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Citizen petition asks Two Rivers/Pleasant Valley fire service repeal election

FNSB Mayor Bryce Ward talks with Two Rivers/Pleasant Valley residents trying to start a fire department, at a community meeting Tuesday, June 28, 2022.
Dan Bross
/
KUAC
FNSB Mayor Bryce Ward talks with Two Rivers/Pleasant Valley residents trying to start a fire department, at a community meeting Tuesday, June 28, 2022.

Residents of the Two Rivers/Pleasant Valley neighborhood are staring a multi-step process to repeal tax-funded fire service.

 A citizen petition calls on the Fairbanks North Star Borough to consider holding an election on whether the Pleasant Valley/ Two Rivers fire service area should be dissolved.

Borough Clerk April Trickey says under state statute and borough code, petitioners have 180 days to collect signatures from a simple majority of the service area's 993 property owners.

"Obtain 497 signatures and those have to be, um, owners of properties. And if that is done and is done correctly, then I will go ahead and certify the petition."

Trickey says The next steps would be review by the borough mayor and an assembly ordinance.

"Introduce and consider an ordinance to dissolve the service area and authorize the election to dissolve the service area."

"If that ordinance is passed, then an election is held, and then it is the voters that reside within the service area that are able to vote."

The Pleasant Valley Two Rivers fire service area was created this past November by voters who live within its Chena Hot Springs Road Mile 12 to 27 boundaries. The result was 149 in favor and 92 opposed.

But some area residents claim misinformation swayed the outcome, and a pending legal complaint seeks to nullify it.

The borough has five other fire service areas. This is the first new one since the 1980s.