The long-held dream of creating a public attraction near Stariski Creek dedicated to Cook Inlet’s volcanoes has come to naught after running up hard against real-world realities including a lack of funding and land mortgage deadlines that could not be met.

Now, some 80 acres that proponents had hoped would become home to the North Pacific Volcano Learning Center and public trails and access routes to the beach has been acquired by a private landowner, who was and remains a board member of the nonprofit organization, North Pacific Volcano Learning Center Inc., that launched the now aborted effort 10 years ago.

The corporation is now officially out of the picture and is expected to file dissolution papers with the state soon.

The demise of the volcano learning center project raised questions among some Anchor Point residents and some members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly about how the land ended up in the hands of the Anchor Point Realtor.

But a detailed research of public records, assembly legislation and land-purchase documents led Borough Attorney Colette Thompson to find there were no improprieties from the borough’s perspective in the way Emmitt and Mary Trimble acquired the volcano center property.

Thompson said the Trimbles are the clear and legal owners, and that they had paid the borough all it was owed, plus interest and taxes, on land the borough bought for the project from a private owner in 1999.

The learning center idea has a long history. Serious talk about creating a world-class observatory on the bluffs overlooking Cook Inlet around Anchor Point began in the early 1990s. The project was seen as a way to boost the Anchor Point and peninsula economies, provide jobs and attract visitors.

In 1996, proponents formed the nonprofit corporation and began pursuing funds. Acquiring land was a critical first step, but there was acreage north of Anchor Point considered ideal.

In 1998, the assembly passed Ordinance 98-48, authorizing then borough Mayor Mike Navarre to use $315,000 in borough funds to purchase about 90 acres of land near Stariski Creek from its owner, Bertha Glud.

The borough’s expenditure was well below the $450,000 selling price set by Glud, but the corporation paid Glud $50,000, leaving a balance of $85,000.

Trimble, who was the Realtor managing the sale, waived his $50,000 commission, thus reducing the outstanding balance facing the learning center’s board to just $35,000.

In April 2000, the assembly enacted Ordinance 2000-18, clearing the way for the borough to sell the land to the nonprofit corporation for $315,000 plus interest — that was accruing at 10.5 percent per year — plus all closing costs associated with the sale. Project promoters needed title to the land to use as leverage when raising grant funds for planning, designing and building the center. At the time, the estimated cost was around $10.5 million.

To help make fund-raising easier, the borough agreed to a sale provision requiring the corporation to pay the borough just $1 per year for the first five years, and then to begin monthly mortgage payments of $3,251.34 per month. Those payments were to start Feb. 1 of this year, and conclude with a large balloon payment in 2026.

Corporation board members thought they’d have a successful and popular center in operation within a short number of years, and paying off the debt was not expected to be problematic. That was not the case.

The corporation began paying off the outstanding $35,000 debt owed Glud with a $10,000 payment in early 2000, followed by $5,000 more in spring 2001. But by August 2005, with interest, the balance remained at $27,253.

Efforts to find federal dollars for the project itself, meanwhile, were running into serious problems, not the least of which was the fact that three other large visitor-type projects were already in the works on the Kenai Peninsula: Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska in Kenai and the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center in Homer.

All had either already been built with the help of large federal grants or were in design and competing for a narrowing pool of federal dollars.

In a memo to the assembly, Thompson noted, “Funding efforts were stalled for many reasons, including competition from other nonprofit organizations on the peninsula. Also, the Alaska delegation was very reluctant to support obtaining more federal funding for another nonprofit organization to be located on the Kenai Peninsula while other similar organizations were experiencing financial difficulties.”

Thompson said last week she had been referring to financial difficulties facing the SeaLife Center operators at the time.

Other difficulties arose for the learning center’s board of directors. For instance, in 2002 and in 2004, Thompson found, the corporation failed to file required biennial reports and were listed as being in active noncompliance status by the state Division of Occupational Licensing.Those reports were later filed, and the corporation was not dissolved.

The corporation’s alleged failure to maintain its status as a public charity or operating foundation, Thompson said, led the Internal Revenue Service to list the NPVLC as a “private fundraiser” in March 2005. “However, this did not constitute a breach of any agreement between the NPVLC and the borough,” Thompson said.

The corporation also had trouble paying borough taxes in 2003 and 2004, falling into tax debt to the borough to the tune of $4,336.28, and leading the borough to begin foreclosure proceedings against NPVLC. A judgment and decree of foreclosure were entered on July 15, 2004. The corporation had a year from that date to clear the tax debt. In May 2005, Trimble stepped in and paid the taxes, and title to the property returned to NPVLC.

As the date approached when the corporation would have to start covering monthly mortgage payments to the borough, the board’s efforts to raise funds “continued to face insurmountable obstacles,” Thompson told the assembly. “Their level of concern regarding the outstanding notes payable increased sharply,” she said.

Contributing to the anxiety was a July 20, 2005, letter from Attorney Dale Dolifka, who was handling Glud’s estate, Glud having, by that time, passed away.

Thompson said that Dolifka had been working with the corporation regarding the debt still owed Glud’s estate, but eventually had to notify board members that he must commence legal proceedings if the debt balance was not determined and paid.

With nowhere to turn for funding, facing an unpayable debt, foreclosure and a possible suit, the board was open to a quick solution. In late March of this year, the Trimbles paid off the outstanding debt to the borough and to the Glud estate, acquiring the land on March 31.

“The board members with whom I spoke were grateful that Mr. and Mrs. Trimble were willing and able to pay all of the outstanding debts of the corporation related to the property and to the estate of Mrs. Glud,” Thompson said in an interview Oct. 26.

The land deal ultimately lost the borough nothing, said borough land management officer Marcus Mueller. According to public borough records, the borough was repaid its $314,995 outlay (the actual principal) plus $167,728.17 in interest and $595 in fees.

“We’ve been made whole,” Mueller said.

The borough also took in some $7,772 in property taxes collected for tax years 2002 through 2005. No taxes were collected in the 2001 because when that tax year began on Jan. 1, the property was in borough hands. The transfer of the property to the learning center corporation closed on March 1, 2001, Mueller said.

Hal Spence is a reporter for the Peninsula Clarion.