If you want the Carlson Center to survive, vote for Patrick Roach instead of Barbara Haney

Patrick Roach, 49, is running against Barbara Haney for a seat on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly.

Roach, who has lived in Alaska for 30 years, is a former teacher who became a lawyer 7 years ago and works as a public defender. He’s got lots of good ideas.

With him on the assembly, I expect that we will not have to endure a repeat of Haney’s arguments this year that the borough should close the Carlson Center.

When the closure plan surfaced in the spring—pushed by Tammie Wilson, Brett Rotermund and Haney—I had a hard time believing they were serious.

But Wilson, Rotermund and Haney said it would be a good idea to save about $700,000 a year because the borough can’t afford to keep subsidizing the center.

(I’ll have more in a future blog post about how Wilson, Rotermund and Haney helped make the borough’s financial challenges much more difficult because of a political gimmick they pulled in 2023.)

Rather than figure out ways to keep the Carlson Center going and support public services, the three of them declared the facility is not a priority and made steps to unload it.

Wilson is not up for reelection this year. Rotermund has no opposition, so they may revive their plan to get rid of the Carlson Center. If you want the Carlson Center to survive, as I do, the only choice is to vote for Roach instead of Haney.

At the budget meeting when the center was on the chopping block, Wilson claimed the Carlson Center is nice and beneficial, “but not necessarily necessary.”

Fairbanks lawyer Patrick Roach, who works as a public defender and has been in Alaska for 30 years, supports the Carlson Center and other important public facilities.

Rottermund attacked the Carlson Center as “government-subsidized entertainment for a select group of people.”

Haney said the Carlson Center is for a select “very niche clientele” of Fairbanks residents and she has rarely been there.

“The reality is I’ve been in there for a couple of shows, like the Home Show kind of thing, the Outdoor Show kind of thing. And I went in there when my kids graduated from Lathrop. Other than that I’m like never in the Carlson Center,” she said.

That Wilson, Rotermund and Haney are oblivious of the benefits this building creates for the community and how its operation improves life in Fairbanks was made clear during their discussion of their desire to shut it down.

They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Rotermund said there is “never going to be a good time” to shut down any public facility.

“It won’t matter and we can’t wait until the timing is just right, you know, where it makes sense. And yeah maybe we should have walked away form the Carlson Center before we dumped all this money into it. Too late. We already did. But we need to find some serious money here pretty quick,” Rotermund said.

His narrow view of the situation was matched by Haney’s.

“If I could back to when I first moved here years ago, 1990s, young mom. I didn’t even use the Carlson Center. But I’m gonna tell you. My property taxes were not what they are today. I mean, when I look. I’ve got friends with property in California. And I look at their mill rate. And I look at what the amenities they have available to them. In St. Louis and New York, our mill rates are really out of line. Our property taxes are really out of line. You know I can even go back to 1996, 97, 98, the Carlson Center was the thing. OK? It was the cultural center. But now times have changed. OK? it’s just like with oil, times have changed. Alright. And now what we have is a situation where you have several private sector venues for many of the functions the Carlson Center currently serves. If you want a convention venue, the Westmark just basically sold off. We’ve got a new owner there. They’ve got convention facilities,” Haney said.

Haney claimed that the repurposed Friends Church and the old home of Gottschalks can be convention venues and the borough doesn’t need to add to those options by keeping the Carlson Center open.

“So we’re really flush in convention facilities in the private sector. And I think if we were going to divest ourselves of this, this is probably the time because there are private sector options available now. And there is no public mandate in my mind to provide convention facilities,” Haney said.

A few things to note here.

Haney is unaware of the real tax burden in California and other states. She is unaware that the private sector options she mentioned are no substitute for the Carlson Center.

And she is unaware of the history of the Carlson Center, falsely claiming that it was acquired by the borough from the city.

“Is there an opportunity for the city to take it back?” Haney asked other assembly members.

It was built with a $12.5 legislative capital budget appropriation secured by Fairbanks legislators in the 1980s, Sens. Bettye Fahrenkemp and Don Bennett, among them. It opened for business 35 years ago and remains an important commnity center.

Roach recognizes this.

“I am definitely going to focus forum comments on how much potential the Carlson Center has and how it is on its way to self-sufficiency with the hope of one day generating revenue for the borough,” Roach said Thursday.

“The idea of closing it is remarkably short-sighted. I don't know that it will ever truly be self-sufficient, but it serves a very real community interest, especially for the hockey crowd. I think with the right promoter, we could start to draw events that would get us there. That would be my hope,” he said.

Luckily, a majority of assembly members rejected the plan this year to close the Carlson Center, but it could come up again next year.

If you want someone to fight to keep the Carlson Center open and preserve parks and recreation facilities, Roach is the only option in the race for Seat I. Here is the sample ballot.