Every homeowner, car and boat owner knows that maintenance is expensive. It’s also necessary. Particularly so in Alaska, where the weather is unkind to most everything except solid rock, and even that can erode away given enough time.
Maintenance is a smart investment. It preserves the value of the property, whether stationary or motorized, and keeping up with repairs is the best way to avoid even more expensive rebuilds, restoration and replacement later.
It’s especially true for borough property, which is why it’s heartening to see borough officials and the assembly confront the backlog of maintenance and improvement projects around the community.
And good for the borough to move ahead on the projects, despite random criticism voiced on social media. Elected officials and staff need to make the best decisions for maintaining concrete and steel and wood in the public interest based on facts, not rumors or gripes.
Yes, it will cost almost half-a-million dollars to reside the swimming pool building, but it’s better than waiting for even more damage over time.
Yes, it will cost several hundred thousand dollars for an engineer’s design and specs to demolish and replace the warehouse attached to the power plant building, and to rebuild the roof structure and a concrete bearing wall at the power plant. But risking a failure to the community’s backup electrical supply is an even costlier option.
The school district is waiting on a conditions survey costing about a quarter-million dollars before it can apply for several million dollars in state funding to repair roofs, walls and everything in between at the three school buildings. Students age out of the schools while the buildings just age in place, growing older and needing more maintenance. Certainly, before it orders a nail or a sheet of plywood, the school district will think hard about its future needs for classroom space with lower enrollment, but it needs the conditions survey to make informed decisions.
Heritage Harbor needs costly installation of corrosion-inhibiting zincs or other materials to protect the steel pilings and metal work from the slow death of rust. Also on the waterfront, the borough last year paid to repair the barge landing ramp that had lost much of its buoyancy — not a good thing when trying to line up the ramp during tidal shifts.
The rot-deteriorated, 36-year-old Public Safety Building is the most expensive item on the borough’s repair/rebuild list. That one needs millions of dollars of work, and will be the toughest one to afford.
Give the borough credit for making the list and working its way through the repairs before the damage gets worse. It will be expensive for the community, but the alternative of ignoring the work would cost even more.
— Wrangell Sentinel
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