ATV ban moves to public hearing

WASILLA — A proposed ATV ban will see an Aug. 25 public hearing after a motion to indefinitely postpone consideration of the measure failed by a 4-2 vote at the city council meeting Monday.

Council members Colleen Sullivan-Leonard and Leone Harris voted in favor of the motion. All other council members voted against it. A subsequent motion to move the ordinance to a public hearing passed by an identical vote, this time with Sullivan-Leonard and Harris casting the nay votes.

The contentious item was originally included with large number of consent agenda items — typical practice for ordinance introduction — however, Sullivan-Leonard moved the ban to the meeting’s new business by unanimous consent before attempting to postpone it indefinitely.

“I think, really you need to take a deep breath, and I think we need to look at the big picture here,” she said. “Presently what we have before us is an ordinance that’s asking to be changed with two pages of ordinance verbage, but no data to back up the actual banning of this use of off-road vehicles. I’ve seen nothing come before us that says we’ve had so many incidences, injuries or fatalities because of our off-road vehicle use.”

“Instead of coming up with a solution, what has happened is really more of a knee-jerk reaction, and because of that knee-jerk reaction, you’re pitting non-residents against residents, you’re pitting businesses against businesses, you’re pitting neighbors against neighbors, and for me that just doesn’t bode well for city government,” Sullivan-Leonard added.

Harris agreed.

“This is the perfect example of government knows what’s best for the people,” she said. “The planning commission shows that more people testified to oppose the ban, we had many people testify this evening to oppose the ban. Yet the city administration seems to know what’s best for the people.”

“We should work on a better plan,” Harris added.

Council members who voted to continue to a public hearing claimed similar motivations.

“We missed all the people that would show up next meeting and testify, which may go against these people, and until we do that, how are we going to hear from them?” said Deputy Mayor A. Clark Buswell. “We’re kind of one-sided right now until we get this meeting on the agenda, because this was never advertised for tonight.”

“I think we need to do something where we can hear from the rest of the city on it, because we’re missing that input,” he said.

The council chambers were standing-room-only for the introduction, indicative of the high level of public involvement in the process.

A total of 13 people spoke during the meeting’s public comment section. Six identified as city residents. Seven identified themselves as borough residents. Of the city residents, four either said they opposed the ban or could be generally characterized as opposing the ban, while two were in favor. Of the non-borough residents, none favored the ban.

Ban opponents included Loren Means, the lone dissenting vote against the ban from the Wasilla planning commission, who told city council members he didn’t want to see Wasilla become a “city of No.”

“It’s so easy for management to just say no,” he said. “It’s hard to manage a problem if you have one, and it takes passion, it takes thought, it takes planning, it takes rules and laws and education. All of that’s possible if we just have the will.

“It appears to me that we do not have the will in city management to manage this problem,” Means added.

Ban opponents, like Means and Thomas Hannam — who passed out 500 copies of an open letter decrying what he labeled as a decision to jump on the “Ban-Wagon,” and who has said in the past the ban would cost his power sports business hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost rentals — generally say their opposition to the ban stems from a belief in personal freedom. A few borough residents, like Lief Backlin, said they anticipated being annexed into Wasilla, and didn’t want the ordinance change to go through because it could affect their future ability to use ATVs.

“I don’t currently live in the Wasilla city limits, but when they shortly get expanded — which they are going to — I will,” he said. “We heavily rely on ATVs. We go riding from our house, we go riding from that area.

“A lot of the problem with ATVs is a lack of enforcement,” he said. “People get pulled over and they’re let go. We’re talking about children here.”

Others, like Esther Huddleston, say city officials might focus on other endemic issues, like panhandling.

“It sounds like the cost, costing Wasilla to take care of problems is coming from panhandling and not ATVs,” she said. “I’m against this ordinance. I support ATV recreation in Wasilla.”

“I think overall people are respectful,” Huddleston added.

The city did strengthen its panhandling rules earlier this year, authorizing city police to hand out tickets.

Ban supporters — like Randy Robinson — generally cite safety issues, like an incident with the “Why Not Tri” triathlon, where a ride participant was struck, or the emotionally charged testimony of Haley Fishback, who said she was driving a car in October 2004 when she struck an ATV driven by a 13-year-old boy with a 14-year-old passenger. Because the driver was in the roadway, authorities found Fishback not at fault.

“One of the little boys actually passed away from that,” she said, fighting back tears. “It is very important that you guys just take a second to realize there are so many accidents that happen on the roads all the time.”

The experience has made Fishback extremely wary of ATVs spotted on local roads.

“This is not a sob story,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m a little emotional … whether it means that we prohibit it within the city limits or outside the city limits, I don’t really care. I just think it’s a problem that needs to be addressed.”

Ban opponents said they favored toughening existing laws for violators instead of banning off-road vehicles outright, and that any decision on the matter should be made on reason, not emotion.