Fairbanks Borough Assembly Passes Trail Plan Update!

Last night, the Fairbanks Assembly passed the Comprehensive Trail Plan update – almost fully intact and by a 7-2 vote!

A last-minute compromise deal devised by Assemblyman Aaron Lojewski, and then refined by Mayor Bryce Ward and his staff, assuaged most of the private property concerns of several Assembly members. In the end, only Assembly members Barbara Haney and Brett Rotermund voted against the plan update. And during comments at the end of the meeting, Assemblyman Rotermund said he was pleased to see the compromise work.

“Even though I stuck to my ‘no’ vote, I’m pretty happy this thing passed,” he said.

To get the compromise, the plan update was changed in two significant ways.

• The definition of C trails was changed so that it now gives borough staff more latitude to expend resources on those trails.
• Several trails new to the plan were reclassified from A and B trails to C trails.

(For those interested, I’ll go into the drama of the meeting later in this post. And for another point of view on the meeting, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Reporter Jack Barnwell has a good story on it HERE.)

Here are the details of the compromise:

CATEGORY C TRAILS

The Trails Plan update has three categories of trails:

• A: Federal and State Recreational Trail Systems (Trails that cross “primarily state and federal lands. Primary management authority and maintenance responsibility for these trails are of the agency having authority over the land.”)
• B: Fairbanks North Star Borough Recreational Trail Systems (Trails that the borough has “primary management authority and responsibility over…once legal public access to each is fully established.”
• C: Neighborhood Recreational Trail Systems (Trails “which may be used primarily by a local neighborhood with less benefit to the community at large.”)

Until last night, the original Trails Plan and this Trails Plan update steered borough staff away from expending much in the way of borough resources on category C trails, especially those that don’t have public access. But new wording has now been added to the category C description that says “FNSB resources may be allocated to pursue and acquire public access where needed.”

RECLASSIFIED TRAILS

The added wording is important because the Assembly also reclassified several trails from the A and B categories to the C category. All are trails new to the plan (in other words, not also included in the old plan) that cross at least one parcel of private property. Now borough staff can pursue getting voluntary easements from those private property owners. If all are obtained for one of the trails and the remaining portion of that trail is on public land, the Assembly could then choose to reclassify the trail as an A or B trail. In explaining his amendment, Assemblyman Lojewski encouraged the administration to do just that.

The trails that were reclassified are as follows (with their previous categories):

• I-A15 Smallwood Creek Loop
• I-A17 Far Mountain Traverse
• I-A23 Salcha River Trail
• I-B27 Pearl Creek Commuter Trail
• I-B30 Haines – Fairbanks Pipeline
• I-B32 Social Security Mine Trail
• I-B33 Ester Dome Trail

Those are now all C category trails. (All can be found on pages 61 to 63 of the version of the Trails Plan update in the Assembly PACKET from the meeting (green page numbers 44-46).

One other trail, I-BR16 Birch Hill to Steese Highway, is new to the plan and crosses at least one private property parcel. However, Assemblyman Lojewski left that one off the list. That trail is critical to creating a trail connection between Birch Hill Recreation Area and the Creamer’s Field-ADMA trails. There were a couple of good reasons for leaving it off the list so that it continues to get stronger protections in the trail plan.

• The Assembly recently passed a resolution encouraging the state Department of Transportation to build a tunnel underpass under the Steese Highway for that trail connection. (See my pre-meeting post on that story HERE.)
• Bryant Wright, former borough Trails Coordinator, assured the Assembly that the property owner had been contacted and was interested exploring the option of allowing the trail. (I believe that is the property owner of the Birch Hill Cemetery.)
• Wright had earlier said that federal funding for the tunnel could be in danger if the trail was not included in the plan.

Assemblyman Lojewski decided to err on the side of caution and keep full protections for that trail. And the Assembly agreed. That’s a big win for proponents of that trail connection and tunnel.

ACCEPTABLE COMPROMISE

So, that’s the meat of what happened. Most of the skeptical Assembly members were willing to let stand the easement protections for existing trails. After all, if they had voted down the trail plan update, the original trail plan would have still been in effect and voting down the trail plan update would not have changed the trail easement protections in Title 17.

Overall, I think this is a good deal, especially considering the strong likelihood the whole trails plan update would have been voted down. I was worried that the Birch Hill to Steese Highway Trail would have to be sacrificed for the overall plan, so I was pleased when Assemblyman Lojewski did not include it in the list of reclassified trails, and no one objected. Kudos to those skeptical Assembly members for letting that stand.

MEETING DRAMA

Assembly meetings of late are often dramatic, but it has usually been due to divisiveness. And this one started out that way.

But this time there was almost no one in the audience. The Trails Plan update had been before the Assembly in some form several times. And there was no public comment since comment had already been taken on this issue and the meeting was a continuation of the January 8 meeting, so there was no general comment period. The lack of an audience concerned me a bit, but in the end, it didn’t seem to matter. The Assembly had heard from the public plenty on this issue.

