Mat-Su Land Use News, 2022 Events, & New Website

Ahoy sailors!

Well, the club is beginning to wake up from its winter slumber, and I have three exciting updates for everybody:

Land Use Agreement Changes

First, we’re working with the Mat-Su Borough to change our land use agreement. We’re currently operating under a Temporary Land Use Permit for the area of the club between the boat ramp road and the trailered boat parking. You can read details regarding this permit on the Governance section of the ASC’s new website. (And more about the new website in a moment!)

The Mat-Su Borough Land & Resource Management Division has suggested that we move to a long term Land Use Permit. There are two key differences between these agreements:

1. The Temporary Land Use Permit renews once every five years, whereas the long term Land Use Agreement has a term of twenty-five years.
2. The Temporary Land Use Permit costs $500.00 per year, and the long term Land Use Agreement is free.

We’re excited about this change for obvious reasons. But this process does need to be approved by the Mat-Su Assembly, and it is currently out for public comment. You can read the official public notice on the Mat-Su Borough site here:

https://matsugov.us/publicnotice/msb006789-alaska-sailing-club-ma

This site also provides information in case you’d like to provide comments. Note that these comments are due by March 12th, so if you’d like to offer them, please act soon. I’m sure comments from Mat-Su residents would be especially useful. ASC cabin owners should have all received comment cards from the Borough in the mail

The Assembly is planning a vote on this issue on April 5th, and I’m planning to attend that meeting in case there are any questions from Assembly members. If anybody else would like to attend, just let me know. We could even plan to grab dinner after the meeting!

2022 Events

Our draft schedule of events is up and ready for review! You can find it on the new website here:

http://aksailingclub.org/events/

And a couple of quick notes:

1. The Firecracker Regatta is canceled due to its proximity to the Great Alaska Bucc Shootout. But with that said, we’re expecting racers at the club that weekend for some informal tuneup races. I also imagine that we’ll have folks out there for some casual celebration of Independence Day.
2. If you have any comments regarding the schedule, please contact me, and I’ll forward them to the board. We’ll take member comments over the next month and then vote in the new 2022 schedule officially at the April board meeting.

New Website Going Live

The new website is going live! We’re just doing final testing on the membership application and payment form. Right now, it seems to work perfectly using a PayPal sandbox account. I’ve tested it aggressively, and Bart Hawkins is going to do some additional testing shortly.

You can see the new membership page here:

http://aksailingclub.org/membership/

You can click on the Membership Application link to see the form, but it won’t submit until we’ve tied it to the club’s PayPal account. Note that the new form should be mobile-friendly! (I know that’s been a request for some time.)