A sign marks the turn for the Basher Road trailhead, an access point to Chugach State Park in the Stuckagain Heights neighborhood in Anchorage on August 13, 2026. (Marc Lester / ADN)

A relatively new Anchorage taxing authority, meant to increase public access to Chugach State Park, has become a sore subject as the Assembly deliberates exactly who should control how the money is spent.

The Anchorage Assembly considered an ordinance on Aug. 4 that would create a formal advisory body to guide the direction of future park projects. The group would advise both the mayor’s office and the Assembly on park access and trailhead amenities and make budget recommendations for the new Chugach State Park Access Service Area, or CASA.

So far, CASA bonds have raised more than $5 million for reconstructing Canyon Road and redesigning the Basher Drive trailhead. If an advisory commission is formed, its members would manage a rolling list of future trailhead improvements.

But exactly who should serve on the commission — and ultimately hold influence over projects — it is still up for debate.

Assembly Vice Chair Daniel Volland, who co-sponsored the ordinance with Chair Anna Brawley, worried that giving park-adjacent neighbors too much sway over projects could feed into attempts to hinder park accessibility. At the same time, some Hillside residents say the Assembly’s existing proposal leaves park neighbors on the “sidelines.”

“It seems to me, to have CASA succeed, it has to be balanced between the needs of the neighborhood who are facing the impacts and the users who need to get onto the trails,” Basher Community Council member Barbara Hood said Tuesday.

Chugach State Park, which shares a border with Anchorage, spans nearly half a million acres and is one of the most visited parks in Alaska. Limited park access, combined with rising visitation, has led to overflowing parking lots and trailhead disputes in Anchorage’s Hillside communities.

To address these growing problems, Anchorage voters approved the creation of the new CASA taxing authority in 2023. The ballot measure allowed the municipality to seek bonds to pay for new infrastructure that can handle rising park visitation.

Through joint agreements with the state Department of Natural Resources, CASA can be used for the “dual purpose” of enhancing trailheads and alleviating congestion in neighborhoods close to the park, which fall in the municipal right of way, Volland said.

In addition to improving and increasing the capacity of trailheads, money from CASA is intended to address overburdened mountain roads that are degrading from heavy trail-bound traffic. Many park access roads fall within a patchwork of “limited road service areas” where residents — who live beyond the Anchorage Bowl’s main public service boundaries — tax themselves to fund grading, snowplowing and pothole repairs.

These rural road service areas have small budgets unable to absorb the rising demand for expanded trailhead parking lots and road renovations. Residents from these same neighborhoods, like Glen Alps and Stuckagain Heights, said at the Aug. 4 Assembly meeting that they generally supported the creation of a CASA advisory board, with some caveats.

“I don’t think we have any problem with the board. There should be a board,” Hood said.

“(But) it needs to be balanced and fair,” she said.

A balancing act

A trail leads from the Basher Road Trailhead toward Chugach State Park on August 13, 2026. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Brawley originally introduced a request for a formal advisory commission in January, stating the taxing authority “would benefit” from one for budgeting and project selection. The Assembly continued the public hearing three times since, from March until June, postponing any action.

“This has been lingering,” Volland told Assembly members. “We’ve known we need to do something about CASA.”

The municipality organized a volunteer working group in November to develop an initial CASA project list ahead of the 2027 budget process. Its members have been vocal in the Basher trailhead redesign, a process involving meetings among neighboring community councils, trails nonprofits and Assembly members.

The existing working group has been meeting behind the scenes or “closed doors,” Volland said, compared to a board or commission that works through a public process.

Having developed a project list, the working group “can now be dissolved,” said mayor’s office spokesperson Emily Goodykoontz. Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration “fully supports” the creation of an advisory commission, she said.

The proposed commission would consist of seven voting members appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Assembly, with expertise on topics like trail design and outdoor recreation. Two community-at-large members are required to reside in the Anchorage Bowl and two more seats represent the city’s many road service areas.

Roger Marks requested that the Assembly strengthen representation from the neighborhoods that provide access to the park. These road service areas are both responsible for road maintenance and familiar with their condition and needs, he said.

A member of its supervisory board, Marks spoke for the Glen Alps Road Service Area, which manages the roads that lead to the two busiest trailheads at the state park: Glen Alps and Flattop Sunny Side-Rabbit Lake.

“We see creation of the (CASA) board as a means for balancing the needs of the neighborhoods and the city as a whole,” Marks said.

Hood agreed.

“(The existing CASA group) are all trails and parks advocates,” she said. “That is a biased group.”

City code requires the municipality to reach “cooperative agreements” with adjacent road service areas when undertaking a CASA-related project. The proposed ordinance removes that requirement. It’s a proposal Volland said he believes would prevent a “de facto veto” by neighbors who are close to the park.

David Pease, a member of the Upper O’Malley Limited Road Service Area, told the Assembly on Aug. 4 that he was “extremely disturbed” by the changes.

“We’re an integral part of making this thing work,” Pease said. “This CASA thing was sold to the road service people as an ability to upgrade your roads to provide park access. … Now that’s being taken away from us, and it really chaps us,” Pease said.

The proposed ordinance also renewed friction around the ongoing Basher trailhead project, where the number of parking spaces became the center of an argument about who should hold influence over public access to the park. Early design plans mapped out 60 parking spots, but it’s likely fewer are built.

Some Assembly members, who viewed the change of plans as a failed attempt to encourage “equitable and reliable” access to the Chugach, threatened to not fund the project if it didn’t have “sufficient parking capacity,” according to an April 14 resolution submitted by Volland and former Chair Chris Constant.

Seven of the nine members on the ad hoc CASA working group signed a letter requesting the municipality support a larger parking lot, stating it would “help correct long-running inequities related to park access for East Anchorage.”

Hood called the planning process unfair for the neighborhood, and said it left a “bad taste” behind.

“There was a resolution brought right in the middle of a public process in which we were all participating as fair-minded good citizens,” she said. “The Assembly came through with what the existing CASA group had recommended and tried to strong-arm.”

The next public hearing for the proposed advisory board ordinance is scheduled for Oct. 6. The Assembly also plans to schedule a work session.

Volland said he had already received “lots of thoughtful” input from residents and planned make changes to the proposal.