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Ken Smith/Turnagain Times Wendell Terwilliger, Pastor of the Valley Bible Chalet, stands in front of the building which may have to be moved according to the DOT. |
 Diamond Jim's Liquor Store's roadside sign has been in place since 1956. It survived the 1964 earthquake but now must be moved out of a public right-of-way. |
By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times
May 15 was the deadline for nine businesses between Indian and Bird to take down their business signs and move them out of the public right-of-way on the Seward Highway. However, aside from one business, all the signs are still in place.
Bill Peterson, owner of the Birdhouse Garage, said his sign is in compliance, and he’s awaiting a letter from the State Department of Transportation approving its location; otherwise, it’s now up to the DOT to make the next move for the other eight businesses.
Rick Feller, a DOT spokesman, said the signs must be moved outside the right of way to comply with federal regulations.
“With very limited exceptions, such as motorist blue signs, advertising signs in the right-of-way are not allowable under federal law,” said Feller. “There are two significant areas of concern,” he added. “One is related to beautification (the Seward Highway is a federally designated Scenic Byway), and the anti-billboard law. The people have spoken pretty strongly against billboard signs.”
The stipulation, he said, is that if the state is not in compliance, it will have to repay an estimated $20 million dollars in federal highway funds received for work on the Seward Highway conducted between milepost 96 to 102, which included construction of the new Bird Creek parking lot. In addition, Feller said the signs pose a public hazard because they’re too close to the road.
“There’s two ways we’re going to resolve this,” he said. “For them to move their signs, or for them to opt for us to remove their signs out of right of way property. We’ve explored all other options.”
The drop-dead deadline now is June 30, a date that was chosen to accommodate an alternative solution, which was for the DOT to remove the signs.
But such a situation will be contentious with many of the business owners. Mary Lou Redmond, owner of Diamond Jim’s Liquor store in Indian, is adamant about keeping her sign in place, which she said has been their since 1956.
“I’m going to duck tape myself to the sign if they come to take it down,” she said standing behind the register of her liquor store.
Redmond said the DOT told her after the earthquake of 1964 that the sign was legally positioned outside the right-of-way, which she said was 50-feet from the highway at the time. The legal distance now is 150-feet from both sides of the centerline of the highway.
“That’s what they told me,” Redmond said. “I’ll swear on a stack of bibles.”
State Rep. Mike Hawker has been working on this issue for several years on behalf of the businesses, and he expressed his anger in the process.
“I am morally outraged at the lack of will demonstrated by the Department of Transportation to go to bat for the citizens in Indian and Bird Creek, he said. “We have been at this for three years, and been frustrated at every effort we have made to reach a reasonable solution.”
Around this time two years ago, the DOT sent out letters instructing the businesses to move their signs, and they have sent out recent letters to the same effect, as well as noting in another letter, how businesses in Anchor Point are not being allowed to have signs in the right-of-way. The registered letter was accompanied with photos.
Veronica Lambertsen co-owns the Bird Ridge Café with her husband Eric. She said they’ve asked the DOT to define land use statutes being used for determining right-of-ways; and they only received the registered letter about Anchor Point. She was also notified that she would have to pay DOT for the removal of the sign.
“It will be a bill that we won’t pay,” Lambertsen said while she cooked a sandwich in the kitchen of the Bird Ridge Café.
Wendell Terwilliger has owned the Valley Bible Chalet for 14 years. He was doing some carpentry work out front when approached by this reporter on the day of the deadline. Terwilliger turns 80 in December, and he is the pastor of the church. He is also the lone complier, having removed his sign in front of the church. There are two buildings, a main hall in the back, which was built two-and-a-half years ago, and the original building in the front, which are only a few feet from the right-of-way line.
But of more concern to Terwilli-ger than the right-of-way issue is a proposal to build a frontage road through Indian and Bird. The road would be forty feet from the entrance to the church, he said.
“We don’t want the frontage road,” he said. “We have a lot of children out here after church. If you put that road in front, there’s going to be a lot of cars.”
Terwilliger was also asked by the DOT to move the building away from the proposed road and right-of-way.
“We can’t move it,” he said. “And we have to pay by the square footage to leave it,” a cost he said would be more than a few hundred dollars a year.
Terwilliger said the community hall in the building is used by the state for public meetings, and they recently renovated the entire kitchen. The building is also used as the voting precinct for Indian residents.
As for the right-of-way, which passes only three feet in front of the building, Terwilliger said the DOT is willing to talk about alternative solutions.
So, the clock is ticking, and the business owners and DOT are at a standstill, with June 30 fast approaching.
“It’s just an issue that we’re caught between a rock and a hard place on,” said Feller, “but we do have some absolutes out there, and perhaps we’re at that point now.”