It was St. Michaels Street in 2025, with McKinnon Street on this summer’s rebuild schedule. Next up could be Mission Street.

But digging up a street, pulling out the old, deteriorated water and sewer lines, laying in new lines and connections, refilling and then grading and repaving is expensive. The borough is considering trying for Mission Street while a state program for new utility lines is still available.

The Alaska State Revolving Fund at the Department of Environmental Conservation is nearing the end of its life, Borough Manager Mason Villarma told assembly members during budget meetings last month.

The program is particularly attractive because the principal of the loan is forgivable, leaving the borough to pay back only the low interest rate on the money.

If the borough can get a 100% forgivable state loan to pay for new water and sewer lines underneath Mission Street, the municipality could find a way to pay for the surface work, just like it is doing with the McKinnon Street rebuild this summer, he said.

The state money is covering about half the cost of the McKinnon rebuild, which is pegged at $1.69 million for the contract with Ketchikan Ready-Mix & Quarry.

The contract for the St. Michaels Street rebuild last year came in at $1.25 million.

The Mission Street project would start at Reid Street and head uphill toward First Avenue.

A possible source of money for the borough’s share of rebuilding Misson Street could be Wrangell’s Permanent Fund, which ended the fiscal year on July 1 with about $14.5 million after a record earnings year of $3 million.

Municipal code limits withdrawals from the 30-year-old savings account to a “maximum sustainable distribution rate,” calculated as the long term expected earnings after deducting for inflation and expenses. For this year, that’s $425,000, which the assembly voted to use to make the debt payment on the new water treatment plant and buy some new work vehicles for the maintenance and capital projects fleets.

With a vote of the public, however, the borough could take an additional withdrawal from the fund, which could be a good option to rebuild Mission Street while state money is still available and to cash out some of the record earnings, Villarma said.

He told assembly members during last month’s budget workshops that it could be a good time to take some of the investment earnings and invest in upgrading the town’s infrastructure.

“Those are the decisions you will be faced with this year,” he said.

The assembly could decide to call a special election if it wants to seek voter approval for an additional withdrawal from the fund to pay for infrastructure work. 

Fixing streets is popular with residents, Assembly Member David Powell commented at a budget workshop.

He also noted that the assembly’s 2021 decision to move more of the Permanent Fund into stocks “was a really good move on our part.” The stock market has been on an upswing in recent years, driving investment earnings higher for Wrangell’s savings account.