Free community event aims to bridge divides in Palmer

What you need to know:

• A free event scheduled for Aug. 4 at 6 p.m. at the Palmer Train Depot aims to encourage open, respectful dialogue among residents and address divisions in the community, organizers said.
• Organizers Kelly McKay-Dolfi and Dr. Jill Valerius, both longtime participants in local civic life, said political and social tensions since 2020 — including controversies over festival names, city council recalls and downtown changes — have deeply divided Palmer.
• Choose Palmer: A Community Conversation seeks to move beyond online conflict and focus on collaborative, in-person discussions to generate ideas for revitalizing downtown and restoring a sense of unity in the town.

PALMER — A free community event set for Monday aims to lower tensions and bridge divides in Palmer, organizers say.

Choose Palmer — A Community Conversation is scheduled for 6 p.m. Aug. 4 at the Palmer Train Depot. The event will feature a moderated conversation designed to give Palmer-area residents a chance to discuss their experiences and perspectives, organizers said.

The new informal group Choose Palmer is leading the event, which small-business owner and former Palmer Chamber of Commerce president Kelly McKay-Dolfi and former Palmer City Council member Dr. Jill Valerius founded this summer.

“People just need to talk — there’s so much crap out there, but people aren’t talking,” McKay-Dolfi said in an interview. “This is just getting people to the table.”

Valerius and McKay-Dolfi said the Palmer community has felt especially divided over the past five years, starting with political and social tensions that boiled over in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and were stoked through social media.

Efforts to rename the annual Colony Days event to the Braided River Festival added to the problem, as did a recall of Valerius and two other council members, turnover on the Palmer Chamber’s board, debate over rebuilding the city’s library, and ongoing business closures and remodeling along the city’s main street, they said.

But this winter, a friend challenged McKay-Dolfi to try to heal some of those wounds by sitting down with Valerius, she said. The two met for a drink at the Palmer Bar, talked through their differences, and made a plan to bring others to the table as well.

The gathering at the depot is designed to be that next step, Valerius said.

“Our goal is to create a space for conversation, and anybody can come. We need ideas about what we can do to support our downtown and things that can help our city,” she said. “Come and help us figure out how we can regain our little town.”

Additional organizers include former Palmer Council member Sabrena Combs, who was also recalled with Valerius, and a pair of moderators: Julie Estey and Kierre Childers.

Estey, who said she often leads difficult conversations in her role as chief strategy officer for Matanuska Electric Association, hopes she can use the event to guide constructive dialogue rather than allowing attendees to simply air grievances. She said that by pulling conversations off social media and into in-person spaces, residents can find common ground.

“I don't think we get value from going back and saying, ‘He said, she said, this is how you hurt my feelings, this is whatever,’” she said. “But I think we can look at it more like — here’s the expectations we should have of each other; here’s where we all agree as far as how we want to move Palmer forward.”

-- Contact Amy Bushatz at contact@matsusentinel.com