Petersburg’s Borough Assembly finalized two priority lists of community projects at its meeting last week. They’ll use them to lobby the state and federal government for funding.
KFSK’s Shelby Herbert has more on how assembly members reordered Petersburg’s capital project priorities for the new year.
Every year, the assembly evaluates local needs before bringing their funding requests to the government. The Borough’s finalized list of capital projects for the new year contains a good mix of old and new — both updates to existing infrastructure, and proposals for brand new projects.
Petersburg Medical Center’s new hospital project was first on the list. The first three phases of construction are already funded and in progress. But the hospital still needs about $70 million to complete the final phases. $37 million of that would build the shell and core of the main hospital building, and the remaining $30 million would furnish the inside.
Assembly member Thomas Fine-Walsh said that central to the process is balancing a project’s importance with the odds that the government will actually put down money for it — and some projects are more likely to receive funding than others.
That’s why he asked the Assembly to bump up a $6 million project to improve the Airport Bypass Road from number ten on the list, to number seven — which displaced projects to upgrade the marine facilities at Banana Point and Petersburg’s North Harbor, as well as a project to expand the capacity of a generator at Scow Bay.
The project would bring a one-lane dirt road that lies parallel to the airport runway up to Borough standards and make it easier for the public to use.
Fine-Walsh said he’d like to see the bypass road taken more seriously, because it would free up congestion around Haugen Drive and give the borough easier access to more land.
“It has the potential to be really transformative for our community,” said Fine-Walsh. “[It would] essentially [expand] our loop road system to a larger loop, which would encompass a lot of land really ripe for development and could be kind of a boon to our community.”
Mayor Mark Jensen added his voice in support of the bypass road. He said it would improve safety in town.
“I’ve always been in favor of trying to get the bypass road completed,” said Jensen. “One: for safety issues — just for emergency response vehicles [to have] another route out of town, to Scow Bay and further south. I think it’d be a benefit.”
Assembly member Bob Lynn wavered on the idea of prioritizing the new road over projects to upgrade the infrastructure Petersburg already has.
“I have a hard time agreeing with you from the standpoint that we have needs — like the generator — to keep things we have operational,” said Lynn. “Yet, we want to build something new before we take care of our operational things.”
Lynn was especially concerned about displacing the priority of the Scow Bay No. 2 generator upgrade, which Petersburg Power and Light said would help pick up the slack for increased electrical demand during the winter. It would also back up Petersburg’s power supply in the event of an outage.
However, Lynn voted for Fine-Walsh’s amendment to bump up the bypass road — which passed unanimously.
(Photo courtesy of Petersburg School District)
Then, Vice Mayor Donna Marsh asked the assembly to consider moving up a project to replace the roof of Petersburg’s secondary school from number five on the list to number three.
“My reasoning behind that is, I agree with Assembly Member Lynn: that we do need to take care of the facilities that we have,” said Marsh. “I know the Scow Bay project has been high on the priority list and needful, but that essentially is new. So I think the roof replacement would make sense, to get that taken care of.”
The roof sustained severe damage from snow loads in the winter of 2022, and replacing it has been a top priority for Petersburg School District for years. A replacement would cost over $4 million. The assembly unanimously passed Marsh’s amendment to move it up on the assembly’s priority list.
That knocked a few marine infrastructure projects further down. One of them is an over $9 million project to repair a deteriorating float dock at Papke’s Landing. It’s located about ten miles south of town.
Boaters who use the dock say the state has let it fall apart for decades. It was high on the original priority list, at number three. But Borough officials aren’t confident that they’ll get all their clerical ducks in a row in time to secure the government funding they need to get it fixed. Part of that is because the Borough doesn’t own the dock yet, which has been a complicated issue.
They’re trying to take ownership of the dock from the state, but Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht said there has been no movement on that since the spring of 2023. And even if the Borough manages to get government funding they need, they’d have to get permission from the dock’s current owners — the State Department of Natural Resources and Department of Transportation — to start the repairs.
Some community members wanted more time to consider the borough’s priorities. John Murgas testified at the assembly meeting that he wished that the Borough had given the public more opportunities to give their input on the list.
“This past year, [there’s] been lots of changes to industries, commerce, climate, and so forth,” said Murgas. “Some of the projects go back some time and could use a little bit of updating. I would request that perhaps before you do prioritization of them, maybe postpone that to allow public input, which I think would only make good projects better.”
However, the assembly went ahead with a final vote, sealing the deal for the Borough’s 2024 capital project priorities.
The Assembly didn’t make any changes to its federal funding priorities, which are listed on the Borough’s website.
