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Click here for Updates and News from Scenic Foothills and Muldoon on the I Love Muldoon blog.
Scenic Foothills Community BBQ Pot Luck Picnic was held August 4 at Chugach Foothills Park, Muldoon Road & Pioneer Drive. Hamburgers, hot dogs, beverages, tableware and paper goods were provided and a drawing was held for prizes. Despite the rainy afternoon, it was a very festive picnic.
Chester Creek Realignment at Muldoon Road: Click here for a map of the proposed realignment. The top route (red solid line) is the current position — Chester Creek’s original, natural streambed. The bottom route (pink dotted line) is where they propose to move it.
The Northeast and Scenic Foothills Community Councils have repeatedly voted to oppose realigning Chester Creek and selling off the road frontage for commercial development. Area residents have voted several times in favor of creating a Muldoon Town Square Park here. We have also requested that plans for realignment be delayed until an East Anchorage District Plan has been approved. The Municipality’s Chester Creek draft bid documents are posted here.
32nd Avenue Upgrade, Muldoon Road to Brookridge Drive: reconstruction and street widening began mid-July and was mostly completed this fall. (Landscaping will not be done until spring.) Cherry Street drainage upgrades between 32nd Avenue and 36th Avenue will be done in summer of 2013. Click here for 32nd Avenue Upgrade web site and contact information.
Volunteer Woodcutting & Wildfires Mitigation, Arnold L. Muldoon Park. Volunteers met 5-8 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, June through October, at 32nd Avenue and Creekside Drive to remove dead trees and excess fuels from the forest. Free firewood was stacked at trailheads. More information: e-mail Mark Hill or call 333-9935.
East Anchorage District Plan Visioning Workshop Results
About 70 East Anchorage residents met at Begich Middle School on Tuesday, May 22, to give their opinions on how East Anchorage should grow in the next 20 years, or so. They completed a survey on ideas about kinds of development that they would like to see (or not) for our neighborhoods, mostly in the Scenic Foothills, Northeast and Russian Jack Community Council areas, with additional input from our neighbors in the Airport Heights, Basher and University Area Community Council areas.
After the survey was completed, participants broke into about a dozen groups with large area maps. They used stickers and crayon colored markers to indicate preferred locations for parks, housing, commercial development, as well as road and trail improvements. The planning team will work on this data over the summer, with a couple of meetings with the East Anchorage District Plan Advisory Committee. They then plan to convene another public meeting next fall to tell us what they think they learned from us.
Additional input was gathered via online survey from about 80 respondents. The data from both sources was compiled and may be viewed in a "slide show" on the East Anchorage District Plan web site.
Roger Shaw, SFCC Vice-President, is a member of the EADP Advisory Group. You may indicate your concerns directly to him at 337-3949 or send e-mail to rshaw17@attglobal.net. You may also make comments directly to the contractors on the contact page of the web site in the above link.
Muldoon Town Square Park Cleanup May 19
Volunteers from Scenic Foothills and Northeast Community Council met at noon on Saturday, May 19, to Spruce up Muldoon Town Square / Muldoon Park Strip and Chester Creek east of Muldoon Road. They loaded 1.28 tons (2,560 lbs.) of trash from the old Alaska Greenhouse site into Paul Honeman’s big truck and hauled it to the dump a few minutes before closing time at 5 p.m.
The Anchorage Municipal Assembly voted 6-5 to proceed with re-platting the land to allow the Chester Creek realignment to proceed on June 19. There are links to the KSKA (Alaska Public Radio News) story and KTVA-TV (Channel 11) story and video clip on the I Love Muldoon blog.
The Anchorage Municipal Assembly held a new public hearing on February 28, at which many east Anchorage residents turned out to testify. Resolution No. AR 2011-340(S amended) was passed, 6-5. It includes numerous stipulations and restraints regarding realignment of the creek. It reflects East Anchorage residents' interest in development of the old Alaska Greenhouse property as a community park.
Northeast Community Council and Scenic Foothills Community Council have requested that moving the creek be delayed until use of the land has been reviewed and park proposals can be considered. Both community councils have passed multiple resolutions in favor of dedicating municipal property along Chester Creek southeast of Muldoon Road and DeBarr Road intersection for a park. The realignment as currently mapped does not work well with the proposed park.
Anchorage Daily News: Plan for Muldoon park advances in Assembly on 6-5 vote 3/1/12 news story.
Anchorage Daily News: Muldoon Road park sought by residents February 27, 2012.
Chester Creek project information, Municipality of Anchorage web site, is here.
Chester Creek and Muldoon Town Square Park photo galleries are here.
We have posted East Anchorage Park Report Card Web Galleries. Report cards from 2008 helped two of our parks get much needed upgrades by documenting needed fixes. Chugach Foothills Park got a major makeover in 2009 and Little Dipper Park got upgraded in 2011. We recorded those gains and looked at more parks in 2011to see what's present and what needs fixing.
Visit Scenic Foothills Community Council on Facebook.
Recently launched: a new I Love Muldoon web site with a blog for news updates and an I Love Muldoon page on Facebook to gather ideas, information and photos regarding neighborhoods along Muldoon Road, and nearby attractions, from the curve to the swerve. Plans include an online "slide show" tour. The new sites can help us see the big picture for the East Anchorage District Plan. The Municipality has also asked us about plans for the Anchorage Centennial in 2015, which just happens to be the Arnold L. Muldoon homestead's 75th anniversary.
