business. You still collect money and you still put money out."

Though Wrangell is experiencing a housing shortage, Powell does not believe the borough should play a role in generating housing projects. He opposes government competition with private industry. However, he thinks the borough should consider offering child care, since limited access to care continues to be an obstacle for working families in the area, including some of Powell's employees. "Unless somebody steps up and does it privately, I think that would be a good idea for us to start looking in different avenues," he said.

Powell intends to vote yes on the bond issues on the upcoming Oct. 4 municipal election ballot, which would pay for repairs to the schools and Public Safety Building. The buildings' need for maintenance has "gone too far," Powell said, and though he doesn't like the prospect of raising taxes, he doesn't see an alternative. "We have to have (repairs) or two, three years down the road it's going to probably be double."

He is one of three candidates running for two seats on the borough assembly. Alex Angerman and Brittani Robbins are also competing for three-year terms. The top two vote-getters will win the seats.