The future remains uncertain for Mt. McKinley Meats and Sausage, a Palmer slaughtering house that is not bringing home the bacon for the Agricultural Revolving Loan Fund and Alaska Department of Corrections, its owner and operator.
McKinley Meats has been involved with the Department of Corrections since 1987, said Frank Huffman, the manager of the facility. It's part of a large state program that puts inmates to work in existing locations and teaches them a trade. It's also a facility that the department is no longer sure it wants.
The Department of Natural Resources, Division of Agriculture's Board of Agriculture and Conservation was charged with finding a suitable alternative to operating the plant. Among their options, they looked at closing the facility and returning it to the private sector.
The board sought requests for proposals from the private sector to return the slaughter and meat processing facility to the private sector, last year. The property, which is valued at $75,000, was offered for $1 each year to lease, contingent on the lessor's agreement that the facility stay open. The offer went unanswered at the time, but interest increased after newspapers started chronicling the lack of interest in the facility.
A public hearing was held on Jan. 15 to get opinions on the future of the meat processing facility. Despite a general sentiment from the public that McKinley Meat needs to stay open, corrections was not prepared to take a position on the subject, said Portia Parker, the departmental assistant commissioner.
"It's early in a new administration and we haven't had the time to analyze it in depth," she said. "Until there's time to analyze and make an informed decision with the governor, the department will not take a position."
John Manley, the press secretary for Gov. Frank Murkowski, said the administration had not yet formed an opinion on the issue, which he characterized as "a mess."
"It looks like a slaughter house, there," he said. "At this point we're still trying to sort things out."
Manley said the bottom line of the debate surrounding the meat processor is the bottom-line. Paying the security and staff needed to operate the plant cost the Department and Revolving Loan Fund $300,000, last year, Huffman said. But, Manley noted, the funding is not allotted by the department, itself.
"If there's no budget within the Department of Corrections, then there's a problem," he said. "But, obviously the farmers need a facility like it. There aren't a whole lot of places equipped to take the volume that goes through Mt. McKinley."
Huffman said the facility processed nearly 1,300 animals last year, and farmers from across southern Alaska told the Board of Agriculture and Conservation that the facility was the only feasible place for them to take their cattle.
"If we have to go to Fairbanks, I'm almost better to give those cows to the bears out there," said a dairy farmer from Pt. McKenzie.
Wolfgang Gedicks, who owns Mat Valley Meats -- a specialty slaughtering and processing shop in Palmer -- characterized Mt. McKinley Meats and Sausage as "important" to both the community and the industry.
"They (the producers at the hearings) feel, and I agree, that McKinley Meats needs to stay open in order for the producers in the Valley to be completely served," he said.
Gedicks added that, despite the proximity of the two facilities, McKinley Meats does not compete with his company.
"We're not dependent on, or looking to, getting business from McKinley Meats," he said.
The decision came from the past administration, and the new governor might have a different take on the facility, Huffman said. He added that closing the plant would have a major effect on the agricultural industry throughout the state.
"Without a facility to take those animals, a lot of dairy farmers would not be in business, right now," he said. "When a chicken stops laying eggs or a dairy cow stops making milk, what is the farmer going to do? Selling an animal for cull meat will only increase the value of the animal for its lifetime."
