Council to introduce ATV ban Monday

WASILLA — The city council will take up a contentious all-terrain vehicle ban recommended July 8 by a 4-1 planning commission vote.

The item has been added to the council’s agenda for the regular meeting July 28, where it will be introduced (and likely amended, said city attorney Richard Payne), to be followed by an Aug. 25 public hearing.

A public hearing before the city planning commission drew 24 people to publicly comment.

Minutes for that meeting noted that 12 of those people were non-city residents, and 10 of them opposed the ban. An additional seven of 12 city residents opposed the ban.

The resolution essentially requires ATV operators to have “express consent” from private property owners before operating the vehicles. Elsewhere in the city, use would be prohibited.

This would change the existing ordinance language for Section 10.12.020 of Wasilla’s Municipal Code, which presently lists several conditions under which ATVs may be operated in the city and provides a set of penalties for violating those conditions.

City officials and supporters of the ban, like Wasilla police chief Gene Belden, generally say the existing ordinance is outdated. Palmer outlawed ATV use in 1993.

Wasilla is behind the times and should follow suit, Belden said.

“When the Wasilla ordinance was written, we didn’t have the traffic problems we have today,” he said.

According to supporting documents offered before the planning commission, police have responded to 248 ATV complaints in the last two years, averaging about 10 such calls per month. Calls involving minors are particularly fraught, in part because of the potential for injury resulting from improper use, and in part because ordinances and state law require the citation to be issued to the parents, Belden said.

“I have not seen cases (of serious injury or death of minors from ATV wrecks) here,” he said. “I have seen them in other places.”

The chief said that the department spends manpower on ATV complaints to little effect.

“It’s an hour or more for each incident, only to have the same juvenile out on their ATV the next week,” Belden added.

ATV operators have also done little to endear themselves to either property owners or law enforcement, Belden said. For example, a local bank recently hydroseeded its property. Before the slurry of seeds and water had dried, ATV operators had already tracked over the property, requiring the process to be performed again. Police have received numerous complaints about dust, noise, and speed.

Belden said he agrees that a small number of ATV operators may be ruining the experience for more responsible riders, but the problem is simply too widespread to ignore, he said.

“It’s just a general lack of responsibility on public streets that’s getting out of hand,” he said.

Belden also echoed comments by Mayor Verne Rupright and others about the source of opposition to the ban coming from outside the city limits.

“Once a law is implemented, it’s just for the city limits,” he said. “Outside the borough is … the borough, and they don’t have a law about it.”

A Wasilla ban could still hurt residents and business, said Thomas Hannam owner of Alaska Toy Rental, who was still collecting signatures on a measure opposing the ban. He estimated the ban could cost his business as much as $300,000 in rentals and he stuck to that number Wednesday, despite city officials’ insistence that ATVs transported by trailer were the solution.

A large number of his clientele rent machines at his store and then ride them along the Parks Highway to Church Road and then access the Bald Mountain Ridge Trail Head located at the intersection of Schitze and Solitude streets, Hannam said. Many of his clientele are from out-of-state and arrive in the Valley with little more than a rental car, which prohibits them from using trailers to transport the ATVs to the trailhead, Hannam added.

Hannam also objected to officials’ characterization of the ban as a strictly Wasilla issue. He gave the example of a person living in the borough who might want to ride an ATV into town to visit a business.

“The city’s at the wrong,” he said. “This can’t just be about people inside the city limits because outside people have to travel through those limits to get to other places.”

A vigorous discussion ensued on the Frontiersman Facebook page after staff put out a request for possible solutions to the problem of irresponsible ATV operators short of enacting a ban.

A few ban opponents suggested increased education and safety training. Hannam and others suggested funding a network of ATV-focused trails, similar to bike trails. A few participants, like user Lynda Denny suggested a new regulatory regime to address the problem.

“If someone wants to use their ATV like a motorcycle, then they should be treated like a motorcycle owner,” she wrote. “Take a class, register the ATV, get a ATV/motorcycle endorsement for their license and get tags. Recreational use is not riding through town recklessly, not following the laws that other motor vehicles have to.”