Edrie Vinson called the lengthy round of town meetings on the proposal to bridge Knik Arm "the most concentrated scoping process you've ever seen from the Federal Highway Administration."
"But there were also many meetings we've been closed out of," Pease said. "We are a vested interest in this project. I think it's insulting to be deliberately overlooked in that manner."
Vinson, the highway agency's environmental project manager for Alaska road projects, brought an olive branch to the Government Hill Community Council on Thursday night -- a promise to revisit a decision to limit bridge access studies to two routes, both plowing through the city's first established neighborhood.
Vinson told the council Thursday she will take another look at other options that could slice through Elmendorf Air Force Base or Fort Richardson instead.
"I'm going to reconsider every one of those," Vinson told council members. In the meantime, a draft environmental impact statement on the bridge project will be held up. It was originally to be released for public comment next week. Now, it is unclear when that will happen.
The promise to reopen the access analysis was received skeptically by Government Hill residents, who said they'd been told all routes would be examined during the writing of the impact statement.
At Thursday night's council meeting, residents were preparing for battle again by forming a group called Friends of Government Hill and soliciting donations.
Hill resident Stuart Hall, an attorney, told Vinson he was suspicious all along that the streamlined environmental review process chosen to study the Knik bridge proposal was designed to produce a pre-determined outcome. The neighborhood won't give up easily, he said, noting that U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, another Government Hill property owner, has called the prior decision to limit access study to the neighborhood "premature and maybe illegal."
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