Lake parties irk neighbors

HOUSTON — The acting mayor apologized Thursday for blocking access to a local lake, but said the city will do what it can to enforce no-parking regulations in the area.

“The lawlessness out there has been ridiculous,” said Jim Johansen, who is usually deputy mayor for Houston, but stepped in at Thursday’s city council meeting as acting mayor while Mayor Virgie Thompson is out of town.

Johansen illustrated his point by describing a recent trip he made to the lake in question, Loon Lake. Down by the water, kids were swimming, he said, but further back were two men.

“There were two gentleman who had been power-drinking, it looked like, all afternoon,” he said.

Residents of the lake complained at the meeting about everything from naked people crawling through their yards to drug needles tossed in ditches to drunks stealing things to unsafe burning. Oh, and trash. Lots of trash.

“The reason I did that was to stop that,” Johansen said about blocking the access road to the lake.

But he said he quickly learned a few things, foremost being that access to the road, as a city-maintained road, cannot be blocked.

“I know it wasn’t exactly the right thing to do, but it worked,” he said.

He also brought up a safety issue. The city is working to boost its water reserves, but until it has its tank system set up local lakes, Loon Lake among them, serve as a water source for city fire trucks.

He said he’s ordered the road re-opened and urged neighbors to report lawlessness they observe to the Alaska State Troopers.

“Even if they don’t respond, call,” Johansen said.

Just reporting it makes a record and gives the mayor a stronger case when she goes to ask the head of the troopers for more patrols in the area.

“The lawlessness is going to continue to be a problem until, probably, we get our own law enforcement officer,” Johansen said, raising the idea of reestablishing a city police department, which the city disbanded in recent years due to lack of funding.

Reestablishing the department, Johansen said, would city residents would have to vote to increase what they pay in property taxes.

What about a code compliance officer?

“We don’t have the money for that either,” said city councilwoman Alma Hartley.

Until the city does, Johansen said, the city will do its best to enforce no-parking rules, calling tow companies if it can. Councilman Paul Stout said that was a good idea.

“I would think that if someone launched their boat and parked their car and it got towed, that would only happen once,” he said.

Also present at the meeting were users of the lake who said they didn’t know it had gotten so bad there and expressed sympathy for the area’s residents.

Johansen said he thought the lake would be a great place for a park, as would be Prator Lake. But until there are parking areas he can’t allow the road to get so choked with cars that they block out fire trucks.

“There’s nothing I can do about where to park your car,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.