As debate started and continued, Assembly members fell into the two camps they have been in:

• Assemblymembers Kristen Kelly, Mindy O’Neall, Savannah Fletcher, and David Guttenberg supported the Trail Plan update. They feel it protects private property rights as it was written and that the extensive public process and many comments in favor of it showed the plan update had broad public support.
• Assemblymembers Tammy Wilson, Barbara Haney, Jimi Cash, and Brett Rotermund didn’t feel the Trail Plan update did enough to protect private property rights. In particular, they haven’t liked that category A and B trails on the plan are required to be given an easement during the subdivision process on any lands, public or private. (Those protections are outlined in Title 17. See my blog POST about an earlier attempt to change that.)
• I viewed Assemblyman Lojewski as the swing vote, but he has largely sided with Wilson, Haney, Cash and Rotermund. He was quiet for the first part of the meeting, but he is the presiding officer, so he must hand the gavel over to Assemblyman Cash, the deputy presiding officer, if he wants to speak. He didn’t do that for a long time.

But there were several things that happened over the course of the more-than-three-hour meeting that I think helped set the tone for the compromise that was to come.

The Assembly had many questions for borough staff and for Platting Board Chairman Randy Pitney. The Platting Board, in response to a request by the Assembly, had earlier come up with five RECOMMENDATIONS for the Assembly to change the Trail Plan update. The Assembly discussed the Platting Board recommendations but did not act on them. Most had to be written as separate ordinances and will come before the Assembly later.

The skeptical Assembly members seemed to like the Platting Board recommendations but said the recommendations didn’t fully address their concerns about private property. Pitney was supportive of the Platting Board’s recommendations and respectful to all the Assembly members. He was not combative and said he respected the concerns of the skeptical Assembly members. The Assembly really seemed to appreciate his comments and the work of the Platting Board.

The Assembly also questioned former Trails Coordinator Wright on several aspects of the plan update. Wright answered the questions as best he could and repeatedly pointed out that many changes in the plan would help protect private property either by moving trails from private property to nearby public property or by realigning trails so that they are more sustainable and less likely to cause problems such as erosion. Mayor Ward and Assemblyman Guttenberg pointed that out, too. I think that helped.

Mayor Ward also avoided being combative. He defended the process, the plan, and the borough staff, but he said he understood the competing philosophies on the Assembly and respected them. He said he and the administration would work with whatever the Assembly decided. That also helped.

But despite all that, as the debate wore on, I didn’t see any Assembly members budging. I thought there were two possible outcomes:

• 1) the Trails Plan update would be voted down, or
• 2) the update would be delayed again to deal with the Platting Board recommendations. In fact, Assemblywoman Fletcher tried to get a vote on the Trails Plan update postponed, but that amendment failed.

Finally, Assemblyman Lojewski turned the gavel over to Assemblyman Cash. We would finally get to hear his thoughts. That’s when he proposed his compromise. It took him a while to explain what he was proposing and – during a couple of short recesses – to work with Mayor Ward and borough staff to refine the proposal. (At first, Lojewski suggested a whole new category of trail in the plan, but finally the idea to tweak the definition of C category trails came about.)

As this was happening, the other Assembly members seemed curious and a bit contemplative. Nobody slammed the proposal outright or jumped on board right away. That was a good sign. I thought it might work.

Assemblywoman Fletcher did try to get one of the trails, I-B30 Haines – Fairbanks Pipeline trail, removed from the list of trails being moved from A or B trails to C trails. She explained that most of that proposed trail ran across Mental Health Trust land and that the Trust would be highly unlikely to grant an easement without being required to. However, the proposed trail, which is near Harding Lake, also runs across a couple of small private lots. Even if the skeptical Assembly members agreed with Fletcher’s argument about the Trust, I didn’t think they were willing to have even one small private property parcel involved. They weren’t. Assemblyman Lojewski said the staff could work to get voluntary easements on the small private property parcels. If that was done, then the Assembly could vote to return the proposed trail to category B. Assemblywoman Fletcher’s amendment failed.

There were some questions and concerns about the impact the changes might have on other trails and/or property, especially changing the definition of C trails so that borough staff “may pursue and acquire public access where needed.” But ultimately no one – Assembly members, mayor or staff – found any big concerns.

From comments Assembly members were making and the way votes were coming down on amendments, it seemed clear that enough members probably would be willing to pass the Trail Plan update if the changes passed. And while the changes would have a big impact on some proposed trails, it would retain protections for existing trails. And even the proposed trails were not removed from the plan. Nor were left to languish without the possibility of staff being able to work on them, since the other part of Assemblyman Lojewski’s plan allowed staff to work on getting public access for C trails.

HAPPY ENDING

At 8:50 pm, more than three hours after the meeting started (and seven months since the Trails Plan update was first postponed), the Assembly voted to pass the amended plan. Everyone seemed relieved and generally happy with the outcome. A short time later, during Assembly comments at the end of the meeting, most Assembly members made some sort of positive comment about the plan update, the vote, the process, and/or the staff work on it. And after the meeting there were a lot of smiles and congratulations going around. It was nice to see a good compromise on this contentious issue.

Kudos to Assemblyman Lojewski for coming up with the idea and to everyone who stayed reasonable and respectful during the process. I think both were needed to come up with this compromise.