Proposed Mat-Su safety hub could close trooper posts in Palmer, Meadow Lakes

What you need to know:

• Alaska State Troopers in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough could relocate to a single facility in Wasilla under a new public safety center proposal. The facility could host all Alaska Department of Public Safety troopers and employees in the region, along with a large borough fire station. It could also house consolidated dispatch services.
• The proposal aims to reduce Department of Public Safety facility costs in Mat-Su and address ongoing funding challenges. While the state is unlikely to reduce trooper staffing in the area, it also does not plan to add new positions despite the borough’s growing population, officials said.
• If approved, the plan could help Mat-Su meet local public safety needs and eventually support a shift toward some borough-funded policing, officials said.

WASILLA — Alaska State Troopers based across Mat-Su could move to a single facility in Wasilla under a borough proposal for a large new public safety center.

The plan would move both the trooper’s B Detachment headquarters in downtown Palmer and a satellite post in Meadow Lakes to a proposed building on Bogard Road, near its intersection with Seward Meridian Parkway. It would also close and consolidate several other trooper facilities in the area.

The proposal is a first step in a borough-led effort to streamline policing in the region, driven by stagnant state trooper staffing and a growing population, said Matanuska-Susitna Borough Manager Mike Brown.

The plan was presented Saturday during a multi-hour work session in Wasilla with the Mat-Su Assembly and most of the region’s public safety officials.

The proposed regional public safety facility would house B Detachment’s about 50 trooper patrol officers and dozens of other Alaska Department of Public Safety investigators, wildlife troopers, and staff under one roof, Brown said.

The about 45,000 square foot building could cost up to $22 million and would be built on land owned by the borough, officials said. Funding could come from a combination of state and local sources, including potential lease payments from the Department of Public Safety to the borough, Brown said. 

The facility could also house consolidated dispatch services, which are currently divided between Wasilla-based MATCOM and Palmer’s smaller 9G base, officials said. The project would expand on an existing borough effort to build a large new fire station at the site that would merge the 6-5 and 5-2 Central Mat-Su Fire Department stations into one, Brown said.

DPS supports the plan, Deputy Commissioner Leon Morgan said during the meeting. The department currently works from seven leased locations across the region, with costs reaching up to $700,000 each year, he said. 

Mat-Su is the only area where troopers operate from leased posts rather than state-owned facilities, Morgan said.

A new building could help ensure trooper operations in Mat-Su remain at current levels by enabling cost savings, Brown said.

“What we’re talking about today is how do we help reinforce the troopers’ presence in the valley, and if nothing else, don’t give anything back, and help create some efficiencies for them to ensure that,” he said.

DPS has long sought to reduce its leases in the region, but previous consolidation efforts fizzled out and faced public outcry from residents worried that relocating posts would reduce trooper response times. 

Those concerns are unfounded because troopers rarely operate from a building, DPS spokesman Austin McDaniel said in a statement. 

“We do not believe that strategically consolidating multiple locations would have a noticeable impact on response time anywhere in the Mat-Su since troopers are rarely responding to a call for service from a post,” he said.

If approved by the Assembly, the new facility could be built within five years, Brown said, but would only move forward with a firm lease or funding commitment from the state. 

Whether the project also requires voter approval depends on how the borough chooses to fund construction.

The challenge of policing in Mat-Su

The new facility concept comes as borough officials grapple with how to meet public safety needs in a fast-growing population spread across an area the size of Ireland.

While Palmer and Wasilla both have police departments that respond primarily within city boundaries, the rest of the borough relies on the Alaska State Troopers for law enforcement.

That approach may not remain viable for long, DPS and borough officials said Saturday, due to stagnant funding for new positions and Mat-Su’s continued population growth.

Trooper B Detachment, which patrols an area stretching from Cantwell to Glennallen, is authorized 54 state trooper positions — or roughly one trooper per 2,000 residents, Morgan said. Of those positions, 49 are currently filled, he said. About 2.4 officers per 1,000 residents is considered standard nationwide, he said. 

While the number of troopers assigned to Mat-Su is expected to remain the same, the trooper-to-resident ratio will continue to decline as the borough grows because the state is unlikely to increase staffing, Morgan said.

“I don’t see us decreasing here in the borough,” he said. “I just want to make the point that I see the borough growing, and I don’t see us growing with the borough.”

DPS was last authorized a new trooper position for B Detachment in 2021, despite requesting additional staffing each year, he said.

Most recently, lawmakers denied a request to reopen a trooper post near Talkeetna, instead adding language to the DPS budget instructing Mat-Su and two other regions to “take the steps necessary to police their respective boroughs rather than relying on the state to provide those services.” They also ordered DPS to present a report in December on feedback or actions from the boroughs.

Saturday’s meeting was the first public step in that conversation, Brown said.

Ultimately, Mat-Su will likely need to begin providing and funding at least some of its own law enforcement, he said.

Rather than stand up a borough police force — a step a 2019 police task force found could cost more than $20 million annually and eliminate most of the trooper presence — officials would likely seek to contract with Palmer and Wasilla police departments to cover the most populated areas, he said.

Such a move, which is likely years away and would require voter approval, could improve policing in the most populated spots while allowing troopers to focus more on the borough’s vast rural areas, which currently see limited patrols, he said. 

Wasilla city officials said they support cooperation as long as local police departments are preserved.

“Can you imagine if we didn’t have the troopers, or if we didn’t have one of these police departments? We’d be back to the Wild West,” Wasilla Mayor Glenda Ledford said during the meeting. “We have to work together as a region, because we’re getting too big.”

Saturday’s meeting included the Mat-Su Assembly; borough public safety and project management officials; DPS officials, including Morgan; Wasilla city officials, including Ledford; Palmer and MATCOM dispatch officials; and Houston Mayor Carter Cole. Palmer and Wasilla police also attended.

Palmer City Manager Kolby Zerkel and Mayor Steve Carrington did not attend. Zerkel said she appointed Palmer Police Chief Shane Bozeman and Cmdr. Luke Szipszky to represent the city. Carrington said he was unable to attend due to a work conflict.

Officials with the Chickaloon Village Tribal Police Department, based near Sutton, said they were not invited to the meeting and have not been approached about regional public safety coordination. The department includes five officers and enforces the tribe’s criminal code against Alaska Native and American Indian people within a federally designated region spanning more than 6,000 square miles, including Sutton, Palmer and parts of Wasilla.

-- Contact Amy Bushatz at contact@matsusentinel.com