Palin cancels contracts for pioneer road to Juneau

Gov. Sarah Palin canceled contracts for a Juneau road today. (Jason Kohler/KTUU-TV)

The road from Juneau has attracted controversy from environmentalists, among others. (Jason Kohler/KTUU-TV)

The Murkowski administration treated the road project as an emergency. (Jason Kohler/KTUU-TV)

The proposed road would have followed Berners Bay, but did not provide for bridges. (Jason Kohler/KTUU-TV)

by Bill McAllister
Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006

Juneau, Alaska - It's not the end of the road, but former Gov. Frank Murkowski's last-minute rush to get moving on a gravel path out of Juneau has been stopped in its tracks. Gov. Sarah Palin has just canceled the recently awarded contract for construction work around Berners Bay.

Palin says it was wrong of the Murkowski administration to treat the scaled-down first phase of the Juneau Access project as an emergency. So she has voided the state's contract with Southeast Road Builders of Haines, which was issued days before Murkowski left office.

The contract called for a one-lane, nine-mile gravel road around Berners Bay, slightly improving access to the nearby Kensington Mine. It was supposed to be the beginning of a 50-mile paved road north from Juneau to the Katzehin River, where shuttle ferries would connect with Haines and Skagway.

But while Palin favors improved access to Juneau, she has pleased road opponents by canceling Murkowski's pioneer road ambitions.

"I think, after looking at the process, researching some of the background ... I do not believe this is the right way to get a road to access our capital city," Palin said.

"At this point, we've got a fresh start, a new governor that's demonstrating some vision and leadership, and I think whoever she appoints will look at everything and come up with something that works in the real world," said Joe Geldhof, a Marine union attorney and Republican activist.

Palin's search for a new commissioner of the Department of Transportation might have narrowed following a newspaper account Wednesday that acting commissioner John MacKinnon owns property that would benefit from the road.

"I wasn't aware of the issue until I read the story, and now I am aware of the issue," Palin said.

"Mr. MacKinnon should just go quietly into the night and find a job in the often-discussed and infrequently-reached private sector of Juneau," said Geldhof.

MacKinnon was unavailable for comment today.

If it seems as though Palin has spent much of her first 10 days in office dealing with leftover crises from the Murkowski administration, it's because she has. Besides the last-ditch efforts at a pioneer road from Juneau, Palin also had to reverse appointments that former Gov. Frank Murkowski made in his final hours of office. Among those reversals was removing Murkowski's chief of staff Jim Clark from the board of the state natural gas authority.

And while Palin already had moved to sell the governor's jet, a published report today says Murkowski flew the jet out of state just three days before leaving office.

Palin said her administration will determine who pays for that trip.